Different Styles

Antonio Pappano loves Verdi and quite often conducts the composer's works at London's Royal Opera House (ROH). He seldom programmes Verdi operas at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where he is also the music director and principal conductor, but decided to lead a concert version of Un Ballo in Maschera at the very end of the Santa Cecilia 2012-2013 season -- a season colored by the double bicentenary of Verdi's and Wagner's births. A main theme of the 2013-2014 season will be the centenary of Britten's birth -- nearly obscured by Verdi and Wagner this year. It is not, strictly speaking, a 'concert version' because, on the stage of the three thousand seat auditorium, the singers were acting; in French, this would be called a mise en space version...