Composed in the spirit of Aldo Palazzeschi’s quote «Let me have my fun!», this chamber opera, with a libretto taken from Oscar Wilde's celebrated play, boasts numerous distinctive features. Written in just five months, despite being more than two and a half hours long, for an ensemble that is unique in operatic production, it surprises and delights from the first listen, thanks to a melodic fabric in which thematic materials of both cultured and popular origin – whose sources the composer indicates in the score – are artfully interwoven with unexpected and often humorous frequency. Whether a fragment or a full citation, each element is established as a leading motif along with Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s own themes in a continuous game of cross-references in which the satire of the Wilde’s play is conveyed through a witty mashup of musical ‘samples’ from different authors and contexts, all united by the same (re)creative intent. In this way, the composer’s divertissement thus becomes the listener’s.
