Rossini, realistically realized that "A Trip to Rheims", written for a coronation, without a plot, had limited shelf life.

Yet it was adapted for "A Trip to Paris", to see the French Revolution, then "A Trip to Vienna" to see a Royal Wedding, and NOW 150 years later, "A Trip to Chicago" to see Abe Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural.

Let's consider the Unlimited Possibilities!!!???? Let's Think out of the Box!! Every possible Destination, for every conceivable Purpose. I was thinking of "A Trip to the Catskills" for a Bar Mitzvah :) or "A Trip to Hoboken" for a Christening :)
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"Il viaggio a Reims" ("The Trip to Rheims),'' is an opera that Rossini wrote in 1825 in honor of the coronation of Charles X.

''The four initial performances of "Il viaggio'' in Paris were lavishly produced, with some of the era's finest singers and musicians, and was an enormous success.

Unfortunately, Charles became one of France's more forgettable monarchs, and an opera extolling his virtues, even the hugely popular, tune-filled comic farce that "Il viaggio'' turned out to be, had a limited shelf life.

The opera resurfaced briefly in 1848, a dangerous year for kings, since most of Europe was embroiled in revolution. Somewhat rewritten and titled "Andremo a Parigi? ("Shall we go to Paris?"), the opera featured travelers trying to get to Paris to see the insurgents' famous barricades.

In 1854, yet another version based on Rossini's original was presented in Vienna as "Il viaggio a Vienna,'' part of the festivities for a royal wedding.

This was a work absolutely tied to a particular occasion. It was written for the coronation of the king. There isn't any plot in a conventional sense. Rossini knew it wasn't a piece that had legs in his world.''

Ever a practical man of the theater, Rossini a few years later lifted half of the music of "Il viaggio'' for another, more durable opera, "Le comte Ory'' and consigned most of the rest of "Il viaggio'' to long-term storage. There it moldered for much of the next century-and-a-half.

The original printed libretto has been available, but a complete score didn't exist.

In the 1970s, a serious attempt about reassembling "Il viaggio'' was initiated and completed during during a project to produce authoritative editions of every Rossini opera.

The reconstructed tale of a motley band of travelers vainly trying to get to Rheims for Charles X's coronation will update the action to the American Civil War. Frustrated by the kinds of snafus that can bedevil travelers whether moving by stagecoach or jet plane, COT's ragtag characters are trying to get from the Old West to Washington, D.C., for Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural in 1864.

By the opera's end, they are happy to be on their way to Chicago to catch up with the president at a post-inaugural party. (It was in Chicago that Lincoln received his first nomination for president, during the 1860 Republican National Convention.)

"It's a perfectly stupid, silly plot," said Leppard blithely about Rossini's original. "Who cares about Charles X, the worst French king who ever was and who didn't last long, either? You can't do it like that. So we've moved it to the West and Midwest, and we haven't had to alter anything, except a few words.

"To simply do it straight would be very difficult," Gossett said. "We have to use a kind of irony to make it work in the theater today. It's like the Handel stuff. We play Handel, not for laughs, but with irony, and it works brilliantly.''

The article below tells the tale of reconstructing "Il viaggio'' with thanks to detective work worthy of James Pinkerton, and all the flair of a John Grisham novel.
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Thanks to Walter Santi
AN OPERA'S LONG JOURNEY: ROSSINI RECONSTRUCTED

Chicago Sun Times
By Wynne DeLacoma
Classical Music Critic
May 16, 2004

Puccini wrote an opera set in Gold Rush-era California, "The Girl of the Golden West.'' At one point, the hard-bitten miners and desperados in the Polka saloon sing a tender chorus about how they miss their mamas back home.

In "Manon,'' Massenet banishes his dying heroine to die in a vast desert somewhere outside New Orleans. Geography was evidently not the 19th century French composer's strong suit.

Bizarre reflections of American life are not unheard of in the opera world. But now comes "Il viaggio a Reims,'' a Rossini opera set in Chicago. Chicago? Well, not exactly.

Chicago Opera Theater closes its 2004 season with the local premiere of a reconstruction of "Il viaggio a Reims" ("The Trip to Rheims),'' an opera that Rossini wrote in 1825 in honor of the coronation of Charles X. Unfortunately, Charles became one of France's more forgettable monarchs, and an opera extolling his virtues, even the hugely popular, tune-filled comic farce that "Il viaggio'' turned out to be, had a limited shelf life.

Ever a practical man of the theater, Rossini a few years later lifted half of the music of "Il viaggio'' for another, more durable opera, "Le comte Ory'' and consigned most of the rest of "Il viaggio'' to long-term storage. There it moldered for much of the next century-and-a-half.

In the late 1970s, thanks to the detective work of Philip Gossett, the redoubtable University of Chicago music scholar and Rossini and Verdi specialist, and some colleagues, "Il viaggio'' was reassembled.

The reconstructed tale of a motley band of travelers vainly trying to get to Rheims for Charles X's coronation had its modern premiere in 1984 under Claudio Abbado's baton in Pesaro, Italy, Rossini's birthplace. The COT version, conducted by Raymond Leppard and directed by Christopher Cowell, will update the action to the American Civil War. Frustrated by the kinds of snafus that can bedevil travelers whether moving by stagecoach or jet plane, COT's ragtag characters are trying to get from the Old West to Washington, D.C., for Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural in 1864. By the opera's end, they are happy to be on their way to Chicago to catch up with the president at a post-inaugural party. (It was in Chicago that Lincoln received his first nomination for president, during the 1860 Republican National Convention.)

"It's a perfectly stupid, silly plot," said Leppard blithely about Rossini's original. "Who cares about Charles X, the worst French king who ever was and who didn't last long, either? You can't do it like that. So we've moved it to the West and Midwest, and we haven't had to alter anything, except a few words. Abe Lincoln came from this part of the world, and he may very well have come back for a visit.

''Gossett, who fits no one's stereotype of a staid music scholar, tells the tale of reconstructing "Il viaggio'' with all the flair of a John Grisham novel, involving urgent letters from dogged graduate students who have stumbled across musical gold and cryptic hints from Italian librarians about mysterious treasures buried deep in their storage cabinets.

"We knew Rossini wrote 'Il viaggio' to be performed when the king returned to Paris from Rheims after the coronation,'' Gossett said. "We also knew it was an enormous success. We have the original printed libretto; we have always had all the words. But a complete score didn't exist per se.

''The four initial performances of "Il viaggio'' in Paris were lavishly produced, with some of the era's finest singers and musicians, but nevertheless, the work soon disappeared. The opera surfaced briefly in 1848, a dangerous year for kings, since most of Europe was embroiled in revolution. Somewhat rewritten and titled "Andremo a Parigi? ("Shall we go to Paris?"), the opera featured travelers trying to get to Paris to see the insurgents' famous barricades. In 1854, yet another version based on Rossini's original was presented in Vienna as "Il viaggio a Vienna,'' part of the festivities for a royal wedding.

Beyond that, however, Rossini's original had been scattered to the four winds.

"This was a work absolutely tied to a particular occasion," Gossett said. "It was written for the coronation of the king. There isn't any plot in a conventional sense. Rossini knew it wasn't a piece that had legs in his world.

''Gossett and several colleagues began thinking seriously about reassembling "Il viaggio'' in the mid-1970s when he was supervising a complete critical edition of Rossini's operas. Using the most thorough methods of modern scholarship, the idea was to produce authoritative editions of every Rossini opera and make them available for performance by opera companies worldwide.

"In the early 1970s, we still had very little information about 'Il viaggio,'' Gossett said. "In 1976, one of my students, Elizabeth Bartlet, was in Paris working on a dissertation about another composer. She is a persistent type, and she wanted to look at uncataloged material. She insisted and insisted and insisted, and finally they let her go down to where this material was located. She noticed that there were whole pieces of stuff with 'Il viaggio a Reims' written on them.

''Bartlet, who would eventually edit the critical edition of Rossini's "William Tell,'' wrote to Gossett about her find and asked for advice. "I told her to get it microfilmed -- we would pay anything -- and send it to me as quickly as she could.

''The cache included a few vocal parts and a few orchestral parts used for the 1848 "Andremo a Parigi?''

"It wasn't a complete score, there were cuts here, additions there," Gossett said. "It wasn't the same work, but it was clearly based on 'Il viaggio.' For the first time, we had a little glimpse of what this thing could have been. [Some of it] was gorgeous stuff.

''In 1978, Gossett was working in the main music conservatory library in Rome, where he had studied scores regularly since 1966. A librarian who knew him well mentioned some materials that he might be interested in.

"She brings out a stack of manuscripts on the cover of which, in Rossini's hand, is 'Il viaggio a Reims,'" Gossett said. Though many of its pages were out of order, and it somehow had not been listed in the library's official catalog, the manuscript was an incomplete version of Rossini's own autographed score.

"I worked on it for a week, and when I got done, it was clear that what I had in front of me was a manuscript of almost all the music Rossini did not re-use in 'Comte Ory.'

"Several years later while working in Vienna, Gossett was poking around the Rossini holdings in the national library and found a manuscript of "Il viaggio a Vienna.'' It was based on the 1848 "Andremo a Parigi?'' but other sections clearly came from the original "Il viaggio.''

"By the time we were done, we had just about everything," Gossett said. "We had enough to begin working.

''Another graduate student, Janet Johnson, charged with putting the pieces of "Il viaggio'' together, eventually supervised the critical edition. After the 1984 performance and subsequent recording conducted by Abbado, several opera houses, including the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden performed "Il viaggio.'' But Gossett and his colleagues didn't want to finalize the critical edition until they saw how the opera worked on stage, and so it wasn't printed until 1999.

"We test-drove it in one theater after another,'' he said.

Gossett fully agrees with Cowell and Leppard that "Il viaggio'' must be updated in performance.

"To simply do it straight would be very difficult," Gossett said. "We have to use a kind of irony to make it work in the theater today. It's like the Handel stuff. We play Handel, not for laughs, but with irony, and it works brilliantly.

CHICAGO OPERA THEATER IN 'IL VIAGGIO A REIMS' When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Friday, May 27 and 29; 3 p.m. May 23 Where: Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph Tickets: $30-$97 Call: 312-704-8414

An opera's long journey: Rossini reconstructed
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