Verdi followed Oberto with the comic opera Un giorno di regno, which premiered in Milan in September 1840, at Teatro alla Scala. Unlike Oberto, Verdi’s second opera was not well-received by audiences or critics. Making the experience worse for the young musician, Un giorno di regno‘s debut was painfully overshadowed by the death of his wife, Margherita, on June 18, 1840, at age 26.

Dispirited by the loss of his family, Verdi entered the 1840s disheartened, struggling to find inspiration to continue creating music. He soon found solace in his work, however, by composing two new, fourt-part operas in 1842 and ’43, Nabucco and I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata (best known simply as I Lombardi), respectively. Both pieces earned the composer a great amount of success. Subsequently, Verdi held a prominent reputation in Italy’s operatic theater scene and, later, in the country’s political scene as well. He became known for his skill in creating melody and his profound use of theatrical effect. His rejection of the traditional Italian opera for integrated scenes and unified acts only added to his fame.

For the rest of the 1840s, and through the 1850s, ’60s and ’70s, Verdi continued to garner success and fame. Comprising a popular operatic series throughout the decades were Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), La traviata (1853), Don Carlos (1867) and Aida, which premiered at the Cairo Opera House in 1871. Four years later, in 1874, Verdi completed Messa da Requiem (best known simply as Requiem), which was meant to be his final composition. He retired shortly thereafter.

Despite his retirement plans, in the mid-1880s, through a connection initiated by longtime friend Giulio Ricordi, Verdi collaborated with composer and novelist Arrigo Boito (also known as Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito) to complete Otello. Completed in 1886, the four-act opera was performed for the first time at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala on February 5, 1887. Initially meeting with incredible acclaim throughout Europe, the opera—based on William Shakespeare’s play Othello—continues to be regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time.

Never one to rest on his laurels, even in his old age, Verdi followed Otello‘s success with Falstaff, another collaboration with Boito. Completed in 1890, when Verdi was in his late 70s, Falstaff—a comedic adaptation of the Shakespearean plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV, and consisting of three acts—debuted at Milan’s La Scala on February 9, 1893. Like Othello, early reactions to Falstaff were, by and large, tremendously positive, and the opera continues to earn great renown today.

Courtesy of Biography.com

A gifted opera conductor, Mtro. López Reynoso made his opera debut in 2010 at the age of 20 with Le Nozze di Figaro. This was only the first of a list of more than 40 operas: Aida, Der fliegende Holländer, Carmen, La bohème, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, La clemenza di Tito, Don Giovanni, L’elisir d’amore, Madama Butterfly, La cenerentola, Il turco in Italia, La scala di seta, Carmen La Traviata, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Rigoletto, Werther, Tosca, Don Carlo, Hänsel und Gretel, and the debut in Mexico of Rossini’s Le comte Ory, Il viaggio a Reims and Donizetti’s Viva la mamma. 

Maestro López Reynoso was selected as the conductor for the 2014 Rossini Opera Festival Accademia, conducting Il viaggio a Reims as part of the festival program and working closely to great Rossini specialist, maestro Alberto Zedda. Previous positions include Interim Artistic Conductor of the Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra, Erster Kapellmeister of the Staatstheater Braunschweig and Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmonica de la UNAM. In December 2020, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Orquesta del Teatro de Bellas Artes in Mexico, and since 2018 he works as Principal Guest Conductor of the Oviedo Filarmonía.

Born in 1990 in Guanajuato, Mexico, Lopez Reynoso studied violin under Gellya Dubrova, piano under maestro Alexander Pashkov, choir conducting under maestro Jorge Medina and he graduated Summa Cum Laude in orchestra conducting under maestro Gonzalo Romeu. He has since taken part in numerous master classes among which Alberto Zedda, Jean Paul Penin, Jan Latham-Koenig or Avi Ostrowsky. As an additional skill, Mtro.Lopez-Reynoso also sings as countertenor.