Baltimore Opera Company

Study Guide

The Siege of Corinth

Opera At A Glance

Opera in three acts

Music – Gioachino Rossini (Jo-ya-KEE-noh Rohs-SEE-nee)

b. 29 February, 1792; Pesaro , Italy
d. 13 November, 1868; Paris , France 

Libretto – Luigi Balocchi and Alexandre Soumet. Based on the opera Maometto II , as derived from Voltaire's Mahomet, ou le Fanatisme .

Premieres: as Maometto II , December 1820, Naples , Italy ; as Le Siège de Corinthe , October 1826, Paris , France.
US Premiere: February 1835; Italian Opera House, New York City .

Principal Characters:

Maometto II (Ma-oh-MET-toh Seh-COHN-doh) Bass
Pamira (Pah-MEE-rah) Daughter of Cleomene Soprano
Cleomene (Cleh-oh-MEH-neh) Governor of Corinth Tenor
Neocle (Neh-OH-cleh) a young Greek Officer Mezzo soprano
Jero (Ee-EH-roh) guardian of the graves Bass
Ismene (Eez-MEH-neh) Confidante of Pamira Mezzo soprano 

L'Assedio di Corinto (Lah-SEH-dee-oh dee Coh-REEN-toh) takes place in Corinth around 1459.

Gioachino Rossini

His mother an opera singer and his father a horn player, Gioachino Rossini was born into the artistic world of music. Rossini grew up in the small town of Pesaro on the coast of Italy . He was born on February 29, 1792 and very soon after, his musical talent emerged. At the age of six, Rossini started playing the triangle in his father's band. Unfortunately, when the Austrians brought back the old regime to Italy in 1796, Rossini's father, who supported Napoléon's invasion of Northern Italy , was sent to jail. Rossini's mother, now forced to support her family alone, went to Bologna to gain more leading roles in different theatres. Without enough time to take care of Rossini, she frequently left him with her old mother, who was not in any condition to raise a child properly. Soon, Rossini's father got out of jail and continued playing his horn in many of the same theaters in which his wife had singing roles.

Throughout his mother's and father's successful careers in the music industry, Rossini's parents sent him to caretakers. He lived in Bologna with a pork butcher, where he studied the harpsichord with Prinetti of Novara for three years. Rossini discontinued his lessons on the harpsichord and started an apprenticeship with a smith. Rossini began studying music and learned to sight-read, to accompany on the pianoforte, and to sing. He began receiving solo parts at his church at the age of ten. At thirteen, Rossini made his only public appearance on stage at the theatre of the Commune in Paër's Camilla. Not only could he sing well, like his mother, but he even learned to play the horn, like his father.

Rossini's operatic career began when he entered the Liceo Musicale in Bologna . He received a commission to write his first opera at the early age of fifteen, for which he composed Demetrio e Polibio and at eighteen, he produced his first opera. After this point in his life, Rossini continued to compose more operas, including both opera serie and opera buffa. His operas were produced all over Italy , in Venice , Milan , Naples , and Rome . Rossini worked at such an amazing speed that when he was only thirty-one years old, he had already revealed thirty-four masterpiece operas to the public. The three most famous of these operas includes Il Barbiere di Siviglia ( The Barber of Seville ), La Cenerentola ( Cinderella ), and Guillaume Tell ( William Tell ).

In 1822, Rossini married Isabella Colbran, the leading soprano in many of Rossini's opera productions, and moved to Paris , where he wrote several more operas before retiring. In the following years, Colbran died and he fell ill several times, but Rossini married his second wife, Olympe Pélissier, in Paris . The musical contributions in the last years of Rossini's life are minimal, yet comprise of some of the most famous of his pieces. He produced the Stabat Mater and the Petite messe solennelle , which are two sacred works, and he also wrote many salon pieces, which he noted in his notorious humor are “the sins of my old age.” Rossini's personality was one of his best traits. He valued his friends and he loved his food. In his last years, Rossini had more time to spend on other loves of his life, besides music, his friends and food. He even invented many dishes to satisfy his large appetite. One of these dishes is the renowned Tournedos Rossini.

Rossini died comfortably in Paris at the old age of seventy-six. Soon after his death in 1868, Giuseppe Verdi suggested that all Italian composers write a requiem in Rossini's honor. Verdi wrote “Libera me” for Rossini. It was not until 1988 that Helmuth Rulling conducted the premier of this compilation of Requiems for Rossini, called the Messa per Rossini . This compilation of Requiems by the twelve most famous Italian composers of that time is just one testament to Rossini's fame and influence on the composers of his time and later musicians. This dedication shows the ultimate reverence that others have, not only for Rossini's works, but also for his amazing knowledge of life.

- Lily Friedman

Alexandre Soumet and Luigi Balocchi

Alexandre Soumet was a poet from Castelnaudry in southwestern France . He was born in February of 1788 and discovered a love of poetry very early in his life. He admired the works of the German poets Friedrich Schiller and Friedrich Klopstock. These poets inspired Soumet's career in poetry and led him to Paris in 1810. He composed poetry in honor of Napoléon and because of the recognition Soumet received for these poems, he was nominated auditor of the Conseil d'état. Soumet was admitted to the Academy in 1824 because of his famous elegy La pauvre fille and his tragedies Clytemnestre and Saül . He received great distinction for his play Jeanne d'Arc and for his epic poetry. He wrote religious poetry including La divine épopée , which is about Christ's descent into Hades. In addition, Soumet was the librarian for Louis XVIII at Saint-Cloud, Rambouillet, and Compiégne at various points. He died in 1845 at 57 years of age, while still working on his epic, Jeanne d'Arc . He was assisted in the libretto project by Luigi Balocchi for The Siege of Corinth .

-Lily Friedman

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