Le donne letterate composed by Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....

 (1750-1825), is an Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in three acts, stylistically it is an opera buffa

Opera buffa

Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...

 and is very similar to the mid-18th century librettos of Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...

. The 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 Giovanni Gastone Boccherini, dancer, poet and stage manager, brother of the composer Luigi Boccherini

Luigi Boccherini

Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was an Italian classical era composer and cellist whose music retained a courtly and galante style while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. Boccherini is most widely known for one particular minuet from his String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No...

, was based on Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

's Les Femmes Savantes

Les Femmes Savantes

Les Femmes savantes is a play by Molière in five acts, written in verse. A satire on academic pretention, female education, and préciosité , it was one of his most popular comedies...

("The Learned Ladies").

This opera was the first of Salieri's to be publicly performed, as well as, his first collaboration with Boccherini. This was Salieri's second complete opera.

Performance history

Salieri, wrote Le donne letterate in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 in late 1769 and early 1770. It received its first performance during Carnival that same year at one of the Imperial theaters in Vienna. There is some dispute among scholars as to the date and place of the premier. Rudolph Angermüller lists January 10, 1770 in the Burgtheater as the first performance. The opera was apparently revived only once, in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 in 1773. There is no known modern performance history.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, Carnival, 1770 (Conductor: Antonio Salieri)
Don Baggeo, A wealthy old man	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...
Donna Artemia, Don Baggeo's wife	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...	Clementina Baglioni
Donna Elvira, Sister of Artemia	soprano
Corilla , Daughter of Donna Elvira, and the niece of Donna Aremia, a pupil of Don Baggeo	soprano
Don Prudenzio, Brother of Don Baggeo in love with Corilla	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...
Don Vertiginie, An effeminate and ridiculous poet, also in love with Corilla	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...	Gioachino Caribaldi?
Don Trimetro (sp?), A Scholar and Professor, also in love with Corilla	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...
Don Filiberto, Don Baggeo's tutor	Unknown
Commissioner of the Curiale, The local head of police	Unknown
Choruses: Depicting Servants of Don Baggeo, the local Literati, friends of Don Prudenzio dressed in doctoral gowns, Students of Don Trimetro dressed in the red gowns, and the local Police	mixed voices

The Structure, Genre and Critical Reception of the Music of Le donne letterate

This opera by Salieri and Boccherini, was written in the

Noted arias

• "Ah se foss'io smarrito" - Despina in Act I, with extended oboe solo, later prepared for insertion in the opera Il mondo alla rovescia, but left out of the final score.
• "Non vo' gia che vi suonino" - Guidalba in Act II, later reworked and inserted in La Cifra.

External links

• Article on the Roman Intermezzo, by John Rice, 2008