- Salieri’s L’Angiolina, ossia Il matrimonio per sussurro premiered on October 22, 1800 at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna.1
- The libretto was based on Ben Jonson’s play Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman (1609).2
- This comic play is a satire about marriage and patrilineage in upper class society. Morose, a rich man who hates noise, wants to disinherit his nephew Dauphine by marrying in order to produce an heir. Dauphine suggests Epicoene as a bride for Morose, claiming she’s a “silent woman.” However, after the marriage Epicoene annoys Morose with constant chatter, and Morose agrees to return the inheritance to Dauphine if he’ll help him nullify the marriage. His inheritance secured, Dauphine reveals that Epicoene was a crossdressed boy the whole time.
- Story: in Salieri’s version, the purportedly silent woman is named Angiolina, and rather than a cross-dressing boy, she is a young woman in love with the rich old man’s nephew. In this version Angliolina marries the old man but annoys him with constant noise until he agrees to let her go marry the nephew instead.3
Sources
- Jane Schatkin Hettrick and John A. Rice, “Salieri, Antonio,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed January 16, 2020, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000024378.
- Marjorie Swann, “Refashioning Society in Ben Jonson’s Epicoene,” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 38, no. 2 (1998): 297-315, JSTOR, accessed January 16, 2020, www.jstor.org/stable/451039.
- Keith Anderson, liner notes to Salieri: Overtures, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Dittrich, Naxos 8.554838, CD, 2000.
Cut IDs
43331