La finta giardiniera

La finta giardiniera
Opera by W. A. Mozart
Mozart in 1777, by an unknown painter
LanguageItalian
Premiere
13 January 1775 (1775-01-13)
Salvator Theater [de], Munich

La finta giardiniera ("The Pretend Garden-Girl"), K. 196, is an Italian-language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart wrote it in Munich in January 1775 when he was 18 years old and it received its first performance on 13 January at the Salvator Theater [de] in Munich.[1] There is debate over the authorship of the libretto, written for Anfossi's opera the year before. It is often ascribed to Calzabigi, but some musicologists now attribute it to Giuseppe Petrosellini, though again it is questioned whether it is in the latter's style.[2]

In 1780 Mozart converted the opera into a German Singspiel called Die Gärtnerin aus Liebe (also Die verstellte Gärtnerin), which involved rewriting some of the music. Until a copy of the complete Italian version was found in the 1970s, the German translation was the only known complete score.

  1. ^ Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "La finta giardiniera, 13 January 1775". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
  2. ^ Julian Rushton, "Finta giardiniera, La (ii)", in Grove Music Online (subscription required), accessed 13 May 2015.