The Italian Girl in Algiers

A sexy shipwreck, Turkish drag and oh, those Italian girls: Houston Grand Operagets feisty

Everyone understands the appeal of pirates — sexy, naughty, dangerous. But what's the appeal of shipwreck?

If you ask The Italian Girl in Algiers, she might say, "Transformation."

Houston Grand Opera transforms tragedy into comedy in its second offering of the season which opens Friday night. The Italian Girl in Algiers is the third in a trio of Gioachino Rossini bel canto operas produced by Els Comediants, the sly surrealists behind HGO's 2007 Cenerentola and last season's Barber of Seville comprised of director Joan Font, set and costume designer Joan Guillén, and lighting designer Albert Faura.

And after a lackluster La bohème, Houston opera lovers could use some levity.

So why turn to shipwreck? Certainly there's plenty of it stored in cultural memory, from the Odyssey to The Tempest to Robinson Crusoe to Cast Away. What could be more dramatic than the terror of feeling everything solid beneath your feet disappearing into endless ocean?

Shakespeare expertly wrecked ships and lives, sundering lovers and families only to redeem and reunite later on. Here's how Trevor Nunn imagined the wreck that sets Twelfth Night in motion:

So how else might one find comedy in crashing waves?

If you ask Rossini, he might say, "delay and disaster make love sweeter." The pleasure and danger we associate with pirates and shipwrecks fuels the erotic complications of the plot, resulting in irresistible absurdity.

The Italian Girl in Algiers is a study in improbability. What opera isn't, you might ask.

Try this on for size. Mustafà, the Bey, or ruler, of Algiers grows tired of his wife Elvira. As he plots to with Haly, the captain of his guard, to marry Elvira to his Italian slave Lindoro, Lindoro's beloved Isabella is conveniently shipwrecked right where Haly can capture her. The timing is perfect. Mustafà has been looking to liven up his sex life.

It seems Italian girls are the Viagra of Algiers as far as Rossini is concerned.

Complications multiply to the point of confusion. But confusion can be charming as in the virtuosic ending of the first act, as the plot conflicts literally ring in the singers heads. Here's a taste of bel canto at its best: dexterous, effervescent, dizzyingly precise. How to resist these lyrics:

ELVIRA

In my head I have a bell, loudly ringing ding, ding, ding!

ISABELLA, ZULMA

My head's a sounding bell, loudly ringing ding, ding, ding!

or this delivery:

In the second act, the orientalist extravaganza begins in earnest, with Isabella in Turkish drag quaffing coffee with Mustafà while trying to plot her way back to Italy with her beau in tow. This is part of the fantasy of transformation in The Italian Girl in Algiers as Isabella tries on another identity. No matter how much you want to get back to Italy, a little cultural tourism helps pass the time.

By Rossini's day, it seems, the terror evoked by Turks and Saracens on the stages of European drama gave way to the allure of the harem. Rossini visited this territory in reverse in Il Turco in Italia, in which a Turkish Prince Selim lands in Italy to find a wife and ends up marrying his beloved Zaida, who fled for her life from his harem after rivals accused her of infidelity.

But what is it precisely that Italian girls have over all others? Ask Sam Ramey, who stunned Houstonians as the Grand Inquisitor last season in Don Carlos and who here sings the famous "Le Femmine D'Italia":

Ramey won’t return for this season's The Italian Girl in Algiers, but audiences might recognize respected bel canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville or Don Ramiro in Cinderella. Brownlee isn't the only familiar face. Patrick Carfizzi will play the demanding bass bey Mustafà and is well known to the HGO and totally stole the show as Dr. Bartolo in The Barber of Seville. Daniela Barcelona makes her HGO debut as Isabella while Lauren Snouffer plays Elvira to Carfizzi's Mustafà.

Transformation is the key to shipwreck: What shatters can also reshape. But the power of shipwreck is also to take us beyond ourselves. The HGO's startling 2010 Peter Grimes witnessed the sea in all its brutality.

In Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers, the sea transports and cascades in coloratura passages, offering pleasure without danger.

In other words, pirates without knives.

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going global

Houston Ballet leaps into streaming with performance on Marquee TV

Photo by Amitava Sarkar (2024). Courtesy of Houston Ballet

Houston Ballet Principal Karina González and Corps de Ballet dancer Samuel Rodriguez in Disha Zhang’s Elapse

The Houston Ballet takes a leap into streaming realms with the just announced premiere of the filmed ballet Elapse on the prestigious Marquee TV global streaming platform for the performing arts. HB first premiered Elapse to audience and critical raves as a part of their celebratory 50th season in 2019. The debut also made dance history as it was the company’s first ballet choreographed by internationally acclaimed Chinese choreographer Disha Zhang, as well as Zhang’s first work in the U.S.

Featuring a cast of 16 dancers – eight women and eight men – Elapse beautifully explores concepts of aging and time’s passage. Zhang set her dance to a haunting score by Zeng Xiaogang that combines wind and water sounds with the ancient stringed instrument, the guqin. In 2023, the company performed the dance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC as part of 10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography and last summer brought the work back to the Wortham Center as part of their Four Seasons program. Now dance lovers around the world will have the chance to see the brilliance of the Houston Ballet dancers as they perform this exquisite and poignant ballet.

“The filming of Elapse is a significant milestone for Houston Ballet, as it is a meaningful way to share our artistry with a global audience,” said Julie Kent, Houston Ballet artistic director. “Marquee TV’s platform allows us to expand access to ballet and introduce new viewers to the depth and beauty of our work.”

Along with renowned international opera and theater productions, Marquee TV showcases dance performances from some of the most celebrated ballet companies across the globe, including the Royal Ballet, the New York City Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, and the Australian Ballet, so it is about time that the Houston Ballet gets its own place in the streaming spotlight. The subscription-based service costs $10 per month or $100 per year.

"The team at Marquee TV is very excited to be working with Houston Ballet in our shared mission to introduce the joy of dance to a global audience and to enable that audience to enjoy this wonderful premiere," said Susannah Simons, Director of Performing Arts at Marquee TV.

Elapse, of course, is not the first filmed production from the Houston Ballet, though it is the company’s first collaborative filming effort since Ghost Dances (1991) and the first to launch on a streaming platform such as Marquee TV. Dance lovers will likely remember that HB was one of the first Houston performing arts institutions to jump into producing filmed content during the pandemic, first with HB artistic director Stanton Welch’s, “Restoration” when the company danced through many beloved outdoor landmarks across the city to the music of the Canadian band, The Dead South. Later Welch choreographed the longer "In Good Company," also to The Dead South’s music, and filmed dancers alone on a stage and then edited the individual dancers together.

$Houston Ballet Principal Karina Gonz\u00e1lez and Corps de Ballet dancer Samuel Rodriguez in Disha$

Photo by Amitava Sarkar (2024). Courtesy of Houston Ballet

Houston Ballet Principal Karina González and Corps de Ballet dancer Samuel Rodriguez in Disha Zhang’s Elapse.

As they take what they learned from these previous endeavors and now from Elapse, HB aims to expand their digital presence, making high-caliber performances more accessible to audiences around the world. The company plans to continue exploring new opportunities in digital storytelling and streaming to engage dance lovers everywhere.

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