'Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind,' he was reputed to have remarked. And also, 'Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music.' So we are to expect unboring music and trivial plots? Yes, and also a fair dose of nationalism and racism as well as ageism, but extraordinarily for his time, a fine defiance of sexist assumptions about women. All these shine in one of his silliest early works, L'italiana in Algeri (1813). It premiered in 1813, when he was 21 - and it was merely his 11th opera.)
Welcome to the operatic output of the very Italian, often infamous Gioachino Rossini. Born 1792, he wrote 39 operas before 1829, when, aged 37, he produced the long-awaited (and long!) French grand opera, Guillaume Tell. He lived another 39 years, a life of indulgence, soirees and small musical pieces limited by increasing ill health. “Eating, loving, singing and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool.” More bon quotes here. He'd doubtless be amused that these days if you Google "Rossini images" you get a lot of well used tournedos. He died in 1868. For much more detail of this extraordinary life, see Wikipedia here.
And welcome to the first half of the nineteenth century, starring great composers. Beethoven urged Rossini to avoid serious opera, and "do more Barbiere", but is also said to have opined that “Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough”. Wagner praised Rossini's “narcotising melodic invention”. (Compare with Rossini's famous offering that Wagner's operas had “beautiful moments, but awful quarter-hours”.) Read the spirited account of his life and how other composers viewed his works on ClassicFM here. Today, he towers in the foyer of La Scala, and is surely more caricatured than any composer.
This is quite possibly the silliest opera you've ever seen, both in plot and in libretto. But it was and still is hugely popular, for the music of (some) pieces, with other more tedious bits forgiven.
There's a spirited summary and synopsis here. More detail to help you figure it out is in the Met synopsis here. But wait, our production lifts it out of that traditional context; no palace, no eunuchs.
It's Rossini's version of the genre of "rescue opera", which emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in France and Germany. "Generally, rescue operas deal with the rescue of a main character from danger and end with a happy dramatic resolution in which lofty humanistic ideals triumph over base motives." Not surprisingly, the type developed during the French Revolution. "A number of such operas dealt with the rescue of a political prisoner. Stylistically and thematically, rescue opera was an outgrowth of the French bourgeois opéra comique; musically, it began a new tradition that would influence German Romantic opera and French grand opera. The most famous rescue opera is Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio."
There could hardly be a greater contrast between Beethoven's deeply dramatic only opera and the musical fluffball that was Rossini's eleventh. But they have in common that they were written at the same time, and significantly that in both, the woman was not the helpless rescued victim, but the formidable rescuer.
This is a morally challenging setting if you take it seriously. The 1808 libretto by Angelo Anelli pokes fun at piracy and slavery on the Barbary Coast states, including Algeria. And productions have to poke fun at the Bey, the arrogant, inelegant and laughable ruler of this dysfunctional state, and the fawning and foolish behaviour of his pirates, wife and servants. But above all it turns upside down the trope of the helpless girl rescued by the dashing male. It opens with the chorus (of eunuchs) singing to the hapless wife of the Bey,
Lift your drooping eyebrows;
And cease bewailing destiny:
Here women are born
Only to suffer.
But how different are the Italians! The libretto is a good read: Wiki commons has provided it in English here.
That Italian girl
L'italiana in Algeri is always translated as The Italian Girl in Algiers. Subtitles in the opera have her referred to as "girl" - probably appropriately since all the men are assuming she is a young and beautiful, sexually available captive. But wait till she arrives on stage! "If Isabella, Rossini's title character, were transported into today's world, nobody would dare call her a 'girl.' She's one of the wisest and most formidable women you'll find in any opera, and by the time her story ends, no one — including her captive lover Lindoro — is willing to stand in her way."
So clever productions manage idealizing Italians and strong women, while stereotyping and defeating Mustafa because he's self satisfied, male and stupid, not because he is a Muslim. Our production avoids the temptations of Moroccan decor and period costuming, instead placing the action in modern piracy (lots of tech gear in boxes) and winning praise for avoiding gross racist caricatures and maximising the comedy.
Metropolitan Opera 2016 - the other way of staging this opera.
Famous mezzos who've sung Isabella have revelled in the music and also the comedy of her character, but it's widely acknowledged Bartoli outdoes them all. Our production was recorded in 2018 at the Salzburg Festival. Review here (different bass playing Mustafà.) And another review here (different male singers). So who do we have in our production? A matchless cast - Cecilia Bartoli, Rossini star, is Isabella, the brilliant Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov is an appalling Mustafà and Alessandro Corbelli, who we've seen in several Rossini roles for foolish older gents, is a sunburnt and befuddled Taddeo.
Befuddled males - Taddeo, Lindoro and Mustafà spying on the bathtub. Here's her bathtub song, "Per lui che adoro". You don't need English subtitles.
There's a wonderful video here of Ildar Abrazakov (without the fat suit) reflecting on the role of Mustafa 'who really loves Isabel" and his playing it. (He says it's hot outside so being in underwear is OK.)
Lyn 18/7/23
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