Rossini Naples

Otello (Naples 1816)…has a strong cast, headed by Carreras's searingly noble Moor. The Desdemona is Frederica von Stade: chaste and as luminous as a sculpture in Carrara marble. The set also displays casting in depth. In Rossini's day Naples was awash with great tenors, a situation that nowadays creates prodigious difficulties. Yet both the Iago, Gianfranco Pastine, and the Rodrigo, Salvatore Fisichella, emerge with honour, barely bloodied and never for a moment bowed by Rossini's terrible arsenal of vocal effects. ''They have been crucifying Otello into an opera,'' wrote Byron in 1818. Well, yes and no. By all means treat Acts 1 and 2 as flashy rodomontade, but Act 3 is glorious, inspired enough and sufficiently close to Shakespeare to have been a near fatal deterrant to what Verdi called his own ''chocolate project''. I thrilled to it afresh—off-stage Gondolier and all—in these brilliant new CD transfers. (Richard Osborne, Gramophone)

The Naples years, 1815 to 1822, are at the very centre of Rossini's creative life. It is here that genius—''I had facility and lots of instinct''—was put to school. And firmly so: the serious masterpieces of the Naples years take as their subjects the Bible and Shakespeare, Scott and Racine, Tasso and English historical romance.

Caballé is regal, and her final scene is a miracle of soft sweet inwardness.
The Naples years, 1815 to 1822, are at the very centre of Rossini's creative life. It is here that genius—''I had facility and lots of instinct''—was put to school. And firmly so: the serious masterpieces of the Naples years take as their subjects the Bible and Shakespeare, Scott and Racine, Tasso and English historical romance.

– Richard Osborne, Gramophone [12/1992]

In Rossini’s year Concerto Classics is pleased to announce a multi-year agreement with one of the most prestigious European orchestral groupings: the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana (OSI), conducted by Markus Poschner and accompanied from time to time by important soloists, is committed, from year 2018 until the whole of year 2020, to the exploration and production of a considerable part of Rossini’s repertoire that is still unedited or that has been rarely performed. The OSI has been making their presence felt on the European music scene with performances that are both innovative and persuasive. The OSI has two main performing venues: one at the Sala Teatro LAC, where it is resident orchestra and performs with leading international artists; the other at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano, which provides a performing space for different kinds of musicians with distinctive repertoires.

The subtitle of this fine recital disc by Cecilia Bartoli is ''arias composed for Isabella Colbran: Rossini's primissima donna''. Colbran was around 30 years old when Rossini first wrote for her in Naples in 1815. (The opera was Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra.) But it is tempting to wonder whether even then she had a voice to match that of Signorina Bartoli, our newest and most lustrous Rossinian primissima donna. As a Rossini mezzo, Bartoli has most things one could wish for: tone of burnt umber, a brilliant top and rock-solid bottom with well-matched registers in between, and a temperament that can be fiery and affecting by turns. Much of this is on display in the recital's opening number, the closing scene from Zelmira (Naples, 1822) which the ageing Colbran almost certainly didn't sing as expertly as Bartoli does here.

Of Rossini’s thirty-nine operas Il barbiere di Siviglia is the only one to have remained in the repertoire since its composition. When the composer met Beethoven in Vienna the great man told Rossini to only compose buffa operas like Il Barbiere. Verdi was also a great admirer of the work as he was of Rossini’s opera seria and particularly his William Tell. Il Barbiere was one of the works Rossini squeezed in during his contract as Musical Director of the Royal Theatres at Naples and where he was supposed to present two new works every year.

Rossini’s original version of Maometto II was premiered at the San Carlo Opera in Naples on 3 December 1820. It was his 31st opera and the eighth, and arguably the most radical, of the reform operas that Rossini wrote for performance there. At Naples he had the benefit of an outstanding full-time orchestra and chorus as well as an unequalled roster of star singers. This enabled him to distance himself from the populist clamour of Rome and Venice for crescendos and simplistic orchestral forms as well as static arias and stage scenes. Maometto Secondo has the potential to become one of the great operas in the repertoire. Richard Osborne, the Rossini scholar, describes it as the grandest of Rossini's opera seria, "epic in scale and revolutionary in the seamlessness of its musical structuring".

TDK presents Rossini’s popular comic opera, La Cenerentola, in a staging from the opera house in Naples. The operatic re-telling of this much loved fairy-tale centres on Cinderella’s honesty and integrity, and on her willingness to forgive others, and to encourage those around her to be equally tolerant.
Instead of the working of magic and fairy godmothers, the opera offers a moral message, encapsulated in its subtitle: ‘goodness triumphant’. Angelina (the Cinderella or Cenerentola) has a stepfather (Don Magnifico), and the traditional Fairy Godmother is replaced by Alidoro, who is a Philosopher and former Tutor to the Prince…

These video recordings all from the Schwetzingen opera festival were recorded in the late 80s and early 90s and originally released on laser disk on the Teldec label.

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.