Part of Tutto Verdi series 'I vespri siciliani' ('The Sicilian Vespers') is a five-act Italian opera originally written in French for the Paris Opéra and translated into Italian shortly after its premiere in June 1855. Under its original title, 'Les vêpres siciliennes', the libretto was prepared by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier from their work 'Le duc d'Albe', which was written in 1838 and offered to Halévy and Donizetti before Verdi agreed to set it to music in 1854.  The story is loosely based on a historical event, the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, using material drawn from the medieval Sicilian tract 'Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia'.

I Vespri Siciliani

Glyndebourne's wartime history as a home for evacuee children is the ingenious context for a new production of this unclassifiable entertainment in which low comedy and high tragedy compete for our attention, "borne aloft by Strauss's divine music and Hofmannsthal's visionary poetry".  At the centre of this production from Katharina Thoma is the noble, tragic figure of the abandoned Ariadne herself, in a haunting performance from Soile Isokoski, 'with brilliant support from the pit' (The Independent).