The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro brings a delightful new production of Rossini’s early work La cambiale di matrimonio (The Marriage Promissory Note) on stage. Particularly noteworthy is the excellent young cast, mainly young singers from the Pesaro-based Accademia Rossiniana, one of the most successful talent factories in Italy. “Giuliana Gianfaldoni, Carlo Lepore, Davide Giusti, Iurii Samoilov, as well as Pablo Gálvez and Martiniana Antonie in the smaller parts please with lean, profound voices and a mature ensemble performance that can only be achieved with careful rehearsal work”, applauds Der Tagesspiegel. Rossini’s comic farce is stylistically audibly influenced by Mozart, rich in beautiful melodies and ensemble scenes, but with his lively parlando style and several strettas already a typical Rossini. The 42-year-old Russian Dmitry Korchak, who is also a regular Rossini tenor in Pesaro, appeared here for the first time on the conductor’s podium, outstanding above all his handling of the recitatives. Laurence Dale, who came to Pesaro for the first time as a stage director, also provides an appealing aesthetic. “A truly outstanding ensemble” Das Opernglas
Tutto Verdi – The Operas Vol. 3, 1855 – 1893
La forza del destino
TUTTO VERDI – this edition to mark the Verdi bicentenary sets standards by which all similar projects will be judged. It includes all twenty-six operas by the greatest Italian stage composer, together with his immortal Requiem, all of them in definitive performances. “This is how Verdi should be played” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on TUTTO VERDI
For La forza del destino, Verdi created one of his most famous melodies, the “fate” motif that permeates the whole of the score. Music and action alternate in masterly fashion between large-scale crowd scenes and intimate interiority, in that way illustrating Verdi’s real theme: the manner in which fallible human beings are destroyed by a cruel fate.
300 Years Giovanni Batista Pergolesi – The complete Operas: Adriano in Siria, Il Flaminio, Il Prigionier superbo
In 2010, the music world celebrated the 300th birthday of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, one of the most important and fascinating composers of the early 18th century. C Major Entertainment and UNITEL honour the composer, violinist and organist by presenting his complete stage entertainments recorded at the famous Pergolesi Festival in the composer’s home town, Jesi. Performed by singers and musicians specialising in the music of the 18th century. The cycle includes: ‘Adriano in Siria’ + ‘Livetta e Tracollo’ (193’), ‘L’Olimpiade’ (approx. 210’), ‘Salustia’ (approx. 170’), ‘Il Prigionier superbo’ (124’), ‘Lo Frate ‘nnamorato’ (approx. 200’), ‘Il Flaminio’ (183’) and ‘La Serva Padrona’ (approx. 50’).
Kublai Khan
In April 2024, the Komische Oper Cublai, gran kan de’ Tartari by Giambattista Casti celebrate its world premiere with music by Antonio Salieri from 1786 at the MusikTheater an der Wien. Kublai Khan, grandson of the dreaded Genghis Khan, at least still has quite a bit of trouble on his hands. Things are not going well in the great empire: backward economy, cultureless people of barbaric customs. At least that’s the European view of the two Italian emigrants, who are supposed to lead the court into the civilized age of the Enlightenment. To make matters worse, the succession to the throne is also shaky. The son of the Khan is anything but fit to rule and the Indian princess refuses to marry. Director Martin G. Berger places the question of tradition and transformation at the centre of his production. In today’s Vienna, Berger and his production team Antonio Salieri now go in search of traces of how social coexistence between the tried and tested and reimagined is possible in the 21st century and finally help the composer to give his world premiere after all. Conductor Christophe Rousset, who has been committed to Antonio Salieri’s music for many years and will now rehearse the original Italian version, will provide the musical enjoyment.
Intermezzo: La serva padrona
For the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736), the ‘Italian Mozart’, whose music is practically unknown today, the Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini, which has been devoting itself to the research and performance of Pergolesi’s music for years now, joined forces with UNITEL CLASSICA to record all eight of the master’s stage works on video in HD and 5.1 Surround Sound. A landmark project that will provide many impulses for the rediscovery of this composer’s epoch-making works.
Tutto Pergolesi – Livietta e Tracollo
For the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736), the ‘Italian Mozart’, whose music is practically unknown today, the Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini, which has been devoting itself to the research and performance of Pergolesi’s music for years now, joined forces with UNITEL CLASSICA to record all eight of the master’s stage works on video in HD and 5.1 Surround Sound. A landmark project that will provide many impulses for the rediscovery of this composer’s epoch-making works.
Rossini Opera Festival 2014: Armida
Armida is one of Rossini’s most beautiful operas and a work which clearly privileges the prima donna, here interpreted by Carmen Romeu, a Spanish soprano who started in Pesaro as a student with the Rossini Academy in 2011 and has graduated to important roles. On her side, a brilliant trio of three tenors: Randall Bills, Dmitry Korchak and the outstanding Antonino Siragusa. In this “Dramma per musica”, loosely based on episodes from Torquato Tasso’s epic “Jerusalem Delivered”, is a visually striking magical opera. Luca Ronconi, the second grand master among the great Italian directors alongside Giorgio Strehler, has staged the conflict between Christians and pagans, between the love of the sorceress Armida and the knight Rinaldo, as a homage to Sicilian puppet theatre. A sold out highlight of the Festival.
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.
La Scala di Seta
In this colorful and exuberant production by Damiano Michieletto, ‘one of the truly new voices in stage direction today’ (L’Unità), Rossini’s ‘La Scala di Seta’ becomes an Almodóvaresque spectacle ‘that transforms all the singers into extraordinary actors’ (La Stampa). Leading the young and spirited cast is Maestro Claudio Scimone, a key figure in the international Rossini Renaissance, who conducts the Orchestra di Bolzano e Trento with precision and incisiveness, highlighting the Rossinian instrumental
colors as well as the comical and sentimental currents of the score’ (Il Giornale di Vicenza).