If ever there was a Verismo revolution, then it was first and foremost a theatrical, even literary one. And so it was from Italy that came this passionate portrait of the great French poet who died in 1794 in the name of liberty. A child of the South, Umberto Giordano drew attention to himself at the time of the competition won by Mascagni with his Cavalleria rusticana. A new operatic era had been born. Exalted sentiments and passion expressed through words and song, cannot exist for long without forceful characters and situations. Andrea Chénier is a brilliant example of this: both a historical fresco of admirable accuracy and concision and an intensely overpowering human drama. Two lovers caught in the cogwheels of history and obliged to yield to the force of destiny… The words of a poet that rise above the tumult and are fixed in eternal youth by the guillotine. The torrential, sweeping lyricism of Giordano's music raises a blazing hymn to fraternity, love and liberation through death.

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