I vespri siciliani

Verdi I vespri siciliani opera to a libretto of Augustin Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier translated by Arnaldo Fusinato. (This is the Italian version of the French Les Vêpres Siciliennes.) Directed 2010 by Pier Luigi Pizzi at Teatro Regio di Parma Verdi Festival. Stars Leo Nucci (Guido di Monforte), Dario Russo (Il Sire di Bethune), Andrea Mastroni (Il Conte Vaudemont), Fabio Armiliato (Arrigo), Giacomo Prestia (Giovanni da Procida), Daniela Dessì (La Duchessa Elena), Adriana Di Paola (Ninetta), Raoul D'Eramo (Danieli), Roberto Jachini Virgili (Tebaldo), and Alessandro Battiato (Roberto). Massimo Zanetti conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Regio di Parma (Chorus Master Martino Faggiani). Set and costume design by Pier Luigi Pizzi; choreography by Roderto Maria Pizzuto; lighting design by Vincenzo Raponi. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Released 2013, disc has 5.1 dts-HD sound. Grade: NA

Buy on Amazon

What's New

Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.