Semiramide, Rossini

Ten years after he conquered Venice in 1813 with Tancredi, Rossini was back with Semiramide, a work notable as both his final Italian opera and his longest. Two-and-a-quarter hours of first act and an even longer second half was bolstered by a five-act ballet inserted by La Fenice management in case anyone felt short-changed.

With ten scene changes, a sizable chorus and onstage military band it was a vast undertaking, and only a partial success, not least because of the supposedly waning powers of Rossini’s prima donna, his wife Isabella Colbran. Nevertheless, Stendahl’s review of the 1825 Paris premiere hit the nail on the head suggesting that if...