Statira principessa di Persia ('Stateira, Princess of Persia') is an opera ( dramma per musica ) in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli, set to a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello. The opera was first performed in Venice at the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo, on 18 January 1656. [1]
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 18 January 1655 (Conductor: – ) |
|---|---|---|
| Brisante | contralto | |
| Cloridaspe | mezzo-soprano | |
| Elissena | tenor | |
| Ermosilla | soprano | |
| Usimano | soprano | |
| Floralba | soprano | |
| Eurillo | soprano | |
| Maga | soprano | |
| Mercurio | tenor | |
| Brimonte | tenor | |
| Plutone | bass | |
| Nicarco | bass | |
| Dario | bass | |
| Statira | soprano | |
| Tersandro | soprano | |
| Vaffrino | tenor | |
| Servo Indiano | backing singer | |
In the epistle dedicatory to the original libretto, Busenello explains the plot as follows:
The king of Armenia, in concert with other Asian princes, engages in bloody battle with Darius III of Persia, and kidnaps his wife Parisatidis and daughter Stateira.
Cloridaspis, the young king of Arabia in love with Stateira, attacks the Armenians, sets Stateira and her mother free, and takes them back to Darius. Darius is so grateful to the king of Arabia for setting Stateira free – during which action he was gravely wounded – that he lets Stateira herself look after him. This she does with balsam and medicines, and in the royal gardens he is healed of all his ills. An occasion such as this could not procure any other effect than that the two fall in love; this the princess does, giving him signs of her ardent passion. This is where the opera begins.
Wherein:
Stateira, being a young woman and therefore incapable of keeping anything secret, speaks of her love to a servant girl, known as Ermosilla, but who is actually Usimano, an Egyptian prince. He was in love with Stateira and came to Persia dressed as a woman to work in the service of the princess. No sooner has Usimano learnt of Stateira's love for the Arab than he is seized with jealousy against him; this anger is the basis for all the drama, which is only resolved by a series of events as you shall see.
Floralba, Stateira's other servant girl, is in love with the Arab king and only later on finds out that she is his sister. She marries Usimano, Stateira marries Cloridaspis, but has to renounce the throne of Persia, which is then given by Darius to his son-in-law.
The writer protests that his words about divinities, gods, idols, stars, the heavens, destiny, fate, and other similar things, are simply an artifice of his pen and are purely to adorn some poetry or to stress some words. Although the author writes as a poet, he clearly lives and believes as a Christian.
Serse is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was first performed in London on 15 April 1738. The Italian libretto was adapted by an unknown hand from that by Silvio Stampiglia (1664–1725) for an earlier opera of the same name by Giovanni Bononcini in 1694. Stampiglia's libretto was itself based on one by Nicolò Minato (ca.1627–1698) that was set by Francesco Cavalli in 1654. The opera is set in Persia about 470 BC and is very loosely based upon Xerxes I of Persia. Serse, originally sung by a mezzo-soprano castrato, is now usually performed by a female mezzo-soprano or countertenor.
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian opera by Claudio Monteverdi. It was Monteverdi's last opera, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, and was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1643 carnival season. One of the first operas to use historical events and people, it describes how Poppaea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nero, is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. The opera was revived in Naples in 1651, but was then neglected until the rediscovery of the score in 1888, after which it became the subject of scholarly attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s, the opera has been performed and recorded many times.
L'Ormindo is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli to an original Italian libretto by Giovanni Faustini. The manuscript score is held at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, while a copy of the original libretto has been digitized by the Library of Congress. The opera has set numbers with recitative, and is set in Anfa (Casablanca), in the Mauri kingdom of Fessa (Fez).
Parysatis was a Persian queen, consort of Darius II and had a large influence during the reign of Artaxerxes II.
Stateira or Statira may refer to:
Stateira was a queen of Persia as the wife of Darius III of Persia of the Achaemenid dynasty.
Stateira, possibly also known as Barsine, was the daughter of Stateira and Darius III of Persia. After her father's defeat at the Battle of Issus, Stateira and her sisters became captives of Alexander of Macedon. They were treated well, and she became Alexander's second wife at the Susa weddings in 324 BC. At the same ceremony Alexander also married her cousin, Parysatis, daughter of Darius' predecessor. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, Stateira was killed by Alexander's other wife, Roxana.
Didone is an opera by Francesco Cavalli, set to a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello. The opera was first performed at Venice's Teatro San Cassiano during 1640.
Count Nicolò Minato was an Italian poet, librettist and impresario. His career can be divided into two parts: the years he spent at Venice, from 1650 to 1669, and the years at Vienna, from 1669 until his death.
L'Egisto (Aegisthus) is a 1643 opera in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli. It was designated as a favola dramatica musicale. The Italian libretto was by Giovanni Faustini, his second text for Cavalli.
Gli amori d'Apollo e di Dafne is an opera by the Italian composer Francesco Cavalli. It was Cavalli's second operatic work and was premiered at the Teatro San Cassiano, Venice during the Carnival season of 1640. The libretto is by Giovanni Francesco Busenello and is based on the story of the god Apollo's love for the nymph Daphne as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Giovanni Francesco Busenello was an Italian lawyer, librettist and poet of the 17th century.
La virtù de' strali d'Amore is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the Italian composer Francesco Cavalli to a libretto by Giovanni Faustini. It premiered at the Teatro San Cassiano, Venice in 1642 and was revived in Bologna in 1648.
Elena is a 1659 dramma per musica in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli. It is set to a libretto initiated by Giovanni Faustini and completed by Nicolò Minato, and it was first performed in Venice at the Teatro San Cassiano. Elena was revived in 1661 in Palermo but then not heard again until 2013, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
Tigrane, o vero L'egual impegno d'amore e di fede is an opera seria in three acts by the Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti with a libretto by Domenico Lalli. It was first performed at the Teatro San Bartolomeo, Naples, on 16 February 1715. It is regarded as one of Scarlatti's finest operas. As well as the serious main plot, there are also comic scenes involving the servants Dorilla and Orcone.
Stateira was an Achaemenid queen, consort of the Persian king Artaxerxes II and mother of his successor, Artaxerxes III.
The Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo was a theatre and opera house in Venice located on the Calle della Testa, and takes its name from the nearby Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Built by the Grimani family in 1638, in its heyday it was considered the most beautiful and comfortable theatre in the city. The theatre played an important role in the development of opera and saw the premieres of several works by Francesco Cavalli, as well as Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea.
Eteocle e Polinice is an opera in 3 acts composed by Giovanni Legrenzi with an Italian-language libretto by Tebaldo Fattorini based on The Thebaid. The opera premiered at the Teatro San Salvador in Venice on 13 December 1674.
La Dori, overo Lo schiavo reggio is a tragi-comic opera in a prologue and three acts composed by Antonio Cesti to a libretto by Giovanni Filippo Apolloni. It was first performed in the court theatre at Innsbruck in 1657. The story is set in Babylon on the shores of the Euphrates and is a convoluted tale of mistaken identities—a female protagonist who disguised as a man eventually regains her lost lover, and a man disguised as a woman who causes another man to fall in love with him. In several respects it resembles the plot of Cesti and Apolloni's earlier opera L'Argia and foreshadows Apostolo Zeno's libretto for Gli inganni felici (1695) and Metastasio's libretto for L'Olimpiade (1733). The first Italian staging of La Dori was in Florence in 1661 for the wedding of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. It subsequently became one of the most popular operas in 17th-century Italy. The opera was revived three times in the 20th century, beginning in 1983.
Siroe re di Persia is a libretto in three acts by Pietro Metastasio. Set to music by Leonardo Vinci, it was first performed on 2 February 1726 at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, Venice. It was subsequently set to music at least 35 times by different composers.
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