Overture to 'Il ritorno di Don Calendrino'

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. Il ritorno di Don Calendrino (The Return of Don Calendrino), an intermezzo in two acts with libretto probably by Giuseppe Petrosellini, was given its prima during the Carnival season of 1778 at Teatro Valle in Rome. Well received by the public, further performances of it were mounted in other major European centres. Because Il ritorno di Don Calendrino was commissioned by Rome’s Teatro Valle immediately after Cimarosa had finished his comedy L’Armida imaginara for Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples, the composer simply borrowed 132 bars from a total of 216 directly from the overture for L’Armida imaginara for his new overture, and then added two completely new movements: an Andantino in 2/4 of some 68 bars in which dynamic contrasts are a key element, and a closing Allegro con spirito in 2/4 of 128 bars. Like all of Cimarosa’s overtures, it is remarkable for its vitality, melodic invention and assured handling of the orchestra.