Continuing the series of broadcasts from the ambitious, long-term festival in which the Royal Opera presents all of Verdi's operas, performed over the period leading up to the centenary of the composer's death in 2001. This broadcast from the Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden, features the grandest of the composer's operas, composed to a libretto by Joseph Mery and Camille du Locle for performance at the Paris Opera in 1867. Andrew Lyle and Michael Oliver introduce a rare opportunity to hear Don Carlos performed in its original French and including some unfamiliar passages which Verdi later revised.
Verdi Don Carlos
Royal Opera Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conductor Bernard Haitink
Acts 1 and 2 7.35 Schiller and Verdi
Don Carlos was Verdi's fourth and final encounter with German dramatist
Friedrich Schiller. What attracted Verdi to the playwright and, in particular, to a play which some might find - according to Schiller himself - "too abstract" and "too serious"? Philip Brady investigates the spark that crossed the gap between the playwright's reflective work about politics and love and Verdi's explosive opera.
8.05 Act 3
8.50 The Unholy Office
Taking Verdi's character of the Grand Inquisitor as his starting-point, Graham Fawcett shadows the prosecuting detectives of the Inquisition from 13th century Provence to Umberto Eco's 1980 novel The
Name of the Rose. Including evidence from Beethoven, Goethe, Donizetti,
Dostoevsky, Dallapiccola, Charles de Coster and Leonardo Sciascia.
With readings by Denis Quilley and Timothy West.
9.20 Acts 4 and 5