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La Finta Giardiniera
USU Opera Theatre, Sergio Bernal, Daniel Helfgot, and USU Symphony Orchestra
La finta giardiniera (The pretend gardener-girl), K. 196, premiered on January 13, 1775 in Munich. Mozart was only 18 years old at the time of this premiere but already had eight earlier operas to his credit. Called by the composer a dramma giocoso (playful drama), this relatively-rare operatic subgenre is characterized by a mostly-comic plot and two larger acts with a shorter third act. Mozart’s only other contributions to this genre came years later with his much better-known operas Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni. Five years after its premiere, La finta giardiniera was revived and converted into another operatic subgenre, that of Singspiel. This genre primarily differs by having most of the dialogue spoken instead of sung (like a modern musical) and required a translation of the libretto to German. Our production merges both traditions, taking the sung Italian of the original dramma giocoso for the opera’s arias, finales, and a few recitatives and then speaking the rest of the Singspiel dialogue in English.
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