Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi wrote the operas that still define the Italian stage: Rigoletto, La traviata, Aida, Otello. His music turns private passion and public fate into melody audiences know by heart and never tire of hearing.
From Nabucco's choruses to the late splendour of Falstaff, Verdi shaped drama through the voice. He took the bel canto inheritance of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti and drove it toward something tougher and more human: characters who plot, love and break under pressure, scored with tunes that lodge and return. The middle-period trio of Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata still anchors the repertoire; Aida joined spectacle to intimacy; the Requiem, Otello and Falstaff crowned a career that never lost its theatrical nerve. On these recordings his arias and ensembles surface in recital and arrangement, proof that the line still carries when a singer leans into it.
Compositions by Giuseppe Verdi appear on
Move to Mozart: Music for Movement
Instrumental music for resting and running, made for kindergarten and home. Children always move to music, and rhythmic movement underpins much early learning. John Seal leads a colourful percussion palette, with flute, guitar and acoustic bass.
Victoria Victoria
A double CD of Victoria’s 150th Gala Choral Concert, given in the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, in 1985. A thousand-voice choir and orchestra under Richard Divall frame Léon Caron’s prize-winning Victoria Cantata of 1880.
Amy Castles: Court Singer
Amy Castles, the Australian dramatic soprano once hailed as the “Australian nightingale”, left landmark gramophone sides from London and Australian sessions in the early twentieth century. This disc gathers eighteen restored arias, salon songs and ballads.
Mandolino Italiano
The Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra presents a programme built around Italian melody and the Neapolitan mandolin tradition. Bitelli, a Bellini fantasy, period arias with soprano, a Verdi La Traviata fantasy, Toselli’s Serenade, and well-loved popular songs.
Rhythm of Life
A delicious blend of highlights from Broadway shows, popular music theatre, traditional songs and operatic hits, sung with style by Melbourne vocal ensemble Pot-Pourri.