Il Disertore; A New Comic Opera; As acted at the King's Theatre in the Hay-Market... The Music entirely New, By Signor Guglielmi.

Bookseller Notes

First edition, scarce, of this parallel text libretto by Carlo Francesco Badini (fl. 1770-1793).The text, in facing English and Italian, outlines the drama that unfolds between titular deserter Alessio, and his true love Rosetta. The opera proved popular, and was revived in Lisbon in 1772. Badini was one of scores of Italian librettists that found a welcoming home in eighteenth-century London. He was closely associated with the King's Theatre in Haymarket, although frequently in and out of favour with that establishment. In 1779 he was sued by the manager, Antoine Le Texier, and two years later was sentenced to debtors' prison, but in 1785 was appointed principal librettist. In 1784 he was accused - along with Andrea Carnavale - of writing a libellous pamphlet, The Case of the Opera-House Disputes (1784), a vicious attack on the former owner-manager of King's, William Taylor. In 1792 Badini was reappointed as house poet, only to be dismissed a year later, possibly because of his association with the scatological parody of poems published on the death of Louis XVI. (Curtis Price, Grove Music Online: 'Badini, Carlo Francesco.')From the library of Richard Luckett, Pepys Librarian, Magdalene, Cambridge, with his neat typographical book label designed by Will Carter of the Rampant Lions Press.Scarce. ESTC list only 2 copies in the UK (Worcester College, Oxford & BL) and one copy in the US (Yale). Worldcat adds UCL, two copies in Canada and four in the US.