Il Maestro di Cappella - Schedule, Program & Tickets

Of the Master of the Chapel, to date, there are no documents received, if not after the death of Cimarosa, even if then there are numerous specimens kept in libraries across the world as evidence of its popularity. It is not known with certainty if it is indeed an intermezzo since the presence of a single character would make it unique in that kind of theatrical show. Certainly the work is linked to a metateatral trend (ie theater that speaks of theater) rather frequented in the eighteenth century (for example, La Dirindina by Domenico Scarlatti, La canterina by Haydn, Der Schauspieldirektor by Mozart) and to which Cimarosa himself had contributed with L'impresario in anguziae. In this amusing parody the Master tries to direct the rehearsals of an unruly orchestra: the strings quarrel among themselves, the horns stick out and the oboes are out of time. In the end the Master manages to complete the task by patiently singing the passages of each instrument. In the version conceived by the director Mariano Bauduin for the Teatro San Carlo, the intermezzo has been "interpolated" with a text derived from the entertaining comedy Il Critico, that is the proofs of a tragedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, an important figure of English playwright of the second half from the 18th century and the author of famous comedies for the Covent Garden in London.

Subject to change.