A rarely performed yet masterful Overture, two key scenes from Macbeth, that one striking violin solo in I Lombardi and an Aria from Il corsaro that is both loved and feared by sopranos: conductor Carlo Goldstein tips you five musical highlights from the second part of the Verdi diptych.

In the decade following his first successes, Giuseppe Verdi composed at a terrific pace, producing one or two new operas a year. The composer himself called this period his anni di galera (‘years as a galley slave’). During this time he delivered such hits as Nabucco, Macbeth and Ernani, alongside La battaglia di Legnano, Il corsaro and Alzira, titles that are rarely performed in their entirety today. Yet each of these early operas contains music that unmistakably bears the stamp of Verdi’s genius, music that deserves to find its way to a wider audience.

It's a long way from hobby to career and there are a number of challenges that young talents have to overcome. One of these is the audition process for a position in an orchestra.

Every month, OperaVision sets out to meet young artists around the world and give them a platform by streaming new performances, documentaries, concerts, masterclasses and podcasts. This time we are off to London, where National Opera Studio - the leading opera training organisation in the United Kingdom - welcomed acclaimed British mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly to lead a masterclass with three young artists. In this 3-part masterclass, soprano Julieth Lozano (Colombia), tenor Philip Clieve (United Kingdom) and mezzo-soprano Arlene Belli (Italy) explore repertoire by Handel and Britten.

In honour of Opera North’s Masque of Might, Nicholas Payne reflects on recent productions offering new ways to stage the work of Henry Purcell.

Rehearsing two roles in a foreign language in just a few weeks – not an easy job! In this episode of Young Artists at Oper Frankfurt, we accompany the young soprano Karolina Bengtsson as she prepares for the revival of Leoš Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen. 

In one of the most intriguing scenes in Bernard Foccroulle’s Cassandra, the mythological protagonist lingers in the library of the dead. Stoically, she declares that the books that surround her do not tell her full story. But who then is Cassandra? Who is this woman who, with her gift and her curse, captured the imagination of so many of our literary forebears and lives on today in countless stories and retellings – including a new opera?

Metastasio’s heritage consists of 28 opera librettos, 8 librettos for oratorios, 36 for serenades and 37 for cantatas and is completed by a large number of songs, compliments, or works not intended for music like 32 sonnets, translations from Greek, spiritual poems or odes for weddings, as well as his over 2.600 published letters. If these numbers are impressive in themselves, the wealth of musical production Metastasio’s poetry inspired in the composers of his century is simply staggering and made of him the by far most influential librettist not only of his but very likely of all times: these 28 opera librettos were set to music as unthinkable 1.050 operas.

Part human, part divine, Orpheus embodies the power of song. The sun god Apollo is said to have taught him his skills as a musician and poet. He deployed them to charm his contemporaries on earth but, beyond that, to gain entry to the forbidden territory of the underworld. It is no wonder that he became the emblem of the artist who transcends mundane cares and brings us closer to eternal verities.

Nor is it a surprise that Orpheus has been chosen by so many composers as a symbol of the artist, whose life’s work is to strive, to fail, but to be remembered, to become immortal.