The critical edition of Gioachino Rossini’s La gazzetta, a comic opera in 2 acts on a libretto by Giuseppe Palomba, goes on stage this summer at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro (11, 14, 17 and 20 August). The Orchestra and Choir of the Teatro Comunale in Bologna will be conducted by Enrique Mazzola and directed by Marco Carniti. Performed for the first time in 2001 at the Rossini Opera Festival and then revived there in 2005, Stefano Scipioni and Philip Gossett’s critical edition returns to the Rossini Festival after being performed in cities like Barcelona, Liege, London and Boston. We asked Enrique Mazzola to talk to us about this opera and his relationship with the world of Rossini.

Based on Carlo Goldoni’s comedy Il matrimonio per concorso, La gazzetta was premiered in September 1816 in Naples, just a few months after the first performance of Il barbiere di Siviglia and a few months before that of Otello. How do you rate this “minor” opera positioned between these two masterpieces?

The first thing that I would say is that it’s rather simplistic to consider La gazzetta a minor opera of Rossini, as a certain traditional line of thinking and some critics have tended to label it. It’s true, perhaps, that at times the technique of reusing materials that have already been written for other operas does not facilitate an accurate appraisal, but my own view has always been positive: Rossini’s exceptional capacity to re-elaborate melodies, formulas, themes, ensembles is at its height here, with an extraordinary talent for theatrical timing, for the “positive” recycling of music already present in other works but reproduced here in support of dramaturgic purposes that are all innovative, all re-explored, and so without doubt of an unparalleled freshness.

In your artistic career, in particular in the highly successful seasons you have had at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, you have confronted both the farcical Rossini and the Rossini of the great heroic melodramas like Tancredi. What do you think Rossini’s music can still communicate to today’s audiences? And which aspect of Rossini’s theatre do you yourself prefer?

I believe that we are passing through a period in history in which so-called “classical” music and opera are gradually finding favour with the mainstream public once again. Two hundred years ago people listened to opera out of curiosity, for entertainment, and to socialise, and Rossini represented a focal point for this capacity to listen: sparkling music, effective dramaturgy, elegance and vivacity in a musical context of the highest quality.

I believe that after a long period in the 20th century in which opera was seen as an elitist phenomenon, we are finally returning to an opera for everyone, and Rossini and his accessible language seem to me to be particularly well-equipped to respond to this challenge.

The cycle of Rossini’s farces at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées has been hugely successful, but it was also very inspiring taking the same operas on tour in the Paris region of Ile-de-France and introducing them to new audiences who, though not familiar with music theatre, listened to our Rossini with keen interest and enjoyment. This was a real triumph: the confirmation that Rossini’s inventiveness is still compelling, contemporary, sincere and spontaneous.

For years you have conducted the operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Verdi (and shortly Meyerbeer) using the critical editions of Ricordi. In what way do you think these editions can help today’s performers?

I am currently passing through a very happy phase in life thanks to the fact that in my suitcase I have three fantastic critical editions that I’m scheduled to perform over the next few months: Donizetti’s Poliuto, Rossini’s La gazzetta and Meyerbeer’s Vasco de Gama (L’africaine).

For me it’s fundamental to have the support of a critical edition, in a period in which we orchestra conductors and interpreters in general are attributing paramount importance to what composers originally wrote. In an orchestra rehearsal, in a rehearsal room with singers or a choir, I need to be able to offer a guarantee of the validity of a musical gesture, and so having an authoritative critical edition at my fingertips is an essential component of my life as an artist.

Are you scheduled to conduct other Rossini operas in the near future?

The next farce for the Parisian cycle at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées is Signor Bruschino, while the Barbiere di Siviglia will follow me in various productions from Berlin to Zurich. Another important appointment will be the Stabat Mater with the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, the orchestra that I have been conducting since 2012. This will be performed in 2017 in the new Philharmonie in Paris before going on tour.