Partir, o ciel, desio (Il viaggio a Reims)

Il viaggio a Reims was written for a single occasion: the coronation of Charles X, marked at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris in June 1825. Rossini assembled an extraordinary cast — fourteen principal roles — for a plot in which travellers bound for the ceremony are stranded at a spa and never arrive. He allowed only a few performances, then withdrew the score and reused much of the music three years later in Le comte Ory. The original was assumed lost until its parts were traced in Rome and Vienna and reconstructed, bringing the work back to the stage at Pesaro in 1984.