Coming just before the mature final works, Verdi's Simon Boccanegra - along with Un Ballo in Maschera, Les Vêpres Siciliennes, La Forza del Destino and Don Carlos - occupy a strange but fascinating hinterland in the career of the composer. Each of the operas, influenced by Verdi's political involvement in the Risorgimento for the reunification of Italy during the period, are very much concerned with the exercise of power, but they all rely on typically operatic conventions of bel canto and French Grand Opéra in their use of personal tragedies and unlikely twists of fate to highlight the human feelings and weaknesses that lie behind their historical dramas. Written in 1859, but revised by the composer in 1881, Piave's libretto given an uncredited reworking by Arrigo Boito, Simon Boccanegra is consequently one of the more interesting works from this period, certainly from a musical standpoint.  Live from Teatro all Scala, Milan 2010.

Simon Boccanegra, Melodramma in un prologo e tre atti

Features a great cast: Ambrogio Maestri is one of the finest Falstaffs of our time. The Italian baritone brings a powerful, versatile voice to his role, but also brings his character a hilarious buffo quality. Daniele Gatti, one of the most acclaimed opera conductors working today, leads a stunning cast of singers including Barbara Fritolli as Alice Ford.  Genuinely warm italianita in all of the music-making, combined with a boisterous production by stage director Sven-Eric Bechtolf, turns Verdis commedia lirica into a fireworks display of high spirits as well as what the Neue Zürcher Zeitung called musically and dramaturgically a feast of life and of love of life.

Falstaff - Zurich

Live performance of Puccini's opera at the Salzburg Festival in Austria. Piotr Beczala stars as Rodolfo with Anna Netrebko as Mimi, Massimo Cavalletti as Marcello and Nino Machaidze as Musetta. Daniele Gatti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Salzburg Festival and Theatre Children's Choir.

Breathe Umphefumlo

The musical notes of this Puccini masterpiece provide the starting point and foundation for a new, highly successful collaboration between Riccardo Chailly and Davide Livermore. In their interpretation, there is “no moment, no movement, that goes against the musical meaning” (R. Chailly). The result is an energetic, authentic, and atmospherically strong Bohème, “in which every sacred phrase receives its own orchestral colour, its own dynamic and its own expression.” (Corriere della Sera)