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| | Arts Calendar / May 16 / Opera |
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Gioachino Rossini's opera in two acts. 150 min. (with interval). Sung in Italian. Libretto by Felice Romani. Music Director: Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Stage Director: Olga Ivanova. Conductor and Chorus Master: Alexey Vereshchagin. Set and Costume Designer: Viktor Gerasimenko. Choreographer: Ekaterina Mironova. Rossini was just 22 when he wrote Il turco in Italia, his 13th opera and his third for La Scala, Milan. The young composer clearly relished librettist Felice Romani's outrageous farce, which serves up brazen ridiculousness with cynical delight. But the heroine's wildly immoral antics caused some consternation at the opera's premiere on 14 August 1814, and would play a part in Il turco's virtual disappearance from Europe's stages later in the century. The opera wasn't seen again until 1950, in Luchino Visconti's La Scala production, which starred Maria Callas as the incorrigible Fiorilla. The production's triumph secured the opera's position as one of Rossini's most complex and uproarious comedies.
Boris Pokrovsky Chamber Stage  |
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