Blagoj Nacoski

The ground-breaking and award-winning production of Giuseppe Verdi’s tense moral drama Stiffelio staged by famous opera director Graham Vick. Opera in three acts (1850) Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Le Pasteur, ou l’Évangile et le Foyer by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois Graham Vick’s innovative staging of the ‘most unjustly neglected of Verdi’s operas', Stiffelio, was presented with a Special Award at the 37th 'Franco Abbiati' Music Critics' Prize (2018) for the director's unique theatricality and the unprecedented level of audience involvement. Performed at the Teatro Farnese on four mobile platforms, the audience was free to move around the auditorium and choose their own vantage points, mingling with actors, chorus members and cameramen. The Italian tenor, Luciano Ganci (Stiffelio), and the Mexican soprano, Maria Katzarava (Lina), deliver tense and dramatic performances in what was the highlight of the 2017 Festival Verdi in Parma.

Visually this is a gripping production which captures the drama of this opera perfectly. It's downright exciting! and I found the singing, acting, and orchestral playing reasonably fine. I found only one major problem with it, a problem that kept Puccini for quite a few years. Turandot has been looking for an opportunity to kill Calif and Calif has singlemindedly tried to get Turandot to love and wed him focusing on her and ignoring a better looking girl who loves him truly. The problem is how to get the audience to applaud the match once Calif gets his wish. Puccini couldn't figure out how to do it. The traditional quick ending doesn't do it, and Berio's attempt is longer , tries its best, but ends up making it plain this is one wierd couple.

Mythological hero Scipio must choose between Fortune and Constancy in this superb 2006 Salzburg Festival production of Mozart's "Il Songo di Scipione," directed by Michael Sturminger and starring Blagoj Nacoski, Louise Fribo, Bernarda Bobro, Iain Paton, Robert Sellier and Anna Kovalko. The Chor des Stadttheaters Klagenfurt and the Kärntner Symphonieorchester, conducted by Robin Ticciati, provide accompaniment.