La finta parigina (The false Parisienne) is an opera buffa in 3 acts by Domenico Cimarosa with an Italian libretto by Francesco Cerlone. The opera premiered at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, in 1773.[1][2]

La finta parigina
Opera buffa by Domenico Cimarosa
The composer
LibrettistFrancesco Cerlone
LanguageItalian
Premiere
1773 (1773)
Teatro Nuovo, Naples

The opera

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La finta parigina was composed for Carnival of 1773 and, although the exact date of the work's premiere is now unknown. It is the second of the sixty-eight operas that Cimarosa wrote and is written in the then popular style of Neapolitan opera buffa. The libretto uses Neapolitan dialect and praises Cimarosa's home town of Aversa, notably its mozzarella cheese and Asprina wine. most of the opera consists of solo numbers, with only a few brief duets and ensembles.[1]

The opera relates the amorous misadventures of a group including the shopkeeper Cardillo (baritone), his sister Rosalina (soprano), the nobles Donna Olimpia (soprano) and Don Flaminio (alto), a Frenchman Monsiu Blò (tenor) and Donna Armida (soprano), the 'fake Parisienne'.[2]

Roles

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Role Voice type Premiere Cast, Carnival 1773
(Conductor: - )
Donna Olimpia Onesti, Don Martino's wife who is supposedly dead soprano
Don Flaminio del Sole, a local dandy tenor
Mossiù Le Blò, a French doctor who is really a quack tenor
Don Martino Crespa, Donna Olimpia's supposedly widowed husband baritone
Donna Armida Gnoccolosa, engaged to Don Martino soprano
Cardillo, an innkeeper baritone
Malacarne, brother of Cardillo bass
Preziosa, a purveyor of cheese soprano
Rosolina, Cardillo's young sister soubrette

Recordings

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References

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Sources
  • Rossi, Nick and Talmage Fauntleroy (1999). Domenico Cimarosa - His Life and Operas. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313301123
Notes
  1. ^ a b Rossi and Fauntleroy (1999), p. 56
  2. ^ a b Rossi and Fauntleroy (1999), p. 174