Overture to 'Il credulo'

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. Scheduled as the third opera of the 1786 Carnival season, at which time this two-act work was coupled with Cimarosa’s one-act comedy L’impresario in angustie, Il credulo was apparently so well received that it was rescheduled as the ‘fourth’ opera of the same season, this time coupled with Cimarosa’s one-act comedy, La baronessa Stramba. Like all of Cimarosa’s overtures, the current example is remarkable for its vitality, melodic invention and assured handling of the orchestra.