Once given the green light, Verdi became bolder in formulating and executing his artistic vision and instructed Piave to depart from Byron’s original melancholy mood and inject grandeur and bombast into the libretto. However, in the Eternal City the project found a more welcoming home. The pair were under close scrutiny from the censors in Rome, after an early attempt to produce I due Foscari at Venice’s La Fenice was rejected because the text was deemed offensive to the aristocratic families of the Venetian Republic. To adapt Lord Byron’s famous play The Two Foscari for the opera stage, Verdi commissioned the services of star librettist and frequent collaborator Francesco Maria Piave. This season, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence puts on a production of I due Foscari that offers a glimpse into the opera colossus’ early fame. Along with Verdi’s other opera from that same year, Ernani, this historical drama would come to define the whole decade in the composer’s career, all the way up to his next big hit, Il trovatore, in 1853. It is one of the Italian maestro’s earlier successes, with a premiere at Teatro Argentina in Rome on 3 November 1844. The limitless power and talent of a young Giuseppe Verdi plus the emotion and passion of Lord Byron – this is what the opera I due Foscari has to offer.
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