Wexford to Stage Carolina Uccelli's Lost Opera 'Anna di Resburgo'

Wexford Festival Opera will open its 2027 season on October 14 with 'Anna di Resburgo' by Carolina Uccelli, a composer whose opera vanished from the stage almost as soon as it appeared in 1835. Sieva Borzak conducts and Rodula Gaitanou directs. Further performances are scheduled for October 19, 22, 27 and 30.

The announcement, reported by OperaWire, returns a forgotten work to a major festival stage. It also raises a practical question: what does this change for how the opera repertoire itself took shape?

Uccelli's credentials were real. In 1830 her 'Saul' was performed at Florence's Teatro della Pergola. Rossini attended and praised her music. Giovanni Simone Mayr, Donizetti's teacher, also recognized her abilities, commenting favorably on her orchestral writing.

Those endorsements mattered. Staging an opera required a theater, an orchestra, singers and an impresario willing to take a financial risk. Admiration from established composers could persuade the people controlling those resources to listen.

Uccelli understood the network. Her correspondence with the impresario Alessandro Lanari, uncovered through Teatro Nuovo's research, records the negotiations behind her theatrical ambitions.

'Anna di Resburgo' reached Naples in 1835 with a strong cast. Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani sang the title role, alongside tenor Napoleone Moriani and baritone Giorgio Ronconi. But the timing was unforgiving: that same autumn, Tacchinardi-Persiani created the title role in Donizetti's 'Lucia di Lammermoor.' Uccelli's Scottish drama shared a season with one of the century's defining successes.

According to Teatro Nuovo's account, 'Anna' received four performances at the Teatro del Fondo and one more at the San Carlo, possibly early the following year. Its disappearance, OperaWire notes, should not be compressed into a story of instant failure.

Nor was Uccelli simply following formulas. She substantially revised Gaetano Rossi's libretto, previously set by Meyerbeer as 'Emma di Resburgo.' Cori Ellison's account in Opera describes structural alterations and a new final scene — evidence of a composer actively reconsidering how an inherited drama should work.

After 'Anna,' Uccelli kept composing and performing, later appearing with her soprano daughter Emma. But she never regained a foothold in opera.

What's the wider pattern?

There is a French parallel. Louise Bertin reached the Paris Opéra in 1836 with 'La Esmeralda,' set to a libretto by Victor Hugo. Her family's newspaper, the Journal des débats, connected her to figures including Berlioz. Yet those connections attracted hostility: as the Library of Congress recounts, opponents of the family alleged Berlioz had written part of her score. He denied it. Powerful supporters had not protected her authorship from being questioned.

Both careers show why a premiere tells only part of the story. Getting an opera staged was one achievement; securing further productions was another.

Has anyone heard it recently?

Yes. Teatro Nuovo performed the opera in New Jersey and New York City in July 2024, and its 2025 program reported a sold-out house. Reviewing the New York performance for Opera Today, Andrew Moravcsik also described a full house and an enthusiastic reception.

One sold-out performance cannot prove industry-wide demand, but it challenges the assumption that an unfamiliar name leaves seats empty.

At Wexford, artistic director Rosetta Cucchi has placed Uccelli's opera in a season celebrating women's courage and creative work, alongside Smetana's 'Tajemství' (The Secret) and Saint-Saëns's 'Déjanire.' A second modern production lets different interpreters test the score — and gives listeners something more substantial than surprise that a woman wrote it. The music carries that argument.