Overture to 'La Circe'

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. Circe (Circe), a dramma per musica in three acts with a libretto by Domenico Perelli, was given its prima at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, during Carnival, 1783. Although there are many references to performances in addition to the La Scala production, the prima is the only staging for which documentary evidence survives. Like all of Cimarosa’s overtures, La Circe is remarkable for its vitality, melodic invention and assured handling of the orchestra.