One of the coolest things about the long (and costly) process of learning Italian is that you instantly gain access to loads of information -- about opera, and everything else -- that remains blissfully untranslated into English to this day. Because if on the one hand Oxford University Press translated (some of them at least) the works of Rodolfo Celletti about belcanto, on the other hand we don't have English versions of Gavazzeni and Bortolotto and Barilli and of the Isotta book that in the 1970s shed new essential light on Rossini's opere serie.
It's therefore a joy to see that the Salzburg Festival is showing, for the first time, Rossini's Moïse et Pharaon: opening August 8 as part of this year's Salzburger Festspiele. The Jürgen Flimm production is conducted by Riccardo Muti (awesome interview with the maestro in the other day's "Corriere della Sera").
Moïse is Ildar Abdrazakov (who appeared at la Scala -- well, at the Arcimboldi -- six years ago in the same work), Pharaon is Nicola Alaimo, Eliézer is Juan Francisco Gatell, Sinaïde is Nino Surguladze, Aménophis is Eric Cutler, Anaï is Marina Rebeka, and Osiride is Alexey Tikhomirov.
(Above: Ildar Abdrazakov and Nicola Alaimo)
Click the link below to see the rest!
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