Sex and Bigotry

GIUSEPPE PENNISI reports on
his week at the Rossini Opera Festival

The Rossini Opera Festival, ROF, is the only musical manifestation in Italy equivalent to Bayreuth, the Wagnerian Sanctuary in Germany. Devoted solely to one composer (Gioacchino Rossini), it intends to discover new aspects of his work every year, it has a worldwide audience (nearly half are non Italians and only less than twenty per cent come from Central Italy) and it does not seem to be affected by any financial or economic crisis. I summarized its general features last year [see Patriot and Terrorist, 14 August 2011] in an article where pictures of the main theatres were also shown.

This year, the festival (10-23 August 2012) presents the first stage presentation in modern times of Ciro in Babilonia, a revival of a successful production of Matilde di Shabran, a new production of Il Signor Bruschino (each of these three operas has four or five performances), a concert performance of Tancredi, two performances of Il Viaggio a Reims entrusted to the young singers of the Rossini Academy, two bel canto concerts and the full series of the Péchés de vieillesse ('old age sins'), the piano works composed by Rossini in the last few years of his life...

GIOACCHINO ROSSINI

ITALY

ANTONIO VIVALDI