Luca Mosca
Signor Goldoni
Libretto by Gianluigi Melega (in English language)

WORLD PREMIERE on DVD
DVD dynamics 33600

Cast

Despina Barbara Hannigan
L'anzolo Rafael Alda Caiello
Mirandolina Cristina Zavalloni
Desdemona Sara Mingardo
Arlecchino Michael Bennett
Baffo Chris Ziegler
Goldoni Roberto Abbondanza
Othello Michael Leibundgut

Conductor Andrea Molino
Director Davide Livermore
Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice


Signor Goldoni (2005-7) was commissioned by Teatro La Fenice to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the homegrown playwright Carlo Goldoni (see: Reviews). The primary points of reference for the opera's creators are Auden and Stravinsky, as well as Rossini.

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

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

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