The Italian city of Pesaro is under the spell of composer Rossini. After two sober corona years, the festival in his birthplace named after him is back with four of his operas, concerts and recitals. Rossini’s fabulous world comes to life.
A woman, a man disguised as a nun and a man disguised as a woman, lie side by side in bed. Both men try to seduce the woman. In the dark it is impossible to see which part of the body belongs to whom, but nobody seems to mind. A sublimely sung trio sounds. Comic chaos and unparalleled music – this must be an opera by Gioachino Rossini.
Indeed. Le Comte Ory opened this year’s Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) in his hometown of Pesaro, a lively Italian seaside resort on the Adriatic Sea. After two adapted covid editions, the ROF, which is entirely devoted to the music of Rossini, returns to its old structure, with four staged operas and a series of concerts and recitals.
The opening performance is in the Vitrifrigo Arena, a domed sports hall on the outskirts of the city. Part of it has been demarcated with movable walls and converted into a theatre. The other festival locations are in the center within walking distance of each other, but this arena can also be reached stress-free with shuttle buses.
The undisputed star of the evening is Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez. He has been performing in Pesaro for about a quarter of a century, lives in the city and has also been artistic director of the ROF since the beginning of this year. The title role in Le Comte Ory, a knight who disguises himself first as a hermit and then as a pilgrimage gangster in order to seduce a noblewoman is one of his parade roles.
The audience loves his antics and piercing high C’s. His counterparts, the soprano Julie Fuchs and the mezzo-soprano Maria Kataeva (remember the name) both make a very successful festival debut.
Absurd, sensual droll
Director Hugo de Ana takes off with the absurd, sensuous drollness of the play and makes everyone hop in a colorful decor based on the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. Diego Matheuz keeps the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai sharp and jumpy, but the soloists sometimes disappear into the exaggerated tutti, which could perhaps be due to the hall.
For impeccable acoustics, the Teatro Rossini is the place to be. Behind the austere facade hides a beautiful interior – candelabra, gilded ornamental panels, painted ceiling. The 19th century feels very close here. Rossini was one of the giants of bel canto, the virtuoso style of singing from the first half of the 19th century in which the emotional charge derives from vocal beauty. No wonder his operas sound best in the type of theater they were written for.
la gazzetta is packed with delightful arias and not a single detail of them is lost in the Teatro Rossini. Conductor Carlo Rizzi’s light-hearted reading is a delight, but the singing performances are very different in level. Carlo Lepore, in the role of a vulgar upstart who advertises his marriageable daughter in the newspaper, carries the performance almost single-handedly. The typical buffo The (comedic) role, written in Neapolitan, fits the Naples-born bass like a glove.
Not just Rossini’s hits
Dramaturgically la gazzetta not Rossini’s strongest comedy. But that is precisely the aim of the ROF since its first edition in 1980 – to perform all Rossini operas, not just the hits that can be seen elsewhere. With this in mind, the ROF has played a crucial role in rediscovering forgotten Rossini operas (see box).
The reporter was not present at the third opera, otello. The Italian press praises the soprano Eleonora Buratto and the psychological depth of the direction. Traditionally, the fourth production is a performance of the comic satire Il viaggio a Reims by the upcoming talent participating in the ROF summer course, the Accademia Rossiniana. So during the Accademia performances you hear the stars of the future. Juan Diego Florez is an alumnus.
Music all year round
Thanks to Rossini, who left the city a significant fortune to establish a conservatory, Pesaro is a music city all year round, not just during the festival. As the foremost local cultural magnet, his name can be found everywhere – on facades, in shop windows, and on dozens of menus. Not surprising, given its reputation as a gourmet with a soft spot for black truffles. The region is particularly proud of the pizza Rossini, a pizza margherita with boiled egg and mayonnaise curls.
To get to know Rossini the man, not just the brand, start with a visit to Casa Rossini, the four-story, teal-shuttered house where he was born, the only child of a trumpeter and opera singer. Next, spend an hour and a half at the Museo Nazionale Rossini in the stately Palazzo Montani Antaldi, which opened only three years ago.
An impressive collection of manuscripts, prints and paintings guides you through Rossini’s life and career, with a different room for each stage of life. You get to know him as a gifted child in a close-knit family, then as the incredibly prolific man who wrote 39 operas in 19 years. Irresistible comedies like ll barbiere di Sivigliawhich he is most known for, but also compelling, turbulent dramas.
ailing health
You can hear how at the age of 37, after completing the masterpiece Guillaume Tell, giving up writing operas. Not, as is often claimed, because he is a lazy gourmand, but because of his ailing health.
You meet his two wives, the mezzo-soprano Isabella Colbran (Rossini loved the mezzo-soprano voice) and the caring Olympe Pélissier. You marvel at the awards he received from different countries.
She has sung a little Rossini, but otherwise the costumes and evening dresses of the legendary soprano Renata Tebaldi, who was born a hundred years ago in Pesaro, have little to do with him. But don’t miss this temporary exhibition full of diva glamor from the 1960s. An entire room is devoted to her haute couture hats, which look as if they were bought yesterday.
More opera costumes, this time from the ROF depots, can be found in the entrance of the Palazzo Ducale on the main square, alongside set models for various productions. The roll lists feature the names of fantastic Rossini performers, conductors and directors, from the past and present. All models next to each other in this darkened space visually summarize what the ROF stands for, namely showing the world the complete, fabulous Rossini.
Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, Italy. 9 to 21/8. Il viaggio a Reims online at operavision.eu.
Rediscovered superstar
During his lifetime, Gioachino Rossini was an international superstar, but after his death in 1868 most of his operas disappeared from the stage. The bel canto style of singing fell out of fashion during the second half of the 19th century, when orchestras grew larger and voices became more powerful and less lithe. In the 1950s, the soprano Maria Callas sparked a bel canto revival, including with Rossini’s crusader epic Armida and his comic rescue opera L’Italiana in Algeria. However, thorough research into Rossini’s entire oeuvre did not begin until 1970, when the Rossini Foundation in Pesaro and the music publishing house Ricordi joined forces to produce historically accurate scores, called ‘critical editions’, of all his operas. The Rossini Opera Festival uses only these authentic scores. Next year, for example, will be the first critical edition of the Swedish royal drama Eduardo and Cristina are staged.