Performance History
Il viaggio a Reims was first performed at the Théâtre Italien, Paris, on June 19, 1825, with Giuditta Pasta as Corinna. There were only four original performances. The different parts of the manuscript, assumed lost, were re-found and re-assembled in the 1970s by the musicologist Janet Johnson, with the help of Philip Gossett.
The first performance after the reconstruction was given at the Rossini Opera Festival on August 18, 1984. It was conducted by Claudio Abbado and directed by Luca Ronconi. The cast included Francisco Araiza, Lella Cuberli, Enzo Dara, Cecilia Gasdia, Eduardo Gimenez, William Matteuzzi, Leo Nucci, Ruggero Raimondi, Samuel Ramey, Katia Ricciarelli, Lucia Valentini Terrani.
Other performances have followed. The American premiere was given on June 14, 1986 by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis at the Loretto-Hilton Theater in St. Louis, Missouri, directed by Colin Graham and conducted by Richard Buckley. In 1992, the Royal Opera, London gave several performances: Carlo Rizzi conducted, and the cast included Montserrat Caballe, Renée Fleming, Sylvia McNair, John Aler and Andrew Shore. In Helsinki, on January 9, 2003, the opera was directed by Dario Fo and conducted by Pietro Rizzo. In November 2005 there was another production in Monte Carlo, with a cast including June Anderson, Raùl Gimenez, Rockwell Blake, and Ruggero Raimondi. The Wiener Staatsoper produced the opera in its Rossini Festival conducted by Claudio Abbado, with Monserrat Caballé and again Ruggero Raimondi. The Kirov Opera performed it at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in January 2007. The work was produced in Tel Aviv by the Israel Opera in November 2007. The African premiere was presented by the University of Cape Town in collaboration with Cape Town Opera in 2010. The South American premiere was presented by the Teatro Argentino of La Plata City, Argentina, in 2011.
During the 2011/12 season, the most recently productions have been given by the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp in December, where the action took place inside a jumbo jet,and at the Teatro Comunale in Florence in January where the action was staged in an early 20th-century luxury spa.
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