The BOV Opera Festival on Sunday is likely to offer a pleasant mix of two Baroque comical pieces - Cimarosa’s Il Maestro di Cappella and Pergolesi’s la Serva Padrona.

Both productions will be staged at the auditorium of the Sacred Heart Convent in St Julian’s, starting at 7.30pm. Direction will be in the hands of John Gauci while Chris Muscat will be the Musical Director, and also conduct a performance of Mozart’s A Musical Joke, which will open the evening.

The piece abounds in musical humour, not least the reversal of the order of the two inner movements, a blatantly clumsy fugue as well as written dissonances. In this piece Mozart was poking fun at the music conventions of the time.

This will be followed by Cimarosa’s Il Maestro di Cappella, a one-act 20 minute intermezzo with baritone Kevin Caruana in the role of the Maestro.This will be Caruana’s debut in a main role.

The third item will consist of another intermezzo, La Serva Padrona, by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, which originally formed part of a bigger opera, Il Prigioniero Superbo. Soprano Maria Abela will be debuting in the main role of Serpina, bass Noel Galea will sing Uberto and Kevin Caruana will play the mute Vespone, Uberto’s servant.

Directors John Gauci and Chris Muscat are no newcomers to the BOV Opera Festival, having directed last year’s concert version of Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas and a concert of Arias from Maltese Operas at last year’s edition.

For bookings call the Manoel Theatre on 2124 6389 or e-mail the theatre’s booking office on [email protected]