 Domenico Trimarchi, "particularly alert to textual nuances", painted a persuasive portrait of Buonafede, the wealthy old innocent being duped by his daughters' and maidservant's lovers.Luigi Alva was equally enjoyable as Ecclitico, the bogus astronomer - styled an astrologer by a librettist too ignorant to know the difference - who tricked his future father-in-law into believing that he had been miraculously transported to the moon.Anthony Rolfe Johnson, playing the servant Cecco, "[made] the most of his moment of glory as the mock Lunar Emperor".