L’italiana in Algeri

ow easy it is to be mistaken! “Women in Algiers are born only to serve their masters”—so declares the chorus right after the overture. Too bad that what follows tells quite a different story. A young Italian woman has just arrived in the city. Taken prisoner, she is destined for the harem, that place which, for Europeans of the early 19th century, embodied the very symbol of a mysterious Orient, both erotic and exotic. The bey of the corsairs falls desperately in love with her, and from lion he turns into donkey: everyone mockingly calls him Pappataci (“eat and be silent”). It is Isabella who now leads the game, and the male-dominated world is turned upside down. Stendhal would later call Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri, first staged in Venice in 1813, an “organized madness.” The plot is dazzling, breaking every convention, and even resorts to onomatopoeias such as “dindin,” “bum bum,” or “tac tà.” “I thought that after hearing my opera the Venetians would call me mad, and instead—they’re even madder than I am!” exclaimed the astonished composer after the premiere at the Teatro San Benedetto. The audience in fact enthusiastically celebrated his daring opera buffa, brimming with patriotic spirit and love, while Heinrich Heine would describe Rossini as “a Vesuvius from which magnificent flowers erupt.”