Rossini in Wildbad - Semiramide

During the 1860 season, the engagement of the famous Marchisio sisters provided an opportunity to stage Rossini's *Semiramide* for the Opéra. During the 1860 season, the engagement of the famous Marchisio sisters provided an opportunity to stage Rossini's *Semiramide* for the Opéra. Rossini largely left this adaptation to his close friend Michele Carafa, who adapted the prosody of Méry's French translation, focused the opera entirely on the love triangle between Semiramide, Arsace, and Assur, and provided it with a grand ballet score composed especially for the occasion, as required by the grand opera genre. After the successful premiere, Rossini said to his bel canto singers, "You have brought a dead man back to life!" The modern concert premiere of this version in the new edition by Gianmarco Rossi marks the beginning of the new series "Rossini et le Belcanto en français," which is generously supported by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation. Diana Haller and Marina Viotti sing.