Director Jan Philipp Gloger turns Rossini’s first big hit, written in 1813, into a lesbian Romeo and Juliet—warring families and ill-starred lovers as a given, a balcony and a priest with a secret potion thrown in as extras to make the comparison more obvious.
The composer set his opera in Syracuse, Sicily, in 1005. Fast-forward a thousand years, but we might still be in Sicily—Catholic, violent and conservative, where one or other or both of the rival crime outfits beat a man to death for being gay. Rossini had the island threatened by invading Saracens; here the enemy are the police.
Amenaide is being forced into marriage with Orbazzano in order to heal the rift between the hostile gangs, but is in love with Tancredi, a trouser role for mezzo, but in Gloger’s conception, really a woman forced to wear male costume for disguise. The pair cannot reveal their relationship for fear of reprisals, but the situation is further complicated when Amenaide’s love letter to Tancredi is intercepted, and Orbazzano, her father Argirio and even Tancredi herself believe she is betraying them, presumably to a police spy.
The motivations get a bit messy thenceforth, but the overall concept of this 2024 Bregenz Festival production explains Tancredi’s secretive behaviour perfectly well.
The work premièred in its revised form a few days after Rossini’s 21st birthday, and already shows many of the virtues that would make him the leading Italian composer of the day: sparkling coloratura, sweet melodies and featured woodwind solos, notable here in the overture and the first of two preludes that would make a pretty orchestral novelty.
Above all, the opera offers fine showpieces for the two principals, soprano Melissa Petit (Amenaide) and mezzo Anna Goryachova (Tancredi), both of whom are in excellent form, their voices distinctive and complementary in the second act duet, a highlight of the piece.
There is a limpid quality to Petit’s smooth legato and the delicate way she negotiates the decorated arias, and a creamy sensuality in Goryachova’s voice in all but the very lowest note of the writing. Gloger leaves Tancredi to die alone at the end—a high-risk strategy to which Goryachova fully commits, dying with a whisper, a heart-rending scene more realistic than operatic.
Other vocal performances are mixed. Andreas Wolf makes a strong impression as Orbazzano, a man not to meet in a dark alley, or a brightly illuminated one for that matter, but Antonino Siragusa’s reedy Argirio is overshadowed by Goryachova in their duet, and Laura Polverelli sounds fuzzy but recovers somewhat in act two.
Justina Klimczyk’s costumes are immediately indicative of character, and Ben Baur’s stage design is highly effective with a revolving stage revealing a square with horse trough to add interest to village brawls and a villa with heavy furniture, and having the benefit, as estates would say, of a balcony and handy torture room.