Ivan Repušić, who made his debut as principal conductor of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester in the autumn of 2017 with Giuseppe Verdi’s Luisa Miller, now presents a lesser-known masterpiece by the famous Italian opera composer. The concert performance of Verdi's early stage work I due Foscari was recorded on 25 November 2018 at the Munich Prinzregententheater. This highlight of the Munich music scene from late last year is now available from BR-KLASSIK as a double CD.

Verdi's early masterpiece I due Foscari was the first opera he wrote for the Teatro Argentina in Rome. He had already worked on the material (Lord Byron's drama The Two Foscari), and, after a first subject had been rejected by the Roman censors, Verdi returned to it and had the libretto written by Francesco Maria Piave. Although the opera’s premiere on 3 November 1844 was only moderately successful, the work was still frequently performed up to the 1870s. It was rediscovered during the early 1950s and has since become a fixed part of the international opera repertoire.

The concert performance (sung in the original Italian text) in Munich's Prinzregententheater received great acclaim from audience and critics alike, again justifying the Münchner Rundfunkorchester’s strategy of successfully reviving underrated music-theatrical works by means of standard-setting performances. Ivan Repušić conducts a genuine theatrical Verdi here: vital, robust, fiery and extremely lively.

Cast:
- Lucrezia: Guanqun Yu (soprano)
- Pisana: Bernadett Fodor (mezzo-soprano)
- Jacopo Foscari: Ivan Magrì (tenor)
- Barbarigo: István Horváth (tenor)
- Francesco Foscari: Leo Nucci (baritone)
- Loredano: Miklós Sebestyén (bass-baritone)
- Servant: Moon Yung Oh (tenor)
- Servant: Matthias Ettmayr (bass)