GIOACCHINO ROSSINI

L’italiana In Algeri

Live Recording From The Opéra National De Paris 1998

Mustafà SIMONE ALAIMO

Isabella JENNIFER LARMORE

Lindoro BRUCE FORD

Taddeo ALESSANDRO CORBELLI

Opéra National De Paris / Bruno Campanella

Directed by ANDREI SERBAN

Set and Costume Designer MARINA DRAGHICI

Arthaus presents a production of Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri by renowned opera stage director Andrei Serban and conducted by Bruno Campanella from the prestigious Opéra National de Paris.

The excellent cast of singer-actors was led by international mezzo-star Jennifer Larmore who, with her unaffected contact with the audience, beautiful voice and excellent acting, is central to this staging. The American singer has acquired a reputation as a Rossini specialist, and is no stranger to inventive stagings of the composer’s comedies.

However, the work may be named after the Italian girl, but her adversary Mustafà is just as dominant, and this production has one of the leading exponents of this gleeful role, the buffo bass Simone Alaimo. Two other leading Rossini singers complete the cast: the tenor Bruce Ford, who is at the forefront of the revival of the composer’s operas, and whose Lindoro has been heard in the leading opera houses across Europe, and Alessandro Corbelli who makes the hapless Taddeo, insulted and mocked from his first appearance, into something more than a figure of fun, a fully-rounded character, with all his awkwardness, pretensions and timid eagerness to please.

Outrageous colours and incessant movement are the hallmarks of the production by director Andrei Serban and his designer Marina Draghici. In this production everything is outsize, from the protruding stomachs of the palace eunuchs to the huge ship we see sinking behind the captive Isabella.

Sound Format: PCM STEREO, DD 5.1

DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC

Picture Format: 16:9

Subtitle Languages: GB, DE, FR, ES, IT

FSK: 0

Running Time: 148 mins

Worldwide available excluding Japan

DVWW-OPITAL

Arthaus Musik DVD 107127