The Two Barons of Rocca Azzurra
(I due baroni di Rocca Azzurra, 1783)
Intermezzo in two parts
Music by Domenico Cimarosa 1783
Libretto by Giuseppe Palomba
English translation by Gilly French and Jeremy Gray
The Deanery Garden, Bampton, July 2002
The Orangery terrace, Westonbirt, August 2003
Cast
| Laura, a noblewoman |
Fiona Harrison |
| Sandra, a would-be lady, sister of |
Betsabée Haas (2003) Judith Gardner Jones (2002) |
| Franchetto, manservant to the barons |
Andrew Kennedy |
| Totaro, a baron engaged to Laura |
Thomas Guthrie |
| Don Demofonte, his uncle | Mark Saberton |
| Conductor |
David Owen Norris |
| Director | Jeremy Gray |
| Revival Director | Thomas Guthrie |
Synopsis
Act One
The simple and uneducated Baron, Don Demofonte Cucuzzoni, and his nephew
Totaro, may live on their remote provincial estate of Rocca Azzurra
(the Blue Fortress) but they both keep up – so they believe – with
the latest French fashions. They are eagerly awaiting Totaro's fiancée,
Madama Laura from Milan, whom they have never met. Franchetto and
his sister Sandra, from the nearby village, are social climbers,
and scheme that Sandra will marry Totaro whilst Franchetto will steal
the fiancée. By pretending to be Laura's ambassador and substituting
a portrait of Sandra, Franchetto easily wreaks havoc. When Laura
arrives, Totaro assumes from the portrait that Sandra is his betrothed.
Demofonte attempts to make up for his nephew's failings by wooing
Laura, but she only laughs at him. It is decided to settle the matter
with a handwriting contest, but Franchetto manages to slip his sister
a song written by Laura. Both sets of handwriting appear the same,
and tempers rise.
Act Two
The confusion and anger continue. Both women persist in their claim
to be the bride, and the Barons must seek advice. Franchetto announces
the arrival of an Egyptian fortune-teller (Sandra), but Laura manages
to adopt the same disguise. Franchetto next suggests turning to the
sorceress Alcina, who conveniently resides in a garden pavilion.
Laura discovers that Franchetto and Sandra are brother and sister
and, when Sandra appears as Alcina, Laura again doubles her. Franchetto
finally admits the deceit: Totaro is united with his rightful bride,
and Demofonte is persuaded to accept the treacherous Sandra, who
thus fufils her dream of becoming a baroness. Only Franchetto is
left out.
Cast - Synopsis
Incomparable
elegance - Cimarosa and the Two Barons
Production
photographs (2002)
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Incomparable elegance - Cimarosa and the Two Barons
Although subject in his lifetime to the fickle nature of public taste and shifting politics, Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) was one of the most successful of the troop of Italian opera composers (amongst them Gazzaniga and Paisiello) whose works formed the staple of opera houses from London to St Petersburg in the closing years of the 18th century. His operatic works were regular features at all the major European houses, and especially at the great court centres of Vienna, where he replaced Salieri as Kapellmeister, and Eszterháza, where Haydn conducted 13 of his works between 1783 and 1790. Unlike many of his compatriots, his reputation held good well into the nineteenth century, founded especially on continued performances of his two acknowledged masterpieces, Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage) and the revolutionary opera seria Gli Orazi ed i Curiazi. Two of his works were directed by Goethe at Weimar, and amongst other influential voices who rated him even above Mozart were the painter Delacroix and the novelist Stendhal. Indeed, such was his reputation in France, that his bust was prominently placed on the façade of the most opulent of all theatres, the Paris Opéra, in the third quarter of the nineteenth century.
The libretto of I due baroni was by Giuseppe Palomba, whose prolific work over a period of sixty years was set by most of the prominent Italian composers of the period; he wrote more than thirty scripts for Cimarosa. His libretti have frequently been criticised for their clumsy and incoherent plots and the limitations of the characters, typical perhaps of the type of work Mozart was despairing of in 1783 at the time of L'Oca del Cairo. I due baroni epitomises a genre of opera buffa which, tried and tested, provided endless entertainment for the audiences of the late eighteenth century: the matrimonial chase, temporarily frustrated but ultimately resolved, the possibility that wily servants might play games with their masters, multiple disguises and deceptions – these are the staple ingredients of a genre which has its roots in the commedia dell'arte tradition and which was to receive its most elevated treatment in Lorenzo da Ponte's Così fan tutte. It is preposterous of course that Fiordiligi and Dorabella can be taken in for one moment by the Turkish moustaches of their lovers, just as Totaro and Demofonte must be dense indeed to be duped by the proliferation of the women firstly into gypsy fortune-tellers and then into the sorceress Alcina.
I due baroni was one of the eight opere buffe Cimarosa wrote for the Teatro Valle in Rome, where they were termed intermezzi. All were two-act operas (in contrast to the usual three-act opera buffa), for five singers – all men, as women performers were forbidden by papal edict. Francesco Benucci, one of the finest singer-actors of his day, who went on to première Figaro and Guglielmo, created the role of Baron Demofonte. Cimarosa's 1778 Valle offering, L'italiana in Londra had already proved a great triumph, and rapidly became popular in many leading European theatres. I due baroni, first given at the Valle during the Carnival on 8 February1783, enjoyed comparable success, although its première included interpolated music by Angelo Tarchi "at the unanimous request of the nobility". Performances followed at Florence, Monza, Como, Crema (with an additional character, Dorinda), La Scala Milan, Ferrara (with another new role, Giannino), Fermo, Palermo and Padua: it only reached Cimarosa's home-town of Naples in 1793 with further new characters and scenes inserted by the librettist to conform to Neapolitan taste. Amongst significant foreign productions were those at Madrid and Barcelona. During Cimarosa's ultimately unsuccessful sojourn in St Petersburg from 1787-91 as Maestro di Capella to the imperial court, I due baroni was adjusted and performed in Russian. On both outward and return journeys to Russia, Cimarosa enjoyed the admiration and patronage of the Viennese Emperor Joseph II (famed for demanding the after-dinner encore of the whole of Il matrimonio segreto immediately after its première in 1792). For the Vienna performance of I due baroni at the Burgtheater in 1789, where Louise Villeneuve (the first Dorabella) sang Laura, Mozart – who appropriately at the time was working on Così fan tutte - replaced at her request Cimarosa's dramatic aria Alma grande e nobil core – arguably the finest number in the opera – with his own version (K578).
The King's Theatre, Haymarket, London presented a production opening on 3 January1803. The correspondent in The Post disliked the humour, but admired the music: 'Its airs, its recitatives, have both a power that seems to equal the praise of the musical composer with that of the noblest of poets. Tenderness, grace, airy lightness, elegance of artifice and a comic expression…are the most eminent characteristics of this music.' The critic in The Times concurred, but The Chronicle found much to displease: 'unsufferably long, frigid and unmeaning'! Although Cimarosa's works were generally popular in London, I due baroni did not succeed, and was not revived after its run of five performances. It appears never to have been performed in this country since.
In recent times, the opera has been given in Italy at Fermo in 1989 and Palermo in 1989 and 1991, the latter being recorded for Bongiovanni. Our own performance uses the 1971 edition published by Otos, but with some additions based on the Palermo version, and reinstating Cimarosa's magnificent Alma grande rather than Mozart's.
The music of I due baroni is typical of the best of Italian opera in the period: deft, elegant and light, Cimarosa overcomes the poetic and dramatic infelicities of the libretto through fluent melody, rhythmic and dynamic accompaniment and a sense of forward movement which is infectious and entertaining. The music, unlike Mozart's, is unashamedly diatonic, with simple harmonic sequences and regular metres. Never hesitant or dull, it is not difficult to understand Cimarosa's wide appeal to the audiences of his day. From the witty opening quartet which plunges directly into the comic intrigue, it soon becomes obvious that - as with so many of Cimarosa's works - I due baroni is primarily an ensemble opera: Laura's showpiece arias apart, the solo numbers take second place. Nearly all the music is fast, and as the story unfolds in virtual real-time, there is little place for ponderous reflection. The vivacious large-scale chain finales – an invention of the Italian opera composers in the mid-century associated with Goldoni - reflect alternating moods of confidence, bewilderment, anger and reconciliation with brilliant wit and humanity. Especially appealing is the mock seriousness of the handwriting test which the women undergo at the end of Act I, entertained by a song by Demofonte (with calming horn obbligato) 'to help their concentration': but even that lyricism is short-lived as all the characters work up to angry frenzy, concluding the act in emotional turmoil. The fear of the Barons as they approach 'Alcina' (near the end of the opera) shows Cimarosa's ability to use the simplest repeated rhythms to hilarious pictorial effect, as they tiptoe forward, their hearts beating loudly. As with Così, the eventual unmasking of deception leads to unlikely reconciliation with quite incredible speed, leaving only the manipulative Franchetto (unlike his equivalent, Don Alfonso) unrewarded.
Cimarosa's contemporary, Antonio Sacchini, once argued the typical Italian attitude as opposed to the German: 'In the theatre one must be clear and simple: one must touch the heart but not disturb it, and one must make oneself comprehensible to less practised ears. The composer who can write contrasting arias without changing key shows far more talent than the one who changes it every few moments.' Mozartians may disagree, but, whilst I due baroni may not be a profoundly great opera, it is musical entertainment at its very best: delicious, accomplished and hilarious.
Cast - Synopsis
Incomparable elegance - Cimarosa and the Two Barons
Production photographs (2002)
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