Rossini’s 1813 orientalist comedy L’Italiana in Algeri belongs in the same stable as Mozart’s 1782 rescue opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Ezgi Kutlu as Isabella and Quirijn de Lang as Mustafà in L’Italiana in Algeri at Garsington Johan Persson★★★☆☆A gilded staircase on golden barley-sugar columns; a crescent moon in a cobalt sky; a preening despot with a roving eye. As with the two composers’ Figaro operas, the later work is the more cynical. Where Mozart adhered to Enlightenment principles, Rossini anticipated Larry David’s rules for Seinfeld: “No hugging, no learning.” After two hours of tantrums and migraines, dizzy ensembles and plangent cavatinas, the libidinous Bey of Algiers is bamboozled by a dessert trolley and returns, exhausted,

Source: The Times June 06, 2016 15:56 UTC