Semiramide

When Rossini left Naples and set about composing a new opera for Teatro La Fenice in Venice, he was well aware that he had to create something totally different; the Venetian audience would not have ‘accepted’ the sophistication of the Neapolitan school but it was equally unbearable for him to return to the stylistic elements he had already developed in Tancredi. Inspired by Voltaire’s tragedy Semiramis, (which drew considerably on Shakespeare’s play), he set aside its context and instead created an absolute, perfect composition that was almost a stylistic utopia. In this unique score, conventionality and pure abstraction go hand in hand, after which, melodrama will never be the same.