Overture to 'L'italiana a Londra'

Domenico Cimarosa was the most famous and popular Italian opera composer of the second half of the 18th 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 19th Century, and his most famous work, Il matrimonio segreto, is one of only a handful of operas of the period never to have left the repertory. Written in 1778 when Cimarosa was not yet 30, L’italiana a Londra (The Italian Girl in London) proved to be the composer’s first big hit. Following its prima as a five-person, two act opera at Teatro Valle in Rome on 28 December 1778, the opera was given numerous productions throughout Europe in the years that followed. The overture, in common with many of those by Cimarosa, shares part of its music with another overture, that to L’infedeltà fedele (Faithful Infidelity) written the following spring for the opening of the new buffa theatre in Naples. Cimarosa’s overture to L’italiana a Londra is in three movements (Allegro con spirito – Andante – Presto ), the later version in one, a third of which is derived from the first movement of the original. Like all of Cimarosa’s overtures, L’italiana a Londra is remarkable for its vitality, melodic invention and assured handling of the orchestra.