A Rossini's adventure!

A wife, somewhat femme fatal and quite unfaithful, who firmly places the cuckold’s horns on her rich and aged husband’s head: a repudiated bohemian still in love with the Ottoman sultan; a Turkish prince come to Naples to study European customs and discover love in the Italian style; a few unrequited lovers; a poet with writer’s block who seeks to rekindle his inspiration by embarking this small universe into an imbroglio of irresistible vis comica: these are the ingredients of this whirlwind opera in the best Rossinian vein.

In a production premiered in 2014 at the Festival of Aix-en-Provence, the equally virtuoso and brilliant staging of Christopher Alden drives this story of La Dolce Vita in Italy in the ’50s, when women— brunette or blonde, according to the mood or hour of the day — work their seductive wiles as they expertly course their way through the pleasures of life and love.

A regular at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro and of the Italian repertoire, Antonello Allemandi leads here in Opéra de Dijon a spirited top-tier cast that includes young mezzo Catherine Trottmann as Zaïda.