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Verdi: Les Vepres Siciliennes / Schrott, Haroutounian, Pappano, Royal Opera [blu-ray]

Release Date: 02/24/2015
Label: Warner Classics Catalog #: 2564616431
Composer:  Giuseppe Verdi Performer:  Michael Volle ,  Erwin Schrott ,  Lianna Haroutunian ,  Bryan Hymel Conductor:  Antonio Pappano Orchestra/Ensemble:  Royal Opera House Covent Garden Orchestra ,  Royal Opera House Covent Garden Chorus Number of Discs: 1

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD



Musically we’re on an almost permanent cloud nine. Pappano gets huge power and tension from the ensemble, and paces the long evening to perfection… Volle and Hymel take us on an emotional rollercoaster… Right through the cast list… there’s the highest level of commitment.

– Gramophone [6/2015]

Presented in its Covent Garden premiere in Autumn 2013, this staging of Verdi's Les Vepres Siciliennes - directed by Stefan Herheim Read more and conducted by the Royal Opera's Music Director, Verdi specialist Sir Antonio Pappano - went on to win the prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production. The Sunday Times hailed it "the best the Verdi year in Britain has to offer," praising the standout event of the Verdi bicentenary celebrations.

Herheim, whose reputation was cemented with his production of Parsifal at Bayreuth in 2008, is a director with a flair for spectacle - and a sense of irony - who rarely takes an operatic scenario at face value. Rather than telling a story of 13th-century conflict between the Sicilians and their French oppressors, his production, transposed to the mid-19th century, provides a commentary on the extravagant world of Parisian opera with its politics, exploitation and betrayals.
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