Living at the Opera

Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868) Mose in Egitto - azione tragico-sacra in three acts (1819 version) Mose - Lorenzo Regazzo (bass) Elcia - Akie Amou (soprano) Faraone - Wojtek Gierlach (bass) Osiride - Filippo Adami (tenor) Amaltea - Rossella Bevacqua (soprano) Aronne - Giorgio Trucco (tenor) Amenofi Karen Bandelow (mezzo-soprano) Mambre - Giuseppe Fedeli (tenor)

Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor: Antonio Fogliani San Pietro a Majella Chorus, Naples ( Elsa Evangelista, Chorus-master) Wildbad Wind Band (Martin Koch, Band-leader)

Recorded live on 1st,7th and 12th July, 2006, in the Kursaal, Bad Wildbad, Germany during the ROSSINI IN WILDBAD festival (Artistic director: Jochen Schönleber) A co-production with SWR Producer: Siegbert Ernst Editor: Dr Anette Sidhu - Ingenhoff Engineers:Wolfgang Rein and Siggi Mehne Booklet Notes Reto Müller and Keith Anderson

Cover: Stage design by Auguste Caron for the second act of the French version of Moise et Pharaon (4 acts) by Rossini, Paris ,1827

CD 1 75:44 Act 1 57:21 Act 2 18:23 CD 2 60:54 Act ll (contd.) 47:01 Act lll 13:53

When Gioachino Rossini sat down to compose Mose in Egitto in 1818, he was in the midst of his most prolific musical period as an opera composer. On the one side of his musical journey, Rossini had already mounted the dramme giocosi, L’Italiana in Algeri and La Cenerentola, the dramma, Elizabetta, regina d’Inghilterra, his first Neapolitan work and his most popular comedy, Il Barbiere di Siviglia. And as for the years after 1818, the opera world would soon get to hear such rich musical works as the azione tragica, Ermione, the melodramma, La Donna del lago and what Phillip Gossett calls in his book, Divas and Scholars, Rossini’s most innovative Italian serious opera, Maometto ll, the last three composed for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples under the watchful eye of the impresario, Domenico Barbaja.

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Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
Torvaldo e Dorliska - Drama semiserio in two acts (1815)

Dorliska - Darina Takova (soprano)
Duca d’Ordow - Michele Pertusi (bass)
Torvaldo - Francesco Meli (tenor)
Giorgio - Bruno Practico (bass)
Carlotta - Jeannette Fisher (soprano)
Ormondo - Simone Alberghini (bass-baritone)

Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano Trento
Conductor: Victor Pablo Perez
Prague Chamber Choir
Chorus Master: Lubomir Matl
Director: Mario Martone
Set designer: Sergio Tramonti
Costume designer: Ursula Patzak
Light designer: Cesare Accetta
Fortepiano: Giulio Zappa
Cello continuo: David Etheve
Video director: Tiziano Mancini

Edizione critica della Fondazione Rossini in collaborazione di Casa Ricordi Rec. live, Teatro Rossini, Pesaro, August, 2006. Synopsis and essays in Italian, English, French and German. DYNAMIC 33528 2DVDS: 157 Min.

It is not often an opera goer gets to revisit a fondly remembered performance hoping the praiseworthy first impressions still ring true. Fortunately, the solid musical and dramatic values from the Rossini Opera Festival’s production of Torvaldo e Dorliska are still very much alive on this recently issued DVD taped in August 2006. And what stands out about the DVD is the care Dynamic took in presenting both the gentle reflections and the forceful declamations in Rossini’s semiserio opera, letting the camera capture these contrasting musical moments the composer recognized were essential to this genre.

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