The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the composer’s birthplace, is internationally renowned for its innovative stagings and musically impeccable productions.

This colourful and exuberant production was staged by Daminano Michieletto, “one of the truly new voices in stage direction today” (L’Unita). Damiano Michieletto made his international debut at the Wexford Opera Festival in 2003 with a highly-acclaimed production of Weinberger’s Svanda Dudák, named Opera Production of the Year by the Irish Times.

Claudio Scimone, a key figure in the international Rossini Renaissance, conducts the Orchestra di Bolzano e Trento and leads a cast of Rossini specialists including Daniele Zanfardino, Olga Peretyatko and Anna Malavasi.

Rossini's sparkling La scala di seta of 1812 weaves a burlesque tale of gentlemen climbing in and out of a lady's bedchamber on a silken ladder. Damiano Michieletto's modern-day production from the Rossini Festival in Pesaro sets the action in the two room apartment of the heroine Giulia, sung with 'wonderful suppleness' (Opernwelt) by Olga Peretyatko. The production also features a spectacular grand aria for Blansac (Carlo Lepore) extraneous to the work.

Cast:
- Dormont: Daniele Zanfardino
- Giulia: Olga Peretyatko
- Lucilla: Anna Malavasi
- Dorvil: José Manuel Zapata
- Blansac: Carlo Lepore
- Germano: Paolo Bordogna

Stage Director: Damiano Michieletto

Recorded live at Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, August 2009.

"Paolo Bordogna is one of Italy’s finest comic singer/actors. He played the part of Germano, the servant who Dormont has engaged to keep an eye on Giulia. Every Bordogna movement is a musical delight. His diction is wonderfully clean and meaningful. He knows about taking farce seriously in order to deliver it. His aria – Amore dolciamente - had the merest hint of irony – just the kind of subtlety the composer requires." - Seen & Heard International

Running time: 127 minutes
Subtitles: EN/FR/DE/ES
Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS