Opera Review: ‘Le Comte Ory’: Rossini’s Laugh-Out-Loud Entertainment

CHICAGO—The majority of grand operas are tragedies with many of their main characters ending up dead at curtain’s close.  So, when an opera makes one laugh and all of the characters are still alive as the finale arrives, it leaves one with a welcoming feel-good sensation. Such is the entertaining case with “Le Comte Ory,” now playing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The opera by Gioachino Rossini is not as well-known as his “The Barber of Seville” or his “William Tell Overture” (with its opening theme for the film, radio, and TV shows featuring The Lone Ranger). But it’s as much of a light-hearted romp as any of the composer’s other oft-produced works.

Operatic Romp

With a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson, the story of the lusty and bawdy Le Comte is supposed to take place during the 12th century as a troupe of soldiers take off to fight the Crusades, leaving their girlfriends, wives, and sisters behind.  The womanizing Count Ory, who decides that fighting against the infidels isn’t in his best interest, stays home and sets his sites on a more personal, more seductive battle.