Moses in Egypt
Music by Gioacchino Rossini
Libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola
Based on Francesco Ringhieri's L'Osiride
Chicago Opera Theater
At the Harris Theater in Millennium Park, Chicago
Conductor, Leonardo Vordoni
Director, Andrew Eggert
A review by M. D. Ball of the performance on Apr. 17, 2010
Tragic love is an alluring theme. It’s even more alluring when the context is something to which we can react viscerally, especially when we can blame it for the lovers’ agony. There were Romeo and Juliet, destroyed by the seething hatred between their families; Vronsky and Anna, trapped in a hypocritical and harshly unforgiving society; Abélard and Héloïse, victims of a brutal religious culture; Rodolfo and Mimì, torn apart by the petulance and perilousness of bohemian life.
So it is with Rossini’s Moses in Egypt, a melodramatic tale of forbidden love between Elcia, a Hebrew slave girl, and Osiride, son of Pharoah, set against the epic struggle of the Israelites to escape their bondage in Egypt. In fact, the connection between our lovers and the Exodus itself is what defines the tragedy, the outcome of a collision between arrogance and wrath on one side, and loyalty and devotion on the other...
Read the whole review here.