Category Archives: Verdi
È sogno o realtà?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th May 2023Verdi’s last opera Falstaff, written when he was almost 80, is opera’s greatest sport. It is unlike anything else by the composer or by anyone else, for that matter. Verdi had written all his previous with the expectation of pleasing his audiences while observing the highest artistic standards. But near the end of his life,…
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Falstaff in HD 2023
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st April 2023Robert Carsen’s production of Verdi’s valedictory masterpiece Falstaff was first telecast by the Met in December 2013. It returned today with a new cast. Verdi’s last work for the stage is an operatic sport. There is no work in the canon like it. Its melodic fecundity, mercury-like pace, vocal ingenuity, and its deep insight into…
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Verdi Requiem – 1982 Performance
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th January 2023Verdi’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…
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Universal Genius
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th December 2022If 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…
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La Traviata in HD – 2022
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th November 2022Verdi’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…
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Celestina Boninsegna
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th September 2022Celestina 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…
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Finale 35 – Attila
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th August 2022I’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…
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Verdi’s Priests
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 31st July 2022Giuseppe Verdi as was typical of 19th century liberal intellectuals was distinctively 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 Israelites pray as…
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Don Carlos in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th March 2022No 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…
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Finale 32 – I Vespri Siciliani Act 3
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th February 2022Verdi’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…
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