World premiere: 19 June 1825, Théâtre-Italien, Paris
Premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre and premiere of this production: 13 April 2005
Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes
The performance has one interval
The opera Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L’albergo del giglio d’oro was composed in 1825 on the occasion of the coronation of King Charles X of France, and the plot unfolds in the lead-up to the coronation itself, which numerous guests are hurrying to attend. Rossini himself called his opus a stage cantata, and it does, in fact, stand apart from the operatic model one might typically associate with this maestro. The opera has fourteen (!) lead characters, all of them tangled up in a huge web of confusion. Brief ariosos are intermingled with quartets and sextets. The composer frequently abandons the norms of the so-called solita forma (recitative – lento aria – presto cabaletta), and we moreover recognise Rossini’s signature, the requirement of virtuoso skills is high and the music is life-affirming, sunny and transparent.
This magnificent féerie did not enjoy public acclaim at the time it was first presented; moreover, in as much as it was written for a specific occasion, the composer had not initially considered the possibility of his work having any long-term existence in the repertoire. The score was withdrawn from the Comédie-Italienne in Paris and left on the shelf. The music of Il viaggio a Reims was later to appear in the opera Le Comte Ory: at that time, quoting from one’s own works was a common practice. Such a sensible method also corresponded to Rossini’s sense of “bon vivance”: why exhaust oneself composing new music if one can use old music which in any case very few people have heard? Il viaggio a Reims was rediscovered only in 1977, in the archives of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where music historians Janet Johnson and Philip Gossett found the old sheet music for Le Comte Ory, containing hitherto unknown music. Following several years’ work to reconstruct the score, in 1984 there came the premiere of the opera at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, the composer’s home town. Since then the opera has gone on to enter the international repertoire and has been recorded on around ten occasions, appearing at the Mariinsky Theatre in 2006, where it was staged in a co-production with Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet.
The production garnered rave reviews in addition to receiving Russia’s Golden Mask theatre prize, moreover in two categories: “Best opera production” and “Best work by a stage director”. Here there are no elaborate historical costumes: the action unfolds against a gangplank embarkation platform for a cruise liner; the scenes – as well may be imagined – all contain numerous characters. Moreover, everything is done with elegance, with precision and subtlety, with the necessary colourfulness but without any excesses. The entire premise works on being able to showcase Rossini’s music in the best natural way, not losing sight of the characters amid the intricacies of the plot. Denis Velikzhanin
The production is a recipient of Russia’s Golden Mask National Theatre Award (2006)
Co-production with Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
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