An Overwhelming Success

Pier Luigi Pizzi's new 'Barber of Seville'
enthralls the Rossini Opera Festival,
by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia is one of the most performed and reviewed operas of the nineteenth century. On 13 August 2018, the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) unveiled a new and much awaited production, for three reasons:

1. It is the festival's key production for the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Rossini's death
2. Two of the three previous ROF productions of the masterpiece had not been very successful, and the third (in 2014) was a simple staging that circulated mostly in provincial theatres
3. This year's production has been entrusted to 88-year-old Pier Luigi Pizzi — his debut with this title — and an all-star cast

I was in the audience at the Adriatic Arena in Pesaro, full to the hilt. The production was an overwhelming success, with open stage applause after each of the main musical numbers and nearly twenty minutes of ovations at the end...

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA

GIOACCHINO ROSSINI

ROSSINI OPERA FESTIVAL

PESARO

ITALY

PIER LUIGI PIZZI

SPAIN