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.

In the cold of winter, an exuberant poet lives in poverty with his three bohemian flatmates. His heart is warmed when he falls in love with his fragile neighbour, but then her illness takes a turn for the worse. The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai presents this innovative semi-staged production of Puccini’s beloved opera. Carlo Rizzi conducts the lush score, which is interspersed with texts from Henri Murger’s original novel to tell the tale of the lives and loves of the young bohemian artists in the Latin quarter of Paris.