Dramma serio by Gioachino Rossini
Libretto by Gaetano Rossi
First performed 6 February 1813,
Teatro La Fenice, Venice
Teatro Nuovo Chorus and Orchestra
Will Crutchfield, maestro al cembalo
Jakob Lehmann, primo violino e capo d’orchestra
Candeur virginale
Tancredi was Rossini's ninth opera but his first runaway success. It was immediately repeated wherever Italian opera was performed, and positioned him for a conquest that the novelist Stendhal, writing just a decade later, compared to Napoleon's. The score's verve, freshness, and sincerity - Stendhal spoke of its "virginal candor" - set the tone for the Romantic century, and made the opera a timeless classic.