Good Ol' Gioachino

My audition tour colleague is an unlikely Rossini fan. He's an American pianist born in Germany, and one would expect his tastes to run to Wagner and Strauss. And indeed they do. (He’s taking a sabbatical from Wolf Trap this summer to work on the “Ring” at Seattle Opera.) But he’s an unabashedly rabid Rossini fan. Every time someone sings a Rossini aria (and does it well…) during our audition tour, he’s in heaven. I came late to bel canto and opera buffa, and I wasn’t aways a big fan. But I’ve been a convert for quite a while now. No matter how tough things get, Rossini’s music does something to you. Gets inside your body and your psyche, scrambles the signals, and makes it (almost) impossible to be cranky.