Tancredi
Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
Opera in 2 acts, Libretto by Gaetano Rossi after Voltaire
From the Schwetzinger Festspiele 1992
Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, Conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti
Cast: Bernadette Manca di Nissa, Maria Raul, Raul Gimenez, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo
Stage Director, Settings and Costumes: Pier Luigi Pizzi
Running Time: 174 min
Recording Date: 1992
Menu languages: GB, D, F, SP
Subtitle languages: It, GB, D, F, SP
Picture Format: 4:3
Sound Format: PCM Stereo
Region Code: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Sel. No. 100 206 PAL
It was on Tancredi (Tancred), Rossini's first great "Opera seria", that his early fame was based - together with L'Italiana in Algeri (The Italian in Algiers), which was first performed only three months later. Following the first performance of Tancredi on 6 February 1813 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, it became one of the composer's most popular works and soon came to be produced all over the world. Then it disappeared from concert programmes until Tullio Serafin once more re-staged it at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, in 1952. In that performance Giulietta Simionato played the title role and breeches part. But it was left to the incomparable Marilyn Horne to succeed in bringing the opera back into the repertoire: her performances in Houston (1977), Aix-en-Provence (1981), Venice (1982) and Chicago (1989) marked important stages in the so-called "Rossini renaissance". The Venice performance departed from custom by presenting both the tragic finale later added by Rossini for a performance in Ferrara, and also the "happy ending" of the original Venetian production. In 1982 Lucia Valentini-Terrani sang the title role at the Rossini opera festival in Pesaro, and in 1990 Anne Sofie von Otter took this breeches part in Geneva. In 1994 the Unter den Linden state opera in Berlin performed both versions, the counter tenor Jochen Kowalski portraying the Tancredi of the 'tragic' Ferrara score while Kathleen Kuhlmann sang this role in the original Venetian, happy-ending version.