Italian night to enthrall HCM City residents
VOV.VN - The Ho Chi Minh City Ballet, Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in HCM City will stage a special performance entirely devoted to Italian music on September 23 evening at the Saigon Opera House.
The concert that features 18 Vietnamese and Italian artists, including vocal coach Vernocchi Vilma and choirmaster Tran Nhat Minh will be conducted under the baton of Paolo Olmi.
Among the 16 pieces to be played during the concert, 13 are from operas. The show will start with an orchestral introduction ("sinfonia") from Rossini’s 1823 opera Semiramide, a queen of ancient Babylon, and Rossini composed this opera for his wife, a singer.
Next will come an aria, "Merce dilette amiche" (thank you, young friends) from Verdi's 1855 opera The Sicilian Vespers. Although this opera was originally written in French, it is often performed in Italian.
This will be followed by two famous arias from Verdi's opera Rigoletto, Caro nome (dear name), and La Donna e mobile (women are fickle), sung by guest soloists Francesca Benitez and Manuel Amati, along with Dao Mac and others.
Manuel Amati will then return a little later with an aria from Donizetti's opera Elisir d'amore (the love potion), but before that will come two orchestral items - the Intermezzo from Puccini's Manon Lescaut, and then Paganini's Cantabile in D Major for violin and orchestra, with Lucrezia Constanzo, another guest artist, as violin soloist.
Another orchestral piece will then follow Amati, the Tarantella for Double Bass by Bottesini, with another guest, Diego de Santiago Botta, as soloist.
Vietnamese soloists will then return with Pham Trang and Duyen Huyen singing the love duet O soave fanciulla that ends Act One of Puccini's La Boheme (the Bohemian girl). Pham Trang will continue with the aria Di quella pira from Verdi's La Trovatore, in which Manrico expresses his determination to save his mother from being burned at the stake.
Following this will be a famous chorus from Mascagni's opera Cavalleria Rusticana, Gli aranci olezzano (the oranges bloom in the fields), then a large-scale piece from Rossini's 1818 opera Moses in Egypt, featuring five soloists, chorus, and orchestra.
Paganini's Variations for cello and orchestra will then follow, with guest artist Enrico Mignani playing the cello.
The penultimate item will be another large-scale extract, with six soloists and chorus, this time from Rossini's last opera, William Tell.