Giuseppe Verdi

From Nabucco's choruses to the late splendour of Falstaff, Verdi shaped drama through the voice. He took the bel canto inheritance of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti and drove it toward something tougher and more human: characters who plot, love and break under pressure, scored with tunes that lodge and return. The middle-period trio of Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata still anchors the repertoire; Aida joined spectacle to intimacy; the Requiem, Otello and Falstaff crowned a career that never lost its theatrical nerve. On these recordings his arias and ensembles surface in recital and arrangement, proof that the line still carries when a singer leans into it.