Opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini

Libretto: Cesare della Valle

Premiere: 3 December 1820
Teatro San Carlo, Naples

The performance will last approximately 3h30 including a 25 minute intermission

Maometto Secondo Scott Purcell
Paolo Erisso Nicholas Simpson
Anna Simone McIntosh
Calbo Hannah Ludwig

Teatro Nuovo Chorus and Orchestra
Lucy T. Yates, maestro al cembalo
Jakob Lehmann, primo violino e capo d’orchestra

A Neapolitan Powerhouse

Maometto Secondo, the eighth of Rossini’s towering series of nine serious operas for Naples, became one of his most enduring operas - but under an assumed name. He reworked it for Venice, then for Paris, and then the Parisian version came back to Italy as L’Assedio di Corinto - which made news at the Met a generation ago when it served for the debut of Beverly Sills. All the versions have their merits, but the purest distillation of Rossini’s dramatic genius is found in the original score, with its high-voltage virtuosity in all roles and its harrowing tragic finale.