Organization

Singer

Soprano

Hanna Brammer

Carolina

Brenna Markey

Elisetta

Mezzo-soprano

Lisa Chavez

Fidalma

Tenor

Levi Hamlin

Paolino

Bass

Stefano de Peppo

Geronimo

Filippo Fontana

Count Robinson

Conductor

Victor DeRenzi

Stage director

Stephanie Sundine

Costume designer

Howard Tsvi Kaplan

Lighting designer

Ken Yunker

Sarasota Opera

Italian

Il matrimonio segreto -  (The Secret Marriage)

Sarasota

United States

Opera House

Il matrimonio segreto Cimarosa

Public

The Secret Marriage

English

Approved

Students in the library of the Naples Conservatory, sitting in the central Sala Rossini are surrounded by thirty-eight bas relief portraits of the most important and influential composers of the so called “Neapolitan school.” 

Out of all thirty-eight, only one is instantly recognizable on the opera stage today: Vincenzo Bellini. The rest of the names run the gamut from mildly familiar (Giovanni Pergolesi, Niccolò Jomelli) to extremely obscure (Carlo Coccia, Fedele Fenaroli). But even the most obscure of those composers were giants in the field of opera during their time. The Neapolitan school was almost single-handedly responsible for the invention of comic opera, and its most famous member, Giovanni Pergolesi, wrote his most famous work, La serva padrona at the age of twenty-three, almost as an afterthought, as a comic intermezzo to be performed in between the acts of a larger opera seria. Sarasota Opera audiences were treated to Pergolesi’s delightful comedy in the winter of 2021, where the stock characters and dramatic situations were distilled to their most compact essence. 

The comic intermezzi of the 18th century eventually grew to have a life of their own, usually reflecting local audience tastes. For example, many comic operas that had their premiere in Naples utilized the Neapolitan language in dialog for one or more characters.  These pieces are found in a variety of structures from one-act farces to two, three, and sometimes even four-act works. Throughout the late 18th and 19th century though, the two-act format was the norm.

Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) is another example of the Neapolitan school. Born in Aversa near Naples in 1749, Cimarosa was able to take advantage of the excellent musical education afforded him by the Naples Conservatory system. He went on to write operas, or commedie in musica (comedies in music) for all the major Italian theaters in Naples, Rome, Venice, and Milan. All told, he wrote nearly one hundred operas (and possibly more), the overwhelming majority of which were comic. After an unsuccessful stint in St Petersburg, Russia he landed in Vienna where his great masterpiece Il matrimonio segreto premiered in 1792 (the year of Rossini’s birth). So popular was its first performance that the Austrian Emperor Leopold II ordered a private and immediate encore of the entire opera the very same night of the premiere.

Although Cimarosa’s fame today predominantly rests on Il matrimonio segreto, it is hard to overestimate the influence he held over Italian music in the years before Rossini’s ascendance. After being fêted in the major international capitals of Russia and Austria, Cimarosa returned to his roots in Naples, ending his career by revising some earlier works and composing new ones. His career was tragically cut short when he was arrested for his political views by the repressive Bourbon regime governing Naples at that time. He was eventually able to escape, exiled, to Venice, by which time he was gravely ill. He died in Venice a few years later in 1801.

But his legacy would live on. In 1812, immediately following the premiere of Rossini’s L’inganno felice (another treasure of 18thcentury Italian music, that Sarasota audiences heard in 2020), the impresario Antonio Cera wrote to Rossini’s mother:

“I tell you, with all sincerity, that it is glorious that you have given birth to a man who, in a few years’ time, will be the ornament of all Italy, and it will be said that Cimarosa is not dead, but that his inspiration has passed on to Rossini.”

Even after his death, the name Cimarosa would ring through Italian history as an example of musical and dramatic perfection. 

A social-climbing father wants his eldest daughter to marry an aristocrat and is prepared to buy his way in. When the would-be suitor arrives, his eye falls on the younger daughter instead. But she has secretly married her father’s clerk. Although not often performed, this delightful comic opera was such a hit at its premiere, that the audience insisted on an encore, of the entire opera!

The Secret Marriage by Cimarosa, From (2022/2022), Directed by Stephanie Sundine,, Conductor Victor DeRenzi, Opera House, Sarasota, United States

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