Marina De Liso

The Rai National Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Lloyd-Jones performs: Charpentier, Te Deum in D major for soloists, choir, and orchestra, and J.S. Bach, Magnificat in D major for soloists, choir, and orchestra.

A feathered thief, a servant wrongly sentenced to death and a corrupt, power-hungry politician: those are the protagonists of Rossini’s semi-serious opera whose overture, with its drum rolls and oboe solo, is one of the best-known pieces in the history of music. La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is set in a time of great social upheaval. When Ninetta is accused of stealing a silver spoon, a series of unfortunate events begins that initially makes the happy ending expected from an opera semiseria seem highly unlikely. What sort of world is it where a person can be executed for the alleged theft of a spoon? Tobias Kratzer, successful as a director throughout Europe, now debuts in Vienna with Rossini’s opera that received its first performance in 1817 and traces the uncertainty felt by people in a politically and socially destabilised world.

Linda di Chamounix is a pretty country girl who is in love with Carlo, who she believes is a penniless artist. Her honour is threatened by the local squire and she escapes to Paris in search of fortune. This is a tale of courage and madness, in which we discover and experience the strength and suffering of a woman torn apart by estrangement from family and love. Donizetti reaped full and longlasting success with Linda di Chamounix, and it became one of his most modern, appreciated and long-lived works. Jessica Pratt leads an all-star cast in this acclaimed production from the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

Michal Znaniecki stages Pergolesi's Il Flaminio at the Teatro Valeria Moriconi in Jesi, using a deliberately theatrical setting to play truth against fiction and tragedy against comedy. Ottavio Dantone conducts the Accademia Bizantina, with Juan Francisco Gatell, Laura Polverelli and Marina De Liso leading the cast. Recording is from 2010.