4/5
This new production of Rossini’s zany classic makes hay with the obviousness of the caricatures on which it’s built
24 May 2021 • 3:14pm
'You can rely on Rossini to defy right-on pieties': the new Glyndebourne production of Il turnco in Italia
Credit: Glyndebourne
Good old Rossini. You can always rely on him to offend the right-on pieties of the age with some shocking stereotypes. The comedy Il turco in Italia, composed when Rossini was a stripling of 22, has plenty. Women are flighty, old men are simpletons, gypsies are untrustworthy, Turks are randy (especially for other men’s wives), Italians ditto.