Summer Opera 2023

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

ViolanteEmily Brown Gibson
daughter of a gardener from Frascati
Don FabrizioThomas Humphreys
Violante’s tutor
Nardone Henry Ross
in love with Violante
Cavaliere GiocondoMagnus Walker
betrothed to Donna Stella, also in love with Violante
Donna StellaLara Marie Müller
betrothed to the Cavaliere
LisettaKate Semmens
a waitress, also in love with the Cavaliere
PagnottaThomas 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.