French Rarities & Discoveries

The premiere of Nabucco at La Scala, Milan in 1842 was a huge success for Verdi and soon led to foreign performances of the work. For it's appearance in Brussels under the name Nebuchodonozor Verdi fashioned an orchestral Divertissement which was inserted into Act III; the composer's score of this, performed here, has only very recently been rediscovered. MacBeth is one of his psychologically penetrating masterpieces and for it's Parisian staging in 1865 it underwent considerable revision, notably to make it's dramatic development more incisive. When Il trovatore was performed in Paris as Le Trouvère Verdi added lively local color as new additions to the score.