Thesis Viva

Rossini liked to write operas about women (specifically mezzo-sopranos) who were smarter than the men around them, such as Rosina in "The Barber of Seville" and Angelina in "La Cenerentola." This charming, melodious bit of operatic fluff, composed before either of those two better-known operas, is dedicated to the proposition that an Italian woman is a match for any man or group of men. The thesis is tested in an extreme situation; Isabella (Larmore) is shipwrecked on the coast of a place where shipwrecked Europeans were routinely enslaved and, if they were women, consigned to a harem.