LONDON — “I like it very much,” Verdi wrote of “La Forza del Destino” a few months before his opera was to open. Even today, “Forza” struggles for affection more than practically any of Verdi’s mature works. And at the Royal Opera here, in a production that opened on Thursday, it is fully extraordinary. The central draw is the starry, comet-rare pairing of the soprano Anna Netrebko, 47, and the tenor Jonas Kaufmann, 49, the major singers of their generation. They have come together in a staged opera only once before: “La Traviata” here in London, 11 years ago.

Source: New York Times March 22, 2019 11:48 UTC