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From around the world: Paris.(International ... a production of Les Vepres Siciliennes stresses its political intrigue)(Opera Review)
The original French version of Verdi's Les Vepres Siciliennes returned to the repertoire of the Opera National on June 18, in a new production by Andrei Serban, conducted by James Conlon. At its 1855 premiere, the opera earned lavish praise, even impressing the ever-critical Berlioz. The work was the fruit of an uneasy collaboration between playwright Eugene Scribe (a favored librettist of Meyerbeer) and the composer, who felt that a story dominated by the massacre of the French in Sicily would not endear him to the local audience; he was also unhappy with the perceived criticism of the murderous Sicilian patriots. Verdi sought to reconcile the need to produce a grand five-act opera in the French tradition with his instinctive preoccupation with the emotional inner lives of the characters. The weakest element in the work is therefore not surprisingly the factual unfolding of the drama, with a particularly clumsy Act V, in which the massacre, dispatched in just a few pages of music, makes for an extremely perfunctory climax. Andrei Serban's production concentrated almost exclusively on the political aspect of the drama, seeing the work as a tale of fascist colonial politics set sometime in the twentieth century. The opening scene found the Sicilians dressed in black on one side of the stage and the khaki-clad French military on the other, both parties sitting in front of a white brick wall, whose jagged split was no doubt a symbol of the warring factions. Designer Richard Hudson's white bricks outstayed their welcome, and as a white marble fist of oppression came down at the end of the first half we were left in no doubt of the message. The sight of the Sicilians discreetly carting on trailers of ammunition for their bomb attack, something for which Verdi wrote no music, and Henri and Helene waving toy French flags at their prenuptial festivities was too much for the first-night audience, which greeted the director with a volley of boos at his solo curtain call. If Serban's production had any saving grace, it was linear clarity, but Verdi's ...
- CDs: LES VEPRES SICILIENNES.
- Magazine article from: Opera Canada Crory, Neil March 22, 2005 700+ words
...Verdi Originals, Volume 3 Opera Rara: ORCV303 (3 CDs) This Opera Rara recording marks the debut of Verdi's Les vepres Siciliennes (1855) on compact disc. Although originally composed in French for the Paris Opera, the score is now generally...
- Millo, CSO glow at Ravinia
- Newspaper article from: Chicago Sun-Times WYNNE DELACOMA July 1, 1996 700+ words
...Lohengrin"; overtures to two Verdi operas, "Les Vepres Siciliennes" and "La forza del destino," and the intermezzo...Eschenbach's tempos were slow, and the overture to "Les Vepres Siciliennes" Overture sagged, as if the thread binding its...
- Verdi's Middle Period, 1849-1859: Source Studies, Analysis, and Performance...
- Magazine article from: Notes Andre, Naomi June 1, 1999 700+ words
...1849-59, a decade encompassing the operas Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, Les vepres siciliennes, Aroldo, Simon Boccanegra, and Un ballo in maschera. Martin Chusid's introduction provides a helpful framework...
- Grand canvas
- Magazine article from: Opera News Porter, Andrew March 16, 1996 700+ words
...failed at its Venice premiere and, revised entered the repertory only more than year later. The libretto of Les Vepres Siciliennes (1855), a grand opera in the Meyerbeerian mold, composed for Paris, had to be rewritten for Italian performance...
- Verdi in Performance. (Book Reviews: Works).(Book Review)
- Magazine article from: Notes Baker, Nicole December 1, 2002 700+ words
...Robert Cohen in the late 1970s and 1980s) which detail the initial performances of each Verdi opera, from Les vepres siciliennes to Otello. Hepokoski notes that even when premiered, some of these stagings were already seen as old-fashioned...
- Urbanization of opera: music theatre in Paris in the nineteenth century.
- Magazine article from: Urban History Review March 1, 1999 700+ words
...and Guillaume Tell), Auber (Le Muette de Portici), Meyerbeer (Les Huguenots and Le Prophete), Verdi (Les Vepres siciliennes and Un ballo in maschera -- although why this opera got into the story rather than Don Carlos is only partially...
- Dara vida a obras poco interpretadas.(Cultura)
- Newspaper article from: Reforma (México D.F., México) July 17, 2003 700+ words
...pera I Puritani, de Vincenzo Bellini. Las peras Tanhusser, de Richard Wagner, Falstaff, I Lombardi, as como Les vEpres siciliennes (Las vsperas sicilianas), de Giuseppe Verdi, son obras inusuales en el repertorio mexicano; de las cuales...
- Obituary: Pier Luigi Samaritani
- Newspaper article from: The Independent - London ELIZABETH FORBES February 22, 1994 700+ words
...found very handsome and those for Eugene Onegin utterly exquisite, while his designs for Henze's Re Cervo, and Les Vepres Siciliennes were also liked. His fame had spread to the United States: designs for Les Contes d'Hoffmann at Dallas were...
