FULL LA DIRINDINA (Scarlatti) Panicale 2024 Annalisa Massarotto, Nico Mamone, Filippo Pina Castiglioni
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: La Dirindina
- Composer: Scarlatti Domenico
- Libretto: Girolamo Gigli Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Teatro Cesare Caporali, Panicale, Italy
- Recorded: September 2024
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Annalisa Massarotto, Nico Mamone, Filippo Pina Castiglioni, Stefano Guadagnini, Marlon Zighi Orbi
- Conductor: Eric Eade Foster
- Orchestra: Pan Opera Festival Ensemble
- Stage Director: Valerio Bufacchi
- Stage Designer: Valerio Bufacchi
- Costume Designer: Marco Nateri
Information about the Recording
- Format: DVD
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Written for the 1715 carnival season of the Teatro Capranica in Rome, this farce was stopped at the last minute by the censors due to the excesses of the text. The author, the famous Tuscan playwright Girolamo Gigli, had channeled into it his own sharp satire both towards the customs of musical theatre and towards the hypocritical morality of the bigot Don Carissimo. The fresh Scarlattian score corresponds punctually to the comic opportunities offered by the libretto: starting with the girl’s jaunty first aria, “Vo’ cantar come a voi piace”, continuing with the parody of the aria with the da capo, exemplified in miniature in “Sola voi? mi meraviglio”, or with the minuet rhythm on which the syrupy madrigal “Queste vostro pupillette” is based. Finally, note the trios that conclude the two parts of the operetta, small devices that are effective on a dramatic level and endowed with rhythmic vivacity, suitable for the lively game of verbal ‘jokes’.
Part One
Don Carissimo is giving a singing lesson to the student Dirindina, young and pretty, but not very musically gifted; the maestro reveals his jealousy for the castrato Liscione, to whom the girl gives equivocal attention. At that moment the latter arrives, informing Dirindina that she is required from Milan, to perform a demanding and very well-paid part in the theater. Don Carissimo would like to accompany the girl, but receives a firm refusal; he also tries to continue the lesson, but since Dirindina and Liscione persist in ignoring him, he threatens to tell the girl’s mother, Dirindona, everything.
Part Two
Liscione advises his friend on how to behave in Milan, in order to compensate for her lack of professionalism with beauty and some expedients. After agreeing on what to do, Dirindina is persuaded to try a tragic scene, the part of Dido in an invective against Aeneas.
Meanwhile, Don Carissimo arrives: he does not realize that it is a play but instead takes seriously the references to the “stained bed” and the “marital knots”. Already upset by the unlikely union between Dirindina and the castrato, when the fruit of this relationship is also mentioned, Don Carissimo comes out into the open, suggesting to Dirindina first to eliminate the child and then to marry Liscione.