Mercadante: Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamaccio

A contemporary of Rossini and Donizetti, Saverio Mercadante was one of
Italy's most productive 19th century operatic composers. Don Chisciotte
alle nozze di Gamaccio was written during the composer's stay in Spain,
and is based on a chapter of Cervante's Don Quixote in which the hero
prevents the forced marriage of a poor farm girl to the wealthy Camacho.
Magnificently entertaining and dramatically innovative, Don Chisciotte
combines fashionable Neapolitan style with Spanish folk music elements
in an unforgettable melodramma giocoso. It is heard on this recording in
its first modern performance. Antonino Fogliani's many conducting engagements
have taken him to leading international opera houses and concert halls. For Rossini in
Wildbad he has directed Ciro in Babilonia, L occasione fa il ladro, Mosè in
Egitto, La scala di seta, Il signor Bruschino and Otello, as well as Vaccaj's
La sposa di Messina.