Mozart's soap opera: disguised aristocrats, fake gardeners, and emotional chaos in a modern villa.
The Zurich Opera gathered a superb cast for this production: Italian soprano Eva Mei sings the Countess Violante, known as Sandrina, the feigned gardener of the title. Spanish soprano Isabel Rey is her opponent Arminda, and Arminda's former lover, the melancholy Cavaliere Ramiro, is sung by Romanian mezzo Liliana Nikiteanu. Moretti's staging presents the action in a modern villa in a hierarchical world of the rich and famous.
Production
Modern villa staging makes 18th-century class satire uncomfortably current.
Acting
Eva Mei's Sandrina navigates disguise with razor-sharp vocal acting.
Director
Tobias Moretti
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Mozart was eighteen when he wrote this, fresh from Salzburg and desperate for courtly success.
The pants role tradition—women playing men—lets Ramiro's mezzo voice embody emotional vulnerability that baritones rarely permit.
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