Treat yourself to a long weekend with Cecilia Bartoli, whose Midas touch as star attraction/impresario in the classical music world’s most glittering festival town has never failed. One novelty this year is Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims, with its whopping 14 principal parts, whipped up in 1824 as an all-star bonbon for the coronation of the ultra-reactionary Charles X, last of the Bourbon kings. (His abdication six years later was a more sober affair.) Never expecting to field an adequate cast again, Rossini went on to cannibalize numbers from Viaggio without a second thought. But since the rediscovery of the score in the 20th century, it has been popping up with surprising frequency. The director Barrie Kosky (a one-man-three-ring circus), and the conductor Gianluca Capuano—Bartoli’s dream team in the creation of last season’s prize-winning Ovid-meets-Vivaldi pastiche Hotel Metamorphosis—are onboard for an encore. Also in the lineup: Monteverdi’s noble Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria, less “modern” than his hip political exposé L’Incoronazione di Poppea but compassionate and affecting in ways Poppea scorns to attempt. Penelope, a role you’d expect Bartoli to reserve for herself, falls to the excellent early-music specialist Sara Mingardo, with Vita Priante as the wandering hero. The cherry on the cake: Ciao, bella ciao, a Felliniesque stroll down memory lane through six decades of Cecilia’s life in the La La Land of opera. Starting with elephants backstage at the Baths of Caracalla for a summertime Aida, this lady has seen it all. Expect surprise guests by the score. —Matthew Gurewitsch