Zelmira Music by Gioachino Rossini Directed by Calixto Bieito
ZELMIRA
Drama for music in two acts by ANDREA LEONE TOTTOLA
Music by GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Critical edition by the Rossini Foundation of Pesaro, in collaboration with Casa Ricordi of Milan, edited by HELEN M. GREENWALD and KATHLEEN KUZMICK HANSELL
Conductor GIACOMO SAGRIPANTI
Director CALIXTO BIEITO
Settings CALIXTO BIEITO, BARBORA HORÁKOVÁ
Costumes INGO KRÜGLER
Lighting designer MICHAEL BAUER
Cast:
Polidoro MARKO MIMICA
Zelmira ANASTASIA BARTOLI
Ilo LAWRENCE BROWNLEE
Antenore ENEA SCALA
Emma MARINA VIOTTI
Leucippo GIANLUCA MARGHERI
Eacide PAOLO NEVI
Gran Sacerdote SHI ZONG
CORO DEL TEATRO VENTIDIO BASSO
Chorus Master PASQUALE VELENO
ORCHESTRA DEL TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
New production 2025
Click Here for the Italian Version
“Sì... trema o mostro! a fulminarti è armato
Vindice braccio... sì... respira ancora
Per tuo estremo cordoglio
Il Re di Lesbo, e tornerà sul soglio.”
(Tottola, Andrea Leone. Zelmira. Act II, Scene 3. Character: Zelmira)
King Polidoro reigns on the island of Lesbos. His daughter Zelmira is married to the Trojan prince Ilo. Ilo is leading a war expedition and is abroad. Taking advantage of his absence, Azorre, lord of Mytilene, invades Lesbos. Zelmira hides her father. Later, Azorre is killed by Antenor, who accuses Zelmira of his death, along with that of Polidoro. When Ilo comes back, he falls into a trap set by Leucippus (the right arm of Antenor), who attempts to stab him. This crime is also blamed on Zelmira, causing hatred between the two spouses. Ilo discovers the truth only when Polidoro appears to him. In the finale, Ilo attacks his enemies and frees Polidoro, thereby restoring the kingdom and his family's happiness.
Zelmira, from Rossini’s golden Neapolitan period, returns to the Rossini Opera Festival 2025.
The premiere was on 16 February 1822, when Rossini was already the most famous and prolific composer in Europe. Zelmira confirms that Rossini's virtuosic music and orchestra are capable of creating perfect atmospheres.
The libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola is a drama with a vague historical setting. The plot is intricate and convoluted. The climax of the narrative is Zelmira's courage, a determined and persevering woman. She loves her two men: her father and her husband. For them, she faces dangers and risks.
Her personality combines femininity and intense vitality: she defends her father, saves Ilo's life, and cares for her son.
Auditorium Scavolini Rossini Opera Festival 2025
Zelmira is the decisive and central character, played by the excellent Anastasia Bartoli, gifted with great vocal agility. Anastasia Bartoli grew up with Rossini and the Rossini Opera Festival. She is thirty-two years old and one of the brightest hopes for bel canto.
Zelmira's willpower is described by Anastasia Bartoli herself in an interview with ANSA:
"She will be a Zelmira with great strength of spirit, combative and resilient, more than her male co-protagonists. Starting with Polidoro, who, although king, does nothing to save himself and depends entirely on his daughter even for food, to her husband, who believes everyone except his wife, and to her enemies, ready to strike cowardly from the shadows. In this sense, it can be called a feminist opera, because it is above all the women who emerge for their courage and determination..." (1)
A feminist Zelmira. She could be the Queen of Lesbos, for her intriguing abilities and willpower. She would have been a worthy politician.
Director Calixto Bieito grasps the significance of the island as being ravaged by wicked political and military machinations. Despite the tone of the libretto, Bieito depicts it as a dream:
"In Zelmira, emotions remain suspended in time and repeat endlessly, like in a dream, like a fleeting thought; voices and music orbit in space." (2)
Bieito's dream takes form on the large stage placed in the centre of the Scavolini Auditorium. A chessboard of many squares, its lighting shifting intermittently through bright, colourful, and dark phases. Inside this enormous grid, the orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna is elegantly located. Around it, the protagonists are engaged in running, careful not to fall into the numerous traps set by the director. Real traps. Pits filled with sand, water, helmets, and other stage props; a jumble of ideas.
The choice to place the platform at the centre has a significant impact on the final result. The interpretation of music and voice becomes circular. Upon entering the Auditorium, the view of the stage is a delightful projection, it is Bieito's dream world. There is emotion in its light, in its hypnotic chess.
Unfortunately, the vocal dispersion is quite complicated. The stage is in the middle, and the spectators sit on all four sides. Often the singers are turned away or positioned next to the audience, or on the stairs, or near the entrances. Therefore, there is some dissipation due to the many symbols appearing suddenly. Could the cause be a desire for modern-day historicisation? On stage, we see a war with camouflage, guns, and duffel bags. Ilo, played superbly by Lawrence Brownlee, looks more like a disoriented Rambo as he enters Hope Town.
The artistic spirit arises from the continual eagerness to be up to date.
Artists are compelled to approach opera as if they were contemporary, as if today's problems were the real ones, while in past centuries, only prosperity and peace reigned.
This expressive inclination of the authors is more of a pose than an aesthetic thought. The effect is a surplus of high-sounding symbols. The chequered stage is filled with singers with wings, a water-pool, coloured balloons, sequins, soap bubbles, countless helmets, totems, sand thrown into the air: the stage is crammed with random objects.
The artists' torments have created a work of musical and scenic solidity, with a growing pathos demonstrated in the finale by applause and public acclaim. An oneiric direction, supported by popular and definitive Rossinian performers. It is a major success in this edition of the ROF.
https://www.ansa.it/canale_lifestyle/notizie/people/2025/08/07/anastasia-bartoli-la-mia-zelmira-femminista-al-rof_0e986dec-544d-4c17-ad31-05a42bf5bdb4.html (translated by author)
Pierachille Dolfini, Bieito: «Nel mio Rossini a Pesaro Zelmira è un'eroina attuale», 9 agosto 2025 https://www.avvenire.it/agora/pagine/uneroina-attuale-nel-rossini-di-bieito (translated by author)
Zelmira, from Rossini’s golden Neapolitan period, returns to the Rossini Opera Festival 2025.
The premiere was on February 16, 1822, when Rossini was already the most famous and prolific composer in Europe. Zelmira confirms that Rossini's virtuosic music and an orchestra are capable of creating perfect atmospheres.