United States Rossini, Il viaggio a Reims: Soloists, Opera Philadelphia Chorus & Orchestra / Corrado Rovaris (conductor). Opera Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 19.9.2025. (RP)
Opera Philadelphia launched its 50th Anniversary season, the first under the leadership of Anthony Roth Costanzo as General Director, with a Rossini rarity, Il viaggio a Reims. When the opera premiered in Paris in 1825, it was cast with the finest singers of the day. Present-day revivals generally attempt the same. Opera Philadelphia opted for fourteen rising young singers, and the result was a bonanza of fresh voices singing bel canto arias, as lyrical and lovely as can be.
Rossini composed Il viaggio a Reims, his last opera in Italian, to celebrate the coronation of Charles X as king of France. He was inspired in part by Corinne ou l’Italie, the 1807 novel by Germaine de Staël, but it is equally a latter-day Canterbury Tales. The opera has a backbone of a plot concerning a group of aristocrats traveling from all over Europe to the coronation of Charles X, who are stranded in a luxury spa hotel near Reims due to a lack of horses. They sing of their frustrations, intrigues and loves, before continuing to Paris for even grander celebrations of the coronation.
After four performances, Rossini squelched further attempts to stage it because of the cost, and the opera fell into obscurity. He reused much of the music in Le Comte Ory. Musicologists reconstructed Il viaggio a Reims in the 1970s, and it has been performed with some regularity since then. Opera Philadelphia presented it in Damiano Michieletto’s well-traveled production, which first premiered at the Dutch National Opera in 2015.
Michieletto correctly surmised that the slim plot and references to historical and mythological figures do not resonate with today’s audiences. His solution was to update the action to the present day in an art museum preparing for the opening of a major exhibition. Madama Cortese, the proprietor of the Tyrolean hotel in the original, is the museum’s curator. Visually, Brenda Rae, who plays the role, is a cross between Cruella de Vil and the Meryl Streep character in The Devil Wears Prada.
Other transformations include making the scholar Don Profondo an art auctioneer and Lord Sidney an art restorer. The remaining sumptuously costumed characters, all true to the actual opera, emerge from their frames or packing cases throughout the opera. Masterpieces line the gallery’s walls, including ones by Van Gogh, Keith Haring, Magritte and Velázquez. The subjects of those paintings also come to life, with two of the best being Haring’s ‘Dancing Man with Radiant Heart’ and Magritte’s ‘The Son of Man’ with a green apple obscuring his face.
Michieletto’s concept is witty and fun yet never intrudes upon the music. And from the first notes of the brief orchestra introduction, it was obvious that Rossini and his music would be well served. The sounds emerging from the pit were transparent, light and frothy, buoying the cascades of Rossini’s lyrical delights.
Emilie Kealani as Corinna beguiled sight unseen with her silvery soprano as she sang an aria to harp accompaniment from a proscenium box high above the stage. While she sang, the Three Graces, danced by Sydney Donovan, Abby Donnenfeld and Amanda Rattigan, captured in movement the grace of Rossini’s melodies. As La Contessa di Folleville, an ebullient Lindsey Reynolds filled out her arias in her lush, rich soprano. Rae’s Madama Cortese stalked the stage, although her soprano thinned in its upper ranges.
Katherine Beck combined pathos and comedy as Marchesa Melibea, the Polish widow of an Italian general killed on their wedding night. The Conte di Libenskof, sung by the fine lyric tenor Alasdair Kent, and Don Alvaro, the robust baritone Alex DeSocio, did verbal and physical combat as rivals for her affections.
The opera is a progression of arias and duets containing some of Rossini’s finest music. As Lord Sidney, Scott Conner rued his reluctance to express his love for Corinna in his warm bass voice. Minghao Liu’s Cavaliere Belfiore was bolder, but his beautifully spun vocal lines failed to win the heart of Corinna. Ben Brady was Don Profunda, with a voice that matched his character’s name as he sang of his fellow travelers’ foibles and national traits.
In the final scene, Michieletto’s concept took flight, pulling all the loose ends of the convoluted plot lines together to create a fittingly majestic finale. Rossini laced the scene with national songs, the best known of which is ‘God Save the King’, sung with appropriate pomp and bravura by Conner’s Lord Sidney. As the scene progresses, the characters and supernumeraries take their places to recreate a François Gérard painting, ‘The Coronation of Charles X’, as the chorus sings long life to the newly crowned king. It is the kind of ending that makes opera grand.
Rick Perdian
Featured Image: The cast of Il viaggio a Reims © Steven Pisano
Production:
Director – Damiano Michieletto
Revival Director – Eleonora Gravagnola
Sets – Paolo Fantin
Lighting – Alessandro Carletti
Costumes – Carla Teti
Chorus master – Elizabeth Braden
Cast:
Corinna – Emilie Kealani
La Marchesa Melibea – Katherine Beck
La Contessa di Folleville – Lindsey Reynolds
Madama Cortese – Brenda Rae
Il Cavaliere Belfiore – Minghao Liu
Il Conte di Libenskof – Alasdair Kent
Lord Sidney – Scott Conner
Don Profondo – Ben Brady
Il Barone di Trombonok – Daniel Belcher
Maddalena – Sarah Scofield
Don Alvaro – Alex DeSocio
Don Prudenzio – Zachary Altman (bass-baritone) / Anderson Nunnelley (actor)
Don Luigino – Fran Daniel Laucerica
Antonio – Brandon Bell
Zefirino/Gelsomino – Hongrui Ren
Modestina – Maya Mor Mitrani
Delia – Olivia Prendergast
Dancers – Sydney Donovan, Abby Donnenfeld, Amanda Rattigan