There can be few musical genres that have swung so wildly between such extremes of popularity and subsequent neglect as opera, though perhaps the reverse was the case in the last century. La finta cameriera reminds me of Hasse’s La contadina (4/99), in that this commedia per musica (or as it was described in one source, ‘Divertimento giocosa per musica’) was a big hit all over Europe, then fell into obscurity until now. Starting life in the comic, vernacular theatrical world of Naples in the late 1730s, ‘The Maid that Wasn’t’ – as it can be translated – became Latilla’s ‘La serva padrona’ (Pergolesi’s ubiquitous equivalent). In a newly fashioned libretto, which captivated audiences until 1760, Neapolitan buffa dropped its regionalism and assimilated itself to the cultural whims of whichever city it was being performed in. It is the three-act 1738 version for Rome (including a text in Tuscan dialect!) that Antonio Florio uses here. Gaetano Latilla is a largely forgotten figure, though Charles Burney reports a heart-warming conversation with him while travelling to Venice in 1770. Burney praised Latilla highly, although both men recognised that the composer’s star had waned by then. Just to complete the historical context, Latilla’s nephew, Niccolo Piccinni, was the popular and gifted doyen of Italian opera in the Paris of Mozart’s youth.
Apart from filling a historical void, La finta cameriera fully deserves its re-emergence after 250 years. On purely musical terms, Latilla is a very able dramatist on the cusp of late baroque and galant sensibility, whose prime skill is the effortless and quicksilver exchange of musical gestures, within an aria, to match the textual implication – without losing the melodic or harmonic thread. One of the best arias is ‘Agitato il mio’ from Act 1, which starts unassumingly with its lilting tripla, only to rise into a graphic seria set-piece with the soprano, Giocondo (yes, a man, but more of that in a moment) displaying a two-octave tessitura and passagi of true virtuosity. Roberta Invernizzi is in quite splendid voice here (and throughout), and revels in her ornamentation of the da capo. In a plot of subterfuge, disguise and humorous posturing, a Florentine widower wants his daughter to marry Don Calascione (‘this idiot outdoes himself in idiocy’ as Filindo says). The daughter, Erosmina, prefers Giocondo who, to remain in the household, dresses up as a maid. The widower falls in love with the maid, the Don wants all the girls in the house, and the plot unravels gradually, ending with three happy marriages.
Within this triteness lies some fine comic arias, including a wistful example, in Act 2, from Bettina, another abused servant who scowls at men’s fickleness (Cosi fan … ?), turned with delectable coloration by both Latilla and Cinzia Rizzone. Giuseppe de Vittorio is an effective Don Calascione who has all the bluster of a buffa bass and the slight menace of an Osmin. The Don is forced to resort to cagey desperation when his prospective father-in-law wants a proper explanation of his errant behaviour. This is when Latilla recalls the hunted-Caesar motif of Handel’s Julius Caesar with great effect.
The comedy would doubtless benefit from staging, if only to provide relief for a lot of recitative. Yet the arias, often beautifully crafted, have true melodic flair, and the instrumental ritornellos are lucidly scored and radiantly performed by La Cappella de’ Turchini. Another notable contribution to this enterprising and revelatory series of forgotten Neapolitana.'