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Live performance, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, July 2006. 'L'italiana in Algeri' (English: 'The Italian Girl in Algiers') is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies.
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Live performance from the Schwetzinger Festspiele, 1987. At the age of 21, Italian composer Giacchino Rossini penned the masterful comic opera “L’Italiana in Algeri” (“The Italian Girl in Algiers”) in less than a month. The composer’s youthful exuberance comes across in this infectious 1987 performance. Though she’s known mainly for her Wagner roles, acclaimed German mezzo-soprano Doris Soffel shines in the title role of Isabella. Ralf Weikert conducts, and Mauro Pagano oversees sets and costumes.
L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli. Rossini composed L'italiana in Algeri when he was 21 in either 18 or 27 days, depending on which source one believes (Rossini, not surprisingly, pegged it at 18). It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies. The plot, in brief: Isabella’s lover Lindoro has been kidnapped, and in her search for him she is shipwrecked and taken captive by Mustafa, Bey of Algiers. To her amazement and delight, she finds Lindoro among the Bey’s prisoners. Isabella hatches a plot that involves flirtation and stealth, and together she and Lindoro escape. Marilyn Horne, Pablo Montarsolo, Douglas Ahistedt, and Allan Monk star in this legendary Metropolitan Opera production conducted by James Levine.
In 1810, Mustafà , Bey of Algiers and thoroughly fed up with his wife, the docile Elvira, orders the captain of the corsairs to find him one of those feisty Italian women. It turns out to be Isabella, an Italian woman of unparalleled beauty searching for her fiancé Lindoro, whom Mustafà happens to be holding captive in his seraglio. The Bey intends to give Lindoro to his wife Elvira, hoping to get rid of him once and for all. Isabella, accompanied by her annoying suitor Taddeo—whom she passes off as her uncle to save him from the gallows—relies on her powers of seduction. “L’italiana in Algeri” (The Italian Girl in Algiers) is a two-act dramma giocoso (opera buffa) by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Angelo Anelli. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on May 22, 1813. Recorded in the studios of Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) in Milan on July 10, 1957.
Isabella is a strong, independent woman who has no intention of giving in to the clumsy advances of the powerful MustafĂ . In this production by Mosh Leiser and Patrice Caurier, which plays on preconceptions about culture clash, MustafĂ is no longer a handsome Ottoman, but a shady gangster who traffics in electronic goods in the port of Algiers. Make of it what you will...
"This is Vienna State Opera live at home". April 2015. 'L'italiana in Algeri' (English: 'The Italian Girl in Algiers') is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies.
This John Dexter production, designed by Desmond Heeley, was a parting gift to the great American soprano Beverly Sills, who bid farewell to the Met as Norina, the smart young widow at the center of Donizetti’s comedy. The sensational Alfredo Kraus sings her beloved Ernesto. Håkan Hagegård, in his Met debut role and season, is Dr. Malatesta, the man who helps the young couple trick the crusty old bachelor of the title (Gabriel Bacquier at his comical best) into a fake marriage. This being a Donizetti comedy, it all turns out perfectly well at the end—and getting there is pure operatic fun.
