Overture to 'La baronessa Stramba'

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. The only record of a performance of La baronessa Stramba is that in Naples as part of the fourth opera of the 1786 season. Although La baronessa Stramba is technically derived from Cimarosa’s earlier Il matrimoni in ballo, the sinfonia (overture) is unique and does not share any of its thematic material with any other work. Like all of Cimarosa’s overtures, the current example is remarkable for its vitality, melodic invention and assured handling of the orchestra.