Sabina Willeit

Live performance, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, July 2006. 'L'italiana in Algeri' (English: 'The Italian Girl in Algiers') is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies.

In Bergamo Harlequin woos Annunziata and to get rid of her husband Ser Matteo invents an invasion of the city by disguising himself as a captain to enlist him. Colombina, Harlequin's neglected wife, yields to Leandro who woos her...

Pulcinella finds himself in New York and not Naples: from stockbroker to semi-naked banker in the midst of Wall Street. Actualization of Igor Stravinsky's ballet composed as a tribute to Italian music.

At the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, stage director David Hermann and music director Christian Zacharias lead a production of Otto Nicolai's 1849 opera The Merry Wives of Windsor, a work that draws its inspiration from William Shakespeare's beloved eponymous play.