Le crescendo

Le crescendo (The Crescendo) is a comic opera (opéra-buffon imité de l'italien) in one act by Luigi Cherubini with a libretto by Charles Augustin [de Bassompierre] Sewrin.

[1] The libretto is based on the opera buffa L'Angiolina ovvero Il matrimonio per sussurro with music by Antonio Salieri (Vienna, 1800) and by Valentino Fioravanti (Lisbon, 1803).

The opera was revived at the Salle Favart on 4 June 1960 by the Piccolo Teatro Musicale with the Virtuosi di Roma in an adaptation by Giulio Confolinieri, staged by Corrado Pavolini with sets and costumes by Franco Laurenti.

Major Frankenstein cannot stand noise and he is so horrified at the sound of the ball to celebrate the wedding that he cannot go ahead with the ceremony and persuades his nephew to marry her instead.

The full score of the overture was published (Bibliothèque nationale de France, shelf mark L. 2400), and there is an autograph manuscript of the piano-vocal score (Berlin State Library, Cherubini archive no.