Il Trespolo tutore (Trespolo the Tutor) is a 1679 comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Alessandro Stradella with a libretto by Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi, based on the play by Giovan Battista Ricciardi. The libretto had been set to music by Bernardo Pasquini in 1677. The version by Stradella was first performed at the Teatro Falcone, Genoa on 30 or 31 January, 1679. It is considered one of the first Italian comic operas, and the part of the tutor is one of the earliest basso buffo roles. The libretto has two mad scenes for Nino not found in the play.
The opera was revived in October 1686 at the Teatro Fontanelli in Modena. In 2004, a staging in a new edition by Michael Burden and with a new English singing translation by Simon Rees was given by New Chamber Opera at New College, Oxford.
Artemisia is in love with her tutor Trespolo but he is too dull-witted to realise this and is in love with the serving-maid Despina instead. Two brothers, Ciro and Nino, are in love with Artemisia; one of them goes mad and the other, who has been insane, is cured. The plot becomes more and more farcically complicated until, in the end, Trespolo marries Despina and Artemisia marries Ciro.
The manuscript is located in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena. The new edition by Michael Burden appeared in 2024 in the Collected Works of Stradella.
Andrea de Carlo (conductor), Arcana 2020 (recorded 23âÂÂ29 August 2019). .