Overture to Il Forza del Destino
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Like Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Forza del Destino is a tragic opera furnished with a duel and the killing of a friend. Some opera singers consider it to be ill-fated, rather as Shakespeare’s Macbeth is regarded as such among actors. Tales of the opera’s malign influence abound including a well authenticated incident at the Metropolitan Opera New York in 1960, where the baritone Leonard Warren fell to the stage, stone dead, before he could sing a note of his aria. He was 48 years old. The overture we hear this evening was an afterthought of Verdi’s. The original version of the opera had no more than a brief orchestral prelude. Like so many other operatic overtures, it presents the main themes of the opera before the curtain rises. It is now a favourite around the globe, not least because of its extensive use in film and television.
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Like Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Forza del Destino is a tragic opera furnished with a duel and the killing of a friend. Some opera singers consider it to be ill-fated, rather as Shakespeare’s Macbeth is regarded as such among actors. Tales of the opera’s malign influence abound including a well authenticated incident at the Metropolitan Opera New York in 1960, where the baritone Leonard Warren fell to the stage, stone dead, before he could sing a note of his aria. He was 48 years old. The overture we hear this evening was an afterthought of Verdi’s. The original version of the opera had no more than a brief orchestral prelude. Like so many other operatic overtures, it presents the main themes of the opera before the curtain rises. It is now a favourite around the globe, not least because of its extensive use in film and television.