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 refl ecting 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.