Tag Archives: Parma
Tutto Verdi – Falstaff
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th August 2018The curtain descends, everything ends, too soon, too soon Ogden Nash Verdi’s valedictory opera was performed by Parma’s opera company as part of their complete survey of the Master’s operas. The show was presented at the Teatro Farnese di Parma instead of the Teatro Regio for reasons unknown to me. I’ve written a lot about the…
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Tutto Verdi – The Requiem
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th June 2018Verdi’s towering Requiem Mass was written to mark the first anniversary of the death of Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873) who was one of Verdi’s two cultural heroes of 19th century Italian art; the other was Rossini. First performed in the church of San Marco, it was repeated a few days later at La Scala. Verdi being…
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Tutto Verdi: Aida
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th April 2018When Verdi composed Aida he was well past the point where he had discovered, as Benjamin Britten remarked, the secret of perfection. If this opera does not plumb the emotional and psychological depths of its immediate predecessor, Don Carlo, it is a work of both grandeur and intimacy that comes from an operatic world inhabited…
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Tutto Verdi: La Forza del Destino
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th November 2016Parma’s production of Verdi’s epic opera is one of the weakest in its march through all the master’s operas. Forza is often criticized as the weakest of Verdi’s latter masterpieces because of its episodic nature, its length (when given uncut), and because of its “dry” patches. In my opinion, none of these criticisms apply when…
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Tutto Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th June 2016Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera received a splendid run in October 2011 at Parma’s Teatro Regio. This DVD was taken from the performances listed below. I can’t help wondering why it took six shows to put the recording together, but the result is fine. Much of the credit for the success of this production…
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Tutto Verdi: I Vespri Siciliani
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th August 2015I Vespri Siciliani is the least performed of Verdi’s mature works. It was written for the Paris Opéra to a French text by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier (Les vêpres siciliennes). While the opera is occasionally performed in its original French version, it is typically presented in its Italian translation. Verdi just sounds better in…
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Tutto Verdi: La Traviata
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 25th March 2015Does the world need another recording of La Traviata? Of course not. But if your goal is present all of Verdi’s opera on DVD you must give birth to another version of Verdi’s poor sinner. Fortunately, The Teatro Regio di Parma’s production of Traviata is first rate. No other Verdi opera is so dependent on…
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Tutto Verdi – Il Trovatore
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th September 2014Another Il Trovatore. This one from Parma’s Teatro Regio’s series of all the composer’s operas. It’s just chance that this post on the opera follows a previous one on the same work. I confess that I didn’t expect much from this performance as Verdi’s lyrical lunatics were portrayed by singers, excepting Marcelo Álvarez in the title role, who…
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Tutto Verdi: Rigoletto
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th May 2014With its 2008 production of Rigoletto Parma’s Tutto Verdi series reaches the first of Verdi’s mature masterpieces. Rigoletto is performed so often and is therefore so familiar to opera goers that its utter originality is obscured by its ubiquity. The title role is the supreme test for an “Italian” baritone. I can add little to…
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Tutto Verdi: Stiffelio
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th February 2014Verdi’s 16th (depending on how you count) opera has the oddest libretto of any he used. The action takes place in and around a castle in Salzburg that is the headquarters of a fictional Protestant sect headed by its minister Stiffelio who also uses the alias Rodolfo Müller. Both his wife Lina and her father…
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