Il Matrimonio segreto
(The Clandestine Marriage)

by Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801).
Melodramma giocoso in two acts. 1792.
Libretto by Giovanni Bertati, after the play The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman and David Garrick.
First performance at the Burgtheater, Vienna, on 7th February 1792.

Carolina and Paolino have been secretly married and hope that Geronimo can be mollified by the marriage of her elder sister Elisetta into the aristocracy, satisfying her father's social aspirations. Geronimo, in spite of his deafness, is given the news of Elisetta's coming marriage to Count Robinson and is duly delighted. Elisetta, however, now gives herself all the airs of a countess, while Geronimo's sister Fidalma, a widow, has her eye on Paolino. The Count is disappointed to find that his bride is to be Elisetta, the least attractive of the women, and he offers to take a smaller dowry, if he may marry Carolina. She and Paolino plan to elope together, but are caught by the others and are forced to reveal their secret marriage. Count Robinson is willing to content himself with Elisetta, and Geronimo forgives Carolina and Paolino.

Mozart had been two months dead, when Cimarosa's opera was staged in Vienna, to the satisfaction of the Emperor Leopold II, who had taken much less delight in Mozart's work. There is a sparkling overture and music that is witty and elegant in its portrayal of the characters and situations of the opera, with the comic bourgeois gentilhomme Geronimo and the ridiculous Count.