Born in 1986, the soprano Alessandra Marianelli made her début in Pisa as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro. Her career has continued with appearances in major theatres and festivals including the Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, and the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, with Mozart roles including Susanna, Pamina, Despina and Zerlina, Nannetta in Verdi’s Falstaff and Lauretta in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. She has continued to develop her repertoire with Musetta in La Bohème, Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Petite Messe solennelle, and Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.

After studies at the Gnessin Music Academy, the tenor Maxim Mironov joined the Helikon Opera Theatre in Moscow where he made his début. Career highlights include performances at the Vienna State Opera, Glyndebourne, Washington National Opera, Las Palmas Opera, the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival, Saxony State Opera and Rossini in Wildbad.

Mironov enjoys a particular reputation as a Rossini tenor and has collaborated with renowned conductors and directors, as well as recording for many labels including Naxos.

The tenor Randall Bills was born in the United States. A scholarship from the Bavarian State Opera in Munich led to collaborations with Kent Nagano and Peter Schneider, followed by engagements with the Mainfranken Theater Wurzburg. He has earned particular acclaim in Mozart and Rossini operas at Theatre Dortmund, Nationaltheater Mannheim, New Zealand Opera, Seattle Opera, Theater Osnabruck, English National Opera, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Rossini Opera Festival, New York City Opera, Oper Leipzig, Teatr Wielki Poznań, Goteborg Opera, Opernhaus Chemnitz and El Paso Opera.

He recently sang the role of Jupiter in Semele at the Handel-Festspiele Karlsruhe, and appeared as Agorante in Ricciardo e Zoraide at Rossini in Wildbad, which was subsequently released on Naxos (8.660419–21).

For more information, visit www.randallbills.com.

The Camerata Bach Choir was founded in 2003 by Tomasz Potkowski in Poznań. The members consist mainly of soloists from the Poznań Opera Chorus and the Kraków Philharmonic Choir. The choir collaborates closely with the Wrocław Philharmonic. The choir’s repertoire includes works by Bach, Handel and Mozart. Since 2010 the choir has served as ensemble-in-residence for the Rossini in Wildbad Opera Festival. The current Gdańsk Opera choir master, Ania Michalak, has been the choir director of Rossini in Wildbad since 2010.

The Virtuosi Brunensis chamber orchestra was established in 2007 from two of the best known Czech orchestras—the Brno Janaček Theatre Orchestra and the Brno Philharmonic. Under the guidance of artistic director Karel Mitaš the orchestra has appeared, among other engagements, at the Bad Hersfeld Opera Festival and at Rossini in Wildbad where it has recorded Rossini’s Otello, L’Italiana in Algeri, Semiramide and Guillaume Tell, Vaccaj’s La sposa di Messina and Mercadante’s I briganti for Naxos, among others.

José Miguel Pérez-Sierra began his conducting career as assistant to Gabriele Ferro. He studied with Gianluigi Gelmetti at the Accademia Chigiana and with Colin Metter at the London Royal Academy, and from 2004 to 2009 was assistant to Alberto Zedda.

After his debut with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia in 2005 he collaborated with the Rossini Opera Festival, conducting Il viaggio a Reims in 2006 and La scala di seta in 2011, and has since enjoyed an international career. Since 2023 Pérez-Sierra is music director of Teatro della Zarzuela, Madrid. He conducted the Gala concert for the Opera Awards 2022 in Madrid’s Teatro Real Madrid, and has led acclaimed concerts with Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen. He made his successful debut in Bad Wildbad with Ricciardo e Zoraide in 2013 (available on Naxos 8.660419–21), followed by Aureliano in Palmira (8.660448–50), L’equivoco stravagante (DVD 2.110696 / Blu-ray NBD0133V), Matilde di Shabran (8.660492–94) and La scala di seta (8.660444–46).

www.josemiguelperezsierra.com

Rossini occupied an unrivalled position in the Italian musical world of his time, winning considerable success relatively early in his career. The son of a horn player and a mother who made a career for herself in opera, as a boy he had direct experience with operatic performance, both in the orchestra pit and on stage. His operas from his first relative success in 1810 until 1823 were first performed in Italy. There followed a period of success in Paris, leading to his final opera, Guillaume Tell (‘William Tell’), staged in Paris in 1829. The revolution of 1830 prevented the fulfillment of French royal commissions for the theatre, but in his later life he continued to enjoy considerable esteem—both in Paris, where he spent much of his last years, and in his native Italy. There he spent the years from 1837 to 1855, before returning finally to France, where he died in 1868. The last 40 years of his life were creatively silent: no more operas issued from his pen.

Operas

Of Rossini’s three dozen or so operas, Il barbiere di Siviglia (‘The Barber of Seville’) is probably the best known, a treatment of the first play of the Figaro trilogy by Beaumarchais on which Mozart had drawn 30 years earlier in Vienna. Other well-known comic operas by Rossini include La scala di seta (‘The Silken Ladder’), Il Signor Bruschino, L’italiana in Algeri (‘The Italian Girl in Algiers’), Il Turco in Italia (‘The Turk in Italy’), La Cenerentola (‘Cinderella’) and La gazza ladra (‘The Thieving Magpie’). More serious subjects were tackled in Otello, Semiramide, Mosè in Egitto (‘Moses in Egypt’) and the French Guillaume Tell (based on the play by Schiller). The overtures to many of these operas are a recurrent element in the repertoire of the concert hall.

Church Music

Church music by Rossini includes the Petite Messe solennelle, originally for 12 solo voices, two pianos and harmonium but rescored four years later, in 1867, with orchestral accompaniment. Rossini’s Stabat mater was written in 1841 in its final version.

Chamber Music

Instrumental compositions by Rossini include his early string sonatas, designed for two violins, cello and double bass and thought to have been written when the composer was 12. The string sonatas show a precocious command of Italian operatic style, here translated into instrumental terms. The so-called Péchés de vieillesse (‘Sins of Old Age’) consist of 13 volumes of varied music, some vocal, some instrumental (five designed for the piano). They consist of pieces that demonstrate both the well-known wit of the composer as well as his continuing technical command of musical resources.