Nel suo amore rianimata (Siberia)

Siberia opened at La Scala on 19 December 1903 to a libretto by Luigi Illica; the subject is a Russian courtesan who follows her lover into penal exile. Giordano and Illica took some trouble over local colour, working Russian songs into the score, and the opera was taken up in Paris before it settled in Italy. It never became a repertory piece, and a revision in 1927 did not change its fortunes. The second act, set on the road to the Siberian camps, is the stretch that has kept the work's reputation alive among singers who look for something outside the standard verismo list.