Signor Goldoni (by Mosca) DVD

NOTE: This title is a DVD Video

DVD has no regional coding - playable in all regions
\r\n NTSC Colour
\r\n Picture format 16:9
\r\n Running time 114 minutes
\r\n Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish

Luca Mosca (b.1957)

Signor Goldoni

Comic Opera in Two Acts. Sung in English (as written).

World Premiere Performance!

Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice
\r\n Andrea Molino, conductor

Recorded at the Teatro la Fenice,Venice, September 2007

Despina - Barbara Hannigan
\r\n L Anzolo Rafael - Alda Caiello
\r\n Mirandolina - Cristina Zavalloni
\r\n Desdemona - Sara Mingardo
\r\n Arlecchino - Michael Bennett
\r\n Baffo - Chris Ziegler
\r\n Goldoni - Roberto Abbondanza
\r\n Othello - Michael Leibundgut

Born in Milan in 1957, Luca Mosca studied at the Conservatory \r\n there, receiving degrees in piano with studies under Eli Perrotta and Antonio \r\n Ballista, in harpsichord under Marina Mauriello, and in composition with Franco \r\n Donatoni and Salvatore Sciarrino. He has an extensive production both as composer \r\n and keyboardist, and his major works have been performed by important ensembles \r\n both in Italy and throughout Europe. These include the operas Titania’s \r\n Dream, Peter Schlemihl, America, and K, with librettos by Pilar Garcia, and \r\n Mr. Me, Ubuette, and Freud, Freud, I Love You to librettos of Gianluigi Melega.

The two-act comedy Signor Goldoni (2005-7) is an homage to \r\n playwright Carlo Goldoni, but even more to Venice. Taking place in a surreal, \r\n dreamlike dimension of complete imaginative liberty, it is a play of masks that \r\n bears the stamp of comic energy, allusion, delicacy and - thanks to its music \r\n - a constant, incessant movement.

In the Elysian fields the Anzolo Rafael (the Angel from the \r\n facade of the Church of San Raffaele in Venice) informs an incredulous Goldoni \r\n that he will be able to journey down to earth, to his native Venice, and mingle \r\n with the masks of a Carnival ball on the theme of Shakespeare’s ”Venetian \r\n dreams”. Giorgio Baffo, a poet contemporary of - and hostile to - Goldoni, \r\n forces himself onto them at the last moment, as the villain of the situation. \r\n With Othello (Shakespeare in disguise), Desdemona, Arlecchino, Mirandolina and \r\n Despina, the three enact a surreal, dreamlike opera where imagination runs rampant, \r\n in a whirling succession of images, where fragments are linked like in a kaleidoscope \r\n and rhythm plays an essential role.

The texts of Melega (who is an established journalist in addition \r\n to his literary production) are all in English, a language favoured by both \r\n composer and librettist for its concreteness and brevity, and for its inherent \r\n rich opportunities for plays on one and two-syllable words as well as a powerfully \r\n inventive concept of rhythm

Shakespeare also plays a central role in the libretto, which \r\n incorporates those tragedies and comedies set in the Veneto: Othello, Romeo \r\n and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and Two Gentlemen of Verona. Othello (later \r\n revealed as none other than the masked Shakespeare himself) and Desdemona are \r\n characters in the opera; a few lines from Othello are even quoted, as well as \r\n some from Romeo and Juliet .Appearances are also made by characters from Goldoni’s \r\n plays such as Arlecchino and Mirandolina, as well as Mozart’s Despina.