Lo schiavo was conceived as a politically engaged work. However, the issue was rather volatile and the composer had to change the contemporary time setting to a more distant one. In Brazil the opera was a triumph, but elsewhere it failed to gain popularity and soon fell into oblivion. This recording of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari’s production documents the opera’s first performance in modern times and reveals Gomes’ flamboyant richness of melodic creativity, his sound grasp of construction, and a technical mastery of the theatrical mechanisms that are always of the highest level.

Cast

Svetla Vassileva

Ilara

Massimiliano Pisapia

Américo

Andrea Borghini

Iberê

Marco Puggioni

Guaruco

Daniele Terenzi

Gianfera

Francesco Musinu

Tupinambá