Viva Verdi: Ouvertures & Preludes

"Verdi's relationship with La Scala was a troubled story of love, neglect and reconciliation. He had the leading Italian opera house to thank for his debut, his first disappointment and his first triumphs. A full five of his first seven operas were premiered there, from Oberto in 1839, to Giovanna d'Arco in 1845. A good twenty-four years were then to pass before Verdi once again set foot on that stage, and then it was to present operas that had already appeared elsewhere, even if they were reworked, often radically for the occasion (La forza del destino, 1869; Aida, 1872; Simon Boccanegra, 1881; Don Carlos, 1884). Finally came his two last masterpieces, Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893), whose connection with La Scala is, as it were, written in their genetic code. Scholars continue to puzzle over this long absence from the theatre, without arriving at any definite conclusion. ... In the one hundred and eleven years since his death La Scala has amply repaid its debt, and this CD -- in which the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala and Riccardo Chailly perform eleven orchestral pieces, eight of them not written for Milan -- puts a symbolic seal on the house's identification with the great composer in the bicentenary of his birth in Busseto " (CD notes by Fabrizio Della Seta).

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