Daniela Dessì

Gran Gala di Verdi

Puccini: La Bohème

Puccini's masterpiece La Bohème is by far the most represented opera in the world. At the famous Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago (2014), where Puccini composed his main operas, La Bohème is directed by one of Italy’s greatest film directors: Ettore Scola, the creator of a high number of award-winning seminal films. As he explains in the programme notes, as soon as he was approached to stage La Bohème he had to fight hard to resist the temptation to give life to his “revolutionary” ideas; in the end, he decided for a traditional looking, rich, grandiose and detailed Bohème. Together with the exceptional cast of Daniela Dessì, Fabio Armiliato, Alessandro Luongo, Marco Spotti and Alida Berti, this production makes for an incomparable great performance.

Fedora - Teatro Carlo Felice

Based on Rosetta Cucchi’s new staging of Umberto Giordano's Fedora at Teatro Carlo Felice, Ipanov bears witness to incessant survivor guilt, unable to escape restless remembrances of his ill-fated family and strongest regrets – betrayal, disgrace, loss and abandonment.

Norma

Rossini: Guillaume Tell

Full-length performance of the opera recorded live at the Rossini opera festival in 1995.

Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra

The Teatro Regio di Torino from Italy stars in this 1985 performance of Rossini's classic opera. Leading the all-star cast are Lella Cuberi, Daniela Dessi, Rockwell Blake, and Antonio Savastano. The orchestra is conducted by Gabriele Ferro.

Cosi Fan Tutte

Officers Ferrando and Guglielmo are certain that their lovers Dorabella and Fiordiligi are faithful to them, but the cynical Don Alfonso challenges them to a bet that the women will be unfaithful given the chance. The officers thus pretend to go off to war, and return in disguise as Albanian strangers, to woo Dorabella and Fiordiligi incognito. The ladies are initially frosty, but soon warm to their new suitors, spurred on by their maid Despina. Performed at the La Scala Theatre in Milan.

Puccini: La Fanciulla del West (Torre del Lago)

The 51st Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago opened with a new production of an opera that is perhaps the composer‘s most underestimated work: “La Fanciulla del West” – often dismissed as a mere „western opera“. The musical director was Alberto Veronesi, artistic director of the festival. Ivan Stefanutti was the stage director, with spectacular sets by American painter Nall and an all-star cast including Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato (the singers are regarded as two of the leading interpreters of Italian soprano and tenor roles) and the baritone Lucio Gallo.

Don Carlo

This opera was filmed live at La Scala in 1992. The all-star cast includes Luciano Pavarotti, Samuel Ramey, aolo Coni, Daniela Dessi, Luciana d'Intio, and Alexander Anismov. Riccardo Muti conducts.

Aida

tt2266516. Aida (2003) Gran Teatre del Liceu. Verdi / Italian. Filmed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Daniela Dessì, Elisabetta Fiorillo, Fabio Armiliato, Juan Pons and Roberto Scandiuzzi lead the cast in the renowned period production filmed in 2003 against the historic paper trompe-l'œil sets painted between 1936-45 by Josep Mestres Cabanes, the last representative of the old Catalan school of scenography. Mestres Cabanes worked on his Aida vision for eight years. The opulent staging he created in 1945 is here in every detail. The seven magnificent sets he painted for Aida in 1945 have been subtly and painstakingly restored by Jordi Castells and his team – revealing the palaces, temples and surroundings of Memphis and Thebes which the set designer had wanted to evoke in his historical yet also fantasy-like vision.