Torn between his duty and paternal love, the Venitian doge is forced to exile his son accused of murder. Hopes to prove his innocence run high when his son returns home, but don’t discount their intriguing enemies just yet. I due Foscari sets out in despair and ends tragically. Its music, full of dark hues, awe-inspiring choruses and individual themes for the main characters, already paves the way for Verdi's later scores.

The ground-breaking and award-winning production of Giuseppe Verdi’s tense moral drama Stiffelio staged by famous opera director Graham Vick. Opera in three acts (1850) Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Le Pasteur, ou l’Évangile et le Foyer by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois Graham Vick’s innovative staging of the ‘most unjustly neglected of Verdi’s operas', Stiffelio, was presented with a Special Award at the 37th 'Franco Abbiati' Music Critics' Prize (2018) for the director's unique theatricality and the unprecedented level of audience involvement. Performed at the Teatro Farnese on four mobile platforms, the audience was free to move around the auditorium and choose their own vantage points, mingling with actors, chorus members and cameramen. The Italian tenor, Luciano Ganci (Stiffelio), and the Mexican soprano, Maria Katzarava (Lina), deliver tense and dramatic performances in what was the highlight of the 2017 Festival Verdi in Parma.