Giorgio Bachetti

Who is Giorgio Bachetti?

Giorgio arrives at a remote military garrison already in love with Clara, a beautiful married woman he has left behind in Milan, and he is initially repelled by Fosca's illness and the intensity of her feelings for him. Over time, though, her sincerity wears down his resistance.

As the story progresses, Giorgio is gradually and profoundly changed by Fosca's uncompromising love, coming to question whether the comfortable, beautiful relationship he shared with Clara was ever as real as what Fosca offers him.

Giorgio's role in Passion

Giorgio is a lead role who carries much of the score's connective, sung through material, including the pivotal Loving You sequences that trace his shifting feelings. The part requires a lyric tenor capable of sustained, exposed singing across long unbroken musical stretches.

Jere Shea originated the role opposite Donna Murphy in the original 1994 Broadway production, a pairing whose chemistry was essential to making the show's difficult central transformation believable to audiences.

Giorgio Bachetti on stage vs screen

Broadway compared with the 1981 Italian film Passione d'Amore

The aftermath of the duel differs. In Ettore Scola's 1981 film Passione d'Amore, Bernard Giraudeau's Giorgio wounds the Colonel in their duel but collapses under the nervous strain and, after Fosca's death, is invalided out of the army with no prospects. In Sondheim's musical, Giorgio shoots the Colonel and lets out a shrill howl that echoes Fosca's own outbursts, then recovers from a nervous breakdown in a hospital, where he learns Fosca has died and the Colonel has survived.

Jere Shea originated Giorgio on Broadway in 1994, and Michael Ball played him in London in 1996.

Giorgio Bachetti: frequently asked questions