(Photo: Amati Bacciardi / ROF 2025) Only at the Rossini Opera Festival can one experience the performance of a true, unpublished jewel by the Swan of Pesaro. Since its founding in 1980, the Festival is held annually in Rossini’s hometown and has played a crucial role in the philological reexamination of many of his works, most of them rarely performed {…}
(Photo: Amati Bacciardi / ROF 2025) Soirées musicales After the triumph of his last opera, “Guillaume Tell,” Gioachino Rossini decided to abandon theatrical composition and retire to his home in Paris to recover from nervous exhaustion. Even so, he never stopped writing music: he composed for himself, for Olympe Pélissier–whom he married in 1846 after the death of Isabella Colbran–and {…}
(Photo: Sam Roppola/Death of Classical) The Royal Opera of the Palace of Versailles, inaugurated in 1770 during the reign of Louis XV, was the largest concert hall in Europe at that time. The Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal (The Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra), was formed in 2019 specifically to perform John Corigliano’s opera, “The Ghosts of Versailles.” The orchestra, conducted by {…}
(Photo: Miklos Szabo) It is well known that the premiere night of “The Barber of Seville” was a resounding failure. A series of onstage mishaps, boos from the audience, and even a black cat crossing the stage forced Gioachino Rossini to flee the theater to avoid, in his own words, “being killed by the audience for their unbridled passion.” Yet {…}