L’occasione fa il ladro –
Opera in one Act to a libretto by Luigi Prividali [sung in Italian with Italian and English surtitles]
Don Eusebio – Manuel Amati
Berenice – Damiana Mizzi
Conte Alberto – Dave Monaco
Don Parmenione – Matteo Mancini
Ernestina – Martiniana Antonie
Martino – Giuseppe Toia
Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini
Alessandro Bonato
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle – Director, set and costume designer
Sonja Frisell – Revival director
Fabio Rossi – Lighting designer
Reviewed by: Curtis Rogers
Reviewed: 12 August, 2026
Venue: Teatro Rossini, Pesaro, Italy
The opportunity spoken of in the title of Rossini’s early one Act comedy for Venice (1812) comes about when two suitcases are accidentally swapped. Despite Don Parmenione’s taking a sneaky chance to win Berenice, the bride-to-be of Count Alberto whose case he has intercepted, all ends well since the wits of the women in her household prove superior to those of the men. Her and the servant Ernestina’s disguises result in the fortunate outcome that Parmenione is paired up not with Berenice but Ernestina instead, whom he was seeking all along.
In Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s charming production – revived from 1987 – the action becomes a piece of metatheatre, as it is amusingly and pointedly unpacked from an oversize valise, first brought on by a servant through the auditorium and the orchestra pit, where scores are handed to the conductor and leader. It is then taken up on stage to serve as an opening in the floor through which the characters and some furniture emerge. That idea also surely now becomes a witty comment on the production itself, unpackaging it nearly 40 years after its first outing (and nearly as much after the director’s death). Although visually it captures faithfully the style of the opera’s time of composition (through English eyes, the Regency period) we are reminded that it is, nevertheless, a work of staged theatre. The settings – first at an inn, and then at Berenice’s home – are conveyed not so much by real objects and props as by painted drapes which are lowered by stagehands with ropes and supports in full sight of the audience. That seems particularly apt in this work which, unusually for a short one Act farce, includes a change of scene rather than focussed on a single place.
To an audience today it will seem a tentative and tame early foray into ‘director’s theatre’ but it serves as a reminder that this had to start somewhere. It was perhaps most ripe for development in the first place in such comedies as this where the figure of the sly servant, commenting on the social and personal foibles of their masters, sometimes stand apart from the action, even addressing the audience more or less directly, as does the poet Prosdocimo in Rossini’s slightly later Il turco in Italia. The development of Regietheater in the context of this sort of comic opera is well exhibited in this year’s Rossini Festival with a more advanced La scala di seta offered as another production alongside this L’occasione.
The revival is something of an opportunity missed, however, in that it doesn’t quite establish the bubbling character and pace of such a comedy that falls exactly in the genre of opera buffa (though described by the composer as a burletta). In Sonja Frisell’s revival, stage action is rather too cautious and polite overall – Ponnelle would surely have ensured more brio. As a comic basso role with typically fast syllabic numbers, Matteo Mancini’s Parmenione gets all the notes but is too measured vocally, and too reserved for such a cad. Giuseppe Toia attains a more vibrant and cheeky comic spirit in the part of his servant, Martino, notably in the aria where he describes his master’s qualities in less than flattering terms. As Berenice’s real fiancé Alberto (whom she has not previously met) tenor Dave Monaco brings unswerving, if somewhat cool, earnestness which marks him out as her real suitor.
The two women are well distinguished from each other: Damiana Mizzi’s Berenice is quietly bright and focused but breaking out with more energy and force in her coloratura-laden aria ‘Voi la sposa pretendete’ when she reveals her identity, while Martiniana Antonie conveys more authority and wisdom as Ernestina with her lower, mellower tone. Compared with them, Manuel Amati contrives a more idiosyncratic character as Berenice’s uncle and guardian, Don Eusebio. Alessandro Bonato and the Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini accompany dutifully, though without especial insight into the sparkling temper that should inhabit the music of this operatic comedy.