Giordano's Fedora, a tale of passion, murder, and espionage based on a play by Sardou (the source also of Tosca), was first performed in 1898 - two years after the success of Andrea Chenier - with Enrico Caruso at the start of his career in the main tenor part. The action moves from Russia to Paris and then to Switzerland, affording the composer scope for much local colour, and the drama is developed in a stream of agitated dialogue punctuated by the discovery of letters at crucial moments. Count Loris Ipanov (Placido Domingo), who is under suspicion as a sympathiser of the revolutionary Russian "nihilists", has killed the fiance of Princess Fedora Romazov, whom he loves; Fedora (Angela Gheorghiu) suspects political motives and swears revenge, but it turns out that the victim had been the secret lover of Ipanov's wife (who has died) and had thus betrayed them both. When Fedora learns the truth, she and Ipanov become lovers, a development that takes up much of the second act set at a Parisian house party. But Fedora has already informed on Ipanov, and although she succeeds in protecting him his brother is abducted as an accomplice and murdered, causing his mother to die of grief; Ipanov curses Fedora and in a sensational climax she takes poison and dies in his arms. Domingo sings with all the passion and tenderness required, notably in the second-act show-stopper Amor ti vieta di non amar ("Love forbids you not to love") which precedes the exchanges between Fedora and Ipanov; these are sung to the background of a pianist playing a Chopinesque nocturne. For all that, the key is Fedora herself, a role that is beautifully sung here with a powerful blend of hauteur and sensuality. Veronesi and the orchestra are heard to good effect in the sparkling dance music and in a ruminative Mascagni-like interlude in the central act, and play throughout with fervour and sensitivity in a close theatrical-sounding acoustic. The supporting roles of the diplomat De Siriex and Fedora's friend Countess Olga Sukarev provide colourful relief; and listen out for bicycles, their first (and possibly last) contribution to the world of operatic intrigue.