Le astuzie femminili

Domenico Cimarosa’s 1794 Commedia per musica; Le astuzie femminili, is extremely silly.  It’s like an early Rossini farsa but a full two acts running almost three hours.  There’s a girl called Bellina, who bears a more than passing resemblance to Rossini’s Rosina.  She has been left a fortune by her father contingent on her marrying a dude from Naples called Don Giampaolo Lasagna.  But she is in love with the penniless Filandro.  Worse, her guardian, the notary Don Romualdo also wants to marry her despite having promised to marry his housekeeper Leonora.  There’s also Ersilla, a friend of Bellina, who doesn’t seem to be in love with anybody.

What’s black and white and red all over?

The 2010 Oslo recording of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea is one of the strangest opera videos I have ever seen.  Besides having an almost complete set of the characteristics that critics pejoratively assign to Regietheatre it also has a very unusual video treatment that goes well beyond quirky camera angles and overly intrusive close-ups.  So the box is being entirely accurate when it states “Based on a performance directed by Ole Anders Tandberg.  Adapted and filmed by Anja Stabell and Stein-Roger Bull”.