La cambiale di matrimonio (1810) is the work with which the 18-year-old Rossini burst upon the operatic stage (San Moisè, Venice in this case). Although it wasn’t the first opera he composed (Demetrio e Polibio predates it by a few years) it was the first to be performed. And, despite Rossini’s young age, this concise one Act farce already bears most of the composer’s stylistic traits that would serve him well over the course of the nearly forty operas which followed – indeed its Overture has retained some foothold in the concert repertory.
Amusingly for a British audience in particular, this comedy features an English merchant Tobias Mill as the patriarchal figure of fun, who sees a good chance for his daughter’s prospects when a corresponding Canadian merchant, Slook, asks him about marriage. Fanny is already in love with Edward Milfort, however, whom her father won’t consider suitable as he lacks means. Although these are the standard comic and satirical features of an opera buffa, it also fits in well with the essentially Jane Austenesque character of this production by Laurence Dale, set in a smart grey brick Regency era townhouse, like those in Mayfair or St John’s, Smith Square for example. The facade – which could almost also be Number 10 for that matter – is periodically pulled back to reveal various rooms within the house, among which the intrigue plays out.
The older-fashioned, bewigged Mill exemplifies an older generation, though with pretensions to foppish extravagance, astutely played by Pietro Spagnoli without overbearing control, while Slook, with his furs and less genteel North American ways embodies the encounter between the New World with the Old, though he is suavely and attractively sung by Mattia Olivieri. Slook’s presence is compounded by a grizzly bear, like a pet, who initially appears like a surreal aid to his master’s plans which would threaten Fanny and Edward’s happiness. But he turns out to be a kindly and domesticated bear, mimicking Slook’s own generosity when he learns about Fanny and Edward, and so signs over the eponymous marriage contract to them instead, with Edward the beneficiary in his place.
Paola Leoci and Jack Swanson capture an appropriate strain of lyrical sentiment as the lovers, she with impressive agility in her bravura aria, he more gently ardent. Ramiro Maturana and Inés Lorans fill out the cast as the vivacious but discreet servants Norton and Clarina. Christopher Franklin is attentive if over-cautious in his conducting of the music, though the Filharmonica Gioachino Rossini are certainly responsive, and bring easy-going levity to the performance.
The opera is prefaced by the dozen items of the Soirèes musicales (published 1835), demonstrating the sort of musical entertainments that may well have been put on in such a household as Mill’s. Fabio Maestri’s chamber arrangements are smaller in scale and less glittering than those by Britten, for example, but suit the atmosphere of domesticity for which these pieces were intended by Rossini, sometimes evoking the conviviality of his early Sonatas for strings. Nevertheless, room is found for the additional colour, such as the arresting horn interjections in ‘La pastorella dell’Alpi’, fluttering flutes pre-empting the skittish duet ‘La regata Veneziana’, and the ethereal bell-like sonority of a bow drawn across the bars of a metallophone in ‘La gita in gondola’. These are cheery concert performances under Franklin – the tarantella of ‘La danza’ perhaps too dainty rather than febrile – in which Vittoriana de Amicis blossoms in the livelier numbers and Paolo Nevi is best when singing with more reserve, though the hearty duet with him and Gurgen Baveyan to conclude is convincing.
