Drama on 3 - Ronald Frame все тексты (слова) песен, переводы, видео, клипы

Sunday at Sant' Agata

First broadcast: Sunday 13 October 2013
By Ronald Frame

It is August 1893. The great Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi is spending the summer at Sant'Agata, his country house and extensive estate near Busseto in the Duchy of Parma. He is a few days short of his eightieth birthday. With him are his wife of forty-five years and former star soprano, Giuseppina; and his later muse Teresa Stolz, another star soprano.

Verdi's opera 'Falstaff' has recently been triumphantly performed in Milan and Rome. It's a kind of swansong, a homage to composers from Mozart to Bizet to Wagner, and to one of his favourite writers, Shakespeare. Preparations are advanced for a production at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. Verdi's librettist Arrigo Boito, who has been supervising the translation work, has submitted his progress report.