Alexandra Coghlan

Astonishing, relentlessly pleasurable rediscovery – tantric opera: Luigi Rossi’s Il Palazzo incantato reviewed

Plus: if it’s Lenten penance rather than pleasure you’re after, then I can recommend Oxford Lieder’s song weekend Winter Into Spring

Once thought lost, Luigi Rossi's astonishing Il Palazzo incantato has been given its first staging since 1642. Image: Gilles Abegg – Opéra De Dijon 
issue 06 March 2021

I don’t say this lightly, but after 20 years of opera-going, Luigi Rossi’s Il Palazzo incantato might just be the most baffling opera I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen Stockhausen’s Licht.

It starts with 27 named roles and originally featured no fewer than ten castrati among its cross-dressing, all-male cast. This operatic game of Twister was premièred in Rome in 1642, where it originally played out over seven scintillating hours and nearly 3,000 verses of poetry written, incidentally, by the man who would go on to become Pope Clement IX.

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