Imagine Opera Now being given for publication a full list of fees currently commanded by principal singers at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – and payments made to the orchestra, the chorus, the set builders and front-of-house staff. It just wouldn’t happen, but in 1824, when Gioachino Rossini came to London for a season at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, the Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review listed every penny, revealing some extravagant spending. 

Rossini was paid £1,000 for the season (about £140,000 today), while his wife, the celebrated soprano Isabella Colbran, who bade farewell to the stage in that season, received even more – £1,500, just ahead of Guiditta Pasta, at £1,400. In contrast, the nightly fee for the whole orchestra was £50, and the chorus just £12. We can assume these figures were provided to the magazine by the King’s Theatre in an attempt to impress its audiences with the piles of money it was spending on its Rossini season (and probably also to justify steep ticket prices). We can’t imagine Covent Garden releasing similar figures to the press today, but this was an era when talking about other people’s money was completely normal (think of Jane Austen’s characters discussing the income of prospective suitors, the higher the better).

All this, and so much more, is revealed in a fascinating exhibition at Rossini’s birthplace in Pesaro, the charming resort on the Italian Adriatic, which every year since 1980 has hosted the Rossini Opera Festival, presenting familiar – and definitely not familiar – works by the city’s favourite son. The exhibition, entitled Rossini in London, runs until 1 December and details the composer’s triumphant season, presenting Zelmira, Otello, Il barbiere di Silviglia, Ricciardo e Zoraide, Il turco in Italia, Tancredi, La donna del lago and Semiramide. We learn that Rossini often sang tenor, particularly at private soirees, notably with George IV. A caricature shows the king bowing low in front of his idol amid the exotic splendour of Brighton Pavilion. 

Rossini - Ermione

Anastasia Bartoli as Ermione with Juan Diego Flórez as Orestes, son of Agammemnon | Photo: Amati Bacciardi

Adding to the excitement surrounding Rossini’s visit was an announcement that he would be providing a new opera for London, entitled Ugo, re d’Italia. It never materialised, but Pesaro this year gave us a hint of what it might have sounded like in a spectacular new production of Ermione from director Johannes Erath, which proved to be the hit of the festival. 

Always a recycler, Rossini intended to remodel numbers from Ermione (written for Naples in 1819) in Ugo, re d’Italia, the birthplace exhibition displaying a fragment of his hurriedly reworked manuscript. It’s yet another opera to add to that long lroster of musical might-have-beens, yet on the evidence of Ermione, it would have been a winner. 

Rossini’s sophisticated score for Ermione bristles with show-stopping arias that punctuate a classical story entirely preoccupied with the anguish of fatal attraction. Pirro, a cruel, despotic ruler, holds Andromaca’s son hostage, demanding that she marry him in return for the boy’s release. Ermione, who loves Pirro, is enraged by his desire to marry another and commands the man who truly loves her, Oreste, to kill Pirro, only to be consumed with remorse at her deadly decision. 

Rossini devises a battle of the tenors here, giving Pirro and Oreste long, demanding recits and arias. Of the two, Juan Diego Flórez as Oreste, had the easier time, but was outshone by outstanding Enea Scala as Pirro. The voice of the night, however, belonged to Anastasia Bartoli, whose radiant soprano brought the house down. Steely and determined one minute, soft and pleading another, she created an extraordinary character, drawn irrevocably to the repellent Pirro, a man she destroys with her incandescent anger. 

Designer Heike Scheele creates a fantastical world, peopled by fawning, cigarette- smoking courtiers and scheming hangers-on, dressed outlandishly by Jorge Jara. Erath introduces the constant presence of Eros into this pitiless scene, complete with bow and arrow. Predictably, his efforts are to no avail and he too lies dead at the close. 

Prominent among the minor characters was rising Scottish bass-baritone Michael Mofidian, who proved to be as sinuous a mover as he is a singer. The Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai was on outstanding form on opening night, with particularly notable playing from the woodwind. Michele Mariotti conducted this intriguing, top-quality production which is sure to be revived. 

Rossini - Bianco e Falliero

Dmitry Korchak as Contareno and Jessica Pratt as Bianca | Photo: Amati Bacciardi

Also from 1819 is Bianco e Falliero, the choice for this year’s second new production. You wonder why people ever listen to critics. The 28-year-old Rossini premiered this two-act melodrama at La Scala, Milan, to a distinctly chilly reception from the newspapers, yet it ran for 39 performances, a La Scala record to this day for a Rossini opera seria. Plainly, the public loved it. It’s easy to see why its ceaseless flood of bel canto acrobatics so delighted its first audiences, but it’s also possible to see why the critics of the time found its classical style out of step with modern notions of romanticism, its formality not allowing the characters to truly express their deeply-held passions and beliefs. 

It’s also difficult for critics to truly judge a performance if they are in physical torment for most of a four-hour evening. This year, the festival opened in a newly-refurbished venue, the Scavolini Auditorium, a multi-purpose sports and arts venue, with a proscenium stage at one end. Some of the audience sat in chairs on the flat floor, while the rest of us had to make do on thinly-covered plastic stadium seats with virtually no back, set into vertiginous, amphitheatre-style concrete tiers: fine for a basketball audience, always on their feet, but agony for operagoers. 

At least Jean-Louis Grinda’s production was easy on the eye; all golds and crimsons in Rudy Sabounghi’s design, impressively lit by Laurent Castaingt [correct]. Grinda moves the action to post-war Venice. Bianca is in love with Falliero, the hero who has saved the city from the threat of invasion. Despite the hero being lauded by the Doge, Bianca’s father Contareno wants Bianca to marry Capellio, a union which would put an end to a long-running feud and restore his family’s fortunes. 

Naturally, Bianca is distraught, torn between loyalty to her father and love for Falliero. They meet for one last time, only for Falliero to be arrested and put on trial for apparent treason. All is finally resolved, Contareno relents and the lovers are finally free to marry, but in director Grinda’s eyes this is not a happy ending. So much anger, grief, jealousy and suspicion has been expended to reach this point that each exhausted character is drained of all emotion. 

British-born Australian colaratura soprano Jessica Pratt, as Bianca, had a massive vocal mountain to climb, and while there was an occasional lack of firepower, her triumphant aria when at last her father relents was truly impressive. Japanese mezzo Aya Wakizono was a wonderfully committed Falliero, an equally demanding role with some of the best music, particularly when Bianca’s apparent betrothal is revealed. Their duet of resigned farewell was beautifully done; indeed all the duets, trios and quartets in this production were outstanding, with Russian-born tenor Dmitry Korchak, rock-solid as Cantareno and Georgian bass Giorgi Manoshvili in glorious form as Capellio. 

Again, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai shone, this time under the direction of Roberto Abbado, with an outstanding extended solo from the (sadly uncredited) principal flautist. 

Rossini - L’Equivoco Stravangante

The cast of L’Equivoco Stravangante | Photo: Amati Bacciardi

Rossini’s bright comedy L’Equivoco Stravangante got another chance to raise some laughter this year when Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s hugely energetic production from 2019 was revived, this time at the beautiful Teatro Rossini. Rossini was just 19 when it was first appeared in Bologna in 1811, and where it closed after just three performances because the authorities hated it making fun of army desertion. This production goes all-out for laughs, leaving no room for subtlety or comedy by suggestion. Every character is made to look absurd, with annoying false noses and silly moustaches. Nevertheless, there was some impressive singing, notably Sicilian baritone Nicola Alaimo as Gamberotto, the bumbling father who wants his daughter Ernestina (the delightful Russian-born mezzo Maria Barakova), to marry the rich, idiotic Buralicchio (agile Spanish baritone Carles [correct] Pachon). The disappointingly underpowered Sicilian tenor Pietro Adaíni was Ernestina’s secret lover Ermanno, who, with the aid of spirited plotting from servants Rosalie (Patricia Clavache) and Frontino (Matteo Macchioni) finally wins the day. 

It’s intensely ridiculous, but you had to admire the dexterous handling of the patter songs and the comic timing of the excellent Coro del Teatro della Fortuna, all frothed up by conductor Michele Spotti and the sprightly Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini. 

Next year, the festival will stage Zelmira, L’italiana in Algeri and Il turco in Italia. If you’ve never been, consider a holiday in Pesaro. There is something quiet delicious about spending the day on the beach and the evening in the theatre. 

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