La regata veneziana

(The Venetian Regata)

Anzoleta avanti la regata

Anzoleta co passa la regata

Anzoleta dopo la regata

La regata veneziana is one of Rossini’s many “Sins of Old Age.” Written in 1858, it is to be found in the first, Album italiano, of the thirteen books of what he called “Péchés de vieillesse” compiled during the last ten or so years of his life. He had completed his last opera Guillaume Tell in 1829, the Soirées musicales in 1835 and the Stabat Mater in 1841 and from then on had been too ill and too depressed to compose anything at all until his health was restored after he settled in Paris in 1855. Apart from the Petite messe solennelle, virtually everything he wrote from 1857 - including well over a hundred songs, piano pieces and small ensembles - was intended for private performance at his apartment in the Chaussée d’Antin where he presided over his famous “Samedi soirs.” La regata veneziana, a series of three songs in Venetian dialect, is a particularly delightful example of the sociable music he was writing at the time - a mock-heroic aria addressed by Anzoleta to her gondolier lover Momolo, a breathless commentary on the race, and a virtuoso expression of delight when Momolo wins it.

Gerald Larner©