United States Rossini, Il viaggio a Reims: Soloists, Opera Philadelphia Refrain & Orchestra / Corrado Rovaris (conductor). Opera Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 19.9.2025. (RP)
Opera Philadelphia launched its fiftieth Anniversary season, the primary beneath the management of Anthony Roth Costanzo as Common Director, with a Rossini rarity, Il viaggio a Reims. When the opera premiered in Paris in 1825, it was solid with the best singers of the day. Current-day revivals typically try the identical. Opera Philadelphia opted for fourteen rising younger singers, and the consequence was a bonanza of contemporary voices singing bel canto arias, as lyrical and beautiful as might be.
Rossini composed Il viaggio a Reims, his final opera in Italian, to rejoice the coronation of Charles X as king of France. He was impressed partly by Corinne ou l’Italie, the 1807 novel by Germaine de Staël, however it’s equally a latter-day Canterbury Tales. The opera has a spine of a plot regarding a gaggle of noblemen touring from throughout Europe to the coronation of Charles X, who’re stranded in a luxurious spa resort close to Reims as a result of an absence of horses. They sing of their frustrations, intrigues and loves, earlier than persevering with to Paris for even grander celebrations of the coronation.
After 4 performances, Rossini squelched additional makes an attempt to stage it due to the associated fee, and the opera fell into obscurity. He reused a lot of the music in Le Comte Ory. Musicologists reconstructed Il viaggio a Reims within the Seventies, and it has been carried out with some regularity since then. Opera Philadelphia offered it in Damiano Michieletto’s well-traveled manufacturing, which first premiered on the Dutch Nationwide Opera in 2015.
Michieletto appropriately surmised that the slim plot and references to historic and mythological figures don’t resonate with as we speak’s audiences. His resolution was to replace the motion to the current day in an artwork museum making ready for the opening of a serious exhibition. Madama Cortese, the proprietor of the Tyrolean resort within the authentic, is the museum’s curator. Visually, Brenda Rae, who performs the position, is a cross between Cruella de Vil and the Meryl Streep character in The Satan Wears Prada.
Different transformations embody making the scholar Don Profondo an artwork auctioneer and Lord Sidney an artwork restorer. The remaining sumptuously costumed characters, all true to the precise opera, emerge from their frames or packing instances all through the opera. Masterpieces line the gallery’s partitions, together with ones by Van Gogh, Keith Haring, Magritte and Velázquez. The themes of these work additionally come to life, with two of the most effective being Haring’s ‘Dancing Man with Radiant Coronary heart’ and Magritte’s ‘The Son of Man’ with a inexperienced apple obscuring his face.
Michieletto’s idea is witty and enjoyable but by no means intrudes upon the music. And from the primary notes of the temporary orchestra introduction, it was apparent that Rossini and his music can be properly served. The sounds rising from the pit had been clear, gentle and frothy, buoying the cascades of Rossini’s lyrical delights.
Emilie Kealani as Corinna beguiled sight unseen together with her silvery soprano as she sang an aria to harp accompaniment from a proscenium field excessive above the stage. Whereas she sang, the Three Graces, danced by Sydney Donovan, Abby Donnenfeld and Amanda Rattigan, captured in motion the grace of Rossini’s melodies. As La Contessa di Folleville, an ebullient Lindsey Reynolds stuffed out her arias in her lush, wealthy soprano. Rae’s Madama Cortese stalked the stage, though her soprano thinned in its higher ranges.
Katherine Beck mixed pathos and comedy as Marchesa Melibea, the Polish widow of an Italian basic killed on their marriage ceremony evening. The Conte di Libenskof, sung by the nice lyric tenor Alasdair Kent, and Don Alvaro, the sturdy baritone Alex DeSocio, did verbal and bodily fight as rivals for her affections.
The opera is a development of arias and duets containing a few of Rossini’s best music. As Lord Sidney, Scott Conner rued his reluctance to specific his love for Corinna in his heat bass voice. Minghao Liu’s Cavaliere Belfiore was bolder, however his superbly spun vocal traces did not win the guts of Corinna. Ben Brady was Don Profunda, with a voice that matched his character’s title as he sang of his fellow vacationers’ foibles and nationwide traits.
Within the ultimate scene, Michieletto’s idea took flight, pulling all of the unfastened ends of the convoluted plot traces collectively to create a fittingly majestic finale. Rossini laced the scene with nationwide songs, the most effective identified of which is ‘God Save the King’, sung with acceptable pomp and bravura by Conner’s Lord Sidney. Because the scene progresses, the characters and supernumeraries take their locations to recreate a François Gérard portray, ‘The Coronation of Charles X’, because the refrain sings lengthy life to the newly topped king. It’s the sort of ending that makes opera grand.
Rick Perdian
Featured Picture: The solid of Il viaggio a Reims © Steven Pisano
Manufacturing:
Director – Damiano Michieletto
Revival Director – Eleonora Gravagnola
Units – Paolo Fantin
Lighting – Alessandro Carletti
Costumes – Carla Teti
Refrain grasp – Elizabeth Braden
Solid:
Corinna – Emilie Kealani
La Marchesa Melibea – Katherine Beck
La Contessa di Folleville – Lindsey Reynolds
Madama Cortese – Brenda Rae
Il Cavaliere Belfiore – Minghao Liu
Il Conte di Libenskof – Alasdair Kent
Lord Sidney – Scott Conner
Don Profondo – Ben Brady
Il Barone di Trombonok – Daniel Belcher
Maddalena – Sarah Scofield
Don Alvaro – Alex DeSocio
Don Prudenzio – Zachary Altman (bass-baritone) / Anderson Nunnelley (actor)
Don Luigino – Fran Daniel Laucerica
Antonio – Brandon Bell
Zefirino/Gelsomino – Hongrui Ren
Modestina – Maya Mor Mitrani
Delia – Olivia Prendergast
Dancers – Sydney Donovan, Abby Donnenfeld, Amanda Rattigan
