Adelaide di Borgogna

Tim Ashley [The Guardian, 22 August 2005]

First performed in 1817, Rossini's Adelaide di Borgogna is a questionable effort. A product of the confusion of post-Napoleonic Europe, its subject is monarchical legitimacy and individual fitness for government. The opera deals with the eponymous medieval Italian queen, who requested military assistance from the German emperor Ottone when the brutish Berengario usurped her throne. Berengario, in his turn, was determined to legitimise his dynasty by forcibly marrying Adelaide to his son Adelberto.