Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, La finta semplice (1768)

Twelve-year-old Mozart does his thing!  Whoo.

You know the music here is good.  What else could I possibly have to say about Mozart's music at this point?  I mean, unless I were more musically literate.  That's neither here nor there.  But it's great, really; I have the unsupported feeling that it might be better than some of his later (but still early) work.

And yet, there's always the matter of the libretto, and here's the thing: I saw this about a week ago, and right now, the actual action of the opera is more or less a blank.  It involves two girls, Giacinta and Ninetta, who want to  mary Fracasso and Simone, but they need their brothers' okay, and their brothers are kind of douchebags.  But a plan!  Fracasso's sister Rosina will pretend to be an innocent (as per the title) and make the brothers fall in love with her so they'll have to give their consent to their sisters.  I sort of remember that now, but only after cribbing heavily from wikipedia.  It's really quite vague, with very muddily characterized characters and opaque action.  If not for the music, this wouldn't be very interesting.  But there IS the music, so there you go.

Here's a thing I found interesting: the subtitle choices are Italian, English, or Japanese.  Really?  Nothing against it, but sticking Japanese in there seems a bit arbitrary.  But then I thought: is this a personal courtesy to Chishiho Hirakawa, the Japanese soprano who plays Rosina,  so so she could show the DVD to friends and family back home?  Maybe; maybe not.  Either way, there they are!