La serva padrona

opera by Pergolesi

Also known as: “The Maid as Mistress”

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July 23, 2026

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La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress) is a celebrated 18th-century opera by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. It is an intermezzo, a short comic opera performed between the acts of a more serious opera, in this case, Pergolesi's Il prigionier superbo.123

The opera features two main characters: Uberto, an elderly gentleman, and his clever maid, Serpina. Serpina, tired of being ordered around, devises a plan to marry Uberto herself, thus becoming the "mistress" of the household. The work is known for its comic characterization and was highly influential in the development of opera buffa (comic opera). Its success was largely posthumous, gaining significant popularity after its performance in Paris in 1752.132

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Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
…an Italian composer whose intermezzo La serva padrona (“The Maid Turned Mistress”) was one of the most celebrated stage works of the 18th century.
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…an Italian composer whose intermezzo La serva padrona (“The Maid Turned Mistress”) was one of the most celebrated stage works of the 18th century.
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opera
Comic opera
…as La serva padrona (1733; The Maid Mistress), by the Neapolitan composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. From the early, tentative efforts of several 17th-century Roman and Florentine composers, then, comic opera eventually acquired a bustling, rude, independent vitality of its own, often with a satirical bent.
Read More
…as La serva padrona (1733; The Maid Mistress), by the Neapolitan composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. From the early, tentative efforts of several 17th-century Roman and Florentine composers, then, comic opera eventually acquired a bustling, rude, independent vitality of its own, often with a satirical bent.
Read More