The journey to Reims conceived by Piccolo Opera Festival for the Capital GO! 2025 is, first and foremost, a tribute to the historical heritage of Gorizia, a strategic centre of Europe and a crossroads of peoples and culture since the distant centuries.
On the occasion of the first cross-border European Capital of Culture, the staging of the new production involves the symbolic place par excellence: Piazza Transalpina - Trg Evrope.
This is where Il viaggio a Reims will be performed on 19 June 2025 (repeated on the 21st), exactly 200 years after its first performance in Paris. The opera was composed by Gioachino Rossini - one of the most famous and brilliant opera composers of the 19th century - on the occasion of the coronation of King Charles X of Bourbon. The same king who chose Gorizia for his last exile and for the last few weeks of his life: after his death, which took place in Palazzo Coronini, he was buried in the monastery of Castagnevizza, in the nearby Slovenian land, which today houses a crypt dedicated to the royal family.
The opera, the full title of which is The Journey to Reims or The Hotel of the Golden Lily, is set in a luxurious spa where a group of gentlemen, wealthy members of the highest noble classes, are organising an expedition to the coronation ceremony of the new sovereign. In a series of quadrettos - love entanglements, quarrels, buffoonery, mockery and reflection - the short stories of no fewer than 18 characters unfold. An atypical opera in terms of its theatrical and musical structure, considered one of Pesaro's most significant masterpieces: innovative for its almost ‘rhapsodic’ form and for its message that good-naturedly mocks a stereotyped social picture.
The setting in cross-border Gorizia transforms the Transalpina railway station into the Albergo del Giglio d'Oro, which becomes an integral part of the scene; various areas of the square (including some businesses and street furniture) are also incorporated almost as parts of the stage. The public therefore - by reaching the square - will be - alongside the characters in the opera - inside the narrative itself.
A concept that corresponds to the intentions that have always animated the Piccolo Opera Festival Association, whose mission is to make opera ‘walk’ outside the canonical places, bringing it to interact with landscapes, territories, natural and historical contexts to generate added value and bring musical theatre closer to all kinds of audiences.
Another specificity of Il viaggio a Reims is the extreme variability of the characters, which in some cases can be an excellent opportunity for the young voices to get involved: varied roles, not tiring but demanding in terms of expression and interpretation.
Even more significant, therefore, is the choice of an opera that also responds to the advanced training activities that Piccolo Opera Festival is setting up - on a multi-year basis - in Borgo Castello di Gorizia, as part of the PNRR initiatives: in fact, in October 2024, the GO! Borderless Opera Lab, an advanced training academy for young singers and stage directors. Some of them will be included in the cast of Il Viaggio a Reims and other activities of the Association, as they are already good career professionals who can thus find new opportunities for growth.
