A Jubilant Gamble: Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims Launches Opera Philadelphia’s Milestone Season
- Mike Bolton
- Sep 24, 2025
- 7 min read
Opera Philadelphia launched the 2025-2026 Season with Rossini’s rarely performed Il Viaggio a Reims to celebrate its 50th Anniversary, having been formed in 1975 by the merger of the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company and the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company. Countertenor and operatic entrepreneur Anthony Roth Costanzo had the difficult task of resurrecting a company dealing with years of great artistic headlines and equally significant if less-publicized financial challenges: Costanzo inherited a $4M deficit on an $11M budget from the previous administration, numbers one cannot simply blame on COVID-19.
Costanzo has demonstrated stunning fundraising skills and recently announced the success of the initial phases of a campaign - $18M toward a $33M goal for cash reserves and to support the pick-your-price ticketing model. This well-publicized marketing endeavor, which sent shockwaves throughout the industry, allows patrons to purchase tickets for as low as $11 in any area of the house. It has caused an influx of new audiences to Opera Philadelphia and a sold-out 24-25 Season. But with something like 67% of those purchasing tickets that first year being new to the company. More significantly it demonstrates that long-time patrons were not enticed to return
despite the modest investment - thus, the need to attract new audiences.
Il Viaggio a Reims might seem a risky choice to open the season - a title unfamiliar to many opera lovers by a composer most widely known for one title – The Barber of Seville. The cast consists of many singers new to Philadelphia audiences, with only one or two familiar names. Tickets have sold well, but as of late last week, the production still was not sold out with full-view seats available at each of the performances. It should be noted that the Academy of Music has 13 support columns in the auditorium which obstruct full view of the stage to 500 seats. Those seats are not included as part of its sold-out determination.
Rossini had the greatest voices in the world available to him for this occasional piece, and he exploited each of their talents and gave them unique characters. The actual plot is quite slight: while at the Inn various parties traipse through various stages of infatuation with themselves or others only to find themselves at the coronation. Each has a solo moment to shine in various musical numbers. With the intention of only having one performance of the work (doing all that work for a performance that would only happen ONCE?!?!?), Rossini used several numbers in another opera: Le Comte Ory.
The opera, Rossini’s last in Italian, was commissioned in 1825 to celebrate the coronation of Charles X in Reims. On the surface, it’s a satire that lampoons operatic conventions from the entrance aria and ensemble moments to social conventions with a blatant display of issues surrounding class and general one-upmanship. Rossini’s plays into the competitive spirit with a large cast, many of whom have their opportunity to show vocal histrionics and technique, with two characters getting the most stage time: soprano Corinna and Lord Sidney, a bass.
It is not a work that has been seen frequently in the United States. I don’t know of any major company that has essayed the work in the past 25 years. Possibly because it’s even more expensive to produce than Meyerbeer’s rarely performed “night-of-seven-stars” Les Huguenots. With its necessity for 14 great singers, an all-star cast for Viaggio would break the bank for any opera company. It’s a great festival title or would be spectacular for an all-star gala concert performance of the work. Today it is performed by conservatories and regularly at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy, frequently casting its young artists in the work. In Philadelphia, the opera has been performed about once every 12-15 years or so at The Curtis Institute of Music, Academy of Vocal Arts, or Temple University. One notable cast from Curtis included a production from 1995 starring this lineup of future notable singers: Maria Fortuna, Alison Buchanan, Juan Diego Flórez, Eric Owens, Kamel Boutros, John Relyea.
I first fell in love with the score almost 40 years ago via a cassette boxed set on Deutsche Grammophon in the late 1980s. It was, and is, an all-star cast of some of the greatest Rossinians of the time: Katia Ricciarelli, Lella Cuberli, Cecilia Gasdia, Lucia Valentini-Terrani, Francisco Araiza, Edoardo Gimenez, Samuel Ramey, Ruggero Raimondi, Enzo Dara, Leo Nucci, etc under the expert baton of Claudio Abbado. From the delicious and juicy throbbing lyric of Cuberli, the ethereal Gasdia, the dashing Araiza, and the nobility of Ramey, among others, it all worked. Recorded live during those premiere performances of the reconstructed gem, the recording buzzes with an excitement palpable on stage and in the audience.
The opera’s ensembles, the two duets with tenor/soprano and tenor/mezzo-soprano, and Folleville’s great entrance scena were quick personal favorites that I’ve listened to dozens upon dozens of times; but what also stuck in my head were the little musical bon bons with which Rossini litters the score, 60 second gems of vocal acrobatics, patter, yodeling, and even “God Save the King” that are truly operatic ear worms.
I did see Viaggio in the 1990s at New York City Opera with a cast that included Mary Dunleavy, Camilla Tilling, Paula Rasmussen, Barry Banks, Daniel Mobbs, Kevin Glavin, and Roberto Scaltriti, among many others. My recollection is that the NYCO production, set at a spa, was very aqua green – think an indoor pool at a high school – and lots of folks in white bathrobes. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed by the work itself. The work was such a dramaturgical mess – there was barely any “drama” in the “turgical” – that it was difficult to make anything of it.
The opera’s plot is slight, so much so that it’s more of a series of vignettes rather than a story with a linear narrative arc. If I were to give a talk on the opera (which I’ll be doing on Friday, Sept 26 with the America-Italy Society in Philadelphia), I’d set up the opera like this: Imagine that you are at a business conference and there are various attendees in various states of infatuation (or distress because they didn’t bring enough of the right clothes). And after a night of karaoke, they realize that they have to get to the final keynote speech, after which everyone goes home. And that’s kind of what Viaggio is about – an eccentric menagerie of nobles, poets, soldiers, and artists stop by the Golden Lily Inn en route to the coronation of Charles X, the very same occasion for which the opera was composed. Yet in the original storyline, the characters never make it to Reims because their luggage and horses don’t arrive, so they settle for a lavish banquet instead, revealing that aristocrats excel more at pleasure than planning.
Italian director Damiano Michieletto, making his U.S. debut, transforms a Steak-umm of a plot into filet mignon through sheer imagination—placing the action in an art museum and using sharp pacing to keep us hooked, even when the story itself remains flimsy. If he doesn’t make the narrative more linear, he does keep us engaged with his interconnected scenes that feel vibrant and theatrical, all tied to the “art” conceit, providing several stunning theatrical coups such as art coming to life, performers breaking through art, and a final moment that is inspired. In the end, the opera plays more like a breezy summertime romance. The finale, in which each principal character from various countries, a nod to the numerous VIPs attending the actual coronation of Charles X, sings a song from their homeland, offered a moving sense of empathy, unity, and celebration—a poignant contrast to the disharmony so present in today’s world, leaving this viewer unexpectedly emotional at the finale.
Are all 14 cast members stars or stars in the making? It’s hard to say, but several left extremely strong impressions and threw themselves into the production. Heading the cast as a quasi-curator organizing the art, Brenda Rae impressed with dizzyingly fast patter for a non-Italian, blooming interpolated high notes. She has shown her bel canto acumen in Philadelphia before in spectacular outings as Amenaide in another rarely-performed Rossini opera, Tancredi (2017), and a beautifully touching heroine in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (2018). Alasdair Kent’s Count Liebenskof shone with his astounding high notes, deft coloratura, and brilliantly engaging stage skills. The Australian tenor is an alum of the Academy of Vocal Arts as is his fellow cast mate, bass Scott Conner. With one of the most difficult entrance arias in opera, Conner sailed through the 14-minute scena with a tone of glorious nobility and compelling stage presence.
While everyone in the cast impressed in their own way, a few other singers need to be singled out. Katherine Beck’s gorgeous chocolatey-voiced Marchese Melibea made one recall Stephanie Blythe. Her duet with Kent was a musical highlight of the night. Curtis Institute of Music alumna Lindsey Reynolds has impressed in past outings with Opera Philadelphia, especially in last season’s The Listeners. The gorgeous lyric coloratura’s voice can cut through an orchestra and fill the Academy while executing some of the most fun music Rossini would ever compose. Tenor Minghoa Liu was graceful and charming in his beautifully sung Cavaliere Belfiore. Bass-baritone Ben Brady made more of Don Profundo’s music than I’ve ever heard with a rich mellifluous voice that made the character’s demanding patter scene seem easy. Finally, always a joy to see on the Academy stage, baritone Daniel Belcher is a bit of a scene stealer as a possibly corrupt bishop, but always having a blast on stage that we all get caught up in.
The chorus sounds as ethereal and beautiful as always under chorus director Elizabeth Braden, but much of the credit must go to Jack Mulroney Music Director Corrado Rovaris, who clearly adores the score and allegedly has been campaigning to bring this work and production to Philadelphia for years. In this very tricky work, he was extremely attentive to the needs of the young singers, and, as one who is known for his breakneck tempi in Rossini, nothing felt too rushed or beyond the limits of the singers. But it was the more reflective moments that showed Rovaris at his most expressive. Phrase after phrase from the orchestra sculpted for glorious lyrical moments that made one sigh at their beauty.
Opera Philadelphia’s Il Viaggio a Reims ultimately felt like both a bold statement and a joyous gamble that paid off. By opening its milestone season with a rarely heard score, the company reminded us that opera is not only about beloved warhorses but also about discovery, reinvention, and risk. What could have been little more than a glittering curiosity instead became a vibrant celebration of artistry, community, and imagination. If this production is any indication, Opera Philadelphia’s 50th Anniversary season will not just honor the company’s history, but chart a thrilling course for its future.
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