In 1818, when he was just 26 and living in Naples, Gioachino Rossini wrote Moses in Egypt. Nine years later, in Paris, he returned to the story of the Israelites, their long captivity in Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea that began their exodus to the Promised Land with Moses and Pharaoh.
Rossini's work was one of the first great operas in the "French style", a new genre whose deliberately political themes, huge scale, musical and dramatic innovation reflected the history of the 19th century, torn apart by conflict, violence and the seven successive political regimes that came to power after the Revolution.
Have exile and migration ever really stopped since the mythical time of the Exodus? Daniele Rustioni takes on this perennial drama and young German director Tobias Kratzer returns to the Lyon Opera House, after his memorable Guillaume Tell, another Rossini work, in 2019.