Credits:

Massimo Zanetti

Description:

Pizzis Risorgimento opera *The Bells of Sicily*, a production that engulfs the entire theater!A stellar cast featuring Nucci, De Sisi, Almirato, and Prestia!!I Vespro Siciliani, the monumental work Verdi composed specifically for the Paris Opera, is a masterpiece; however, due to its vast scale and the technical demands of every role, it is rarely staged. The recording featured here is from a performance at the Verdi Festival in Parma in October 2010. Although the master director Pierre Luigi Pizzi has also staged *I Vespri Siciliani* at La Scala, this production is entirely different. While the stage design is kept extremely simple, characters in 19th-century-style costumes frequently appear on the unraised floor of the aisle and move back and forth across the stage, powerfully evoking the atmosphere of the era just before the Risorgimento (the Italian unification movement), when this work