Giuseppe Nicolini was more or less forgotten already by the time he died in 1842; however, around 1800, he was reckoned among the royalty of Italian opera, regarded as one of the greatest exponents of Neapolitan classicism. Born just six years after Mozart, Nicolini enjoyed his most rewarding successes in the years following the French Revolution, leading up to the rise of Rossini circa 1819. Although his signature work was the opera seria Trajano in Dacia (1807), Il geloso sincerato is a comic opera, and a good one. ...
Read More
Giuseppe Nicolini was more or less forgotten already by the time he died in 1842; however, around 1800, he was reckoned among the royalty of Italian opera, regarded as one of the greatest exponents of Neapolitan classicism. Born just six years after Mozart, Nicolini enjoyed his most rewarding successes in the years following the French Revolution, leading up to the rise of Rossini circa 1819. Although his signature work was the opera seria Trajano in Dacia (1807), Il geloso sincerato is a comic opera, and a good one. Giambattista Lorenzi's libretto, a pastiche of pathologically jealous husbands drawn from Molière and Shakespeare, was already two decades old by the time this opera was first trotted out in 1804; it remains genuinely funny, and even a little racy, two centuries hence. The overture to Il geloso sincerato could easily stand on its own, and the opera contains many imaginative passages as scored for the clarinet and bassoon. The work is fast-paced and quite amusing, although non-Italian...
Read Less
