Paisiello: Nina

Introduction

Nina, o sia La pazza per amore (Nina, or the Girl Driven Mad by Love) is an opera, described as a commedia in prosa ed in verso per musica, in two acts by Giovanni Paisiello to an Italian libretto by Giambattista (also Giovanni Battista) Lorenzi after Giuseppe Carpani's translation of Benoît-Joseph Marsollier's Nina, ou La folle par amour, set by Nicolas Dalayrac in 1786.

The work is a sentimental comedy with set numbers, recitative and spoken dialog. It is set in Italy in the 18th century.

Nina was first performed in a one act version at the Teatro del Reale Sito di Belvedere in Caserta, San Leucio on 25 June 1789. A revised two-act work was presented at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples in the autumn of 1790.

Roles

• Nina (soprano)
• Lindoro, her lover/Un Pastore (tenor)
• The Count, her father (bass)
• Susanna, her companion (mezzo-soprano)
• Giorgio, the Count’s valet (bass)
• A musician (tenor)
• Second musician
• Chorus (staff and patients at the sanatorium)