New Chamber Opera
33rd Season
Giovanni Paisiello
La Frascatana; or, The Girl from Frascati
Sung in English in a new translation by Simon Rees.
With
The Band of Instruments
Conductor: Steven Devine
Producer: Michael Burden
June 28 (Preview), July 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 2023
The Warden’s Garden, New College (if wet in the Antechapel)
June 28: (Preview) £35 – Tickets from Ticketsource
July 1: New College Development Office – Sold Out. If you would like to request to be added to the waiting list for this night, please email [email protected]
July 2: Friends of Welsh National Opera – Tickets from Bernadette Whittington, [email protected]; mobile 07813907466
July 4: £44 – Tickets from Ticketsource
July 5: Friends of the Oxford Botanic Gardens – Tickets from FOBG
July 7: New College Development Office – Sold Out. If you would like to request to be added to the waiting list for this night, please email [email protected]
Cast
Violante – Emily Brown Gibson
daughter of a gardener from Frascati
Don Fabrizio – Thomas Humphreys
Violante’s tutor
Nardone – Henry Ross
in love with Violante
Cavaliere Giocondo – Magnus Walker
betrothed to Donna Stella, also in love with Violante
Donna Stella – Lara Marie Müller
betrothed to the Cavaliere
Lisetta – Kate Semmens
a waitress, also in love with the Cavaliere
Pagnotta – Thomas Niesser
servant of the Cavaliere
Reps
Jamie Andrews
Luke Mitchell
Paisiello’s opera premiered at the Teatro S Samuele in Venice in the autumn 1774, and soon became one of the most popular operas of the 18th century, performed in Italy, France, Austria, and England. The work was reinvented as an opera comique, L’infante de Zamora, was translated into other languages, and was still being performed in 1808. The plot is set in an inn on the outskirts of Rome. Violante – the girl from Frascati – is daughter of a rich gardener from Frascati and who dreams idealistically about love. She fends off the sleezy advances of her tutor, Don Fabrizio, but falls in love with Nardone, a handsome Roman who returns her affections. Also in love with Violante is Cavaliere Giocondo; both lovers cause maximum confusion and jealously by confessing their feelings to Don Fabrizio. The waitress of the inn, Lisetta, falls in love with the Cavaliere … the plot descends into farce as Giocondo’s jilted lover, Donna Stella, arrives, but all efforts to separate Nardone and Violante fail, and reconciled, the lovers are united.
