Gioachino Rossini
Maometto Secondo
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center
Libretto: Cesare della Valle
Premiere: 3 December 1820
Teatro San Carlo, Naples
Maometto Secondo Scott Purcell
Paolo Erisso Nicholas Simpson
Anna Simone McIntosh
Calbo Hannah Ludwig
Teatro Nuovo Chorus and Orchestra
Lucy Tucker Yates, maestro al cembalo
Jakob Lehmann, primo violino e capo d’orchestra
A Neapolitan Powerhouse
Maometto Secondo, the eighth of Rossini’s towering series of nine serious operas for Naples, became one of his most enduring operas - but under an assumed name. He reworked it for Venice, then for Paris, and then the Parisian version came back to Italy as L’Assedio di Corinto - which made news at the Met a generation ago when it served for the debut of Beverly Sills. All the versions have their merits, but the purest distillation of Rossini’s dramatic genius is found in the original score, with its high-voltage virtuosity in all roles and its harrowing tragic finale. Read More.
Mehmed II (Maometto), portrait by Paolo Veronese
Mehmed II (Maometto), portrait by Gentile Bellini
Mehmet II (Maometto), unknown artist of Flemish school, 1453