Giuseppe Verdi didn’t think much of political oppressors no matter if they were civilized Habsburg princes with good table manners or arriviste autocrats with one hand on the guillotine and the other in the till. Some of the least attractive characters in his operas ranged from pushy regicidal wives and vengeful Venetian psychopaths to homicidal high priests of Ptah and {…}
Lamberto Gardelli, born on Nov. 8, 1915, in Venice, Italy, is one of the great Italian conductors in all of history. He dominated the repertoire of his native country, taking on the major repertory staples, and also placing a spotlight on the lesser-known operas. Among the composers that he championed in this respect was Giuseppe Verdi and it is thanks {…}
Seven years. The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Berlin State Opera, Royal Swedish Opera and Metropolitan Opera. Those are just some of the companies that have featured spinto tenor Riccardo Massi. Seven years. Now in his 30s, the tenor is slowly stealing the spotlight as one of the most exciting tenors on the rise, his vocal artistry matched by his {…}
When considered in the context of his entire oeuvre, Verdi’s “Attila” is far from a masterpiece. When propped up against his best work, this early work simply doesn’t hold up. In fact, prominent Verdi scholars, such as Julian Budden, have criticized the opera and called it “the heaviest and noisiest of the Risorgimento operas, blunt in style, daubed in thick garish {…}