Maometto II - Schedule, Program & Tickets

Before closing his rich Neapolitan season with Zelmira, Rossini gave the city and its demanding public a work of vast scenic architecture, particularly cared for in instrumentation and recitatives. The fact that the composer arrives at these results in Naples, after a five-year stay with a permanent position at San Carlo, is not surprising; Naples was indeed a veritable musical capital, with a theater that could boast one of the largest orchestras in the European opera scene, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Even the singing companies, reunited by the great manager Barbaja, were not far behind and gathered very high level performers. The score of Mohammed II is particularly ambitious and involves the overcoming of the more usual formal schemes (made of closed numbers) in favor of large structures connected by a complex thematic elaboration procedure. Where necessary, for dramatic reasons, Rossini renounces the typical structure of air with cavatina and cabaletta in favor of more elastic forms.

Subject to change