Airs Choisis des Opéra Bouffons Italiens

Paris ... Versailles: Cousineau Père et Fils; Madame la Comtesse d'Artois; Le Duc; Imbault ... Blaizot, 1787. Folio. 1f. (title, 14 pp. Engraved.

Contains:
- Paisiello, Giovanni. "Felice pastorella" aria from gli Schiavi per amore. 3 pp.
- Mengozzi, Bernardo. "Se m'abbandoni" aria from l'Italiana in Londra. 4-7 pp.
- Mengozzi. "Donne donne chi vi crede" aria from gli Schiavi per amore. 8-11 pp.
- Paisiello. "Chi mi mostra" aria from gli Schiavi per amore. 12-14 pp.

Manuscript paraph, possibly that of Mengozzi, to foot of title.

Slightly worn, soiled, and browned; title and spine reinforced. RISM BVI p. 79 (no copies outside France and Switzerland).

This collection "dédiés aux amateurs" speaks to the popularity of comic Italian opera in Paris in the late 18th century. Bernardo Mengozzi, along with his wife soprano Anna Benini, "went to Versailles during the summer of 1787 with other singers from the Haymarket for performances of Italian opera buffa; they then settled in Paris, and in 1789 joined the company of the Théâtre de Monsieur, where Mengozzi became famous both as a singer and as the composer of many substitute arias. His L'isola disabitata is a landmark in the history of opera in France, being the first serious opera performed in Italian in Paris since Cavalli's Ercole amante. The most successful of his French operas seem to have been Isabelle de Salisburi and Selico, principally because of their spectacular element. Under the Directory Mengozzi spent some time in Bordeaux, and then returned to Paris to teach singing at the Conservatoire; he took an active part in the writing of the Méthode de chant du Conservatoire de Musique (1804) in collaboration with Garat, Cherubini and Langlé." Michel Noiray in Grove Music Online.