Verdi: Nabucco Overture (Sinfonia)

Winner of the 2012 ECHO Award for “Conductor of the Year” and one of the world’s most respected maestros, Riccardo Chailly celebrates Verdi’s bicentenary year – and his own 60th birthday – in 2013 with a disc of overtures, preludes and ballet movements from some of the composer’s best-loved operas.

Adding that extra touch of authenticity, the works are performed by the Filarmonica della Scala – the opera house with which Verdi himself was most closely associated and where Chailly launched his own conducting career, based in the city where Verdi died and Chailly was born.

Long associated with the Filarmonica della Scala, Chailly has previously recorded four Decca albums with them (including discs of Rossini overtures and cantatas), while his Verdi recordings for Decca include the Messa solenne and other rare sacred works, a disc of Verdi Discoveries and a complete Rigoletto starring the late Luciano Pavarotti.

Bringing together a trio of Italian greats – a world-famous composer, a fine orchestra and a first-class conductor – this set will be one of the highlights of Decca’s new releases for the Verdi bicentenary year.

With his questing spirit, Verdi took an often innovative approach to the choral and orchestral components of his operas. In Nabucco, his first great success, the chorus of Hebrew slaves became a protagonist – and its ‘Va, pensiero’ became Italy’s honorary national anthem – while his overtures range from atmospheric introductions, for instance the haunting prelude to La traviata, to full-blown orchestral showpieces, such as the splendid sinfonia that opens La forza del destino.

A superb collection of Verdi overtures, marvellously performed by the one-and-only Vienna Philharmonic in sumptuous readings by the late Giuseppe Sinopoli.

This is one of several special EMI Classics releases marking the bicentenary of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi, which will occur on 10 October 2013.

With his questing spirit, Verdi took an often innovative approach to the choral and orchestral components of his operas. In Nabucco, his first great success, the chorus of Hebrew slaves became a protagonist – and its ‘Va, pensiero’ became Italy’s honorary national anthem – while his overtures range from atmospheric introductions, for instance the haunting prelude to La traviata, to full-blown orchestral showpieces, such as the splendid sinfonia that opens La forza del destino.

Giuseppe Verdi counts as one of the most influential composers of the 19th century, not least for his consistent exploration of political themes within a cultural context. This was a time and a place when opera mattered, and placing on stage the themes of familial tension and social upheaval was a vital catalyst for his country’s own turbulent progress towards unification.

The preludes and overtures to his operas fulfil different functions according to the nature of the main work, and when he wrote it. This broad selection encompasses the potpourri style of the overtures to I masnadieri and his first great triumph, Nabucco, showcasing the unforgettable melodies in a parade of expressive light and shade. The terse preludes to Aida and Otello are more designed to set the scene for what follows by heightening without anticipating the tension of the drama; and finally there are the fully worked-out, grand schemes of the overtures to La forza del destino and I vespri siciliani, which in their quasi-symphonic incorporation of the opera’s themes within an independent narrative design are worthy of the example of Beethoven whom Verdi so revered.

Marko Letonja is Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted the German and Italian opera repertoire in various of the great European houses, including La traviata in Berlin, Nabucco in Dresden and The Makropoulos Case at La Scala, Milan. His Verdian pedigree is assured; as, of course, is that of the native musicians of the Orchestra Regionale Filarmonia Veneta.

Recorded in 2002

New booklet notes by Mike Ashman