You need to accept cookies to get access to the professional section
Drama in four acts.Music by Almicare Ponchielli, Libretto by Arrigo Boito after Angelo Tyrant of Padua by Victor Hugo. In his preface to Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, one of his rare prose plays, Victor Hugo says that drama has to be both noble and real. In transposing the play to operatic form, Amilcare Ponchielli and Arrigo Boito remained faithful to Hugo. Their Gioconda, first performed at La Scala Milan in 1876, is one of the most flamboyant of classic operas. At that time, it was difficult for a composer to live in the shadow of Verdi, but Ponchielli was one of the rare artists to carve out a place and an identity for himself, not too far removed from the Master but different nonetheless. At his side, Boito, who had already demonstrated his talent as a composer with Mefistofele, proved to be even more skilled as a librettist, and he soon went on to work with Verdi. Lying somewhere between great French opera and Verdi-style drama, La Gioconda portrayed broken hearts and shattered destinies in 17th century Venice. Power and love, sacrifice and betrayal, poison and revenge: the opera brings together all the elements of melodrama and infuses them with a new lease of life, grandiose and operatic. Violeta Urmana, Luciana D’Intino, Marcelo Alvarez and Sergey Murzaev appear together under the baton of Daniel Oren and Pier Luigi Pizzi’s direction in this rare and spectacular masterpiece.
Ponchielli's La Gioconda tells the tragic story of a young Venetian street singer -- the Gioconda of the title -- whose beauty attracts the attention of the despicable and vengeful Barnaba, a spy for the all-powerful Council of Ten. Barnaba's desire is not returned by the young girl, who instead loves Enzo, a seaman. Enzo, in turn, is the former lover of Laura, now married to Alvise, the head of the Council. Barnaba, suspecting that Enzo and Laura still love each other, arranges an assignation for them, hoping to thereby win Gioconda for himself; he also plans to tell Alvise that his wife is planning to elope with her former lover. Overhearing the plot, Gioconda confronts Laura and is ready to do her harm; when she realizes that Laura had earlier rescued her dear blind mother from an angry crowd, she warns her of Barnaba's duplicity...
Violeta Urmana (La Gioconda), Luciana D’Intino (Laura Adorno),Orlin Anastassov (Alvise Badoero),María José Montiel (La Cieca),Marcelo Alvarez (Enzo Grimaldo), Sergey Murzaev (Barnaba) Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus MAÎTRISE DES HAUTS-DE-SEINE ⁄ Paris Opera Children's Chorus
Conductor: Daniel Oren,Stage director, sets and costumes: Pier Luigi Pizzi, Lighting: Sergio Rossi,Choreography: Gheorghe Iancu, Chorus master: Patrick Marie Aubert
Italian
English, French
Production compagny : Wahoo production
Running Time : 1 x 170'
Production Year : 2013
Distribution compagny : Telmondis distribution
Video Format : HD CAM, Digibeta 16/9