Rossini's "Maometto Secondo" at Santa Fe

This summer the Music Festival at Santa Fe Opera performed for the first time the new edition of Rossini's major 1820 opera, Maometto Secondo. But it is a terribly complicated score to edit. An unusual and innovative score, it did not easily find an audience in the nineteenth century, and Rossini revised it twice—once in Italy, once in France—trying to garner the public he thought it deserved. It remains one of his most priceless scores, and this talk will discuss the problems involved in bringing into the modern theater.