Amati Bacciardi
Depending on whom you ask, August can be as much about Rossini as it can be about Wagner. Saturday marked the start of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro which features such intriguing offerings as Zelmira starring Anastasia Bartoli and Lawrence Brownlee and Daniela Barcellona in the title role of L’italiana in Algeri.
Today’s clip, from a concert performance of Il viaggio a Reims at last summer’s Festival, shows off the extraordinary range and beguiling phrasing of the Russian mezzo who won not one but two rave reviews here at Parterre Box for her Adalgisa in Milan earlier this summer.
It’s a shame Berzhanskaya was maybe seen at less than her best in her New York debut in Les contes d’Hoffmann last fall, just a month after the performance featured today, or perhaps bel canto is just a better fit for her voice. Either way, her chutzpah cannot be faulted: less than a year after her acclaimed first Adalgisas, she’ll return to her more familiar role of Norma in Parma in the spring.
Rossini: Il viaggio a Reims, “Arpa gentil”
Vasilisa Berzhanskaya
Direttore Diego Matheuz
Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI
Coro del Teatro Ventidio Basso di Ascoli Piceno
Festival Rossini, Pesaro
23 August 2024
In-house
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
