About the work
La scuola de' gelosi is a dramma giocoso in two acts by Antonio Salieri to a libretto by Caterino Mazzolà. It premiered at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice on 27 December 1778; a revised version reopened the Italian opera troupe at the Vienna Burgtheater in 1783.
Plot
Two mismatched couples mirror the theme of jealousy: the bourgeois grain merchant Blasio is groundlessly suspicious of his faithful wife Ernestina, while the aristocratic Countess has every reason to be jealous of her notoriously unfaithful husband. A game of disguises and mistaken identities finally reconciles both couples.
Cultural significance
The work remained one of Salieri's most successful comic operas for decades and was performed across Europe — from Dresden and Prague to London, Paris and St Petersburg, where it was also translated into Russian, Polish and Spanish.