Heavy Stage Direction and Sets

Rossini's 'Il viaggio a Reims' in Rome,
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro ('The Journey to Reims, or The Hotel of the Golden Fleur-de-lis') was one of the most awaited titles in the 2016-17 Teatro dell'Opera di Roma program. It arrived on 14 June 2017 in a much celebrated production by Damiano Michieletto (and his team: Carla Teti, costumes and Paolo Fantin, sets) which had its premiere in Amsterdam in January 2015. It is a cantata scenica originally performed in three acts, to a libretto by Luigi Balocchi based in part on Corinne, ou L'Italie by Madame de Staël. Michieletto preferred a two act version with a Wagnerian first act of two hours.
Rossini's last opera in the Italian language was commissioned to celebrate the coronation of French King Charles X in Reims in 1825 and has been acclaimed as one of the composer's finest works. This demanding composition requires fourteen soloists — three sopranos, one contralto, two tenors, four baritones and four basses. At its premiere, it was sung by the greatest voices of the day. It was clearly meant as a operation with a double purpose: to acquire the benevolence of the new King and to show the capability of the singers of the Théâtre des Italiens, the Parisian opera house where operas were sang in Italian.
Since the opera was written for a specific occasion, with a plot about European aristocrats, officers and one poetess en route to join in the French coronation festivities which the opera itself was composed for, Rossini never intended it to have a life beyond a few performances. He later re-used about half of the music in Le comte Ory. However, among Rossini's operas, Il Viaggio a Reims is perhaps that with the highest belcanto musical numbers because it was conceived to show the vocal virtuoso skills of the Théâtre des Italiens singers to the French audience and powers-to-be. The different parts of the manuscript, assumed to have been lost, were found again and re-assembled in the 1970s by musicologist Janet Johnson, with the help of the recently departed Philip Gossett. The first performance after the reconstruction was given at the Rossini Opera Festival on 18 August 1984. It was conducted by Claudio Abbado and directed by Luca Ronconi with an all-star cast.
The plot is so tenuous to be almost non-existent. The 1984 production was grandiose and with minor adaptations was seen in Milan, Vienna and other cities. Twice each year a semi-scenic version is staged, at the Pesaro Rossini Festival, performed by young singers. The stage director is Emilio Sagì. The singers, all young, are from the Rossini Academy. After a quarter of century this production is as fresh as ever.
The Teatro dell'Opera import from Amsterdam was the first fully staged production seen in Rome, whereas a semi-staged version under the baton of Kent Nagano had been presented at the National Santa Cecilia Academy in 2009.
In any event stage directors have to use a lot of imagination to make a sensible plot out of the libretto. For example, during the 2011/12 season, productions were given by the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp, where the action took place inside a jumbo jet, and in Florence where the plot developed in an early twentieth century luxury spa.
In Michieletto's production the plot evolves in a present-day museum. A new exhibit is being prepared and all the characters are frantic about the event which coincides with their departure for the crowning in Reims.

A scene from Rossini's 'Il viaggio a Reims' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Photo © 2017 Yasuko Kageyama

When they learn that the journey cannot take place because all carriages and horses are already booked, they decide to compose a tableau vivant representing a huge painting with the scene of the crowning and themselves as characters.

The production had excellent voices such as Mariangela Sicilia (Corinna), Anna Goryachova (La Marchesa Melibea), Maria Grazia Schiavo (La Contessa di Folleville), Francesca Dotto (Madama Cortese), Juan Francisco Gatell (Il Cavaliere Belfiore), Merto Sungu (Il Conte di Libenskof), Adrian Sâmpetrean (Lord Sidney), Nicola Ulivieri (Don Profondo), Bruno De Simone (Il Barone di Trombonok) and Simone Del Savio (Don Alvaro), just to mention the principals. However, the heavy stage direction and sets made it difficult to fully understand what they were singing about.

Members of the cast of Rossini's 'Il viaggio a Reims' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Photo © 2017 Yasuko Kageyama

Like all Rossini's late operas, the orchestra also has an important role. Stefano Montanari and the splendid orchestra were able to intertwine irony, sentimentalism and celebration better than the stage direction could.