On 1 November 2007, the Teatro Real presented the opera by Vicente Martín y Soler for the first time. A debut to great acclaim in 1786 and based on one of Carlo Goldoni’s most celebrated comedies, Il burbero di buon cuore (The Good-Natured Curmudgeon) represents, in the words of the author of the critical edition Leonardo J. Waisman, “the result of the long apprenticeship of the Valencian musician in the leading centres of Italian opera. He uses all the resources of the opera buffa with mastery and great economy of means.” The libretto of the opera is unmistakably the work of Lorenzo da Ponte, author of the texts of three Mozart masterpieces: Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) – where the author quotes the Martín y Soler opera Una Cosa Rara - and Così fan tutte (1790).

Vicente Martín y Soler was undoubtedly one of the most important and best-known composers of his era, attested by the fact that all the European courts competed for his services, from Naples and Vienna to St. Petersburg, where he died in 1806.