Since Rossini's coronation opera was rediscovered in 1984, this performance show of bel canto has gained a firm place in the repertoire. At the same time, the story about the noble spa guests and their failed travel plan is a marvellous piece of absurd theatre, which Jan Bosse has staged as a satire about the "Hospital Europa"

About the work
A motley group of travellers on their way to Reims for the coronation of Charles X is billeted in the Hotel zur Goldenen Lilie. But when it transpires that no fresh horses are available for the stage coach, they realise they’re stranded.

In Il viaggio a Reims Gioacchino Rossini and his librettist Luigi Balochi present a chamber-piece setting in which the story’s 14-strong ensemble of equally-ranked main characters introduce themselves with a raft of original and perfectly executed arias in a situation of uncertainty and time-biding. The reason for travelling in the opera is the same as Rossini’s motive for writing it: Rossini, whose international reputation had preceded his move to Paris, was commissioned to write an opera as part of the festivities celebrating the coronation of Charles X in 1825, the climax of which would be the premiere of his work. As Il viaggio a Reims was inextricably linked to the coronation, Rossini considered that the work had a certain shelf life. He referred to the opera as a cantata and did not hesitate to use stretches of its music in one of his French operas, Le Comte Ory. As a result the work slipped from the programmes and did not surface again until the 1980s, when Claudio Abbado staged it in Pesaro. And we can be thankful, because the opera – Rossini’s last in Italian – is a gem, despite the off-the-cuff circumstances of its composition, with the brilliance of the score and the over-the-top absurdity of the humour. This is Rossini at the pinnacle of Italian opera buffa.

Some background trivia on the characters in Il viaggio a Reims: some of them had featured in the much-read novel by Madame de Stäel, “Corinne ou l’Italie”. Yet they also represent a cross-section of 19th-century Europe converging on Reims to pay their respects to the new French king – and each a deliberate stereotype rather than a fully rounded character.

About the production
Director Jan Bosse goes to town with the rather absurd premise of Europeans holed up in a spa hotel. A room of mirrors variously serving as spa clinic, sanatorium and lunatic asylum is the setting for the stalled journey of the characters, who are keen to live up to their respective national characteristics, try to best each other in coloratura warbling and end up planning their own celebratory feast.