This is a short opera buffa--one of the first of such--that was originally written as an intermezzo for a longer opera seria, Il prigionier superbo. That was considered a failure and kind of sank into obscurity (though you CAN get it on disc if you're so inclined), but the intermezzo took on a life of its own and--according to wikipedia, at least, I dunno--bridges the gap between baroque and classical music, and as such would have outsized influence on the future history of opera.
It's only forty-two minutes, so you might as well watch it, especially given this excellent performance, from 1998. It's a simple story, as you'd expect: Umberto (bass) is a rich guy who's irked because his maidservant Serpina (soprano) is refusing to carry out his orders and being generally obstreperous, but then she uses goofy trickery to get him to marry her. Um...the end. Serpina, I have to admit, did sort of annoy me at first, but I got into it pretty quickly, and it was all good. The music and especially the singing here, BOY is it ever great. Hella delightful stuff, and Donato Di Stefano and Patrizia Biccirè (the only characters, aside from a non-speaking manservant), are more than up to the task. Under normal circumstances, I would have my doubts about whether this marriage will be a happy one, but...really. Under the circumstances, who would even think about that?
Huh. Do I have anything else to say? It sort of makes me want to see some of Pergolesi's operas (how would I pluralize that?). I do have the feeling that I would discover that there's a reason this is the one that's still known, but hell, man, he has a few other comic pieces that probably wouldn't be too painful to sit through. In any event, it's pretty brutal that he died (of tuberculosis) at the age of twenty-six. Hmm.
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