La lettera anonima is a farce

Farce

In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...

 in one act composed by Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

 in 1822 to a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by Giulio Genoino

Giulio Genoino

Giulio Genoino , the 'mind of Masaniello', was a key figure in the 7 July 1647 popular insurrection against Spanish authority in Naples. A priest, lawyer, and academic, Genoino had for three decades attempted to influence constitutional change to involve the Third Estate in the government of the city...

, a former monk and the official censor of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, commonly known as the Two Sicilies even before formally coming into being, was the largest and wealthiest of the Italian states before Italian unification...

. Genoino based his libretto on his own farce which, in turn, had been based on Mélite, ou Les fausses lettres by Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

 in 1630.

With a letter of recommendation from his teacher Johann Simon Mayr, Donizetti was in Naples and came to an agreement with the impresario

Impresario

An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...

 Domenico Barbaja, for whom he had already produced La zingara

La Zingara

La zingara is an opera semiseria in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti, set to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, after La petite bohémienne by Louis-Charles Caigniez, which was itself derived from a work of August von Kotzebue.It was Donizetti's first opera written for Naples and the first...

(The Gypsy Girl) on 12 May 1822, to write the opera. Six weeks later he presented the new farce to the public, the premiere taking place on 29 June 1822.

Overall, the opera appears to have been well received and given twenty performances, although according to Donizetti, "it was half-ruined by a novice singer (Cecconi)". However, as has been noted, "the score contains an attractive speciality number for the dancing master, Flageolet, and an extended quartet, "Stelle che intesti", the one number of the work to be praised by critics after the premiere" as "avoiding those caballetas and that symmetrical repetition of motifs which obliges all the performers to repeat the same musical phrases no matter what the diffeent emotions may agitate them".

Roles

Role	Voice type Voice type A voice type is a particular kind of human singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics. Voice classification is the process by which human voices are evaluated and are thereby designated into voice types...	Premiere cast, 29 June 1822 (Conductor: – )
Countess Rosina	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Flora Fabbri
Captain Filinto, her lover	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Giovanni Battista
Melita, Rosina's tenant	soprano	Teresa Cecconi
Lauretta, Rosina's maid	soprano	Raffaela de Bernardis
Don Macario, Rosina's Uncle	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	De Franchi
Giliberto, Don Macario's Housekeeper	bass Bass (voice type) A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...	??
Flagiolet, A Dancing Teacher	baritone	??
Chorus: Servants and Room-attendants

Synopsis

Place: France

Time: 17th century

Countess Rosina and Captain Filinto are going to get married. An anonymous letter claiming that the Captain is already married to another arrives on the wedding day. This letter is finally found to be false, and the preparations for the wedding party continue.

Recordings

Year	Cast: Countess Rosina, Filinto, Melita, Lauretta, Don Macario	Conductor, Opera House and Orchestra	Label
1972	Benedetta Pecchioli, Pietro Bottazzo, Rosa Laghezza, Carla Virgili, Rolando Panerai Rolando Panerai Rolando Panerai Italian baritone, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, he enjoyed a long and distinguished career in both comic and dramatic roles.Rolando Panerai was born in Campi Bisenzio, near Florence, Italy....	Franco Caracciolo, Orchestra Scarlatti di Napoli and the Amici della Polifonia Chorus	CD: On Stage Cat: 4702