Lightning sometimes strikes twice. English Touring Opera hit topical gold last spring when, wholly by coincidence, they found themselves touring with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian anti-war satire The Golden Cockerel. Now the company’s general director Robin Norton-Hale insists that their current tour of Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims – written in 1825 to celebrate the coronation of King Charles X of France – was fixed long before this month’s events at Westminster Abbey were even a glint in the Earl Marshal’s eye.
Really? In truth, opera planning cycles generally operate in years rather than months. On the other hand, Il viaggio a Reims is an extravagant heap of dramatic (if not musical) flummery. Why would anyone who wasn’t a terminal coloratura junkie stage it without pretext? Assorted national stereotypes gather at an inn en route to the coronation in Reims. A shortage of coach horses leaves them stranded, so they throw a party right there instead.
Rossini retired four years later at the age of 37 and spent three decades throwing dinner parties
In the words of Alan Partridge, it really is that simple, and director Valentina Ceschi does her best to jolly along the non-existent drama.
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