Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Verdi: I Lombardi

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Giuseppe Verdi's name became associated with the Italian nationalist cause at a very early stage in his career. The Hebrew slaves' chorus "Va, pensiero" in his third opera Nabucco (1841) became practically an Italian national anthem, and the crusaders' chorus "O, Signore, dal tetto natio" in his fourth opera I Lombardi created similar wild enthusiasm when audiences first heard it at La Scala, Milan's celebrated opera house, in 1843. In the year of its premiere the region around Milan was still under Austrian rule.

Verdi's opera, I Lombardi alla prima crociata (its full title), deals with Italian knights from Lombardy who took part in the First Crusade of the eleventh century. The action takes place partly in medieval Milan, partly in the Holy Land.

This early Verdi work had no complete recording until Philips issued it on three stereo LPs in 1971. Lamberto Gardelli conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Ambrosian Singers. Superstar tenor Placido Domingo was in the cast, as was the stellar Italian basso Ruggero Raimondi. I last broadcast those Philips LPs long ago on Sunday, November 4, 1984. You get to hear that same world premiere recording again today.