Verdi’s requiem mass written to commemorate the first year anniversary of the death of the novelist Alessandro Manzoni is one of the peaks of Western Civilization. The video below was made more than forty years ago. It features Sopranos Jessye Norman and Margaret Price, tenor Jose Carreras, and bass Ruggero Raimondi. The London Symphony Orchestra…
If you do a search for universal genius a variety of definitions will appear. Often they equate the term with polymath. Polymaths are quite numerous, though a very small proportion of the total population. The definition used here is a person whose accomplishment is either so far above any other person of genius in the…
Verdi’s “poor sinner” was on the Met’s HD roster for an unprecedented fourth time today. Michael Mayer’s overstuffed production remains a motley melange of confused early to mid 19th century costumes speckled across a unitary set. But nobody goes to La Traviata because of the sets and costumes. It’s Verdi’s glorious and emotionally apposite music…
Celestina Boninsegna (1877-1947) was an Italian soprano best known for her facility with Verdi’s great soprano parts. Born in Reggio Emilia she was something of a vocal prodigy. Her first appearance on stage was as Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale; she was 15. Following the completion of her vocal studies at the Conservatorio Gioachino Rossini in…
I’ll start this one with the beginning rather than the end. Verdi’s 9th opera is one of his roughest. There’s a lot coarse music that nevertheless has a certain grainy impact. The title role is what keeps the opera around. Sam Ramey sang the role with astounding regularity. The work begins with a short prelude…
Giuseppe Verdi as was typical of 19th century liberal intellectuals was distinctively and typically anti clerical. Accordingly, the priests in his operas are not usually sympathetically portrayed. Here are a few depicted in different ways. Verdi’s first success, Nabucco, was about the Babylonian Captivity of the Hebrews. It starts in the Temple of Solomon. The…
No Verdi opera has as many versions as Don Carlos. There are at least eight. Alas, the composer never designated any of them as definitive. The Met has done both four and five act Italian versions, but never until this season the five act French original. Well, not really the original. The Met’s current go…
Verdi’s The Sicilian Vespers was written to a French text by Eugene Scribe – Les vêpres siciliennes. It first appeared at the Paris Opera in 1855. Its French iteration was unsuccessful and it disappeared from France, and most of the rest of the operatic world, until fairly recently. In its Italian form is was more…
The Met seems to have a problem finding the locale of Verdi’s dark masterpiece. They moved it from Mantua to Las Vegas in 2013. That production didn’t last long; it was replaced this year by one set in the capital city of the Weimar Republic. Why? Who knows? Which site is weirder? Hard to tell….
Luisa Miller was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples in 1849. It was Verdi’s 15th opera (if you count Jérusalem the rewrite of I Lombardi for Paris as a separate work). It didn’t reach the Met until 1929 when it had six performances extending into 1930. The cast was a grand one. It…