Piano... più piano

Elvira Foti and Roberto Metro, four-hand piano
Music by Rossini, Verdi, Gounod, Bizet, Strauss jr., Lehár, Offenbach

The programme pays tribute to the world of Opera and Operetta, a truly unusual repertoire for a piano duo: in fact, these are transcriptions for piano four-hands, all of them created by Roberto Metro himself.

The pieces are performed in an order that is not random, but ideally divided into three sections: Italian Opera, foreign Opera and finally Operetta.

The Italian Opera is represented by the figures of Gioacchino Rossini and Giuseppe Verdi. Of the former, the famous Ouverture from 'La Gazza ladra' and Figaro's cavatina (Largo al factotum) from 'Il Barbiere di Siviglia' are presented; Verdi, on the other hand, is present with two very famous compositions: Va' pensiero from 'Nabucco' and Libiamo ne' lieti calici, the toast between Violetta and Alfredo in the first act of 'La Traviata'.

After a brief homage to the foreign opera - with the brilliant Waltz from Gounod's 'Faust' and an exciting Fantasia from Bizet's 'Carmen' - the concert ends in the fantastic world of Operetta, with the three most representative composers of this genre: Johann Strauss Jr. (with the Overture from 'The Bat'), Franz Lehár (with the themes of the enchanting Waltzes from 'The Merry Widow') and Jacques Offenbach (with the irresistible Can-Can, a sweeping galop from the operetta 'Orpheus in Hell').