Sunday, February 5, 2017

ROSSINI : L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI

Radio New Zealand Concert Network
Sunday 5th of February 2017 at 6 - 9.20

ROSSINI: The Italian Girl in Algiers, an opera in two acts.
L'italiana in Algeri 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. Wikipedia
A feisty Italian girl turns the tables on her bumbling captor, the Turkish Bey of Algiers, Mustaphà, the pasha who is overcome by love and pasta.
Isabella......................... Marianna Pizzolato
Lindoro........................ René Barbera
Taddeo......................... Nicola Alaimo
Mustafà........................ Ildar Abdrazakov
Elvira........................... Ying Fang
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/James Levine

INTRODUCTION
PREVIEW
LIBRETTO (Italian)

I am able to say that I have seen this comic-opera on stage: in 1983 Helen and I went to Auckland for a production of it in the Mercury Theatre, with  Juan Matteucci as conductor, and Isabella played by Mary Newman-Pound; it was directed by Jonathan Hardy, who said: "Mustapha is the  ultimate male tyrant" who is "defeated by the resourcefulness of a determined woman". The first woman who tried to do that was dismissed from her justice position by the pasha of our time; but someone will appear holding the trump card, to tame this behemoth.
  My Decca recording in a square-foot box has Teresa Berganza, Luigi Alva, and Fernando Corena, under Silvio Varviso (1964).

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