Verdi

Au moment de cet enregistrement, au début des années quatre-vingt, Sir Georg Solti était encore tout auréolé du prestige d'une précédente interprétation du Bal masqué réalisée en 33 tours. Plus encore que dans la première mouture, le chef d'origine hongroise exacerbe ici la violence du drame, poussant tous les personnages vers leur destin, dans un souffle épique d'une rare intensité. Une distribution quasiment idéale fait face au chef : un Pavarotti de la grande époque, un Bruson idiomatique et une Christa Ludwig d'une ardeur insoupçonnée.

Arthaus presents the world première of the unabridged version of Don Carlos at the Vienna State Opera, in a staging by the worldrenowned German director Peter Konwitschny. This staging in its unabridged version remains true to Giuseppe Verdi’s originally vision of his grand opera, when it was premiered in Paris in 1867. However, during the rehearsals it soon became clear that Don Carlos would not fi t within the convention of duration, and Verdi was forced, against his will, to make cuts. Over the next 20 years, he would repeatedly turn out new versions of the opera, none of which ultimately left him satisfied.

The Milan „Otello“ traditionally opens the Scala season and did so in 2001 on 7 December, but at the same time it was the farewell production before the start of the three-year renovation of the house and not least a brilliant end to the Verdi Year. The audience as well as the press cheered Barbara Frittoli as a youthfully charming Desdemona, Leo Nucci as cleverly self-controlled Iago and Plácido Domingo as a thrilling Otello, both from the dramatic and the singing point of view. Domingo had been the leading Moro di Venezi for a quarter of a century, and in Milan he said farewell to this role – “in triumph”, according to ‘The Herald Tribune’.

Il Trovatore was always one of Herbert von Karajan‘s favourite operas. He conducted it at the very beginning of his career and his first studio recording in 1956 was made in Milan with Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano, but „his“ Trovatore really made its mark in the legendary performances given at the Salzburg Festival in 1962, which formed the basis for this successful revival in Vienna. He once declared in an interview that what he loved about this opera was its archetypal human passions, its compression of highly dramatic situations into the smallest conceivable space and Verdi‘s genius for translating such situations into music.

In this majestic production of Verdi's Don Carlo, Riccardo Chailly's qualities as a Verdi conductor are brilliantly displayed in the dramatic precision and transparent instrumental detail he draws from both orchestra and cast. Willy Decker directs a wonderful piece of stagecraft, letting the tragedy unwind with minimal, yet telling, interventions. The drama takes place in the mausoleum of Filippo II's Escorial, where the tombs of countless generations of Spanish royalty line the walls. Filippo's confrontation with Il grande inquisitore - which takes place over his own coffin, its resting place in the wall ready and waiting - is chillingly symbolic, as are the feet of the giant crucifix that hangs over Don Carlo as he sees his life sacrificed by his father.

This score undoubtedly marks an important turning point in Verdi's operatic writing, because it brings to the foreground the characters' introspective, psychological aspect, which would be the fundamental feature of most of the maestro's later creations. This recording documents the production staged at Novara's Teatro Coccia during the 2013-2014 season, with Dario Argento tackling for the rst time the direction of an opera. Verdi's masterpiece was not new to the director from Rome, who had used it as backdrop for his 1987 lm Opera, set at the Teatro Regio in Parma, indeed during a staging of Macbeth.

Another Verdi triumph from the archives of La Scala, this 1984 production of one of the master's early popular successes showcases José Carreras's truly glorious instrument, a tenor voice of loveliness and delicacy that, in its abbreviated prime, was one of the true operatic glories. He sounds superb as the hero, Oronte, and, as his paramour Giselda, Ghena Dimitrova nearly matches Carreras's ringingly beautiful tone: their wonderful Act 4 duet is almost too much of a good thing.

Of the 10 selections on this disc of Verdi “discoveries”, four are bona fide world premieres, though in one of those, the Variations for Oboe and Orchestra, only the orchestral part is by Verdi. In the late 1830s clarinetist Giacomo Mori hired the young Verdi to provide an orchestra accompaniment to his variations on the theme “Canto di Virginia”. Here, Verdi displays his early skill at handling large orchestral forces, and the same can be said of his Variations for Piano and Orchestra. However, there are few musical hints in these works–or in the Capriccio for Oboe and Orchestra, the Sinfonia in C, or the Adagio for Trumpet and Orchestra–that suggest the great master Verdi was to become.

This production of Verdi’s ever-popular, melodic opera was filmed in Busseto, near Parma, Italy, close to the composer’s home and birthplace. The story of the opera concerns the plight of Violetta a mid-19th century Parisian courtesan who is dying of consumption. She responds to the ardent love of the young Alfredo but sacrifices him when his father, Giorgio pleads that their love will ruin his daughter’s happiness and his son’s career. Leaving the musicality of the opera to conductor Plácido Domingo, Franco Zeffirelli is here concerned with a natural expression of Verdi’s opera – and Alexander Dumas’ story.

The Verdi Messa da Requiem is probably the best known Requiem in the repertoire. Many great conductors have recorded it. I’m thinking of Toscanini at New York/1951, Victor De Sabata at Milan/1954 and probably the best known of all Carlo-Maria Giulini at London/1964-65. Some more recent versions have proved popular notably John Eliot Gardiner using period instruments in London/1992, Claudio Abbado at Berlin/2001 and also Nikolaus Harnoncourt at Vienna/2004.