In 2016, audiences and critics applauded Werner Ehrhardt and his ensemble L'Arte del Mondo, who, while residing at Bayer Kultur in Leverkusen, produced the world's first recording of La Scuola de’ Gelosi by the young Salieri, a pleasantly contrary, elegant and comic trifle. And so it's only natural that the German ensemble should have thrown themselves into La Fiera di Venezia, written by the same composer at the age of 21.
Performed in 1772 in Venice, during the Feast of the Ascension , this comic opera is a humorous masquerade, which would so enchant a young Mozart that he would be inspired to write a series of Six Variations on "Mio caro Adone" (K. 180). We will also find the echo of some of Salieri's works in The Marriage of Figaro, written a good fifteen years later. A typically Venetian Opera buffa this Fiera di Venezia was exported across Europe after its début, and became a very popular work.
Recorded in 2018 at the Schwetzingen Festival in Germany, this production bears witness to an unpretentious work and a rather uninteresting libretto by Boccherini's brother, whose stereotypes nonetheless allow the young Salieri to use comic effects and set up some funny situations. Salieri's comedy is packed with full-hearted laughter, and has none of the emotion and nostalgia that Mozart could smuggle into even the most frivolous of pieces. © François Hudry/Qobuz