Apr. 10 – 200 years after the birth of Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, the pianist Michele Campanella dedicates his artistic career of 2013 to them, the most important opera composers of music history. Campanella will perform, in a series of concerts in Italy and abroad, Franz Liszt’s Paraphrase (drawn from the two artists’ masterpieces). The result will be a journey through the most important Wagner’s and Verdi’s creative and artistic moments, ‘paraphrased’ by the Hungarian musician. Campanella is one of the greatest living interpreters of the latter. In Budapest, at the Italian Cultural Institute, Campanella will give a concert on Monday, April 15. He will play the most popular and famous melodies of Verdi’s Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, Aida and Trovatore, combined with Wagner’s Parsifal, Tristan and Isolde, Tannhäuser, The Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin and The Ring of the Nibelung. All piece have been adapted for the piano by Liszt, and Campanella’s task will be to adhere to their texts in a free, and unsurpassed original piano synthesis and critique. “In other words – says Campanella – the text may be from Verdi or Wagner, but the paraphrases is by Liszt. These are unsurpassed tributes to the two composers, a reasoned reinterpretation of pieces that, in both their original and piano versions, are part of our musical heritage.”
