Achille in Sciro is an opera seria by composer Domenico Sarro. The opera uses an Italian language libretto by Pietro Metastasio. It was commissioned for the opening of the Teatro di San Carlo by King Charles VII of Naples, later known as Charles III of Spain. The work premiered at the inauguration of the theatre on 4 November 1737, Charles's name day. It is based on the story of Achilles on Skyros.
The opera was not performed for more than 250 years until it was revived at the Festival della Valle d'Itria in 2007. That performance was recorded live and released on CD by Dynamic Records in 2008. [1] The cast was as follows:
Metastasio's libretto Achille in Sciro was first set by Antonio Caldara (1736, Vienna).
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.
Niccolò Jommelli was an Italian composer of the Neapolitan School. Along with other composers mainly in the Holy Roman Empire and France, he was responsible for certain operatic reforms including reducing ornateness of style and the primacy of star singers somewhat.
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to about 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only attained common usage once opera seria was becoming unfashionable and beginning to be viewed as something of a historical genre. The popular rival to opera seria was opera buffa, the 'comic' opera that took its cue from the improvisatory commedia dell'arte.
The Real Teatro di San Carlo, as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is a historic opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent to the Piazza del Plebiscito. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world, having opened in 1737, decades before either Milan's La Scala or Venice's La Fenice.
Domenico Natale Sarro, also Sarri was an Italian composer.
Didone abbandonata is an opera libretto in three acts by Pietro Metastasio. It was his first original work and was set to music by Domenico Sarro in 1724. The opera was accompanied by the intermezzo L'impresario delle Isole Canarie, also by Metastasio.
Vittoria TesiTramontini, also known as "La Fiorentina" or "La Moretta" was an Italian opera singer of the 18th century. Her vocal range was that of a contralto. She is "regarded as the first eminent singer of color in the history of Western music".
Marcello Bernardini was an Italian composer and librettist. Little is known of him, save that he wrote 37 operas in his career. His father was most likely the composer Rinaldo di Capua.
Didone abbandonata is an opera in three acts composed by Domenico Sarro to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio of the same name which was based on the story of Dido and Aeneas from the fourth book of Virgil's Aeneid. The opera premiered on 1 February 1724 at the Teatro San Bartolomeo in Naples.
Pietro Chiarini was an Italian composer.
Antonio Maria Mazzoni was an Italian composer.
Gennaro Manna was an Italian composer based in Naples. He was a member of the Neapolitan School. His compositional output includes 13 operas and more than 150 sacred works, including several oratorios.
La passione di Gesù Cristo is a libretto by Pietro Metastasio which was repeatedly set as an azione sacra or oratorio by many composers of the late baroque, Rococo and early classical period.
Achilles on Skyros is an episode in the myth of Achilles, a Greek hero of the Trojan War. Not existing in Homer's epic poem Iliad, the episode is written down in detail in some later versions of the story, particularly the Achilleid by the Roman poet Statius. The story of how Achilles disguised himself as a girl at the court of the king of Skyros, fell in love with one of the princesses, and married her before leaving for Troy, became a popular topic in arts and literature from Classical times until the middle of the 20th century. The carnivalesque disguises and gender transpositions at the heart of the story were particularly popular in opera, with over 30 different operas on the theme between 1641 and 1857.
Atenaide is an opera by Antonio Vivaldi to a revised edition of a 1709 libretto by Apostolo Zeno for Caldara. It was first performed at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence on 29 December 1728 for the 1729 Carnival season.
L'impresario delle Isole Canarie, also known as L'impresario delle Canarie or Dorina e Nibbio, is a satirical opera intermezzo libretto attributed to Metastasio, written in 1724 to be performed between the acts of Metastasio's opera seria Didone abbandonata. The first performance of the work was on February 1, 1724, in Naples, Italy, at Teatro San Bartolomeo. The first composer to set this libretto to music was Domenico Sarro, also known by the name Sarri, who also revised the work in 1730. The role of Dorina was first sung by the contralto Santa Marchesini, and Nibbio by the basso buffo singer Gioacchino Corrado. Later versions of this libretto appear with the titles L'impresario, L'impresario e la cantante and others.
Pietro Pompeo Sales was an Italian composer.
Didone abbandonata is a setting by Leonardo Vinci of the libretto Didone abbandonata by Metastasio first set to music by Domenico Sarro in 1724. It was premiered at the Teatro delle Dame for the 1726 Carnival season in Rome.
Angelica e Medoro is a 1720 serenata by Nicola Porpora to libretto by Metastasio, after Ludovico Ariosto. The opera, written to celebrate the birthday of the Habsburg emperor, Charles VI and performed 28 August 1720 Naples, Palazzo del Principe di Torella, marked the debut of the castrato Farinelli.
Achille in Sciro is an opera and libretto by Pietro Metastasio telling the story of Achilles on Skyros. It was first set to music by Antonio Caldara in 1736, and premiered at the wedding of Maria Theresa and Francis of Lorraine in Vienna. In 1772, Johann Anton Koch translated the libretto to German under the name "Achilles in Scyro".