The Pro Musica Agency, working with BOK-MCC, brought an operatic rarity to the Forum stage. The bicentenary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth inspired the creation of the international Verdi Gala 2013 project. A seventy-person ensemble of artists performed in a musical spectacle prepared on an extraordinary scale.
The performance was composed of several of the best-known and most compelling songs from the operas Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901). The operas Aida, Macbeth and Otello were presented, as well as Verdi’s first opera, Nabucco, and the masterpieces created between 1851 and 1853: Rigoletto, La traviata and Il trovatore.
In the first part of the performance, Aksana Yakushevich (mezzo-soprano) sang the part of the gypsy Azucena from Il trovatore, “Stride la vampa.” Il trovatore is an opera with a complicated plot, full of improbable situations and conflicts. Today, we might compare it to a fiery South American soap opera. Azucena swore terrible revenge for her mother being burned at the stake, but in a moment of madness, instead of the enemy’s child, she threw her own son into the fire.
Razvan Sararu (tenor), a singer from Bucharest honoured by Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, took on the role of Macduff from Macbeth and sang “Ah, la paterna mano.” Monika Michaliszyn (soprano), a Polish opera singer, performed the beautiful aria “È strano…” from La traviata.
The first part concluded with the Choir of the Polish Opera singing “Va, pensiero…” from Nabucco. The song of the enslaved Jews, who gathered by the waters of the Jordan to remember their lost homeland, conveyed such a powerful message of national liberation in the nineteenth century that the Austrian authorities (occupying Italy) removed Nabucco from the programme, fearing patriotic demonstrations.
In the second part, Silvia Rampazzo (soprano) and Aksana Yakushevich took on the roles of Aida and Amneris and sang the song of the two women fighting for Radamès’s love, “Fu la sorte dell’armi.” Gulio Boschetti (baritone) sang the aria of Rigoletto, the jester. His anguished plea for help in searching for his abducted daughter, “Cortigiani…”
The musical journey ended with a cheerful aria from La traviata, “So let us drink to youth’s glory” (“Libiamo…”). The audience thanked the artists with a standing ovation and, in this way, asked for three more encores. “Verdi Gala 2013” was a splendid conclusion to the concert year at the Bolesławiec Cultural Centre–International Ceramics Centre.
(information: ii)