Verdi CD - Vincent La Selva, Conductor

On the Newport Classic Label
The First-Ever CD Recording
of
"The Complete Verdi Opera Overtures"
including the one written for the La Scala premiere
of "Aida" but never performed in the opera house

Vincent La Selva
conducting
The Bern Symphony Orchestra
$17.49
Available now at all major record stores, and by mail, through this Web site.
When purchased through this Web site, part of the proceeds
will benefit the New York Grand Opera Company.

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Critically Acclaimed!

".spirited conducting by Vincent La Selva, reminds us of how concert audiences today are deprived of  splendid hors d'oeuvres by the fashion for omitting overtures. And what tunes they contain!"

- Sunday Telegraph, London

"I have never heard performances that are so direct or so instantly rousing! These are no gentle reminders for the audience to quiet down for the show; for La Selva, the overtures become shows in themselves. Like Lieder singers who don't have the operatic luxury of building their characters throughout the evening, La Selva tears into the works so powerfully and relentlessly you feel thrown into Verdian momentum from the start."

- Newark Star-Ledger

"The force of Verdi's personality comes through in these stirring performances, whether the music is familiar or not. The thrusting rhythms, impassioned melodies and sure instrumental skills receive splendid treatment from La Selva. He is that rare Verdi conductor who knows to savor Verdi's lyricism. Everything is alive, expressive and sensitive. The Bern Symphony Orchestra sounds completely immersed in these minidramas, playing with robust elegance."

- Cleveland Plain-Dealer

"A sizzling performance! It is almost incomprehensible that Maestro La Selva does not currently head a major musical organization except for brief weeks each summer. This newest Newport Classic release should go far to call critical and popular attention to one of the nation's musical treasures!"

- Newhouse Newspapers

"Highly invigorating. undeniably exhilarating. a delight!"

- American Record Guide

About the CD

Released to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Guiseppe Verdi, this recording includes all ten of the known Verdi opera overtures, plus one he wrote for the 1872 La Scala premiere of "Aida," which has never been performed in the opera house. It also marks the long-awaited recording debut of the legendary Italo-American conductor Vincent La Selva, whose full-stage Verdi opera performances in New York have been heard by nearly 3,000,000 people over the past 27 years.

Maestro La Selva has been hailed by has been hailed by THE NEW YORK TIMES as "one of the best conductors around, who can drive an opera home with a directness and impact frequently lacking in the routine of prestigious houses." New York's NEWSDAY called him "one of the most exciting interpreters now before the public, a conductor very much in the Toscanini tradition." And Britain's OPERA magazine said he was "the best conductor of Verdi presently at work."

According to NEW YORK magazine, "La Selva conducts Italian Opera with the kind of passionate thrust and grand line that has become a lost art." Cleveland-born and Juilliard-trained, La Selva has been the recipient of the Handel Medallion (New York City's top award in the fields of art and culture) and has been knighted as a "Cavaliere" in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for his outstanding service to Italian music.

Verdi wrote 28 operas, all of which are being presented by La Selva's New York Grand Opera Company in the order in which they were written, in a feat never previously attempted by any other opera company in the world. The composer provided full-fledged overtures for only 11 of the operas. The others have only short orchestral preludes leading directly into the opening scenes. In the case of "Aida," the opera at its world premiere in Cairo had no overture. For the Milan premiere a year later, Verdi did indeed write a
nine-minute overture, but it was never performed in the opera house due to the exceptional length of the opera itself. It was not until 1913 that the full overture was discovered by Arturo Toscanini, who first conducted it with the NBC Symphony in 1940. Vincent La Selva gave it New York performances in 1987,1991 and 1995.

Recorded at the historic and acoustically notable St. Marien Church in Bern, Switzerland, the new Newport Classic Verdi commemorative release was produced by Paul Myers, long-time Vice-President, Masterworks, for CBS-Sony and later Director of Artists and Repertoire for Decca, London. Myers has won numerous Grammy, Grand Prix du Disque, Deutsche Schallplatten and Gramophone awards. The Bern Symphony, founded in 1877, is one of Europe's most distinguished, that also plays for all the opera performances at the Stadtheater Bern and has had Wilhelm Furtwangler, Ernest Ansermet, Hans Knappertsbusch and Rafael Kubelik among its conductors. Included with the new Newport CD recording are program notes on Verdi and all of the 11 overtures by Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, a noted Verdi scholar who is the author of the definitive Verdi biography (Oxford University Press 1994) and a founding board-member of the American Institute of Verdi Studies at New York University.