Semiramide - Performance History

Performance History

Following its premiere, the opera was given twenty-eight times for the rest of the season in Venice (and, at some point, for four nights in a row), and it went on to presentations throughout Italy and Europe, including Paris in 1825, Milan in 1829 and 1831, and Vienna in 1830. It reached London on 15 July 1824, was given its US premiere in New Orleans on 1 May 1837, but it took until 3 January 1845, before it was performed in New York.

Other prima donnas emerged in the major roles by about 1825, since Colbran's vocal powers had greatly diminished by the time of the Venice premiere performances and she "was in no state to ever sing the role again". For 25 years after 1830, Giulia Grisi triumphed in the role notably in St Petersburg in 1849 and New York in 1854.

By the late 1800s, the opera had virtually disappeared from the repertoire. However, the Metropolitan Opera had revived it in 1892, 1894 (with Nellie Melba), and 1895, but it took until 1932 when it was again revived (in a German translation) in Rostock, and it then reappeared under Tullio Serafin at the 1940 Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

Although the overture is one of several of Rossini's to be widely recorded, the opera is only occasionally performed in modern times. Presentations at La Scala in Milan in September 1962 with Joan Sutherland and Giulietta Simionato required the re-assembly of the entire score from the Rossini autograph, since no other texts were known to exist.

While musicologist Philip Gossett notes that between 1962 and 1990 "some seventy opera houses have included the work in one or more seasons", it was not until the Met's 1990 revival after almost 100 years that a production based on a new critical edition was mounted. It starred Marilyn Horne as Arsace.

The Rossini Festival staged the work in Pesaro in 1992.