LXXXV Festival of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

On Wednesday, May 10, at 8pm, on the podium of the Zubin Mehta Hall, Maestro Daniele Gatti will lead the Maggio Orchestra and Choir for the concert dedicated to the "VIVA Verdi" project, the initiative of the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the Italian symphonic opera houses for the protection of Giuseppe Verdi's Villa-Museum

A series of excerpts from Giuseppe Verdi's compositions is on the night programme.

The concert will be broadcast live on Rai Radio 3

Florence, 8 May 2023 – The fourth symphonic concert of the 85th Maggio Fiorentino Festival, Wednesday, May 10, at 8pm, marks a particular and very important appointment centered on the figure of Giuseppe Verdi. The principal conductor Daniele Gatti, after conducting the inaugural concert on April 22nd, returns to the helm of the Maggio Orchestra and Choir, on the podium of the Mehta Hall, for the night dedicated to the "VIVA VERDI" project .

The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theater Foundation enthusiastically adheres to the initiative promoted by the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with Anfols, to support the project for the pre-emption purchase of Villa Sant'Agata, the house-museum of the great composer, located in Been to Villanova sull'Arda. In this villa that Verdi himself designed in his extensions with respect to the basic structure and in which he lived from 1851, there are relics of inestimable historical value for the culture of our country. Here he composed the Requiem, Aida, Il Trovatore, La traviata, Simon Boccanegra, Aroldo, Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Don Carlo, Otello and Falstaff.

The initiative, through a cycle of 14 performances of Verdi's music and operas, involves the 14 Opera Foundations from last February 10th and continues until June 15th 2023. It is aimed at directing the proceeds from the shows dedicated to the project, towards the creation of a fund donated to the purchase of the Verdi artistic and cultural site and its appurtenances. The audience can also contribute to the project and, in addition to purchasing a ticket, can make a donation via bank transfer to the IBAN: IT81E01000032453480 29368004. The project of the Ministry of Culture and Anfols has the support of Agis and Rai Cultura. The concert performed at the Teatro del Maggio on May 10 will be broadcast live on Rai Radio 3.

The choir master of the Maggio is Lorenzo Fratini.

On the program for the Florentine appointment, a large number of excerpts from some of the most famous compositions of the great composer, which will vary from the first works of his youthful period up to his latest works. The opening of the evening is the Sinfonia del Nabucco, followed by the famous "Va', pensiero", always taken from the third opera composed by Verdi. It follows, still from Verdi's youthful period, "O Signore, dal tetto natio", from I Lombardi alla prima crociata, a work that 'inaugurated' the famous period of Giuseppe Verdi's "Jail Years"; from Macbeth, in its 1865 version, are the following two extracts, the dance of the III act and the famous "Patria oppressa". The symphony of I vespri siciliani and the "Sanctus" of the Messa da Requiem precede two parts of Otello, the danceables - composed for the representation at the Paris Opéra on 12 October 1894 - of the III act and the chorus "Fuoco di gioia" which ends the concert.

The program:

Nabucco
Nabucco debuted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 9 March 1842 accompanied by a resounding success that marked Giuseppe Verdi's redemption from one of the darkest periods of his life. Today, as then, the key to Nabucco's undying success is to be found in the many musical numbers of immediate appeal to the public, starting with the famous Sinfonia in which Verdi skilfully combines some of the main motifs of the drama: from the opening theme of hieratic tone intoned by trombones and cimbassi, which alludes to the spirituality of the Jewish people, to the aggressive and well-articulated theme that anticipates the chorus of the Levites of the II act, up to the quotation of the well-known "Va', pensiero", the quintessence of the Risorgimento choirs. The most famous of Verdi's choruses describes (in the third part) the dismay of the Jewish people waiting to be executed. Three repeated chords trigger a nostalgic song for the lost homeland that becomes a real farewell to life.

I Lombardi alla prima crociata
After the success of Nabucco in 1842, the impresario of the Teatro alla Scala Bartolomeo Merelli commissioned a new opera from Giuseppe Verdi for the following carnival season: I lombardi alla prima crociata. The subject was taken from the homonymous epic poem by Tommaso Grossi set in medieval times. Temistocle Solera, who had shared the success of Nabucco with Verdi, was reconfirmed to versify the libretto. The fourth opera in Verdi's catalog debuted on 11 February 1843 on the Scala stage, repeating the same great success recorded by the previous title. Also in I lombardi we find a clash between peoples of different cultures and religions, as well as the predominance of the choral dimension always in the foreground during the four acts. Among the most memorable choruses, "O Signore, dal teatro natio" initiates, in the last Finale, the sequence of events that will lead to the epilogue. The linear melody, sung in homorhythm and punctuated by woodwinds, immediately captured the public, decreeing its success equal to that of the 'Va', pensiero'.

Macbeth
There are two versions of Verdi's Macbeth: the first was composed in 1847 for the debut at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, while the second was prepared eighteen years later, in 1865, for the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris. For this second version Verdi felt the need to revise some musical passages, also adding numbers expressly requested by the theater impresario to make the work more pleasing to the French public. Among the main modifications, in addition to the replacement of some arias by the two protagonists and the addition of a final victory chorus (which replaced Macbeth's death on stage), there is the insertion, at the beginning of the third act, of the danceables, condition indispensable for the French operatic scenes of the time, and the rewriting of the chorus "Patria oppressa" at the beginning of the IV act. The three dances, inserted after Macbeth's fainting in the cave of the witches, feature Hecate, goddess of the night, and end with a fast waltz. The Chorus of Scottish refugees that opens the IV act is instead characterized by broken sentences and numerous dissonances that well underline the fear and pessimism of the refugees.

I Vespri Siciliani
After Lombardi's adaptation to the first crusade for the Parisian stage, Les vêpres siciliennes was the first grand opéra composed from scratch by Verdi. The maestro had contractually requested that the librettist be Eugène Scribe, a favorite collaborator of Giacomo Meyerbeer, the then undisputed master of the grand opéra genre. However, the composition of the work proved problematic; Scribe slipped Verdi a second-hand subject already offered to Donizetti years earlier and Verdi thought several times of withdrawing from the enterprise. But despite the various hesitations and bad moods, Les vêpres siciliennes made its successful debut at the Paris Opera on June 13, 1855. The opening symphony, in which the shadow of death already looms menacing, which will involve the protagonists in the finale, is written in sonata form with a slow introduction in which Verdi chooses to anticipate some opera melodies with a narrative function: the De profundis sung by the choir in the IV act and Elena's cavatina in the I act.

Messa da Requiem
The Messa da Requiem was created at a crucial moment in Verdi's life. After the performance of Aida in 1871, the composer thought his career was over. However, the news of Alessandro Manzoni's death on 22 May 1873 grieved him to such an extent that he wanted to pay homage to his memory with a mass. “It is an impulse, or rather, a need of the heart that pushes me to honor, as far as I can, this Great that I have so much esteemed as a writer and revered as a man, a model of virtue and patriotism”, wrote Verdi to his publisher Ricordi . So between the end of 1873 and the beginning of 1874, he created the Requiem which, performed on May 22, 1874 in the church of San Marco in Milan, achieved enormous success. For the Sanctus section Verdi composed a fugue for two choirs in an Allegro tempo, a choice that contrasts with the traditionally majestic character of the Sanctus, also bringing together in a single movement Hosanna and Benedictus, which were generally treated as separate sections.

Otello
The encounter with the disheveled Arrigo Boito was decisive for Verdi, bringing him back once again to the path of opera after the success of Aida and years of theatrical silence. Verdi, like Boito, was eager for experimental and innovative poetic solutions and was already projected towards the emancipation of melodrama from the system of closed numbers. The understanding between the two was born under the sign of Shakespeare, an author whom Verdi had loved and chased throughout his life. The first result of the successful partnership was Otello, which made its triumphant debut at the Scala in Milan on February 5, 1887. As has already happened in the past with Macbeth, also for the French revival of Otello, staged at the Théâtre de l'Opéra in Paris on October 12 1894, Verdi was forced to make some changes to the score. The most substantial difference concerned the inclusion of the dances in the third act, a choice once again dictated by French theatrical taste and not at all shared by Verdi, who defined the addition of the dance in the full course of the action a "monstrosity". The chorus "Fire of joy" in act I, on the other hand, did not undergo any changes. While Jago has already expressed his anger towards Otello, the people sing around the fire, refreshed by the heat of the flames after the violent storm that opened the act. With a picturesque melody and circular flow, "Fuoco di gioia" seems to evoke the wavering flicker of the flame.