Verdi Choruses Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Riccardo Chailly

• Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901): Nabucco / Act I:
• 1Verdi: Nabucco / Act I: Gli arredi festivi (Ed. Roger Parker)06:05
• Nabucco / Act III:
• 2Verdi: Nabucco / Act III: Va, pensiero (Pt. 1) [Ed. Roger Parker]01:01
• 3Verdi: Nabucco / Act III: Va, pensiero (Pt. 2) [Ed. Roger Parker]03:53
• I Lombardi / Act III:
• 4Verdi: I Lombardi / Act III: Gerusalem05:30
• I Lombardi / Act IV:
• 5Verdi: I Lombardi / Act IV: O Signore, dal tetto natìo04:07
• Ernani:
• 6Verdi: Ernani: Preludio03:13
• Ernani / Act III:
• 7Verdi: Ernani / Act III: Si ridesti il leon di Castiglia01:54
• Don Carlo / Act III:
• 8Verdi: Don Carlo / Act III: Spuntato ecco il dì d'esultanza07:27
• Macbeth / Act I:
• 9Verdi: Macbeth / Act I: Che faceste? Dite su! (Ed. David Lawton)03:29
• 10Verdi: Macbeth / Act I: Coro di Streghe: S'allontanarono! (Ed. David Lawton)02:11
• Macbeth / Act IV:
• 11Verdi: Macbeth / Act IV: Patria oppressa! Il dolce nome (Ed. David Lawton)06:34
• Il trovatore / Act II:
• 12Verdi: Il trovatore / Act II: Vedi! Le fosche notturne spoglie04:04
• La forza del destino / Act III:
• 13Verdi: La forza del destino / Act III: Nella guerra, è la follia02:19
• Aida / Act II:
• 14Verdi: Aida / Act II: Gloria all'Egitto, ad Iside: Gloria all'Egitto, ad Iside03:18
• 15Verdi: Aida / Act II: Gloria all'Egitto, ad Iside: Triumphal March06:10
• 16Verdi: Aida / Act II: Gloria all'Egitto, ad Iside: Vieni, o guerriero vindice02:37
• Simon Boccanegra / Prologue:
• 17Verdi: Simon Boccanegra / Prologue: Viva Simon01:10
• Total Runtime01:05:02

Info for Verdi Choruses

The album marks 45 years since Chailly’s debut at La Scala, and also the signing of his exclusive contract with Decca.

As part of the seventieth birthday celebrations for Riccardo Chailly in February 2023, Decca is delighted to announce a new album of Verdi Choruses conducted by the Maestro with the orchestral and choral forces of La Scala, where he is Music Director. The album also marks two other remarkable milestones: it will be forty-five years since Chailly’s debut at La Scala, and also since he first signed an exclusive contract with Decca.

The repertoire spans much of Verdi’s output, and includes choruses both familiar and less well-known. Among the former are “Gloria all Egitto” (the Triumphal Scene) from Aida, “Va, pensiero” (the chorus of the Hebrew slaves) from Nabucco, the Witches’ Chorus from Macbeth, and the Anvil Chorus from Il trovatore. The pieces cover a vast array of situations and moods, from serious to sparkling, from sacred to secular, and from blacksmithery to sorcery. The recording draws on the deep connection which the musicians have with these scores, stemming from Verdi’s own relationship with La Scala. The composer’s first four operas, and his final two, received their world premieres here, and the theatre owns important busts and paintings of the composer, which are proudly displayed.

As Riccardo Chailly reaches his seventieth birthday, audiences can celebrate the conductor’s own equally important relationship with La Scala. It began in 1978 when a 25 year-old Chailly (whose father had previously been artistic director of La Scala) made his debut stepping in for the conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni, who had become indisposed at the last moment: the opera in question was I masnadieri by Verdi. The occasion was a triumph, and Chailly has often subsequently returned to work at La Scala, frequently in works by Verdi. He was appointed music director in 2017.

1978 proved to be something of an annus mirabilis for Chailly, for this was also the year in which he signed an exclusive recording contract with Decca, a contract which holds to this day. Chailly’s discs – many of them created with the orchestral and choral musicians of La Scala – have sold in their millions, and won many awards.

Reviewers have often responded with the highest acclaim to their performances. When Chailly and the musicians of La Scala appeared in London recently, sparks certainly flew. “Luxurious sophistication… attention to detail, and spacious phrasing that breathed as a star singer might breathe. Remarkable,” said The Arts Desk. Commenting on Chailly’s work with lesser-known Verdi scores, Musicweb International said that ‘it makes a real difference having a top-flight band [such as the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala] to perform this music… Chailly doesn’t pull any dramatic punches with his blistering attack.’ Critic David Mellor says that ‘Chailly can lay claim to being the greatest conductor working today’ (Classic FM).

Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano
Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano
Riccardo Chailly, conductor

Riccardo Chailly
is Principal Conductor of Filarmonica della Scala since November 2015. Born in Milan, he studied in Perugia, Roma and Milano, following also Franco Ferrara’s advanced courses at Siena’s Accademia Chigiana.

The Radio-Symphonie-Orchester of Berlin offered him his first position as Principal Conductor. For 16 years, from 1988, Chailly covered the same position at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, in Amsterdam. Contemporarily, he was Music Director of Bologna’s Teatro Comunale and of Verdi Symphonic Orchestra, in Milan. In 2016 he concluded his long collaboration as Kapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester in Lipsia.

He regularly conducts the most important European symphonic orchestras: Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris. In the United States he conducted New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra e Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Concerning Opera, he collaborates with: Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper, Opernhaus Zurich. He is regularly invited to the most important international festivals, among which Salisburgo and London’s Proms; from August 2016 Chailly is Music Director of the Lucerna Festival’s Orchestra, a position that in the past was held by Claudio Abbado. Riccardo Chailly is a Decca exclusive artist. He won the prestigious Echo Klassik prize as 2012 “Best Conductor” with the recording of Beethoven’s Nine Symphonies with the Gewandhausorchester.

His complete edition of Brahms’ Symphonies won the Gramophone Award as “Recording of the Year”, and Viva Verdi, recorded with the Filarmonica della Scala for the celebration of the 200th year from Verdi’s birth, resulted the most sold classic CD in Italy.

Riccardo Chailly is Italian Republic’s Grand’Ufficiale and Cavaliere di Gran Croce, he is also a member of London’s Royal Academy of Music. He was nominated Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion and Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

This album contains no booklet.