L'equivoco stravagante

Composer: Rossini, Gioachino

Librettist/Text Author: Gasbarri, Gaetano

Conductor: Michelangeli, Umberto Benedetti

Orchestra: Bolzano-Trento Haydn Orchestra

Chorus: Prague Chamber Chorus

Chorus Master: Vanek, Pavel

Buralicchio: Vinco, Marco

Ermanno: Korchak, Dmitry

Ernestina: Prudenskaja, Marina

Frontino: Mirabelli, Ricardo

Gamberotto: Simone, Bruno de

Rosalia: Forsythe, Amanda

Set Designer: Calcagnini, Francesco

Costume Designer: Ojanguren, Pepa

Lighting Designer: Levi, Guido

Stage Director: Sagi, Emilio

Television Director: Mancini, Davide

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Festival: Rossini Opera Festival

Venue: Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro

Playing Time: 02:22:10

Catalogue Number: 33610

UPC: 8007144336103

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L'equivoco stravagante was written on 1811 and its Rossini's first two-act comic opera, the only one written for a theatre in Bologna (his adoptive home after he abandoned Pesaro). A truly peculiar opera; not so much in its music but with the text written by Gaetano Gasbarri which led the work being ostracised from theaters for nearly two centuries.

L'equivoco stravagante stages the classic situation of the young girl who does not intend to be wedded to the traditional rich braggart but prefers a timid young man who is short of money; this time the expedient used to drive off the undesired wooer is to have him believe that in reality the girl is a young boy who has been castrated - or in the euphemistic parlance of the time a musico. Seasoned with fanciful language, made up of bold neologisms and licentious double meanings, with expressions that are in turn silly, absurd, or hyperbolic, Gasbarri's libretto offers no few aspects of modernity, while Rossini's music already contains the melodic invention, the frenzied rhythm, the musical electricity that within just a few months were to project the composer unstoppably towards worldwide success.