The Italian Girl in London
Encyclopedia
The Italian Girl in London (L'italiana in Londra) is one of eight comic operas, termed intermezzi
, which Domenico Cimarosa
wrote between 1777 and 1784 for the Teatro Valle
, a handsome neo-classical Roman theatre built in 1726, which still stands today.
Intermezzi grew out of small-scale comic pieces which were inserted for light relief between the acts of weightier opera seria
works, chiefly in Naples and Venice. They usually had only two singers, perhaps with the addition of actors. Typically characters were drawn from what was supposed to be real life, but servants were often pitted against their betters with a fair sprinkling of satire. Cimarosa's Roman intermezzi, which established his reputation, were two-act operas, in contrast to the usual three-act form of the opera buffa
, and were carefully tailored to the modest forces available at the Teatro Valle.
This was Cimarosa's fourth collaboration with the comic specialist librettist, the Roman abbot Giuseppe Petrosellini (1727–after 1797), whose work with many of the most successful composers of his day, including Piccinni
, Anfossi
, Salieri
and probably Mozart
, for whom he is supposed to have provided the libretto for La finta giardiniera
, was later to culminate in Il barbiere di Siviglia
for Paisiello
in 1782. As with other significant librettists of the day, Petrosellini developed a genre which had been established by Goldoni
, moving away from the tradition of repetitive sequences of aria
s so that the dramatic texture is more naturally broken up with ensembles and expanded finales. It was this latter feature which Cimarosa was to make especially effective in his comic operas and the two lengthy multi-part finales are one of the most appealing features of L'italiana. Petrosellini was adept at inventing attractive comic situations, frequently involving disguise, and he had a sure sense of pace and stagecraft.
Cimarosa himself directed the première of The Italian Girl in London in 1778 or 1779 from the harpsichord and it was by far his greatest success to date. Papal edict forbade the appearance of women on the stage, so Livia was played by the 17-year old male castrato Crescentini
(whose later career was so illustrious that he was granted the Iron Crown of Lombardy
by Napoleon), and Madama Brillante by Giuseppe Censi.
Soon afterwards, this was the first of Cimarosa's operas to be presented at La Scala
, Milan, to be followed by performances at the Teatro Regio in Turin and La Fenice
, Venice. In the 1780s it became one of the most travelled of all operas of its era, with performances in (amongst others) Dresden, Graz, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, St Petersburg, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Cologne, Weimar, Hanover, Hamburg, Versailles, Paris, Aachen, Ghent and London. Translations were made into French, German, Polish, Danish and Russian. When the opera was performed in London in 1788 (as La locandiera), The Post considered that although the music was "light and airy" there "was nothing of striking or prolific imagination", although The World considered the music "at once very ingenious and very gay".
As with most touring operas at this time, adjustments were made to the score to suit local conditions, singers and tastes. Cimarosa himself added some new music for a revival in Naples in 1794 but refrained from further alterations "because this opera has always been well-received in places where it had played". However, when it was given abroad, the composer had no effective control, and revisions and interpolations were made by Cherubini
, Haydn
(who gave fourteen performances at Eszterháza
) and Paer
. Nevertheless its unprecedented success did not survive the changes in the comic genre effected by Rossini and Donizetti
, and L'italiana in Londra disappeared from the stage until its first modern revival at Geneva in 1929. The preparation of a score and performing materials by the publishing house Ricordi
in 1979 has helped to promote it since.
In 1989 the Buxton Festival
gave the first modern times production of the opera in the UK (not strictly the "British Première" as the programme claimed) in a new translation by Amanda Holden, conducted by Anthony Hose and directed by Jamie Hayes, with a late 19th-century setting. Bampton Classical Opera
performed the opera in 2011, in English.
The Italian girl is Livia, who comes from Genoa but claims to be from Marseilles. She has been jilted by Arespingh who is being forced by his father to marry someone else.
Meanwhile Madama Brillante has designs on Polidoro, but Polidoro fancies Livia.
The action unfolds through a single day of arguments and misunderstandings, but all is happily resolved by the end.
Part of the plot concerns a magic heliotrope or bloodstone which makes a person invisible, a story Petrosellini derived from a chapter of Boccaccio
's Decameron
.
Intermezzo
In music, an intermezzo , in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work...
, which Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school...
wrote between 1777 and 1784 for the Teatro Valle
Teatro Valle
The Teatro Valle is a theatre and former opera house in Rome, Italy.Commissioned by the Capranica family, the architect Tommaso Morelli designed the theatre which was built in 1726. It was inaugurated with the staging of the tragedy Matilde by Simon Falconio Pratoli...
, a handsome neo-classical Roman theatre built in 1726, which still stands today.
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
works, chiefly in Naples and Venice. They usually had only two singers, perhaps with the addition of actors. Typically characters were drawn from what was supposed to be real life, but servants were often pitted against their betters with a fair sprinkling of satire. Cimarosa's Roman intermezzi, which established his reputation, were two-act operas, in contrast to the usual three-act form of the opera buffa
Opera buffa
Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...
, and were carefully tailored to the modest forces available at the Teatro Valle.
Piccinni
Piccinni may refer to:Tribe of American woodpeckers Picini of the subfamily Picinae-music:*Teatro Piccinni, Italian theater in Bari, Apulia, named after*Niccolò Piccinni, Italian composer and grandfather of...
, Anfossi
Pasquale Anfossi
Bonifacio Domenico Pasquale Anfossi was an Italian opera composer. Born in Taggia, Liguria, he studied with Niccolò Piccinni and Antonio Sacchini, and worked mainly in London, Venice and Rome....
, Salieri
Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
and probably Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, for whom he is supposed to have provided the libretto for La finta giardiniera
La finta giardiniera
La finta giardiniera , K. 196, is an Italian opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote it in Munich in January 1775 when he was 18 years old and it received its first performance on January 13 at the Salvatortheater in Munich...
, was later to culminate in Il barbiere di Siviglia
Il barbiere di Siviglia (Paisiello)
Il barbiere di Siviglia, ovvero La precauzione inutile is a comic opera by Giovanni Paisiello from a libretto by Giuseppe Petrosellini, even though his name is not identified on the score's title page....
for Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello was an Italian composer of the Classical era.-Life:Paisiello was born at Taranto and educated by the Jesuits there. He became known for his beautiful singing voice and in 1754 was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and...
in 1782. As with other significant librettists of the day, Petrosellini developed a genre which had been established by Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
, moving away from the tradition of repetitive sequences of aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s so that the dramatic texture is more naturally broken up with ensembles and expanded finales. It was this latter feature which Cimarosa was to make especially effective in his comic operas and the two lengthy multi-part finales are one of the most appealing features of L'italiana. Petrosellini was adept at inventing attractive comic situations, frequently involving disguise, and he had a sure sense of pace and stagecraft.
Cimarosa himself directed the première of The Italian Girl in London in 1778 or 1779 from the harpsichord and it was by far his greatest success to date. Papal edict forbade the appearance of women on the stage, so Livia was played by the 17-year old male castrato Crescentini
Girolamo Crescentini
Girolamo Crescentini was a noted Italian singer castrato , a singing teacher and a composer.-Biography:He studied in Bologna with the noted teacher Lorenzo Gibelli and made his debut in 1783, quite advanced in years as a castrato...
(whose later career was so illustrious that he was granted the Iron Crown of Lombardy
Iron Crown of Lombardy
The Iron Crown of Lombardy is both a reliquary and one of the most ancient royal insignia of Europe. The crown became one of the symbols of the Kingdom of Lombards and later of the medieval Kingdom of Italy...
by Napoleon), and Madama Brillante by Giuseppe Censi.
Soon afterwards, this was the first of Cimarosa's operas to be presented at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, Milan, to be followed by performances at the Teatro Regio in Turin and La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...
, Venice. In the 1780s it became one of the most travelled of all operas of its era, with performances in (amongst others) Dresden, Graz, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, St Petersburg, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Cologne, Weimar, Hanover, Hamburg, Versailles, Paris, Aachen, Ghent and London. Translations were made into French, German, Polish, Danish and Russian. When the opera was performed in London in 1788 (as La locandiera), The Post considered that although the music was "light and airy" there "was nothing of striking or prolific imagination", although The World considered the music "at once very ingenious and very gay".
As with most touring operas at this time, adjustments were made to the score to suit local conditions, singers and tastes. Cimarosa himself added some new music for a revival in Naples in 1794 but refrained from further alterations "because this opera has always been well-received in places where it had played". However, when it was given abroad, the composer had no effective control, and revisions and interpolations were made by Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....
, Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
(who gave fourteen performances at Eszterháza
Eszterháza
Esterháza is a palace in Fertőd, Hungary, built by Prince Nikolaus Esterházy. Sometimes called the "Hungarian Versailles", it is Hungary's grandest Rococo edifice.-History:...
) and Paer
Ferdinando Paer
-Biography:Paer was born at Parma. His father was a trumpeter with the Ducal Bodyguards and also performed at church and court events. His name, Ferdinando, was after Duke Ferdinand of Parma and was given to him by Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, Duke Ferdinand's wife...
. Nevertheless its unprecedented success did not survive the changes in the comic genre effected by Rossini and Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
, and L'italiana in Londra disappeared from the stage until its first modern revival at Geneva in 1929. The preparation of a score and performing materials by the publishing house Ricordi
Casa Ricordi
Casa Ricordi is a classical music publishing company founded in 1808 as G. Ricordi & Co. by violinist Giovanni Ricordi in Milan, Italy...
in 1979 has helped to promote it since.
In 1989 the Buxton Festival
Buxton Festival
The Buxton Festival is an annual summer festival of opera, music, and a literary series, held in Buxton, Derbyshire in England since it began in July 1979.-History:...
gave the first modern times production of the opera in the UK (not strictly the "British Première" as the programme claimed) in a new translation by Amanda Holden, conducted by Anthony Hose and directed by Jamie Hayes, with a late 19th-century setting. Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton Classical Opera is an opera company based in Bampton, Oxfordshire specialising in the production of lesser known opera from the Classical period...
performed the opera in 2011, in English.
Plot
Staying in a London hostelry run by Madama Brillante are:- a morose English MilordMilordIn the nineteenth century, milord was well-known as a word which continental Europeans whose jobs often brought them into contact with travellers commonly used to address Englishmen or male English-speakers who seemed to be upper-class – even though the English-language phrase "my...
with the unlikely name of Arespingh - a middle-class and eminently sensible Dutch merchant, Sumers
- a flamboyant, gullible and homesick Neapolitan, Don Polidoro.
The Italian girl is Livia, who comes from Genoa but claims to be from Marseilles. She has been jilted by Arespingh who is being forced by his father to marry someone else.
Meanwhile Madama Brillante has designs on Polidoro, but Polidoro fancies Livia.
The action unfolds through a single day of arguments and misunderstandings, but all is happily resolved by the end.
Part of the plot concerns a magic heliotrope or bloodstone which makes a person invisible, a story Petrosellini derived from a chapter of Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
's Decameron
The Decameron
The Decameron, also called Prince Galehaut is a 14th-century medieval allegory by Giovanni Boccaccio, told as a frame story encompassing 100 tales by ten young people....
.