- La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder) is a little one-act opera, which premiered on May 9, 1812, at the Teatro S. Moisé in Venice.1
- Story: Giulia is secretly married, and to escape her guardian’s plan to marry her off to someone else, she hatches a plan to make the would-be fiancé to fall in love with her cousin instead.2
- Genre: this opera is a farsa comica, a one-act Italian opera genre that was popular in the late 18th and early 19th C. The genre featured a small cast with set types of roles, usually a set of lovers, a couple comic roles and one or two minor characters. The genre featured a lot of improvised physical stage humor.3
- Rossini composed five farse, including his very first opera, The Marriage Contract. Another relatively well-known one is Il signor Bruschino.
Sources
- Richard Osborne, “Scala di seta, La,” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed January 8, 2020, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000009899.
- Ibid.
- Carlo Piazza, trans. Sarah J. Hyde, “Il signor Bruschino,” Accademia degli Incogniti: Festival di Torrechiara, accessed January 9, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20070603195513/http://www.festivalditorrechiara.it/ENGbruschino.htm.
Cut IDs
11135, 23008, 40343