Ottorino Respighi opera film 30 March-01 April 2016 at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari

In Milan and Como during the month of May 1176. Milanese soldiers defend the city under the command of Rolando. He is reunited with Arrigo, his friend from Verona, who had been presumed dead in battle. Arrigo also meets Lida, his former fiancée, who, at her father’s behest, has married Rolando. Meanwhile, Rolando, who is preparing to leave for battle, is approached by Marcovaldo, a German prisoner of war, who hands him a letter from Lida for Arrigo. Rolando’s anger turns to a desire for revenge. Catching Lida and Arrigo in the middle of a conversation, he has his “rival” imprisoned in a tower. “La battaglia di Legnano” (The Battle of Legnano) is a four-act opera by Giuseppe Verdi with a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on January 27, 1849. From the “Tutto Verdi” box set of 27 Verdi operas. Recorded live at the Teatro Lirico “Giuseppe Verdi” in Trieste on February 23 and 29 and March 2, 2012.

Recorded during the 2018 Donizetti Festival, Il castello di Kenilworth was first staged at Naples’s San Carlo in 1829. Based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott and adapted by librettist Leone Tottola, this rare opera has long been unjustly neglected. The recording features the original version of the score, with the role of Warney entrusted to a tenor (the composer changed the voice to baritone in his 1836 revision). Il castello di Kenilworth was followed by several other successful works that Donizetti similarly based on British history (Maria Stuarda, Anna Bolena, Rosmonda d’Inghilterra, Emilia di Liverpool, Lucia di Lammermoor); it presents the character of Queen Elizabeth I, torn by the inner struggle between a monarch’s duty and a woman’s feelings. The fundamental pivot of the drama is the antagonism between the two female characters who both dwell and suffer in loneliness in a male-dominated world.

Carol meets David one year later, taking her into a growing chasm of horrors in which the everyday reality, seems to give way to the dreams of past nights.