Davide Luciano's shirtless Figaro in The Rossini Opera Festival's "TheBarber of Seville" pretty much stole the show for every reason imaginable. During his crowd-pleasing "Largo al factotum" he not only hit all the right comic and musical notes, but strutted around wearing only a pair of tight black pants. The crowd at the August 22nd closing performance at Pesaro's Adriatic Arena showered their approval with a nine minute round of wild applause at the curtain call. Later in the show he accompanied the Count Almaviva's "Se il mio nome" on guitar.
Davide Luciano as Figaro(Image: Pesaro Rossini Festival)
Since word spread pretty quickly in operatic circles about Davide Luciano's performance, we figured that we'd share a few images from the production.
Davide Luciano as Figaro(Image: Pesaro Rossini Festival)
Davide Luciano as Figaro(Image: Pesaro Rossini Festival)
If you missed Luciano's performance of the Barber, you'll have a number of chances to catch him in the next year. He'll sing it at the at the Dutch National Opera opening on November 10, then at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on December 30 and January 2, and finally at the Semperoper Dresden opening March 9, 2019.
The barihunk duo of bass-barihunk Luca Pisaroni in Mahomet II and Iurii Samoilov as Omar in Rossini's Le siège de Corinthe. They are joined by John Irvin as Cléomène, Nino Machaidze as Pamyra, Sergey Romanovsky as Néoclès, Carlo Cigni as Hiéros, Xabier Anduaga as Adraste and Cecilia Molinari as Ismène. Performances are on August 10, 13, 16 and 19 and tickets are available online.
The opera premiered at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra on October 9, 1826 and was a partial rewrite of the composer's 1820 Italian opera, Maometto II, with exactly the same story and characters. The original version premiered in Naples on December 3, 1820.
The opera commemorates the siege and ultimate destruction of the town of Missolonghi in 1826 by Turkish during the ongoing Greek War of Independence (1821-1829). The reference to Corinth is an example of allegory, although Sultan Mehmed II had indeed besieged the city in the 1450s. This same incident, condemned throughout Western Europe for its cruelty, also inspired a prominent painting by Eugène Delacroix (Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi), and was mentioned in the writings of Victor Hugo. Lord Byron's 1816 poem The Siege of Corinth has little, if any, connection with the opera.
Luca Pisaroni sings "Sorgete... Duce di tanti eroi" from Maometto II:
On August 15, Pisaroni will also perform a recital of music by Schubert, Liszt and Rossini with Giulio Zappa at the piano. Tickets are available online. He returns to the US in December as Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera. He rotates the role with fellow barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien.
Iurii Samoilov returns to his home base at Oper Frankfurt in October as Ned Keene in Britten's Peter Grimes. He remains with the company this season to perform Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosí fan tutte, Marullo in Verdi's Rigoletto and Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola.
Barihunk Erwin Schrott made his debut as Selim in Rossini's Il turco in Italia at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro. The production, which includes the all-star cast of Olga Peretyatko, Nicola Alaimo, Rene Barbera, Pietro Spagnoli, runs through August 18th.
Rossini and his librettist Romani based Il turco in Italia on an earlier libretto with the same title written by poet Caterino Mazzolà (the librettist for Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito). The plot owes much to the Italian tradition of commedia dell’arte, particularly character types, such as the cuckolded husband and the flirtatious young woman. The character of the poet Prosdocimo encourages us to treat the drama with a certain irony.
Olga Peretyatko and Erwin Schrott in Il turco in Italia
The opera all but disappeared from the repertory during the latter part of the 19th century, as Rossini fell out of fashion. It came back to public attention in October 1950, when Luchino Visconti staged a production for Maria Callas, who was keen to play a comic role. The production was so successful that the opera’s popularity grew rapidly.
Schrott's next stage appearances will be later this year in Munich, where he sings the title role in Boito's Mefistofele and Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. He returns to the Metropolitan Opera in April 2017 to sing Leporello alongside fellow barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien in Mozart's Don Giovanni.
