Gioachino Rossini was only 20 years old when he wrote his fifth opera, Ciro in Babilonia, for the Teatro Comunale Ferrara in 1812. In this production from the Rossini Opera Festival of Pesaro (Italy), stage director Davide Livermore sets the action in the 1920s, with period black-and-white film inserts, lavish costumes in the Art Nouveau style, and decors highlighted by “Babylonian” elements. The production was a wildly cheered hit with the audience.
Matilde Di Shabran
“There truly is a Rossini miracle!” (Deutschlandradio). Acclaiming the mastery of tenorissimo Juan Diego Flórez and the breathtaking young soprano Olga Peretyatko in the lead roles, the press hailed the premiere of Rossini’s Matilde di Shabran at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro as the “high point of the festival” (the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel).
Il Signor Bruschino
Rossini’s one-act opera Il Signor Bruschino was premiered at the Teatro di San Moisè in Venice in 1813. The chilly reception it was given – it was performed only once – is difficult to understand today, considering its bubbly, exhilarating music. As performed at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the work is a gem, and the New York Times cheered the “clever production” conceived by the young Florentine theater collective Teatro Sotteraneo, one of the most innovative experimental groups in Italy.
Bizet, Les pêcheurs de perles
Set in ancient times on the island of Ceylon, Bizet’s oper about two men’s vow of eternal friendship threatened by their love for the same woman, is a magificent example of Bizet’s gifts for melody and evocative instrumentation. This prodution from the stunning Teatro San Carlo was celebrated enthusiastically by audience and critics: “I have rarely seen a production as beautiful and faithful to the music.” (Paolo Isotta, Corriere della Sera)
Cimarosa, Il matrimonio segreto
The opera buffa “Il matrimonio segreto” (1792) is the only one of Domenico Cimarosa’s (1749-1801) 65 operas to still be regularly performed today. This is largely due to its remarkably original music, which is located stylistically between Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti, and anticipates the romantic era. The 18th century turns punk in this production that combines Baroque and Bad-Boy. The director of the often eye-popping staging is iconic Italian pop musician and TV personality Marco Castoldi, a.k.a. Morgan, who stresses the surprising modernity of the subject and underlines its timelessness.
Spontini, La fuga in maschera
This early work of Gaspare Spontini, a composer once known for his grand operas written for the courts of Napoleon, Berlin, Vienna etc., is found at an antiquarian book dealer in England in 2006 and performed for the first time since 1800 at Festival Pergolesi e Spontini in Jesi. Corrado Rovaris and I Virtuosi Italiani, known for their historically informed performances on non-historical instruments, play “with great verve and joy” (Milano Finanza). Director Leo Muscato “transforms the typical Neapolitanstyle musical comedy into a shrill, irreverent, over-the-top spectacle” (Corriere della sera).
Verdi, La Traviata
This production from the sumptuous Teatro San Carlo in Naples has two elements that make it different from all Traviatas prdocutions before: It is performed in the full length as Verdi wrote it. Phenomenal young conductor Michele Mariotti disregards the traditional cuts and plays entire work, which allows for better understanding of protagonists’ motivations. Italo-Turk stage director Ferzan Özpetek makes a minor change in the second act, with a major impact: Germont père was once a client of Violetta’s. This casts her relationship with Germont fils in a new light and adds more drama to the narrative. The stage design by Dante Ferretti, winner of three Academy Awards for The Aviator, Sweeney Todd and Hugo, is quoted as “a visually opulent yet strictly conservative affair” (Financial Times).