Verdi - I Lombardi (live)

I Lombardi

Opera on 3, Verdi 200

Presented by John Shea

Verdi 200: I Lombardi, Verdi's opera set at the time of the First Crusade, in a performance given at the Maggio Musicale 2005 in Florence, conducted by Roberto Abbado and starring Erwin Schrott and Ramon Vargas.

To celebrate the bicentenary of his birth, Radio 3 will broadcast all of Verdi's operas during the course of 2013. Tonight John Shea presents a story of fraternal strife set in the time of the First Crusade. When I Lombardi was first performed in Milan in 1843,contemporary accounts noted that the opera touched a chord of Italian nationalism: the Milanese decided that they were the Lombards, the Holy Land they were defending was Italy, and the Austrians were akin to the Saracens. But against this background is the story of two brothers who both love the same woman, and the tragic discord that arises as a result. Arvino is the lucky one - he marries Viclinda and is chosen to lead the Lombard crusaders - but his brother Pagano, tormented by jealousy, ends up as a hermit in the hills outside Antioch, in an attempt to expatiate his past sins.

Giselda ..... Dimitra Theodossiou (soprano)
Oronte ..... Ramón Vargas (tenor)
Pagano ..... Erwin Schrott (bass)
Arvino ..... Massimiliano Pisapia (tenor)
Viclinda ..... Katia Pellegrino (soprano)
Pirro ..... Marco Spotti (bass)
Acciano ..... Cesare Lana (bass)
Sofia ..... Daniela Schillaci (soprano)
Prior ..... Enrico Cossutta (tenor)
Orchestra and chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Roberto Abbado, conductor.

First broadcast: BBC Radio 3, 7 January 2013

Also: A guide to Verdi's opera I Lombardi featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton and Verdi experts Roger Parker, Nicholas Baragwanath and Susan Rutherford.

First broadcast: 7 January 2013
Duration: 10 minutes

Plus: Images from the production

Note: In this upload I have edited each act of the opera into a different file, with a sub-directory containing the between-act commentary.

Media info:

General
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Apple audio with iTunes info
Codec ID : M4A (isom/iso2)
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 323 Kbps

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 320 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Frame rate : 43.066 fps (1024 spf)
Compression mode : Lossy