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Pappano's Greatest Arias

Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, explores the greatest arias in the genre through a mix of workshops and archive footage.

Nothing pulls harder at the heartstrings than an opera aria – that key moment when the action stops and the character draws us right in to the heart of the drama, revealing his or her innermost feelings and thoughts. These are chances for the singers to really show off, to wow an audience with some of the most famous music in opera. In this film, charismatic conductor and music director of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano, shares his personal selection of some of opera’s greatest arias.

Pappano’s choices stretch across the full 400-year operatic canvas and feature some of the most ravishing and famous arias in the repertoire. Along the way he identifies the various functions that arias perform in opera, from entrance arias, soliloquies and arias born of crisis to breathless declarations of undying love. Combining hands-on workshops featuring today’s international stars - such as Joyce DiDonato, Lucy Crowe, Bryan Hymel and Lawrence Brownlee - along with glorious archive of operatic legends including Placido Domingo, Gundula Janowitz and Piero Cappuccilli, Pappano shines a fresh light on the precise characteristics that transform these great theatrical moments into timeless masterpieces.

59 minutes

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Music Played

  • Riccardo Chailly, Orchestra Del Teatro Alla Scala, Leo Nucci

    Largo Al Factotum

  • Giorgio Tieppo

    E Lucean Le Stelle

  • Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra: Rouslan Raychev

    Gioachino Rossini: The Barber of Saville: Overture

  • Ruggero Leoncavallo

    Prologue

  • Enrico Caruso

    I Pagliacci: Recitar!...Vesti La Giubba

  • Ruggero Leoncavallo

    Vesti La Giubba

  • Luciano Pavarotti (Tenor), Symphony Orchestra Consisting of Members of The Leading Orchestras of New York: Leonard Bernstein

    Giacomo Puccini: La Boheme: Che Gelida Manina

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Antonio Pappano
Director Dominic Best
Executive Producer Mark Cooper

Broadcasts