Editorial Rossinissimo!
by Cecila Bartoli
Cecilia, dai!, vieni al Barbiere stasera! My brother Gabriele, student at the Conservatory in Rome, is off for a gig in the provinces, regarded as something of a tedious punishment, and that’s how I, a teenager more interested in Rita Pavone, Mina, Celentano or Lucio Dalla, unexpectedly make my first encounter with Rossini. It is a performance at a provincial theatre in the environs of Rome (maybe Frascati or Tivoli) given by a cobbled-together orchestra conducted by a small, energetic maestro, whose appearance is announced by a huge cloud of smoke and who had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth right up to having taken his place in the pit…
For me until then opera had been mainly Verdi’s melodramas and Puccini’s verismo, in other words the repertoire sung by my parents as soloists and members of the chorus, and which we as children often experienced subconsciously and in a playful way. The great open-air performances of the Stagione Estiva with Verdi’s Aida against the background of the unique classical ruins of the Caracalla Baths in Rome remain unforgettable to this day. We children of course took delight in the elephants, camels and many horses which we regarded as the main protagonists. We kept a close eye on how the members of the “Egyptian” corps de ballet, dancing on points, very carefully manoeuvred themselves around the horse droppings. If one of the dancers slipped during a pirouette, landing with his bottom on a fresh pile of elephant excrement, the evening was perfect for our gang of friends hooting and laughing at someone else’s misfortune…
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