L'italiana in Algeri

At the Teatro Regio the comic opera by Gioachino Rossini

Teatro Regio, Wednesday 22 May 2019 at 8pm

On Wednesday 22 May, at 8pm, the Regio stages L’italiana in Algeri by Gioachino Rossini, on the libretto by Angelo Anelli. Alessandro De Marchi conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Regio, in a show directed by Vittorio Borrelli. The cast includes an array of bel canto rising stars: Martina Belli, Xabier Anduaga, Carlo Lepore and Paolo Bordogna. The Chorus is instructed by Andrea Secchi. 
 

The Presenting Partner of this Rossini production is Leonardo. The Company, an international leader in high technology and innovation, is active in the local communities and areas in which it works to promote industrial and business culture, to spread knowledge and to enhance cultural and museum heritage. Its longstanding collaboration with Turin's Teatro Regio is testimony, in particular, to Leonardo's strong roots in Piedmont, a region in which the company boasts an historic and significant presence in various industrial sectors with major technological content. 

While the handful of days that it took Rossini to compose L’italiana in Algeri is perhaps a theatrical myth, it is certain that the very lively rhythm of the music that marks and emphasises the amusing dramaturgical events, together with the modernity of the topic, immediately saw the opera enter the realms of legend.

The Bey Mustafà is tired of his wife Elvira and wants to marry her off to his slave Lindoro: he is looking to add to his harem an Italian girl full of character, and who better than the charming Isabella, who has just been shipwrecked off the Algerian coast? But the lively girl, actually engaged to Lindoro, is very strong and independent, and Isabella is able to take on all her suitors in a play of misunderstandings in which female intelligence and conjugal fidelity ultimately triumph.

An exceptional admirer such as Stendhal called the playful drama "the perfection of the comic genre" and its success has been uninterrupted from 1813 to today: since its debut, the opera has never left the repertoire and is currently one of the world's most performed works by Rossini.

Alessandro De Marchi, since 1998 conductor of the Academia Montis Regalis, is a highly appreciated interpreter of the baroque and classical repertoire. Winner of the Abbiati award and in 2015 the Echo award with the Sony recording of Gluck's Le Belle immagini, he has conducted at the Berlin Staatsoper, Salzburg Festival, Theater an der Wien, Oslo Opera, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Florence Maggio Musicale, Brussels Théâtre de La Monnaie, Dresden Semperoper, Lyon Opéra and at Naples San Carlo; he returns to the podium at the Regio after the recent interpretation of The Barber of Seville (2018).

Isabella is played by Martina Belli, one of the young talents chosen by the Pavarotti Foundation, who won, at just 18 years of age, the selections for the contralto voice in the Voices of Europe ensemble, collaborating with Arvo Pärt; she has sung at the Rome Opera, at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, at Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and at prestigious festivals such as Tage Alte Musik in Regensburg, the Barok Festival in Stuttgart and at MITO Settembre Musica. Lindoro will be Xabier Anduaga, a twenty-four year old Spanish tenor specialising in the Rossini repertoire; winner of five audience and critics' awards at the Francisco Viñas Competition, he studied under the guidance of Ernesto Palacio, Alberto Zedda, Ana Luisa Chova and Juan Diego Flórez, and debuted in the 2016/17 Season at ABAO in Bilbao, at the Rossini Gala of Opera in Limoges, at the Philharmonic Theatre in Verona and at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. The ever popular Carlo Lepore plays Mustafà; in his lengthy career he has won numerous awards, from Giovan Battista Pergolesi of Rome to the Adriano Belli Competition of the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale of Spoleto (1992), to the Tiberini d’oro, awarded in 2012 precisely for his bel canto repertoire. As well as having trodden the main stages, he has also appeared in the films Io, Don Giovanni directed by Carlos Saura in the role of Commendatore and Cenerentola, una favola in diretta, conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti and directed by Carlo Verdone, in the role of Don Magnifico. Taddeo is Paolo Bordogna, also the winner of the Tiberini d’oro in 2017 and an international point of reference in the comic repertoire; in his career he has sung more than 50 roles in theatres such as Covent Garden, Opéra de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, Teatro Real de Madrid, Liceu de Barcelona and Sydney Opera House, and from 2005 he has been a regular guest of the Rossini Opera Festival. He has recorded several albums for major labels, including a solo album for Decca. The cast is completed by Sara Blanch (Elvira), Benjamin Cho (Haly) and Rosa Bove (Zulma). For the historic staging of the Teatro Regio, the scenes are designed by Claudia Boasso, the very colourful costumes are by Santuzza Calì and the lights are by Andrea Anfossi, assisted by Vladi Spigarolo.

L’italiana in Algeri, curated by Susanna Franchi, will be broadcast live on Rai Radio 3 on Wednesday 22 May at 8pm. Alessandro Mormile, for the Regio Conferences, on Wednesday 15 May at 5:30pm at Piccolo Regio Puccini, will lead the meeting with free entry entitled Astuzia femminile, seduzione e amor di patria.

Tickets on sale at the Teatro Regio Ticket Office, Piazza Castello 215 - Tel. 011.8815.241/242, at Infopiemonte-Torinocultura, at Vivaticket stores, online at www.vivaticket.it, by telephone at no. 011.8815.270 and via Satispay. Ticket prices: performances of 22, 24 and 26 May: €90 - 75 - 70 - 65 – 55 – 29; performance of 28 May: €60 - 55 - 50 - 45 - 40 - 29. Tickets reduced by 20% for under 30s and by 10% for over 65s. One hour before the shows, any tickets still available will be sold with a 20% reduction on the full price. There will be no reductions for the performance of 28 May at 2:30pm. For further information: Tel. 011.8815.557 and www.teatroregio.torino.it.

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