Ezio (opera)
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| Operas by George Frideric Handel |
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Almira (1705) |
Ezio (Aetius) is an opera by George Frideric Handel. It was his last opera based on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. Metastatio's story was partly inspired by Jean Racine's play Britannicus.[1] The same libretto was also set by Nicola Porpora for an opera of the same name, first performed four years earlier.
The opera received its first performance at the King's Theatre, London on 15 January 1732. It received a total of only 5 performances before falling from the repertoire, in what turned out to be Handel's greatest operatic failure. It did not receive another performance in London until 1977, by the Handel Opera Society at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Winton Dean has stated that the failure of the opera related to the artistic incompatibility between the more "classical" nature of the libretto and the more "romantic" nature of the music.[2]
Handel's Ezio is considered one of the purest examples of opera seria with its absence of vocal ensembles.
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[edit] Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, January 15, 1732 (Conductor: - ) |
|---|---|---|
| Ezio, Roman general | alto castrato | Senesino |
| Fulvia, his lover | soprano | Anna Maria Strada |
| Valentiniano, Roman emperor | alto | Anna Bagnolesi |
| Onoria, his sister | alto | Francesca Bertolli |
| Massimo, Fulvia's father | tenor | Giovanni Battista Pinacci |
| Varo, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard | bass | Antonio Montagnana |
[edit] Synopsis
The protagonist is the fifth-century AD Roman general Flavius Aetius (Ezio in Italian), returned from his victory over Attila.
[edit] Selected recordings
VOX 1995: Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, D'Anna Fortunato, Julianne Baird, Jennifer Lane, Nathaniel Watson, Frederick Urrey, Raymond Pellerin, Johannes Somary
[edit] E-book
Score of Ezio (ed. Friedrich Chrysander, Leipzig 1880)
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Dean, Winton (2006), Handel's Operas, 1726-1741, Boydell Press, ISBN 1843832682 The second of the two volume definitive reference on the operas of Handel
[edit] External Links
Complete libretto (in Italian): http://www.haendel.it/composizioni/libretti/pdf/hwv_29.pdf
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