La forza del destino
Opera Rara
Available as
Featured artists:
Roderick Kennedy, BBC Singers, John Matheson
'Martina Arroyo is grandly passionate and in full command'
George Hall, BBC Music Magazine
Opera Rara’s acclaimed series of the historical BBC broadcasts of Verdi operas as they were originally heard continues with La Forza del Destino. Here for the first time on CD you can listen to the original 1862 St Petersburgh version. And how does it differ from the 1869 version we hear today?
The original opera is darker with a grittier integration of text and music and is truer to the original source: Angel Perez de Saavedra’s play Don Alvaro o La Fuerza del sino. Instead of the elaborate overture that Verdi added for the Milan premiere, a brief prelude catapults us into the opening scene.
Act 3 ends with the final confrontation between Carlo and Alvaro, instead of the rousing “Rataplan” chorus of the revision, the act concludes with Alvaro’s solo, thereby focussing dramatic tension with far greater intensity on the central issue of the opera; the role of fate in our lives.
At the end of the opera, where the later version offers a resolution based on spiritual consolation, Verdi confronts headlong the logical implications of his plot and its brutal consequences. The magnificent cast assembled here includes superb Verdians, Martino Arroyo and Peter Glossop. They interpret Verdi’s original score with a commitment and enthusiasm that will certainly not disappoint.
George Hall, BBC Music Magazine
Opera Rara’s acclaimed series of the historical BBC broadcasts of Verdi operas as they were originally heard continues with La Forza del Destino. Here for the first time on CD you can listen to the original 1862 St Petersburgh version. And how does it differ from the 1869 version we hear today?
The original opera is darker with a grittier integration of text and music and is truer to the original source: Angel Perez de Saavedra’s play Don Alvaro o La Fuerza del sino. Instead of the elaborate overture that Verdi added for the Milan premiere, a brief prelude catapults us into the opening scene.
Act 3 ends with the final confrontation between Carlo and Alvaro, instead of the rousing “Rataplan” chorus of the revision, the act concludes with Alvaro’s solo, thereby focussing dramatic tension with far greater intensity on the central issue of the opera; the role of fate in our lives.
At the end of the opera, where the later version offers a resolution based on spiritual consolation, Verdi confronts headlong the logical implications of his plot and its brutal consequences. The magnificent cast assembled here includes superb Verdians, Martino Arroyo and Peter Glossop. They interpret Verdi’s original score with a commitment and enthusiasm that will certainly not disappoint.
