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Renato Verga

Renato Verga

Renato graduated from Turin University in Physics. He has always had a particular passion for music and the stage. A former member of a choir, he was raised in the musical milieu influenced by the eminent Italian musicologist Massimo Mila. In 2014, Renato started his own blog, which now has 1000 posts.

Author:Renato Verga

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Cavalli's La Calisto arrives at La Scala for the first time and triumphs

By Renato Verga, 30 October 2021

Cavalli's debut at La Scala is a triumph, earning applause that not even a Bohème or a Traviata can sometimes elicit.

*****

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La Calisto arrives at La Scala for the first time and triumphs

By Renato Verga

La Fenice transformed into a cathedral for Joan Antón Rechi's vision of Gounod's Faust

By Renato Verga, 03 July 2021

The real sensation of the evening was Alex Esposito – this time, Gounod's Faust should have been titled Méphistophélès...

****1

La Fenice transformed into a cathedral for Gounod's Faust

By Renato Verga

Vivaldi's Farnace returns to Venice at the Teatro Malibran

By Renato Verga, 02 July 2021

Christophe Gayral gives Vivaldi's Farnace a contemporary update at the Teatro Malibran, but there are musical compensations.

***11

Vivaldi's Farnace returns to Venice at the Teatro Malibran

By Renato Verga

From Byron to Donizetti, the political drama of Marino Faliero in Bergamo

By Renato Verga, 20 November 2020

14th-century Venice, a city of intrigue, criminal activity and mysterious masks, is the setting for Donizetti's opera about the Doge Marino Faliero, whose life is torn between public and private issues.

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The political drama of Marino Faliero in Bergamo

By Renato Verga

Damiano Michieletto's youthful Barbiere returns to Florence

By Renato Verga, 23 October 2020

Three Russian singers star in a revival of the Italian director's academy production from 2003.

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Damiano Michieletto's youthful Barbiere returns to Florence

By Renato Verga

Il trovatore proves a masterpiece even without staging

By Renato Verga, 01 August 2020

In a reduced concert performance of Il trovatore the drama unfolds with the force of music alone.

***11

Il trovatore proves a masterpiece even without staging

By Renato Verga

Macerata's Don Giovanni: a yellow cab to hell

By Renato Verga, 31 July 2020

Livermore's staging implies two different storylines – do we only see the result of Don Giovanni's hallucinations?

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Macerata's Don Giovanni: a yellow cab to hell

By Renato Verga

La Fenice reopens its doors with Vivaldi's first opera

By Renato Verga, 10 July 2020

The lack of a curtain has forced the director to employ a new inventiveness, if only with partially success.

***11

La Fenice reopens its doors with Vivaldi's first opera

By Renato Verga

The resurrection of an opera: Alfano's Risurrezione in Florence

By Renato Verga, 19 January 2020

Risurrezione is a work whose value is to be found more in the orchestra than in the vocal lines, a peculiar thing for an Italian opera belonging to an epoch that gloried in enticing melodies.

***11

The resurrection of an opera: Alfano's Risurrezione in Florence

By Renato Verga

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Verdi's Vêpres siciliennes opens the operatic season in Rome

By Renato Verga, 10 December 2019

Living in an environment influenced by French culture, Verdi saw the chance of breathing new life into the Italian opera through the grand-opéra. Les Vêpres siciliennes is his successful attempt.

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Verdi's Vêpres siciliennes opens the operatic season in Rome

By Renato Verga

Donizetti's L'ange de Nisida proves to be a masterpiece

By Renato Verga, 16 November 2019

The performance at Bergamo Opera Festival proved that L'ange de Nisida can contest the place of La favorite in Donizetti's catalog.

*****

Donizetti's L'ange de Nisida proves to be a masterpiece

By Renato Verga

Pietro il Grande, Czar delle Russie: young Donizetti pays his debt to Rossini

By Renato Verga, 15 November 2019

Donizetti's music in this early opera has the freshness and liveliness of his most mature comic works, but l barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola were just a few years before, as one could easily perceive.

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Young Donizetti pays his debt to Rossini in Bergamo

By Renato Verga

The face that launched a thousand ships: Strauss’ Helena lands at La Scala

By Renato Verga, 06 November 2019

In the tiring role of Menelaus Andreas Schager was a mighty Heldentenor, combining impressive sound power with a dazzling colour and without ever showing a moment of fatigue.

****1

Strauss’ Helena lands at La Scala

By Renato Verga

Handel at La Scala, and it's a sensation

By Renato Verga, 18 October 2019

Carsen's modern mise en scène of Handel's opera did not stand out for originality, but for finesse and elegance and that was substantially appreciated by the audience.

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Handel at La Scala, and it's a sensation

By Renato Verga

Libertine cynicism in music: Francesconi's Quartett at La Scala

By Renato Verga, 05 October 2019

After 76 performances in 17 theatres and seven different productions, Quartett returns to La Scala in the original sgating by Àlex Ollé of La Fura dels Baus and the Milan audience is once more captivated.

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Libertine cynicism in music: Francesconi's Quartett at La Scala

By Renato Verga

The Pearl Fishers: Turin opens its operatic season

By Renato Verga, 03 October 2019

The staging sways between tackiness and naivety, like those old Christmas cards with sequins glued to the edges of the figures.

**111

The Pearl Fishers: Turin opens its operatic season

By Renato Verga

Korngold's Dead City is not so dead, but the dreams are glittering

By Renato Verga, 28 June 2019

In Robert Carsen's staging, the “dead city” is absent: the scenery showing a bourgeois room that one imagines overlooking a bright avenue in Vienna or Berlin rather than a dark alley in Bruges.

***11

Korngold's Dead City is not so dead in Berlin

By Renato Verga

I masnadieri: “Verdi's ugliest opera” returns to La Scala with mixed results

By Renato Verga, 18 June 2019

In the role created for Jenny Lind, Lisette Oropesa, in her debut in the theater, shows her magnificent silvery voice, beautiful vibrato and impeccable colorature.

***11

“Verdi's ugliest opera” returns to La Scala with mixed results

By Renato Verga

Korngold's Die tote Stadt at La Scala for the first time: a triumph

By Renato Verga, 28 May 2019

The wealth of visual images displayed by director Graham Vick goes with the extraordinary richness of Korngold's music.

****1

Korngold's Die tote Stadt at La Scala for the first time: a triumph

By Renato Verga

Emma Dante's demonic obsessions in Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel in Rome

By Renato Verga, 23 May 2019

In Emma Dante's staging we are viewing an allegory of death as painted in the medieval frescoes of Italian cemeteries.

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Demonic obsessions in Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel in Rome

By Renato Verga

Ariadne in Milan: the director cannot find the thread

By Renato Verga, 23 April 2019

Frederic Wake-Walker sticks to a vapid pop-parody that demeans the intellectual message of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.

***11

Ariadne in Milan: the director cannot find the thread

By Renato Verga

Valery Gergiev conducts a grandiose Khovanshchina at La Scala

By Renato Verga, 27 February 2019

In Khovanshchina, even more so than in Boris Godunov, the chorus is the chief protagonist and the La Scala chorus was truly astonishing.

****1

Gergiev conducts a grandiose Khovanshchina at La Scala

By Renato Verga

A second chance for a teenager Mozart in Venice

By Renato Verga, 15 February 2019

Il re pastore seems to be a work that deserves to be included in the repertoire for its undoubted qualities and not only because it foreshadows the genius of the works that will follow.

***11

A second chance for a teenager Mozart in Venice

By Renato Verga

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Young Mozart returns to Venice: Il sogno di Scipione

By Renato Verga, 14 February 2019

Three sopranos and three tenors express a catalogue of "affections" in musical numbers full of coloratura and virtuosic effects that are already 100% Mozart despite the young age of the composer.

****1

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Young Mozart returns to Venice: Il sogno di Scipione

By Renato Verga

Elegance and finesse: Marianne Crebassa in recital at La Scala

By Renato Verga, 27 January 2019

The performance of the young French mezzo-soprano was admired more for its correctness than for its seductiveness.

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Elegance and finesse: Marianne Crebassa in recital at La Scala

By Renato Verga

Beckett at La Scala: world première of Kurtág's Fin de partie

By Renato Verga, 15 November 2018

Never before has human impotence been so cruelly portrayed on stage.

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Beckett at La Scala: world première of Kurtág's Fin de partie

By Renato Verga

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An elephant in the room: Graham Vick's new Figaro opens in Rome

By Renato Verga, 03 November 2018

Graham Vick stages his Marriage of Figaro in todays vulgarity, but he is not fully convincing.

***11

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An elephant in the room: Graham Vick's new Figaro opens in Rome

By Renato Verga

In Turin's Trovatore, the women carry the day

By Renato Verga, 10 October 2018

Female voices dominate in the vocal cast: Rachel Willis-Sørensen debuts as Leonora and charms the audience; Anna Maria Chiuri has the temperament and rich vocality requested by the role of the gypsy.

***11

In Turin's Trovatore, the women carry the day

By Renato Verga

Robert Wilson's lunar Trouvère in Parma is the antithesis of grand opéra

By Renato Verga, 29 September 2018

When they asked Wilson to stage an opera by Verdi, the Texan director replied "I'll never do it!". Now he is at his fourth Verdi's production.

***11

Wilson's lunar Trouvère the antithesis of grand opéra

By Renato Verga

Cherubini's Ali Baba finally returns to La Scala in an Academy staging

By Renato Verga, 01 September 2018

A conventional plot retains few of the elements of its Arabian Nights original, but the Academy's young pupils display vocal mastery in Milan.

Cherubini's Ali Baba finally returns to La Scala

By Renato Verga

Dafne returns to Florence four centuries later

By Renato Verga, 25 June 2018

The imaginative baroque architecture of the Buontalenti Grotto in Palazzo Pitti Boboli Gardens is an inert background to the action in this reprise of one of the first operas.

***11

Dafne returns to Florence four centuries later

By Renato Verga

On the female condition: two 20th-century operas in Turin

By Renato Verga, 16 May 2018

Two different variations of the female conditions: one of 1909 and now utterly out-of-date, the second of 1959 much more ut-to-date.

****1

On the female condition: two 20th-century operas in Turin

By Renato Verga

A traditional Il corsaro revived in Piacenza

By Renato Verga, 06 May 2018

In this Verdi's popular work we find a paroxysm of affections that is consonant with Matteo Beltrami's energetic conducting.

***11

A traditional Il corsaro revived in Piacenza

By Renato Verga

Breaking with Verismo: Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini returns to La Scala

By Renato Verga, 15 April 2018

The use in the score of ancient musical instruments is what differentiates this work: pifferi, a lute, a “viola pomposa” give this work a distinctive flavour.

****1

Francesca da Rimini returns to La Scala

By Renato Verga

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Don Pasquale, or, The Revenge of the Dead Mother

By Renato Verga, 03 April 2018

Director Davide Livermore sets the story at the time of the Dolce Vita, including the motorbike from the film Roman Holiday and the roadster from The Easy Life.

****1

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Don Pasquale, or, The Revenge of the Dead Mother

By Renato Verga

La Gioconda in Modena: a popularly acclaimed, small-town grand opera

By Renato Verga, 25 March 2018

Every time Ponchielli’s La Gioconda is staged its popular fortune is renewed, but the diffidence of the musicography also remains unchanged.

***11

La Gioconda in Modena

By Renato Verga

Turin's Orpheus does not ascend to Heaven

By Renato Verga, 13 March 2018

In the Teatro Regio's production everything is according to the script, but the magic of the stage is absent.

**111

Turin's Orpheus does not ascend to Heaven

By Renato Verga

Mourning becomes Orpheus: Gluck at La Scala

By Renato Verga, 24 February 2018

Juan Diego Flórez perhaps is the only one currently able to revive the virtuosity of the role created in 1762

****1

Mourning becomes Orpheus: Gluck at La Scala

By Renato Verga

La Fenice's superb new Widow is always Merry, even without sequins and ostrich feathers

By Renato Verga, 02 February 2018

Damiano Michieletto's new production in Venice sets the operetta in the 1950s.

*****

La Fenice's superb new Widow is always Merry, even without sequins and ostrich feathers

By Renato Verga

Fledermaus debuts at La Scala but misses some sparkle

By Renato Verga, 21 January 2018

The Temple of Opera has opened its doors to operetta. For the first time the Teatro alla Scala is staging Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

***11

Fledermaus debuts at La Scala but misses some sparkle

By Renato Verga

An enigmatic Turandot in Stefano Poda's dream staging at the Teatro Regio in Turin

By Renato Verga, 16 January 2018

Stefano Poda's staging has its own coherence, but it is as cold as the Chinese princess.

***11

An enigmatic Turandot in Turin

By Renato Verga

Andrea Chénier in Milan: tradition triumphs at La Scala's season opener

By Renato Verga, 07 December 2017

The big season opener at La Scala offers few surprises in a traditional staging, although Yusif Eyvazov proved his worth in the title role.

***11

Tradition triumphs at La Scala

By Renato Verga

Il borgomastro di Saardam: Donizetti's opera buffa revived in Bergamo

By Renato Verga, 26 November 2017

Absent from theatres for more than a century and a half, Donizetti's comedy about Tsar Peter the Great is revived in the composer's home town.

****1

Rare Donizetti opera buffa revived in Bergamo

By Renato Verga

Falstaff in Turin: elegant, but with little mass

By Renato Verga, 15 November 2017

Renzetti's traditional rendition does not reveal yet unprecedented details of a score that is the summation of Verdi's mastery and his last work – his third based on Shakespeare.

***11

Falstaff in Turin: elegant, but with little mass

By Renato Verga

The memory of Baroque: Sciarrino's Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo at La Scala

By Renato Verga, 14 November 2017

The work takes its inspiration from the life of the little known Italian composer Alessandro Stradella who ended his life stabbed by killers sent by the husbands of his innumerable mistresses.

****1

Sciarrino's Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo at La Scala

By Renato Verga

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La rondine: a flimsy work in pastel colours in Florence

By Renato Verga, 22 October 2017

Commissioned as an operetta, La rondine became a true opera instead, and was presented in 1917 in Montecarlo at the high point of WW1.

***11

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La rondine: a flimsy work in pastel colours in Florence

By Renato Verga

Comedy and drama in Auber's Fra Diavolo: a balance well obtained at Opera di Roma

By Renato Verga, 13 October 2017

The Mediterranean setting of Auber's work is recreated by director Giorgio Barberio Corsetti with its intriguing teatro-immagine, where video projections and virtual reality are predominant.

****1

Comedy and drama in Auber's Fra Diavolo: a balance well obtained at Opera di Roma

By Renato Verga

Demons and angels: Der Freischütz at La Scala

By Renato Verga, 10 October 2017

Hartmann's staging takes a bizarre twist in the end since so far the staging had followed the naïve story very faithfully without any weird implications.

****1

Demons and angels: Der Freischütz at La Scala

By Renato Verga

A melancholy Falstaff at the Verdi Festival in Parma

By Renato Verga, 01 October 2017

Not a particularly revealing Falstaff, but a pleasing performance though. Maybe one would have expected something of greater impact from a festival like this one, but that goal had already accomplished by Graham Vick with his Stiffelio the night before...

***11

A melancholy Falstaff at the Verdi Festival in Parma

By Renato Verga

Plácido Domingo returns to La Scala in Handel's Tamerlano

By Renato Verga, 12 September 2017

Director Davide Livermore updates the plot to the period of the Russian Revolution, October 1917, a far echo of that turning point in 1403 when the Ottoman sultan Bajazet was defeated by the Tartar Timburlaine.

*****

Domingo returns to La Scala in Tamerlano

By Renato Verga