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Ezio is an eighteenth-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It was the composer's second setting of a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first performed in 1728, one of the most popular of the Metastasian librettos in Mysliveček's day. The story is based on incidents from the lives of the 5th-century Roman emperor Valentinian III and his general Aetius. For a performance in the 1770s, it would only be expected that a libretto of such age would be abbreviated and altered to suit contemporary operatic taste. The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1777 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable. All of Mysliveček's operas are of the serious type in Italian language referred to as opera seria.
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Il trionfo di Clelia, Wq. 31, is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck. It takes the form of a dramma per musica in three acts. The Italian-language libretto by Pietro Metastasio is based on several semi-legendary narratives concerning the founding of the Roman Republic. The opera premiered on 14 May 1763 at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Although rarely performed since then, it was revived in London in 2012 at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio.
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Randall Scotting is an American countertenor performing internationally at opera houses and concert venues. As a young singer, he made his American stage debut performing the role of Nireno in Handel's Giulio Cesare at Opera Colorado. Randall's first leading role in an opera was singing Oberon in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream in New York as part of the Juilliard Opera Center. The next year he made his European stage debut performing the role of Teseo in Vivaldi's Ercole sul Termodonte at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. In December 2019, Scotting made his Royal Opera House Covent Garden mainstage debut in London performing the role of Apollo in a production of Britten's Death in Venice In May 2022, Scotting made his Bayerische Staatsoper debut in Munich performing the role of Michael in a production of Haas's micro-tonal opera Thomas. On 2 September 2022, Scotting's debut solo album with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Crown: Heroic Arias for Senesino was released by Signum Classics.
References
- Notes
- ↑ "Con che soavità: studies in Italian opera, song, and dance, 1580–1740", Iain Fenlon, Tim Carter, Nigel Fortune p. 269
- ↑ Howard, p. 98
- ↑ Buschmeier, "Gluck in Wien" (item 81), pp. 85-88
- ↑ "Christoph Willibald Gluck EZIO" (PDF). Parnassus Arts Productions. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-20.
- Sources
- Buschmeier, Gabriele, Ezio in Prag und Wien: Bemerkungen zu den beiden Fassungen von Glucks Ezio. 2003. Compares the versions of Ezio given in Prague in 1749 and Vienna in 1763
- Howard, Patricia, Christoph Willibald Gluck: a guide to research, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987 ISBN 9780824084516
- "Christoph Willibald Gluck's 'Ezio'". Lobkowicz. Archived from the original on 2015-04-15.
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