Progetto ROS / Rossini Opera Stampa; a 'KAUS Urbino Project' related to the Rossini Opera Festival 2012.
Staging an (any musical practice before 2000 so to speak) opera, is a chance to researche history. It is probably like the restauration of a museum piece. Anyone in restauration knows that this is in more than just one sense an illusion, which is great fun when working with a theatrical illusion in the first place. I for myself am somewhat on the hand of the musicians that try honestly and hard to perform a piece as they think it to be as close as possible to the intentions of the composer.
Dear me, I am a composer, and I would not have to many clues beyond that what my (the ones I therefor love) musicians make of all that has been meticulously put to paper by my head stearing my hand (visa versa) to my best judgment according to the limited knowledge I have.
(I'm not discussing talent here, don't you dare!)
Rossini was a singer, and musician, his father was a musician and his mother a singer; each of them with great and long experience on or immediately near to the stage: that is having ideas even without thinking about them.
Rossini at the same time is not just someone having ideas 'to transport' by performers (that is stage directors included); he is someone who is amongst those making us think the way we do. If we like it or not, does not come before any of us having our minds working with much of his stuf; he's a mould - there are many of those; it's our common heritage.
Then again we do not have much to go on, when we look for explicit viewpoints in letters or public comments from Rossini; well, there the full work-load to work through!
A first step in such world click >
Rossini and M. Aguado. - At six or seven leagues from Paris an event has just taken place which would have produced a sensation in any capital of Europe. Under the hospitable roof od the Chateau de Petit Bourg, Rossini has just composed a mass. It was on Sunday last, on the fête de Petit Bourg, that this mass of the divine maestro was executed, for the first time, in the village church. The organ was of course replaced by a piano, and the performers were worthy of the composer, Levasseur, of the Royal Academie de Musique, Madame G.-, Madame La Comtesse Merl, who would perhaps be the first primadonna in Europe, did she not occupy the most distiguished rank in the world of fashion, where she is as much celebrated for the amiablility of her disposition, as for her splendid talents: such was the compositions of this troupe de chapelle.
Joseph J. Visser, Composer, Visual Artist , Author/translator & Lecturer.
Rossini presided
at the piano, and sang the 'Gloria in Exelsis.'
This mass is composed of ten morceaux, all of them imprinted
with a character of grandeur and originality, and of celestial
poetry. A fragment of the 'Stabat Mater,' which Rossini composed
for the Court of Spain, was greatly admired. A great number of
privileged amateurs were invited to this musical and religious
fête, which will immortalize Petit Bourg and its church.
- This village has now for some time enjoyed the privilege of
affording an asylum to one of the greatest capitalists in Europe,
M. Aguado. His residence at the Chateau de Petit Bourg will be
less remarkable for luxury and magnificence, than for enterprises
useful to the community at large. I saw in the Chateau the room
in which Rossini wrote the division of William Tell. The piano
remains as he left it, but the 'clarion' slumbers. But let us
hope that the hospitality of Petit Bourg may soon again arouse
the musical genius of the maestro.
This mass is composed of ten morceaux, all of them imprinted with a character of grandeur and originality, and of celestial poetry. A fragment of the 'Stabat Mater,' which Rossini composed for the Court of Spain, was greatly admired. A great number of privileged amateurs were invited to this musical and religious fête, which will immortalize Petit Bourg and its church. - This village has now for some time enjoyed the privilege of affording an asylum to one of the greatest capitalists in Europe, M. Aguado. His residence at the Chateau de Petit Bourg will be less remarkable for luxury and magnificence, than for enterprises useful to the community at large. I saw in the Chateau the room in which Rossini wrote the division of William Tell. The piano remains as he left it, but the 'clarion' slumbers. But let us hope that the hospitality of Petit Bourg may soon again arouse the musical genius of the maestro.