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Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia The orchestral parts and scores of all the works on this Rari 1-4-5 The Hungarian-based Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia was formed in 1992 by Ibolya Tóth, recording producer of the recording are available from: Domenico Hungarian Phoenix Studio, initially as a recording orchestra for Naxos. Under its permanent conductor, Béla Drahos, the Sinfonia also undertakes public concerts. The orchestra consists of the leading players in Budapest, including ARTARIA EDITIONS LTD CIMAROSA string and wind principals of the major Hungarian orchestras, many of whom have already recorded concertos for Naxos. http://www.artaria.com The Sinfonia ranges in size from a Baroque string orchestra to an ensemble suitable for Haydn or Mozart, or, augmented, for performance of Beethoven. The orchestra’s recordings of Haydn and Beethoven symphonies and Beethoven’s Sources Overtures Fidelio have met with particularly warm critical acclaim, and its recording of Vanhal symphonies (Naxos 8.554341) The sources upon which the editions used in this Il falegname was rewarded by a Cannes Classical Award at Midem 2000. recording have been made are: Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE260 Cleopatra • Voldomiro • Il matrimonio segreto Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Alessandro Amoretti Voldomiro Rari 1-1-7 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE247 Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia • Alessandro Amoretti The Italian conductor Alessandro Amoretti completed his musical studies in Italy, at the Conservatory of Lucca and Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Cleopatra the Accademia Musicale Pescarese, before continuing his training in Moscow. For some years he worked in Italy and Rari 1-5-7 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE240 in the United States as a conductor and vocal coach, concentrating primarily on nineteenth century opera. As musical Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – director and principal conductor of the Studio Lirico summer workshop in Cortona, Italy, he has directed several La baronessa Stramba Rari 1-2-7 productions of operas by Cimarosa and also conducted the first American performance of Salieri’s Falstaff. In 1998- Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE239 9 he joined the Drottningholms Slottsteater, Norrlands Opera, as well as Operastudio ‘67, and is now vocal coach at Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Il convito the Royal Opera Academy of Copenhagen, appearing as guest conductor at the Royal Opera House of Copenhagen, Rari 1-2-12 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE241 with the Danish Radio Choir and with the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Le stravaganze del conte Rari 1-2-9, 10 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE245 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – La vergine del sole Rari 1-4-12 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE246 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Il matrimonio segreto Rari 1-5-1 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE292 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Il credulo Rari 1-5-16, 17 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE242 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – L’infedeltà fedele Rari 1-2-11 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE244 Paris, Bibliothëque Nationale – D.10349 L’impresario in angustie Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE243 C Il ritorno di Don Calendrino Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Edited by Allan Badley – Artaria Editions AE267 Rari 1-3-17 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – M Y K 5 8.570508 6 8.570508 570508bk Cimarosa US:557541bk Kelemen 3+3 15/6/07 5:25 PM Page 2

Domenico Cimarosa (1749–1801) and continued in operatic repertory through the written as the second opera for the 1780 season at Teatro Russia and elsewhere. Because of the opera’s dramatic The one-act farsetta per musica, L’impresario in Overtures, Vol. 1 following century. The opera quickly achieved dei Fiorentini in Naples, where it achieved great success, story, set in Peru, Cimarosa made full use of the St angustie (The Impresario in Distress), proved to be one international fame outside Vienna, soon staged in to be staged many times in the next few years elsewhere Petersburg orchestra, scoring the overture for pairs of of Cimarosa’s most successful works. Within a year of its Domenico Cimarosa was the most famous and popular and serve, rather, as scene-setters for the drama to follow, Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, Paris, Milan, Florence, Naples, in Italy, and in 1783 at the Burgtheater in Vienna. Haydn flutes, oboes, bassoons and horns in addition to timpani staging in 1786 at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, it played Italian composer of the second half of the eighteenth without thematic links to the opera itself and to an Turin, Madrid and Lisbon. By the mid-nineteenth produced the opera at Eszterháza for the season 1783-84. and strings, and implying, with loud bursts of strings and in Rome and was soon heard in Paris and Barcelona, and century. In the course of a brilliantly successful career he extent, therefore, interchangeable. The present overtures century it had been performed in German, French, Foreign language productions followed, including one in timpani, the forthcoming volcanic eruption and at Eszterháza. Further performances followed elsewhere, composed more than 65 operas as well as a significant include that written for his very first work, Le Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Polish, Dutch, Russian, Russian in Moscow in 1783, and one in Spanish in earthquake. His unusual use of the timpani also possibly with versions in various other languages. Goethe heard body of instrumental music and works for the church. stravaganze del conte, and that for his most famous English and Czech; the opera reached Calcutta in 1870. Madrid ten years later. suggests native Peruvian sacrificial drums. the work in Rome, where, with a papal ban on the stage His operas were performed all over Europe both in opera, Il matrimonio segreto. From the many contemporary manuscript copies of the Cleopatra, a two-act dramma serio, was written for Cimarosa was commissioned to write an opera buffa appearance of women, it was performed by an all-male Italian and in translation. A number of Cimarosa’s operas Voldomiro was commissioned by the Teatro Regio in score, two well-known versions of the opera’s Overture Catherine the Great and probably intended to mark the for the Carnival season of 1786 by the Teatro Nuovo in cast. Impressed by the work, he introduced it to the court continued to enjoy occasional stagings during the Turin for the carnival season of 1787, the only recorded emerge, differing in length. The present version, anniversary of her coronation, a few days before its first Naples. With a libretto by Giuseppe Diodati, with whom theatre in Weimar in 1791, in his own German version nineteenth century and his most famous work, Il performance. Copies of the score and of the libretto recorded here for the first time, is based on Cimarosa’s performance on 27th September 1789 at the Kamennyi he had worked on his Il capriccio drammatico of 1781, and with additional songs. When he revived it a year matrimonio segreto, is one of only a handful of operas of survive, however, in Lisbon and in Liège, respectively, score for Vienna and is substantially different, Theatre. The opera enjoyed a measure of success and the two-act comedy, Il credulo (The Gullible One) tells later, he interpolated selections from Mozart’s the period never to have left the repertory. The others are suggesting wider contemporary interest. In Turin the particularly in the inclusion of a fine oboe melody as a was given several performances in St Petersburg, where of the attempts of a man to marry off his daughter to a Schauspieldirektor. There are at least five different by Mozart. king, who had insisted on restricting the length of operas second theme, omitted in other versions. it was later restaged. Cimarosa used the overture again gullible gentleman from Naples, hampered by a jealous overtures for L’impresario in angustie, each resembling Born in 1749 at Aversa, Cimarosa moved with his and arias, was persuaded to allow Cimarosa five minutes Cimarosa’s commedia per musica, L’infedeltà fedele for early performances of Penelope written five years lover who spreads the rumour that the young lady in overtures for other operas, oratorios and cantatas. The family to Naples, shortly after his own birth and shortly more for one of the arias in Voldomiro, although the (Faithful Infidelity), his fifteenth opera, is unique in its later for the Teatro del Fondo in Naples to open the question has gone mad. Scheduled as the third opera of best known version, offered here, is based on an before the death of his father, a stonemason. His musical composer’s reward for a successful performance was less early mixture of elements of opera buffa with those of Carnival season of 1794-95. The Penelope version of the the 1786 Carnival season, together with Cimarosa’s one- eighteenth-century manuscript preserved in the gifts, however, enabled him to study at the Conservatorio generous. opera seria. The work was intended for a new theatre in overture differs in a number of minor details. act comedy L’impresario in angustie (The Impresario in Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, the source of the Paris di S. Maria di Loreto and to embark on a career as a Cimarosa created his two-act opera buffa, Il credulo Naples, established by the king to provide opera buffa, Il convito (The Banquet) was Cimarosa’s 28th opera, Distress), it was well received and rescheduled as the printed edition of 1802. composer of opera in Naples. He subsequently entered (The Gullible One), for the Carnival season of 1786 at otherwise a comic form popular with ordinary citizens, written for the Teatro San Samuele in Venice for the fourth opera of the same season, coupled with La the service of Catherine the Great in St Petersburg, then the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, and wrote La baronessa as an entertainment also for the nobility. On 20th July Carnival season of 1782. With a successful performance baronessa Stramba. Nick Rossi and Allan Badley moving to the imperial service in Vienna and, in 1793, to Stramba to go with it as the third act of the evening. The 1779 the king’s Teatro del Fondo opened with the work, in Venice, after which the composer was carried by Naples once more, a city from which he was expelled in work is probably a revision of Cimarosa’s earlier I described by the court librettist, Gianbattista Lorenzi, as torchlight back to his hotel, the opera was produced the 1799, when the monarchy was restored after a brief matrimoni in ballo (The Weddings in Dance). a middle-of-the-road kind of entertainment, with its following season in Prague, Trieste, Dresden (as Das republican interlude. He spent his final years in Venice, Cimarosa received his first commission to compose opera seria setting in classical Greece and the story itself Gastmahl), Turin (as Il convito di pietra) and Nice, and where he died in 1801. an opera from the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples for the full of the “buffooneries which are so fashionable” in further stagings followed throughout Europe. There are Cimarosa’s operas are remarkable for their Carnival season of 1772. With a libretto by the well- opera buffa. The only known performance after this was two different overtures to Il convito. The three- delineation of character, sureness of dramatic touch, established Neapolitan poet Pasquale Mililotti, Le in Dresden at the court theatre on 5th October 1782, movement work recorded here is from the composer’s melodic invention and assured handling of the orchestra. stravaganze del conte (The Eccentricities of the Count) under the title Treu in der Untreue. holograph score in the Conservatorio di musica S Pietro The overtures are themselves of particular interest. Some opened on 6th January 1772. It is possible that some of Il ritorno di Don Calendrino (The Return of Don a Majella library in Naples. The second overture, in one conform to the three-movement pattern of earlier the opera was composed while he was still a student. Calendrino), an intermezzo in two acts, was first staged movement, preserved in manuscript in the British Neapolitan composers, while others are cast in a single Since the only extant manuscript of Le stravaganze del during the Carnival season of 1778 at the Teatro Valle in Library, was apparently prepared for a performance of movement similar to the sonata-form structures of the conte is the holograph score it can be assumed that this Rome. Well received by the public, further performances the opera before the court of Naples. Scored for pairs of contemporary symphony. Cimarosa’s orchestration is opera was never restaged. of it were mounted in Florence, Livorno, and Rome, with oboes and horns, timpani and strings (with divided deft and the equal of any symphonist of the period. He Not only is Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret stagings in Prague, Barcelona and Vienna. The overture violas and separate violoncello and contra basso lines), it retains a fondness for three-part string textures Marriage) the best-known and most popular of all borrows from the recently composed L’Armida is identical to the fifth overture of the five written for throughout his career, typically with the first violin and Cimarosa’s theatrical creations, it is perhaps the most imaginara, to which Cimarosa added two completely L’impresario in angustie. viola presenting the melodic material while the second popular opera buffa of all time. First staged in Vienna new movements, a central Andantino and a closing La vergine del sole (The Sun Virgin) is a dramma violin is assigned an accompanying figure. For all the exactly two months after Mozart’s death, it enjoyed a movement marked Allegro con spirito. serio, written for the Russian Court, where it was first similarities, however, the overtures are not symphonies greater success at the time than any of Mozart’s operas The comic opera Il falegname (The Carpenter) was staged in 1788. Further performances followed, in 2 8.570508 3 8.570508 4 8.570508 570508bk Cimarosa US:557541bk Kelemen 3+3 15/6/07 5:25 PM Page 2

Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia The orchestral parts and scores of all the works on this Rari 1-4-5 The Hungarian-based Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia was formed in 1992 by Ibolya Tóth, recording producer of the recording are available from: Domenico Hungarian Phoenix Studio, initially as a recording orchestra for Naxos. Under its permanent conductor, Béla Drahos, the Sinfonia also undertakes public concerts. The orchestra consists of the leading players in Budapest, including ARTARIA EDITIONS LTD CIMAROSA string and wind principals of the major Hungarian orchestras, many of whom have already recorded concertos for Naxos. http://www.artaria.com The Sinfonia ranges in size from a Baroque string orchestra to an ensemble suitable for Haydn or Mozart, or, augmented, for performance of Beethoven. The orchestra’s recordings of Haydn and Beethoven symphonies and Beethoven’s Sources Overtures Fidelio have met with particularly warm critical acclaim, and its recording of Vanhal symphonies (Naxos 8.554341) The sources upon which the editions used in this Il falegname was rewarded by a Cannes Classical Award at Midem 2000. recording have been made are: Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE260 Cleopatra • Voldomiro • Il matrimonio segreto Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Alessandro Amoretti Voldomiro Rari 1-1-7 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE247 Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia • Alessandro Amoretti The Italian conductor Alessandro Amoretti completed his musical studies in Italy, at the Conservatory of Lucca and Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Cleopatra the Accademia Musicale Pescarese, before continuing his training in Moscow. For some years he worked in Italy and Rari 1-5-7 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE240 in the United States as a conductor and vocal coach, concentrating primarily on nineteenth century opera. As musical Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – director and principal conductor of the Studio Lirico summer workshop in Cortona, Italy, he has directed several La baronessa Stramba Rari 1-2-7 productions of operas by Cimarosa and also conducted the first American performance of Salieri’s Falstaff. In 1998- Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE239 9 he joined the Drottningholms Slottsteater, Norrlands Opera, as well as Operastudio ‘67, and is now vocal coach at Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Il convito the Royal Opera Academy of Copenhagen, appearing as guest conductor at the Royal Opera House of Copenhagen, Rari 1-2-12 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE241 with the Danish Radio Choir and with the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Le stravaganze del conte Rari 1-2-9, 10 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE245 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – La vergine del sole Rari 1-4-12 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE246 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Il matrimonio segreto Rari 1-5-1 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE292 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Il credulo Rari 1-5-16, 17 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE242 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – L’infedeltà fedele Rari 1-2-11 Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE244 Paris, Bibliothëque Nationale – D.10349 L’impresario in angustie Edited by Nick Rossi – Artaria Editions AE243 C Il ritorno di Don Calendrino Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – Edited by Allan Badley – Artaria Editions AE267 Rari 1-3-17 Naples, Conservatorio di musica ‘S. Pietro a Majella’ – M Y K 5 8.570508 6 8.570508 NAXOS NAXOS Domenico Cimarosa was the most famous and popular Italian composer of the second half of the eighteenth century. In the course of a brilliantly successful career he composed more than 65 operas, as well as a significant body of instrumental music and works for the church. His operas were performed all over Europe, both in Italian and in translation. A number of Cimarosa’s operas continued to enjoy occasional stagings during the nineteenth century, and 8.570508 CIMAROSA: his most famous work, Il matrimonio segreto, is one of only a handful of operas of the period CIMAROSA: never to have left the repertory. Cimarosa’s overtures are remarkable for their melodic DDD invention, assured handling of the orchestra and sheer vitality. Playing Time Domenico 69:06 CIMAROSA (1749–1801) Overtures • 1 Overtures • 1 Overtures • 1 1 Voldomiro 4:06 2 La baronessa Stramba 6:16 3 Le stravaganze del conte 3:27 4 Il matrimonio segreto * 6:00 www.naxos.com Made in Canada Booklet notes in English ൿ 5 L’infedeltà fedele 5:26 Ltd. Naxos Rights International 6 Il ritorno di Don Calendrino 9:11 2002 & 7 Il falegname 5:22

8 Cleopatra 4:21 Ꭿ

9 Il convito 9:12 2007 0 La vergine del sole 5:34 ! Il credulo 4:53 @ L’impresario in angustie 5:18 * First recording of Vienna version C Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia • Alessandro Amoretti M 8.570508 8.570508 Recorded at Phoenix Studio, Hungary, 6–9 April 2000 • Previously released on Marco Polo 8.225181 Y Producer: Ibolya Tóth • Engineer: János Bohus • Digital editing: Mária Falvay & Veronika Vincze Booklet notes: Nick Rossi & Allan Badley • Publishers: Artaria Editions Cover image: Il Teatro di Palazzo Polignac in Rome, c. 1750 K