Even with complete success, the rewards for producing this unsteady Rossini comedy are titters, giggles and little respect unless the singing is in the rarefied Cecilia Bartoli zone. Even so, you wonder if this 1813 opera could ever truly be funny in 21st-century terms. It comes from an era when composers knocked out giddy, formulaic works in a matter of weeks, almost like TV shows. Masterpieces arose by chance. Nowadays, they easily wilt with their loss of ability to surprise.
Stage directors try to impose a sitcom-style acting that renders everything incomprehensible.
In this age of great mezzo-sopranos, this opera gives them a leading role. Producer Stefano Vizioli's strategy took a relatively high road, stopping at the threshold of mugging and drawing humor from the characters, telling you in a shrug or sidelong glance what a recitative takes three minutes to accomplish. There were big Turkish hats, sailing ships that traveled across the horizon, all in broad enough strokes to be dubbed cartoonish, were they not so stylish. In the orchestra pit, this approach was seconded by conductor Corrado Rovaris' light, airy treatment of the orchestra. This discouraged the machine-gun approach of singing Rossini coloratura in lieu of something more lyrical, more integrated into the characters and conducive to nicely blended ensembles.