Domenico Cimarosa, one of the last great exponents of the Neapolitan School, was also one of the most-performed opera composers before the arrival of Rossini. He composed over 60 such works and was esteemed from Venice to St Petersburg, where he was appointed to the Russian Court. L'Italiana in Londra ('The Italian Girl in London') is a charming and sophisticated intermezzo that displays an incredible understanding of comic situations and characters, satirising different cultural stereotypes that are as identifiable today as they were in the 18th century. Humour and wit abound in this acclaimed production.

Gli Orazii e I Curiazii was premiered at La Fenice Opera House in Venice on 26 December 1796 at the height of turmoil caused by Napoleon's successful military campaign in Italy. Antonio Sografi based his libretto on a tragedy by Corneille, which in itself is an indication of the spirit of the age. Indeed, he and Cimarosa were following a trend towards the glorification of the republican virtues of ancient Rome in the wake of the French revolution and the spread of its beliefs. Gli Orazii e I Curiazii shows that, somewhat like Rossini, Cimarosa moved with ease between the subjects of comic and of serious opera. Cimarosa's vocal writing is exemplary in its attention to the singers' breathing and to the development of the music and avoids excessively high notes, long vocalizations, vocal acrobatics and over-heavy embellishments.

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This comic opera tells the story of Geronimo, a wealthy citizen of Bologna, who is trying to arrange aristocratic marriages for his two daughters, Carolina and Elisetta. What he doesn�t know is that his youngest daughter Carolina is already secretly married to Paolino, his young secretary. Through a series of humorous situations the young couple confess their marriage and all ends well. Giovanni Antonini conducts the Wallonie Royal Opera Orchestra for this performance of Cimarosa's two-act comic opera 'Il Matrimonio Segreto' ('The Clandestine Wedding'), recorded live at Liege in February 2008. Soloists include Cinzia Forte, Priscille Laplace and Damiana Pinti. Directed by Stefano Mazzonis Di Pralafera. Starring Cinzia Forte, Alberto Rinaldi, Damiana Pinti. Language: Italian Subtitles: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish

A prolific composer of exceptional talent, Domenico Cimarosa was one of the leading composers of 18th-century Italian opera, greatly admired throughout Europe. Today he is known mainly for Matrimonio Segreto, but his output of operas numbers almost one hundred works, which were performed to resounding success anywhere there was a theatre and a company of singers. In his long and successful creative life, Cimarosa also wrote a series of sonatas for keyboard, generally very short but full of interest and worthy heirs to Domenico Scarlatti's 555 harpsichord sonatas. A first collection of the Cimarosa Sonatas was published by Felice Boghen in Paris in 1925. Bohen's collection consisted of 32 sonatas, and almost all performers used that publication. In 1971, two Italian pianists, Vincenzo Vitale and Carlo Bruno, made a new edition based on the Cimarosa manuscripts of the Conservatory of Florence, adding 31 new sonatas. Andrea Coen recently published the complete 88 Sonatas in two books. After a first album featuring 44 of the works, pianist Dario Canela now concludes the project with this second release. He tackles these works with the nuanced virtuosity and lyricism that only an heir to the great Neapolitan piano school can deliver, such as he is.

Domenico Cimarosa was a prolific composer of church and instrumental music, but his reputation rests principally on his operas. During the second half of the 18th century, and until the arrival of Rossini, he was the most successful and performed operatic composer in Europe, and one of the last exponents of the Neapolitan School. His bracing and vivacious overtures in this final volume include the hugely popular Il convito ('The Banquet'), a triumph in Venice and Florence, as well as some examples of his expressively moving overtures for oratorios. Michael Hal�sz's first engagement as a conductor was at the Staatstheater am G�rtnerplatz, Munich, where, between 1972 and 1975, he directed all operetta productions. Many engagements as a guest conductor followed and in 1977 Dohn�nyi took him to the Staatsoper Hamburg as principal Kapellmeister. From 1978 to 1991 he was GMD (general music director) of the Hagen Opera House and in 1991 he took up the post of resident conductor at the Wiener Staatsoper for 20 years. Michael Hal�sz's recordings for Naxos include ballets by Tchaikovsky, operatic excerpts of Wagner, symphonies by Beethoven, Schubert and Mahler, Rossini's overtures, three volumes of Liszt's symphonic poems, Fidelio, Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberfl�te, and a pioneering recording of Schreker's opera Der ferne Klang.

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Domenico�Cimarosa's�operas were remarkably successful, being staged and re-staged in opera houses all over Europe. Success in his�hometown�of Naples led to court appointments and royal commissions, including his best-known work Il�matrimonio�segreto�('The Secret Marriage') composed for Austrian emperor Leopold II. Other hits include�L'impegno�superato�('The Broken Engagement'), an instant success and soon to become one of the most frequently performed of�Cimarosa's�comic works, and Penelope that was produced as far away as London in 1817. The Cantata per Ferdinando IV was, however, written as an act of repentance,�Cimarosa�having made the mistake of backing the failed republican government in 1799.

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Baroque Music - BACH, J.S. / CIMAROSA, D. / HANDEL, G.F. / L

Domenico Cimarosa Le astuzie femminili A Neopolitan nurse who starts a career in Rome as a notary; a young girl, who is placed in his charge and may only receive her father's rich inheritance if she weds the Neapolitan Don Giampaolo, who is enthralled with her; a poor dolt who is hopelessly in love with the heiress; a housekeeper who adores the wrong lawyer; and a scheming girlfriend who cleverly arranges a happy ending. Le astuzie femminili, "Feminine wiles", may only have six characters, but they stir up such a frenzy that even today one cannot help but grin. Underscored by the exuberant and extraordinarily melodic music of the once successful composer Domenico Cimarosa, this Buffa is the ideal counterpart to Il matrimonio segreto, which joined the cpo catalogue just three years ago.

Born in 1749, Cimarosa was one of Europe's leading composers at the end of the 18th century. It was during his most productive period that he produced his Olimpiade, a grand opera seria transformed into a sumptuous bel canto drama. In it, Cimarosa brings heroism to the athletes competing in the Games in Olympia, the winner of which will marry Princess Aristea: the seemingly inextricable plot allows the composer to write some of the most extraordinary arias based on Metastasio's libretto. Christophe Rousset, champion of the Italian repertoire of the end of the 18th century, leads a dazzling cast in this hurricane of bel canto!

New, fun-filled arrangements—with historical authenticity on their side—bring bright and breezy curtain-raisers by a once-celebrated contemporary of Mozart to life.

In a career not much longer than Mozart’s, Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) wrote an astonishing total of 64 works for the stage—as well as substantial collections of symphonies, concertos, and sonatas—that were performed across the length and breadth of Europe.

Cimarosa specialized in lighthearted comedies, for which he supplied stylishly upbeat scores, shot through with Italianate lyricism, and a kind of impetuous vigor which was all his own. This quality makes his overtures particularly suitable for transcription to the kind of plucked-ensemble chamber versions heard on this enterprising new album. During the period after unification, the mandolin became a popular instrument much as the ukulele and the balalaika did elsewhere: relatively easy to learn, highly portable, and well suited to being played in ensemble as a kind of instrumental choir.

The Anedda Quintet have devised a unique synthesis of the two approaches, adding a strong bass component to the classic quartet line-up. This collection of Cimarosa is mainly comprised of modern arrangements by the composer Michele Di Filippo, who had already collaborated with the Anedda Quintet for a previous Brilliant Classics album of Rossini arrangements (95904). In adapting these orchestral scores, Di Filippo aimed to make the melodies sing out while preserving a sense of dialogue, tension, and drama between instruments.

Da capo!” This is what Emperor Leopold II shouted in the Vienna court theater in 1792 – and all the musicians once again began the musical fun from the beginning. Il matrimonio segreto is the only opera that has ever had the honor of being repeated in full at its premiere, so very much did the comical musical goings-on please its distinguished audience. On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Innsbruck Early Music Festival Weeks, the conductor Alessandro De Marchi again at long last led a performance of Cimarosa’s most popular opera in historical performance practice and in original sound. The music forms a direct transition from the Baroque opera to the Bel Canto era of Rossini and in every way merits a production in which the musical and vocal practice of Cimarosa and Mozart’s times is brought back to life. Nowadays Cimarosa’s opera is always heard in greatly abbreviated versions; repetitions and parts of arias often end up being eliminated. Alessandro De Marchi: “Though precisely these repetitions are interesting because in them the female and male singers, just as then was still the practice, are able to vary and improvise.” The orchestral sound is also more colorfully and sharply contoured when original instruments are used. For the anniversary occasion everybody was supposed to have good reason to laugh, and this opera is optimally suited toward this end. The tradition of the opera buffa, with its origins going back to the commedia dell’arte, in this work experiences a “high point full of irresistible moments of fun, on the stage and in the music” as De Marchi puts it.

Written towards the end of his life, Cimarosa’s Dixit Dominus of 1797 numbers among his greatest compositions. A sacred composition on a large scale, it features three soloists, a four-part choir, and an orchestra including four pairs of wind instruments. The sequencing of the solo and choir parts employs a compositional-technical method that had proved itself for more than 150 years for the setting of sacred works based on verses.

Domenico Cimarosa contributed significantly to the development of the opera during the second half of the eighteenth century. He was held in great esteem by his contemporaries, above all by Haydn and Mozart, not only because of his eighty operas but also his sacred works endowing the traditional church style with his trademark grace and sweetness of tone.

L’Italiana in Londra' was Domenico Cimarosa’s first international triumph, thrilling audiences all over Europe after its premiere in 1778. It later became eclipsed by the even bigger success of 'Il matrimonio segreto' however, and has become a rarity on stage today. Set in a London hotel, this cheerful ‘Intermezzo in musica’ has cleverly crafted arias, duets and ensembles that drive the plot along, the story being one of thwarted love, quarrels and misunderstandings. 'L’Italiana in Londra' has been summed up by director R.B. Schlather as ‘incredibly charming and sophisticated … demanding, dark, dirty and very funny … an impeccable rom-com.’

Domenico Cimarosa was riding high on the triumphant success of Il matrimonio segreto when he embarked on the ‘commedia per musica’ Le astuzie femminili in 1794. The narrative for this opera revolves around the clever and resourceful Bellina, who devises a plan to avoid an unwanted marriage while gaining a large inheritance and marrying her love Filandro. Styled somewhere between Mozart and Rossini, Cimarosa’s witty and tender score includes deliciously comical moments such as Filandro’s outlandish Italian-German imitation of a Magyar officer. The spirited performance and lively pace of this opera buffa accounted for its acclaimed reception at the 2022 Reate Festival.

Domenico Cimarosa’s abilities as an operatic composer are evident in his large-scale Requiem in which the soloists and chorus range from the mournful supplication of the opening movements, through vivid evocations of the ‘day of wrath’ and the praises uttered by the heavenly hosts in the Sanctus, to the prayers for mercy, peace and eternal light which conclude the work. Composed to commemorate the death in 1787 of the wife of the French ambassador in St Petersburg, its overall character is one of classical restraint.

The most famous Italian opera composer of his day, Domenico Cimarosa saw his fame spread all over Europe. Written towards the end of the ‘Neapolitan School’ era, his operas endured in popularity long after his death thanks to their melodic invention, colourful orchestration and sheer vitality. The overtures in this programme include I tre amanti (The Three Lovers), the hit opera that made Cimarosa’s name outside Naples, and Il pittor parigino (The Parisian Painter) and the tragedy Giunio Bruto that were admired by Haydn and conducted by him at the Esterházy court. The first three volumes are available on Naxos 8.570508, 8.570279 and 8.572734.