15-23 Feb 2005. Conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti, directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi, with Daniela Barcellona, Michele Pertusi, Anna Rita Taliento, Antonino Siragusa.

Gioacchino Rossinis Semiramide will be performed at the Teatro dellOpera in Rome (15-23 Feb). It is the highlight of the theatres season that does not promise much excitement. Semiramide, a masterpiece, returns to Rome after more than 20 years. In it Rossini abandoned the novelty and experimentation of his previous works, returning to a more traditional project, which he then executed to both musical and stylistic perfection. Indeed, Semiramide became an encapsulation and idealisation of Italian serious opera. In this performance, the singers are Darina Takova, Daniela Barcellona, Michele Pertusi and Antonino Siragusa the best Rossini singers of today. The conductor is Gianluigi Gelmetti who has the quality of style to meet the needs of such a complex and grandiose work. The director, Pier Luigi Pizzi, has become a bit repetitive of late but at the beginning of the 1980s he staged a magnificent Semiramide in Aix-en-Provence and then in Turin, and one can only hope that this production will be repeated in Rome. Paolo Di Nicola