GAETANO DONIZETTI

Linda Di Chamounix

LIVE RECORDING FROM THE ZURICH OPERA HOUSE, 1996

Linda EDITA GRUBEROVA

Carlo, Visconte di Sirval DEON VAN DER WALT

Il Marchese di Boisfl eury JACOB WILL

Il Prefetto LÁSZLÓ POLGÁR

ZURICH OPERA HOUSE

Conducted by ADAM FISCHER

Stage Directed by DANIEL SCHMID

With Linda di Chamounix Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) has created wonderful, inspired music. Donizetti’s unfailing attention to the last detail becomes apparent in his numerous revisions of the work, the cuts and the new arrangement of the overture, which he had initially composed as a short prelude but had then developed further, to suit the taste of the Viennese.

For the performance at the Zurich opera, the producer Daniel Schmid changed the sentimental story into an ironical post-card idyll and thus achieved a modern note. The story is now set in a snow-white mountainous region where passions develop slowly. Removed from their familiar environment, the characters lose their connection with reality and become aggressive or insane.

Apart from Edita Gruberova there is hardly anyone who could express this insanity better – at the premiere in 1842 it was the soprano Eugenia Tadolini. Everything around her turns into decoration. The roles of the jealous lover Carlo Deon Van der Walt, the Marchese Jacob Will and the Prefect László Polgár are superbly cast. Under the baton of Adam Fischer, the orchestra of the Zürich opera plays in strict rhythm and with melodic delicateness.

“By using her perfect singing technique, she achieves an expressiveness which lets the title role appear at any given moment to have reached fulfilment. The dynamic nuances appear inexhaustible, the coloratura passages are executed with instinctive sureness, and even in the fastest tempo the soprano is capable of painting with the wide range of her tone colours.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, DD 5.1, DTS 5.1

Picture Format: 4:3

DVD Format: DVD 5 + DVD 9, NTSC

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

Running Time: 164 mins

FSK: 0

Region Code: 0

Arthaus Musik DVD 107337