La Forza del Destino was one of Verdi’s more tormented operas in the making, and its first version is quite different from the one we are used to hearing today. In its definitive version, with the changes to Act three, Act four and the finale, it was first performed at Teatro alla Scala on 7th February 1869, and was well received both by audiences and critics. A few people expressed doubts about the mixture of the plot’s tragic elements and some characters’ comic traits; Verdi always defended this choice, which was almost Shakespearean but had no tradition in Italy. La Forza del Destino is, indeed, an experimental creation, by a composer who was already mature but still looking for new incentives and challenges. The composer’s choral writing is quite extraordinary; far from being conceived as a monolithic bloc, the chorus is treated in a variegated and complex way. Throughout the first half of the 1900s La Forza del Destino was one of the more neglected of Verdi’s operas, but from the 1950s it entered the repertoire, and became a land of conquest for all the best lyrical singers of the post war period. Lucas Karitynos conducts the Orchestra Filarmonica Veneta and Susanna Branchini (Leonora), Marco Zulian (Don Alvaro) and Marco Di Felice (Don Carlos) in the main roles.