Don Bucefalo Filippo Morace Rosa Angelica Girardi Il Conte di Belprato Francesco Marsiglia Agata Mizuki Date Gianetta Francesca De Giorgi Carlino Massimiliano Silvestri Don Marco Graziano De Pace Conductor Massimiliano Caldi Orchestra Italian International Orchestra Chorus Slovak Chamber Choir Don Bucefalo was first staged on 28th June 1847 at the Milan Conservatory, as the final test of the nineteen-year-old Antonio Cagnoni (1828-1896) This was his third opera (after Rosalia di San Miniato and I due Savoiardi), but the first to bring him success. Critics of the time saw in him "the germ of lively, vivid, spontaneous wit" and hoped that he would find a far-sighted impresario, willing to invest in order to open up for him "the path to a public theatrical career". Indeed, after its "première" in Milan, Don Bucefalo was performed again in various theatres both in Italy and abroad; it won success wherever it was staged and led Ricordi to buy the rights to the opera. Don Bucefalo adopts all the formulas of the comic genre (from its vocal roles to its structures, to the writing of recitative and "spoken" passages, to the arrangement of instrumentation), it is certainly part of the tradition but at the same time makes fun of it, manipulates it by intervening in all its fields: tempi, rhythms, vocal styles. The opera thus appears as a synthesis and as a step beyond the stereotypes of contemporary comic opera.