Teatro Comunale di Bologna

"It can be truly said of Adelaide di Borgogna that, like a rose, it bloomed but a day - l'espace d'un matin." First performed in Rome on the 27th December 1817, it enjoyed very few revivals. In 2011 the Rossini Festival in Pesaro presented the second staged performance of Adelaide di Borgogna since 1825. The story of the opera was taken from a historical event that took place in the medieval period, marking the end of an independent Italian kingdom and leading to the birth of the German Holy Roman Empire through the efforts of Otto I of Saxony. Caught between political rivalry and the love of two men, Adelaide of Burgundy struggles to fight for her people and chooses Otto, the better ruler, for herself and her kingdom.

Gioachino Rossini’s Armida (1817) is a spectacular but relatively rarely performed opera seria, based on Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata: the sorceress Armida seduces the crusader Rinaldo, creating a conflict between love and military/religious duty. The 2014 Rossini Opera Festival production in Pesaro was directed by Luca Ronconi, with Carlo Rizzi conducting. It featured Carmen Romeu as Armida and John Osborn as Rinaldo, with a notably demanding vocal cast. Ronconi’s staging emphasized the opera’s dreamlike, magical and theatrical dimension rather than treating it as straightforward medieval epic. It was particularly notable for showcasing Rossini’s extreme vocal virtuosity and elaborate ensembles, including the famous Act II finale and the spectacular series of transformations surrounding Armida’s magic.

The hero of this admirably complete August 2013 Guillaume Tell from Pesaro is homegrown maestro Michele Mariotti. The inimitable overture is (mercifully) unstaged and terrifically played, with splendid cello and flute solos: the fine standard never flags. Rossini’s extraordinary 1829 score audibly presages Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Glinka, Verdi and Wagner, among many others. Graham Vick’s direction privileges class conflict, with a clenched fist on the red-and-white forecurtain. The Edwardian costumes place Austrians in white evening garb; the black-clad Swiss polish the floor while the rulers savor a filming (much of that to follow) — the fisherman Ruodi, in a boat with a blonde and fake scenery, with Tell and his family providing tech support. Vick deploys geographical and historical kitsch liberally but not (always) pointlessly. Ron Howell’s pretentious, mannered choreography, however, beggars belief.

2008 Teatro Rossini production of Michael Daugherty's 1997 chamber opera Jackie O, about the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.