Antonino Siragusa

In the aftermath of the Trojan war, a series of unrequited loves threatens to destabilise the fragile peace. But for a spurned Spartan princess, there are only two options left: forgiveness and murder. The most ambitious and innovative of all Rossini’s operas, Ermione was a calamitous failure on its opening night at the Teatro di San Carlo 200 years ago. It now returns to the Neapolitan theatre in a new production by Italian director Jacopo Spirei starring American soprano Angela Meade in the title role.

Bellini - i Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona

A count with simple, unpretentious tastes courts the commoner Chiariella at his villa in Marechiaro. After a couple of broken marriage promises, he manages to extricate himself from the situation with the help of a sprite that pops out of a bottle.

Opera di Giacomo Rossini a Genova

Gioachino Rossini’s Armida (1817) is a spectacular but relatively rarely performed opera seria, based on Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata: the sorceress Armida seduces the crusader Rinaldo, creating a conflict between love and military/religious duty. The 2014 Rossini Opera Festival production in Pesaro was directed by Luca Ronconi, with Carlo Rizzi conducting. It featured Carmen Romeu as Armida and John Osborn as Rinaldo, with a notably demanding vocal cast. Ronconi’s staging emphasized the opera’s dreamlike, magical and theatrical dimension rather than treating it as straightforward medieval epic. It was particularly notable for showcasing Rossini’s extreme vocal virtuosity and elaborate ensembles, including the famous Act II finale and the spectacular series of transformations surrounding Armida’s magic.

Hermione, whose consort Pyrrhus has fallen in love with Andromache, is torn apart by hatred and love. When Adromache yields to Pyyrhus, in order to save her son, Astyanax, Hermione is overcome with jealousy and invites Orestes to avenge her. Dominated by a desperate, inextinguishable passion for her, Orestes accepts. But love is stronger than hatred and when Orestes returns with his dagger dripping blood, Hermione is seized with pain and collapses on the ground cursing him. From the Rossini Opera Festival, 2008.

Early Rossini has a youthful, buoyant vibrancy about it, even in the dark swirls of drammi per musica like Sigismondo. The work, centered on a mad king and his delusions, was rarely played after its premiere in 1814. This performance marked the first from the critical new edition at the 2010 Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and was hailed as a "perfect symbiosis of music and stage work" resulting in "truly brilliant theatre." Complete with a cast of sought-after Rossini singers, this is not to be missed.