Plot

For the public of music lovers talking about Domenico Cimarosa means, essentially, talking about just one of his operas, the Matrimonio segreto which, first staged in Vienna on 7th February 1792, was also one of the greatest successes in the history of eighteenth-century opera. At the time of the Matrimonio segreto Cimarosa had already some fifty operas to his credit. With Giovanni Paisiello he was the most prestigious and authoritative representative of Neapolitan opera. Il matrimonio segreto, is universally recognised as Cimarosa's masterpiece and the only one of his operas to have survived in the regular repertoire to this day. The reasons for its success are quite simple: the opera is practically perfect, splendidly balanced, accompanied from start to finish by an unfailing vein of felicitous melodic invention, orchestrated with unwonted attention, rich in irresistible arias and ensembles, always amusing but never farcical, and based on a libretto of good quality: "a sweet fable, not even lightly touched by the suspicion of its improbability", as Francesco Delgado has justly defined it. The opera contains memorable passages, once heard never forgotten, like the beautiful overture wholly worthy of Mozart, Paolino's aria Pria che spunti in ciel l'aurora, and the formidable duet between the Count and Geronimo in the second act Se fiato in corpo avete, that was soon to become a landmark in Italian comic opera, destined to survive to Rossini and beyond. In the nineteenth century, Il matrimonio segreto was to find illustrious admirers including Stendhal.