Respighi and Dallapiccola | London Symphony Orchestra

Sir Antonio Pappano champions one of the unsung masterpieces of 20th century opera – Luigi Dallapiccola’s shattering Il prigioniero.

‘I was alone … there was darkness in this cell, darkness in my heart.’ Locked in a dungeon, and far beyond all human help or consolation, the Prisoner dreams of freedom. But no prison, it seems, can trap him more surely than his own hopes and fears. Sir Antonio Pappano conducts a rare concert performance of Luigi Dallapiccola’s gripping 1949 opera.

And gripping really is the word: set in the 16th century but drenched in the atmosphere of film noir, Dallapiccola’s opera tells a story that never becomes any less relevant, in music that broods, glitters, and cuts straight to the core of an eternal human tragedy. For Pappano, it’s one of the undervalued masterpieces of 20th century opera; a piece that demands to be heard, but which is almost completely unknown in the English speaking world. With the full London Symphony Chorus and a hand picked cast, perhaps that’s about to change.