Opera Santa Barbara’s next event will be a new production of L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers) by Gioachino Rossini, starring Eve Gigliotti (Isabella), Javier Abreu (Lindoro), Stefano de Peppo (Mustafa) and Luis Orozco (Taddeo).
The orchestra will be conducted by Craig Kier, and the staging will be under the direction of Omer Ben Seadia.
The performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 6 and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 8 at the Granada Theatre.
Rossini’s patented blend of grandeur and absurdity, tragedy and farce — which define “grand opera” for most of us — was already fully formed when, at 21 years, he composed L’Italiana in Algeri (1813). It was a tremendous success, and it laid the groundwork for the composer’s almost fairy-tale career.
Rossini was so deft at writing for the musical stage that he could switch from melodrama to buffoonery at the drop of a hat — sometimes, as here, in the same opera. Stendahl admired him above all composers, and even wrote a book about him.
Though he was perfectly comfortable with contemporary settings, or with historical dramas, Rossini was cannily aware that the public’s taste for romances set in the Ottoman Middle East or Moorish North Africa had by no means died out with the eighteenth century — and that it would indeed still be keen when Puccini came to write Turandot. Nor was he at all shy of putting a strong, resourceful woman — instead of a victim or martyr — at the center of his opera.
The story of an alpha female setting out to rescue her imprisoned lover has also a long history. Think of the Scottish folksong “Geordie” or the English one, “Anathea.” Think of Portia saving Antonio in The Merchant of Venice.
But no one has ever made lugubrious nonsense so compelling, or feminine longing so heartbreaking, or swaggering machismo so charismatic as Rossini, and this is where he got his sea legs.
Single tickets to L’Italiana in Algeri range from the astonishingly low $28 to the breathtakingly high $188, and they can be obtained from the Granada box office at 1214 State St., by phone at 805.899.2222 or online by clicking here.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.