ROSSINI : LE COMTE ORY

 Rossini's Count Ory
Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 3rd of March 2013 at 3.03 - 6 pm
Sunday 24th of April 2011 at 3.03 - 6.10 pm

INTRODUCTION
SYNOPSIS
PREVIEW
PICTURES
REVIEW (2011)
REVIEW (2013)
RECORDINGS
LIBRETTO (French pdf)

ROSSINI: Le Comte Ory, an opera in two acts
In his amorous pursuit of Countess Adèle, the naughty Count Ory disguises himself first as a hermit and then as a nun.
Count Ory.................... Juan Diego Flórez
Tutor............................ Nicola Ulivieri
Isolier........................... Karine Deshayes
Raimbaud.................... Nathan Gunn
Countess Adèle........... Pretty Yende
Ragonde...................... Susanne Resmark
Alice............................ Ashley Emerson
Courtiers...................... Scott Scully, Tyler Simpson
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Maurizio Benini
This fizzy opera, first performed in Paris in 1828, incorporates some of the music from the equally delightful Journey to Rheims, which was composed for an occasion and was therefore expendable; but Rossini was ever a keen recycler of his own music, witness the Barber of Seville having the same overture with the dramatic opera Queen Elizabeth of England. This piece has had very few performances, and this is the first time the NY Metropera has staged it (though it had an airing in New York in 1832).
   I have recordings of two productions at Glyndebourne: one on two black audio discs (1957), which includes the baritone Ian Wallace (from the BBC's My Music), and one on a digital video disc.

ROSSINI: LE COMTE ORY
(Marc Laho, Annick Massis, Diana Montague, Andrew Davis)
Act 2
In Touraine, in the time of the Crusades, Count de Formoutiers has gone to Palestine, and has left his sister Countess Adèle in the castle with her companion Ragonde and her ladies-in-waiting. Count Ory did not go on a crusade, but his private mission is to have his amorous way with Adèle; his page Isolier is her cousin, and he is in love with her. Ory's ruse is to infiltrate the castle with his randy retinue disguised as nuns. Eventually he climbs into bed with Adèle, in the dark, but Isolier slips in between them; he intercepts all the advances made by the Count and transmits them on his own account to the lady, who welcomes his attentions. Interruption time: trumpets announce the arrival of the Crusaders; the nuns flee.

The NY MET version of the seduction scene (as reported by Juan Diego, who as Ory is the one in the middle sometimes, but at other times on the outer, where he should be) turns it into a threesome, with everybody aware of what is going on, which is not as funny.

Sunday 24th of April 2011 at 3.03 - 6.10 pm 
Count Ory..................... Juan Diego Flórez
Tutor............................. Michele Pertusi
Isolier............................ Joyce DiDonato
Raimbaud...................... Stéphane Degout
Countess Adèle............. Diana Damrau
Ragonde....................... Susanne Resmark
Alice............................. Monica Yunus
First Knight................... Tony Stevenson
Second Knight.............. Tyler Simpson
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Maurizio Benini