2002-06-15 L'Italiana in Algeri (G. Rossini), Opernhaus Zurich

A new Mustafa, doing

his first in Zürich, was STEFANO RINALDO MILIANI.

ITALIANA IN ALGERI, Zürich 15.6.2002.

It was a truly beautiful production, wonderful scenography, and costumes. I was most impressed by the TADDEO, Bruno de Simone, a big voice and a great personality. ELVIRA, Rosanna Savoia, was really a

magnificent voice. ZULMA, Judith Schmid, had a great voice too. And when you think that this is the smaller parts. The important ones, ISABELLA, Gloria Scalchi, the Italiana in the opera, was also impressing, a really great top in her voice, managing the fioritatura beautifully, being really a woman to which any man must fall on his feet for. LINDORO, Luigi Petroni, also had everything that one can wish for in this high tenor role, and also the physical height that so few tenor have, they tend to be rather small of stature. And in this production they had a monkey, a pet of the Bey Mustafa, and also his right arm so to speak. A tough role for any human, to be believable as a Monkey, physically the most demanding role here. ALI, another small role, Rudolf A. Hartmann did also very well. Stefano Rinaldo Miliani as Mustafa did not have the prominent voice that I think this role needs, but as a actor and driving the ensembles he was good.

I give this performance 6 stars for the excellence.