Ponchielli: La Gioconda

Sets & Costumes by PIER LUIGI PIZZI

Arthaus presents a new production of La Gioconda recorded at the renowned opera house in Barcelona. The staging was realized in cooperation with the Arena di Verona and successfully shown in the famous opera festival’s 2005 programme. The Barcelona production features internationally acclaimed singers as well as celebrated soloists and ballet dancers from the Gran Teatre del Liceu – all showing a musically and dramatically impressive performance of this melodrama. The title role is sung by American soprano Deborah Voigt, one of the most important dramatic sopranos in her generation. Critics have praised her „lyricism, beauty of tone and dramatic acuity“ and her „impressive aura and voice.“ Polish contralto Ewa Podle appears as her blind mother, delighting the audience with the overwhelming warmth and broad range of her voice while convincingly conveying her character’s suffering. The Canadian tenor Richard Margison takes the role of the exiled nobleman Enzo and the Italian baritone Carlo Guelfi sings the spy and agent provocateur Barnaba. Both excel opposite the two female characters. The ballet – set to the famous “Dance of the Hours” – deservedly received extended ovations. The choreography – danced by two star dancers of the Barcelona ballet – tells a love story in view of ongoing time, symbolised by the twelve hours.

La Gioconda is a typical Romantic opera reflecting various strands of 19th-century European melodrama. Even though it rests on the foundations of French grand opera, most obviously in its third-act ballet, the work follows the Italian and especially the Verdian tradition with its inspired arias, wonderful choruses and impressive orchestration. At the same time the vocal writing and a number of its dramatic effects point the way forward to verismo. The sets and costumes of the present production are the work of the distinguished Italian architect and director Pier Luigi Pizzi, whose staging is classical in its nobility.

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 16:9

DVD Format: 2 x DVD 9, NTSC

Subtitle Languages: IT (Original Language), GB, DE, FR, ES, Catalan

Running Time: 174 mins

FSK: 0

Produced and Designed by Filippo Sanjust.

Amilcare Ponchielli’s sole operatic work La Gioconda made him a major figure in Italy. It was not just the title that made it such a success – “La Gioconda” is the Italian term for the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting that is better known to the Englishspeaking world as “Mona Lisa” – but rather its music and the poetic quality of Arrigo Boito’s score.

Amilcare Ponchielli‘s opera La Gioconda was recorded for this DVD at the Vienna State Opera in 1986 Direction and set design were by Filippo Sanjust, choreography by Gerlinde Dill and Adam Fischer conducted the choir and orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. The international stars Eva Marton und Plácido Domingo guarantee an opera experience to remember, lending the two main protagonists in the drama a powerful vocal presence on the stage. The Italian set designer and director Filippo Sanjust, (1925-1992) worked on Luchino Visconti‘s Don Carlos in 1958 in London; he also designed the sets for the world premieres of Hans Werner Henze‘s operas The Young Lord (1965) and Bassariden (1966). He made his debut as a director with a production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart‘s Die Zauberflöte and subsequently went on to direct operas at major houses all over the world. For the most part, Sanjust showed a preference for historicist solutions or classically severe representations.

Subtitles: English, French, Italian, Japanese

Gioconda is rarely performed, except for the famous Dance of the Hours, which became popular also thanks to Walt Disney’s Fantasia.

This co-production of Arena di Verona, Barcelona’s Teatro Eliseo and Madrid’s Teatro Real, directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi, is quite stunning. In the cast are Andrea Gruber, Carlo Colombara, Marco Berti, Ildiko Komlosi, Elisabetta Fiorillo and, debuting in the Dance of the Hours, Roberto Bolle, star of La Scala who has appeared in the most important theatres of the world. This music, on which Ponchielli worked for twenty-six years, seems to prefigure Puccini while, at the same time, echoing Verdi. To date Gioconda is one of the works most loved by audiences.

The opera was filmed in High Definition (HDTV).