Articles tagged with: Giuseppe Verdi
Verdi’s ‘Don Carlos’ at Lyric Opera of Chicago: Epic French version is potent despite stark set
Review: The fascinating problem with the Lyric Opera production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” – beautifully conducted by music director Enrique Mazzola, especially in the mystical, delicate parts – is that there is almost too much of it. A Thanksgiving feast comes to mind, that overwhelmed sense that can develop before the third helpings are passed and desserts loom. The fifth and final act ends, as it must, in defeat and death, with Verdi’s music at its most painfully exquisite.★★★★
Lyric Opera prepares an untrimmed ‘Traviata,’ and star soprano says payoff is dramatic truth
Preview: For its second tribute in this Verdi year, the Lyric Opera of Chicago will present, so to speak, the whole truth about “La traviata.” And Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka, a young but well-tested Violetta making her Lyric debut, is wholly on board with that.
Riccardo Muti and stellar CSO cast honor Verdi bicentennial with a majestic view of Requiem
Review: It’s hardly surprising that anyone familiar with Verdi’s operas would associate his Requiem with that imposing body of music-dramas. The musical language of the one informs the rhetoric of the other. But the difference between Verdi’s stage works and great spiritual drama of the Requiem was the distinguishing feature of conductor Riccardo Muti’s account with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Oct. 10, the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
Relive Chicago Symphony’s Verdi Requiem: Chicago On the Aisle offers clickable concert
UPDATE: Get your finest audio headphones ready: A video on demand is now available here of the CSO’s first-ever simulcast — Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem with Riccardo Muti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, soprano Tatiana Serjan, mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona, tenor Mario Zeffiri and bass Ildar Abdrazakov.
Muti finally presiding, CSO delivers Brahms Second Symphony the Asia tour didn’t get
Review: Ah, so that was the Brahms Second Symphony the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had planned to share with audiences in Asia last winter — on the tour music director Riccardo Muti had to skip because of emergency surgery. With stand-in conductors Osmo Vänskä and Lorin Maazel, the CSO had delivered authoritative, even commanding performances of the Brahms Second on that troubled tour. But to put it plainly, those efforts bore no relation to the exquisite account the CSO summoned Thursday night in its season opener at Orchestra Hall with Muti once again on the podium.
With new honors falling like autumn leaves, Riccardo Muti reflects on the conductor’s art
In Part 2 of an interview with Chicago On the Aisle, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s music director extols Italian training, calls Toscanini his hero and admits impatience with routine effort – and prima donnas.
