La Forza Del Destino

La Forza del Destino was one of Verdi’s more tormented operas in the making, and its first version is quite different from theone we are used to hearing today. In its definitive version, with the changes to Act three, Act four and the finale, it was firstperformed at Teatro alla Scala on 7th February 1869, and was well received both by audiences and critics. A few peopleexpressed doubts about the mixture of the plot’s tragic elements and some characters’ comic traits; Verdi always defended thischoice, which was almost Shakespearean but had no tradition in Italy. La Forza del Destino is, indeed, an experimental creation,by a composer who was already mature but still looking for new incentives and challenges. The composer’s choral writingis quite extraordinary; far from being conceived as a monolithic bloc, the chorus is treated in a variegated and complexway. Throughout the first half of the 1900s La Forza del Destino was one of the more neglected of Verdi’s operas, but from the1950s it entered the repertoire, and became a land of conquest for all the best lyrical singers of the post war period. LucasKaritynos conducts the Orchestra Filarmonica Veneta and Susanna Branchini (Leonora), Marco Zulian (Don Alvaro) and MarcoDi Felice (Don Carlos) in the main roles.