Sheer Champagne Rossini's 'La pietra del paragone' - enjoyed by ROBERT ANDERSON 'The Madrid cast has proved itself exemplary ...'

With a gossip-columnist as main feature of the cast, Rossini presumably planned the work for his own day. So it might just as well turn out to be our day too, even if contemporary gossipers are probably a more raffish lot than the opera's distinguished Macrobio. But Asdrubale's luxurious country house has all essential mod cons, including the inevitable swimming pool in the foreground. Pier Luigi Pizzi is both set designer and stage director, and he keeps his cast in the sort of perpetual motion Rossini's music demands, while we can only admire the two-storeyed garden front of the mansion with its limitless number of flunkeys scurrying on master's bidding.

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