Members of the Glyndebourne Chorus, Prosdocimo (Matteo Mancini), Girlfriend (Anna-Marie Sullivan) and Donna Fiorilla (Elena Villalón). Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: ASH
Rossini Il Turco in Italia
Glyndebourne / Bertie Baigent
Glyndebourne’s joyous production of “Il Turco in Italia” fizzed with happy energy when it had its first run in 2021, with new layers of comic invention being added to Rossini’s drama, all of which fitted into place remarkably well. I’ve been looking forward to this 2026 revival, and, five years on, it is stronger, busier, bolder, more coherent – and even funnier. I’d highly recommend it.
The strongest impression of all is that rather than it being about individual singers, arias or characters, here we have a whole cast and company thriving together, the production infused with the momentum and enthusiasm of a superb collective endeavour, and a lot of laughter. Whenever cast members or others in the production talk about this show, they always stress how much fun it has been simply to be part of it. All of the principals are strong, but above all each one of them takes a role in interacting and keeping the comedy constantly alive.
Selim (Peter Kálmán) and Don Geronio (Rodion Pogossov). © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: ASH
Rossini’s melodies just flow seemingly effortlessly, and young conductor Bertie Baigent keeps things moving and light-footedly confident – it will get even more assured during the run.
Director Mariame Clément has returned for this year’s production, but revival director Ian Rutherford has been associated with the venture right from the start, and it was significant that both of them came onstage to share the enthusiastic and vociferous final applause from a full house at the end of Saturday’s opening night.
Clément has given Rossini’s first ‘dramma buffo’ from 1814 an update from the eighteenth century to 1950s neo-realism, but the updating and adding go deeper than that, notably in probing and critiquing the whole task of inventing and telling a story, using projected handwritten and typed notes on a backdrop (video design by David Fricker), constantly imagining the blank page with which the writer (Prosdocimo, a strong-voiced Matteo Mancini) starts his task. A problem frequently cited with “Turco” is how to maintain interest in the Prosdocimo sub-plot. Here it sparkles with the same energy as the comedic love-plot, which it also cleverly ironizes.
The writer has a silent accomplice (“The Girlfriend”), a role taken by actor Anna-Marie Sullivan, a Glyndebourne stalwart, and the only constant in the on-stage cast right through the 2021 first run, the autumn 2024 revival and the current season, for which she is also Movement Director. A problematic aspect of “Il Turco” in 2026 is that the plot readily and systematically degrades women. In this production, a simple well-directed stare from “The Girlfriend’ can put all that magically to rights.
Glyndebourne has a winner here, and one which fits very well into its own particular history. Opera started in the old house in 1934 with Mozart’s comic operas Così fan Tutte and Le Nozze di Figaro. Joseph Kerman noted that by contrast with Mozart, Rossini’s comic operas were “all thrown together pell-mell with the incautious profligacy of inexhaustible wealth”. This production gives us a comic opera written in the shadow of Mozart which has not just kept a lightness of spirit but also solved its problems brilliantly.