Lauro Rossi was a prominent composer and teacher in the period from 1830 to 1880. A brilliant, lively personality from both a humanistic and artistic point of view emerges from the documents. Modern critics have included him in the indistinct group of ‘lesser’ names from the period of Bellini and Donizetti, acknowledging his ability and primary role in the buffo genre, considering with equally close attention his later writing in the serious genre. Rossi’s Il domino nero was staged for the first time at Milan’s Teatro alla Canobbiana on September 1, 1849. The subject was used for the first time in the libretto Eugene Scribe wrote for Le domino noir, an opera comique in three acts by Daniel Auber, successfully staged at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris on December 2, 1837 and performed by Laure Cinti Damoreau and Joseph-Antoine-Charles Couderc. Rubino kept the period and the setting in Spain and used some of the ideas, but in substance moved away from Scribe’s plot. As well as the adaptability and technical ability in belcanto style, the singers must have first-rate acting talent. Rossi had the gift of simplicity and a ‘modern’ sensitivity, which goes beyond Rossini and Donizetti’s great teaching. By choice, his writing is easily followed, whereas his solid training in composition can be noted above all in the skill with which he treats the chorus, which has a key role, from the point of view of both music and stage presence.

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GIOVANNI PAISIELLO: Mirko Guadagnini; Donata Di Gioia; Sgefania Donzelli; Maurizio Lo Piccolo; Paolo Bordogna; Camillo Facchino; Graziano De Pace; Robert Recchia; Orchestra da Camera del Giovanni Paisiello Festival/Giovanni Di Stefano; Rosetta Cucchi, director; Live recording: No GIOVANNI PAISIELLO: Il Barbiere di Siviglia, drama buffo in due (quattro) atti.

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Featuring Gezim Mishketa; Elisaveta Martyrosian; Enrica Fabbri; Filippo Adami; Maurizio Lo Piccolo; Omar Montanari; Daivde Rocca; Massimo Pagnoni; Asia D’Arcangelo; Fabio Vichi.

Orchestra Sinfonica Carlo Coccia
Fabrizio Dorsi/Rosetta Cucchi, directors

NTSC All Region; Stereo, Dolby 5.1
Subtitles: Italian, English, Japanese
Running time: 85 minutes

ARRIGHETTO, A SENTIMENTAL FARCE
Madama Beritola, finding two goats on an island, having lost two sons goes to the Lunigiana: there one of her sons is with her Master and he sleeps with his daughter and is put in prison. Cicilia rebelling against king Carlo and the son recognized by the mother, marries the Master’s daughter, and finding his brother, in grand style they return. (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, second day, sixth novella). Thus begins the Story of the novella from which Angelo Anelli tells us he took his libretto. It is the eternal edifying topos He who suffers may hope. Often in the past this Lombard poet as others before him had considered Boccaccio’s novelle as a mine from which to “extract subjects” in alternative to the noble French theatre, at the time much in vogue for this use. Suffice one title as example: Griselda, an oppressed married woman whose virtue finally triumphs over fate, taken from Apostolo Zeno but rewritten by Anelli in 1793. Obviously the story is semi-serious, even larmoyante, a genre halfway between tragic, comic and pathetic which at that time had become a favorite with audiences. It is precisely what the author so eloquently wrote down on the title page of the score: a “sentimental farce”.

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Originally released in 2009. Starring Catia Pizzi, Carlo Torriani, Carina Isabel Calafiura.

The works of Alessandro Stradella (1639-82) form a bridge between the music of late Renaissance southern Europe and early Enlightenment northern Europe. Stradella wrote in all available genres, including, of particular importance here, the serenata, or love-song. “Qual prodigio” is essentially a dispute between two male lovers and a lady about the best way of winning a lady’s heart, with comic flavor. “Lasciate ch’io respiri, ombre gradite” is a pastoral dialogue between an Arcadian shepherd and his nymph. The instrumental Sonata for 8 Strings, Trumpet and Bass Continuo lies between.

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Semiramide in villa was Giovanni Paisiello's first attempt at the comic genre known in Italian as metamelodramma, which made fun of the extravagances of singers, composers and impresarios and of the absurdities of the system behind the staging of Italian operas. From the outset, comic opera had made audiences laugh by parodying its serious counterpart, particularly the librettos of Metastasio, featuring "half-character" roles, so called because they cover several styles, or trivial ones. Thus opera buffa always contained segments, albeit varying in length and extent of parody, deriving from its serious counterpart and the metamelodrama would take this connection between the genres even further with a whole act consisting of a rehearsal for an opera seria. The sole source for the music of "Semiramide in villa" is the composer's own autograph score housed in the library of the San Pietro a Majella College of Music in Naples in two separate volumes: the frontespiece of the first carries the indication "Originale di Giovanni Paisiello 1771 Roma" in an 18th century hand.

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Following the runaway success of Cavalleria rusticana in 1890 at the age of 27, Mascagni did not rest on his laurels. In just a few years, he completed no less than five operas, including Iris, premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in 1898. Mascagni might well have taken for his own Puccini's famous quip, “Against everything and everyone, make a work from melody”. And in Iris it is melodic invention which shows the composer's genius at its greatest. A melody by Mascagni is usually long, smooth and Italian-sounding; and Iris is full-on melody all the way, particularly in such crowd-pleasers as Jor's Serenade, the “Hymn of the Sun” or the duet in Act II “Oh come al tuo sottile corpo s'aggira”, which includes the famous “Piovra”. Furtheremore, with a little effort listeners can identify what would be the various musical “numbers”. In Iris, Mascagni is almost obsessively attentive to recitative and his exemplary flexibility at times recalls the sublime "conversation style" "invented" by Puccini. The present production was recorded live at the Teatro Goldoni, Livorno, in December of 2017.

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Musicians and critics realized soon after it's 1829 Paris Op�ra premiere that Rossini's Guillaume Tell was a far-reaching masterpiece. And yet some of the features that made it so unique have militated against it entering the standard repertory. The 1992 critical edition made a "complete" Guillaume Tell, even an ur-Tell possible, but still not many companies have performed the work without substantial cuts. The first complete DVD release of the work's original version finds the Rossini in Wildbad Festival, celebrating it's 25th anniversary, performing Tell for the first time in it's entirety.

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A 2012 live recording of Baldassarre Galuppi's "Il Filosofo di Campagna". Born on an island in the Venice lagoon, Galuppi was an intensely prolific and highly esteemed composer of the Venetian Baroque era. His works included sacred music, sacred and profane cantatas, instrumental works, oratorios and operas, many of which are comic. Among the latter, of particular importance are those born of his collaboration with Carlo Goldoni. The deeply 'Venetian' aspects of Goldoni and Galuppi together created a body of 18th century comic opera of which Il Filosofo di Campagna (The Country Philosopher) is arguably Galuppi's best known. With the Ensemble Barocco della Filarmonica del Veneto led by Fabrizio da Ros and a pan-European cast of young singers mount a lively production.

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MASSENET BASTIANINI; FORTI; SCARLINI; TOFFOLO (COND) THAIS- RECORDED LIVE IN TRIESTE, 1954; PUCCINI: II TABARR0 (FINALE)- RECORDED IN HAMBURG, 1953