“This is an opera which doesn’t have a real drama in it,” says our production’s director, Damiano Michieletto. “So, when I started working on it, I tried to fin a storyline that was not only funny but brilliant. I needed a chain of events that were related to the reason why this stage work was originally written.” Michieletto, a Venetian filmmaker making his long-awaited debut at a major American opera house, sets the story in a museum preparing a new exhibition. “All the characters are anxious and in a state of uncontrolled excitement for the forthcoming event, which in the libretto corresponds to the departure for Reims,” he explains. “Some characters are real: Madama Cortese, for example, is the director of the Museum. Other characters are historical figures, belonging to the paintings on display in the museum. The arrival of a large and mysterious painting will give the story a twist, closely connected to the historical occasion for which both Il viaggio a Reims was originally written, and the painting was originally commissioned: the coronation of Charles X, King of France.”

This "mysterious painting" is a real work of art that can be found today at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres, France. Its creator, François Gérard, is better known for his smaller portraits, but he occasionally painted larger, historical scenes to demonstrate the full range of his talents. “The Coronation of Charles X,” completed two years after the coronation in 1827, can be viewed as collection of detailed portraits, combined to form a tableau. In Michieletto’s production, the figures in this historical painting arrive in separate boxes. They are all in various states of undress and confusion, unsure of where they belong, and trying to find their frame. When they ultimately find their place, Gérard’s painting is brought to life on stage, to be admired by the museum’s staff and visitors, and by the opera’s audience alike.

This sumptuous production, which comes to Opera Philadelphia from the Dutch National Opera, Royal Danish Opera, and Opera Australia, shows the opera’s characters inhabiting and interacting with figures from famous works of modern art by Pablo Picasso, Keith Haring, and John Singer Sargent, among others. Michieletto’s direction is complemented by Paolo Fantin’s epic set design, Carla Teti’s lavish costumes, and Alessandro Carletti’s dramatic lighting design, creating an excitingly fresh interpretation of this unique work. The museum setting draws together past and present, allowing Rossini’s gentle lampooning of 19th century aristocratic culture in an increasingly cosmopolitan Europe to become newly relevant today, while the production’s surrealist aesthetic allows for all sorts of delightful visual surprises. So welcome to this popup of The Golden Lily Gallery, onstage for a short time at the Academy of Music. Sit back, relax, and watch the art come to life before your eyes.

Dr. Lily Kass is Opera Philadelphia's Scholar in Residence