La cambiale di matrimonio (The Bill of Marriage), composed when Rossini was just 18 years old, was given its first performance alongside Non precipitare i giudizi ossia La vera gratitudine (Don’t rush to judgement or True gratitude) an opera by Giuseppe Farinelli. The libretto was the work of Gaetano Rossi, who was later to provide the libretti for Rossini’s masterpieces Tancredi and Semiramide.

The plot revolves around the farcical attempts of Tobia Mill, a rich English merchant, to combine business with pleasure by forcing his daughter, the lovely Fanny (‘merchandise’) to marry Slook, his rich colonial correspondent from America, by means of a bill of exchange. Eventually, it is the gallant Slook himself who persuades Mill to allow Fanny to marry her true love, Edoardo Milfort.

Recorded during performances at the Kurhaus, Bad Wildbad, Germany July 2006, at the XVIIIth ROSSINI IN WILDBAD Festival.