About the work
Comic opera in three acts by Florian Leopold Gassmann to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi, premiered in 1769 at the Vienna Burgtheater. Calzabigi, who had just helped Christoph Willibald Gluck reform opera seria, turned this text against the very genre he had reformed.
Plot
The piece follows the chaotic final rehearsals and disastrous premiere of a fictional serious opera called 'L'Oranzebe', set at the Mughal court of Agra. The bankrupt impresario Fallito, the overwhelmed librettist Delirio and the exasperated conductor Sospiro must rein in the vanities of three rival prima donnas – Stonatrilla, Smorfiosa and Porporina – before the performance collapses in front of the audience.
Cultural significance
One of the sharpest operatic satires of the 18th century, the work fell into obscurity after early performances in Vienna and, in 1771, Florence. René Jacobs brought it back to the stage in 1994 at Berlin's Staatsoper Unter den Linden, and it has since been staged in Innsbruck, Paris, Hannover, Brussels and at La Scala in Milan, among others.