La Scala di Seta 'Opera Buffa in 1 Act' - Giochino Rossini 'Gelmetti - Live, 1990'

Composition Year: 1812
First Performance: 1812-05-09 in Venice, Teatro San Moisè
~
Remastered soundtrack.
~
Performers:
David Griffith-Dormon, Julia's guardian
Luciana Serra as Julia, a young lady
Jane Bunnell as Lucilla, Julia's cousin
David Kuebler as Dorville, Julia's lover
Alberto Rinaldi-Blanzac, Giulia's fiance
Description Alessandro Corbelli
~
Director / Choreographer: Michael Hampe
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra
Gianluigi Gelmetti - Conductor
~
Recorded: Live recording, Schwetzinger Festspiele, 1990.
~
Writing this opera was a natural consequence of the extraordinary success of the opera "Happy Deception". This is indeed an early Rossini masterpiece. This piece already has a new set of qualities, which leads us to a more mature Rossini. The action on the stage here keeps getting more complex and faster, and more characters are drawn into the general confusion, into a catastrophe that can then be resolved by nothing. And all this makes up a kind of stage orchestral crescendo, and for such as we know, Rossini, of course, is simply the intended composer... He filled this farce, this one-act buffa opera, with all the oddities and extravagances you can think of. And the famous overture (and this, of course, is one of Rossini's ceremonial works, which orchestras love to play) shows us for the first time in full action how the wheels move, how the fireworks appear in the Rossini orchestra. Because the responses of wind instruments are very precise, and the remarkable forward movement of indefatigable strings can be traced through all the twists and turns of melodic thinking...
~
Dormon, Julia's guardian, intends to marry her off to Blanzac, not knowing that she is secretly married to Dorville, who climbs the silk staircase to his wife's room every night. Lucilla, Julia's cousin, is in love with Blanzac. Germano's simple-minded servant, hearing that Giulia is expecting her husband at night, and believing that it is Blanzac, hastens to inform him that a silk staircase will be lowered for him. Lucilla finds out about this and decides at all costs to recapture the groom from her cousin. She and the curious Germano take up observation spots. As soon as Dorville arrives at the appointed hour, Blanzac appears in the room. Dorville is hiding. Seeing a ladder hanging from the window, the guardian hurries to his ward and finds her with Blanzac, Lucilla and Germano. He decides that the only way to cover up the sin is to marry Julia and Blanzac as quickly as possible, but Dorville comes out of hiding and explains the whole truth. Dormon has only to bless the union of Blanzac and Lucilla.
~
ATTRIBUTION
Music contained in this video is licensed to: Schwetzinger Festspiele, SWR, 1990.