Wagner, Verdi: The Greatest Masters of Romantic Opera

Macao Orchestra

13/10 (Saturday;8pm     Macao Cultural Centre Grand Auditorium     Tickets: MOP 200, 150, 120, 80

Conductor: Lü Jia
Amarilli Nizza, Soprano

Programme:
Excerpts from
R. Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Prelude and Liebestod / Die Walküre (The Ride of the Valkyries) / Parsifal (Good Friday Music)
G. Verdi: I Vespri Siciliani/ Otello/ Un Ballo in Maschera/ Aida

No musical or theatrical medium is more effective at creating drama, conveying complex storytelling and evoking romance than opera. Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde – an epic and tragic love story – is hailed as an undeniable turning point in the development of Western opera and music, a pioneering move away from conventional harmony and tonality that laid the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th century.

Verdi, on the other hand, wrote in a musical idiom largely free of Wagner's influence, with the exception of his very late operas Otello and Aida. These masterworks, together with I Vespri Siciliani and Un Ballo in Maschera, still dominate the standard opera repertoire today, a century and a half after their composition. Verdi used musical theatre to contrast noble ideals with the corrosive effects of power, love of country with the inevitable call for sacrifice and death, and the lure of passion with the need for social order.

Join the Macao Orchestra and Music Director Lü Jia as they present excerpts from works by the greatest Romantic operatic composers of all time, who represent two conflicting sides of our nature: charity and the need for human connection versus the rage of the egotistical will and the mind's proud solitude.

Duration: approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, including one interval