Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Along with Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, Vivaldi ranks amongst the greatest Baroque composers and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe, giving origin to many imitators and admirers. He pioneered many developments in orchestration, violin technique and programmatic music. He consolidated the emerging concerto form into a widely accepted and followed idiom.
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni was an Italian composer of the Baroque era. His output includes operas, concertos, sonatas for one to six instruments, sinfonias, and solo cantatas. While famous in his day as an opera composer, he is known today for his instrumental music, especially his concertos. He is best remembered today for a work called "Adagio in G minor", attributed to him but largely written by Remo Giazotto, a 20th century musicologist and composer, who was a cataloger of the works of Albinoni.
Orlando, usually known in modern times as Orlando furioso, is an opera in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi to an Italian libretto by Grazio Braccioli, based on Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem Orlando Furioso. The first performance of the opera was at the Teatro San Angelo, Venice, in November 1727. It is to be distinguished from an earlier Vivaldi opera of 1714, Orlando furioso, set to much the same libretto, once thought to be a revival of a 1713 opera by Giovanni Alberto Ristori but now considered by Vivaldian musicologists to be a fully-fledged opera by Vivaldi himself.
The phrase dramma per musica is commonly found after the title in Italian opera librettos beginning in the 17th century and continuing into the 18th century. It indicates that the text was intended to be set to music by a composer. By extension it has also been used to refer to the musical setting itself, but this is less common.
Erismena is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli. First performed in Venice in 1655, it was designated as a dramma per musica.
Griselda is an opera seria in three acts by the Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti, the last of Scarlatti’s operas to survive completely today. The libretto is by Apostolo Zeno, with revisions by an anonymous author. Zeno wrote his work in 1701 and it had already been set by Pollarolo and Antonio Maria Bononcini. It is based on the story of Patient Griselda from Boccaccio's tenth day of The Decameron. Scarlatti's opera was first performed at the Teatro Capranica, Rome, in January 1721 with an all-male cast.
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo was an Italian composer, organist, and music director. Known chiefly for his operas, he wrote a total of 85 of them as well as 13 oratorios. His compositional style was initially indebted to the opera tradition of Giovanni Legrenzi and Carlo Pallavicino, but he moved beyond this style with innovations to the compositional structure of the aria characterized by expanded forms and orchestral elaborations. His early work used three part strings in the Legrenzi and Pallacino tradition of orchestration, but his mid and later works had developed into a richer orchestration of five strings parts and expanded instrumentation of brass and woodwinds. He was the first Venetian opera composer and one of the earliest Italian composers to use the oboe in his opera orchestrations.
Griselda is a dramma per musica in three acts that was composed by Antonio Vivaldi. The opera uses a revised version of the 1701 Italian libretto by Apostolo Zeno that was based on Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron. The celebrated Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni was hired to adapt the libretto for Vivaldi. The opera was first performed in Venice at the Teatro San Samuele on 18 May 1735.
Catone in Utica is an opera libretto by Metastasio, that was originally written for Leonardo Vinci's 1727 opera. Following Vinci's success, Metastasio's text was used by numerous composers of the baroque and classical eras for their own operas, including Pietro Torri (1736), Antonio Vivaldi (1737), Giovanni Battista Ferrandini (1753) and J. C. Bach (1761).
L'Olimpiade is a dramma per musica in three acts that was composed by Antonio Vivaldi. The opera uses an Italian libretto by Pietro Metastasio that was originally written for Antonio Caldara's 1733 opera of the same name. Vivaldi's version premiered in Venice at the Teatro Sant'Angelo on 17 February 1734. The same libretto was to be later set to music by over 50 other composers, including Giovanni Battista Pergolesi in 1735.
Giuseppe Maria Orlandini was an Italian baroque composer particularly known for his more than 40 operas and intermezzos. Highly regarded by music historians of his day like Francesco Saverio Quadrio, Jean-Benjamin de La Borde and Charles Burney, Orlandini, along with Vivaldi, is considered one of the major creators of the new style of opera that dominated the second decade of the 18th century.
La Silvia is an dramma pastorale per musica in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi to an Italian libretto by Enrico Bissari. It was first performed on 28 August 1721 at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan on the occasion of the birthday celebrations of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth Christine, wife of Emperor Charles VI of Austria.
Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt was a Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, Imperial Field marshal and Governor of Mantua.
Anna Girò, also known as l'Annina del Prete Rosso, la Nina del Prete Rosso, or l'Annina della Pietà, was the stage name of Anna Maria(?) Maddalena Tessieri, an Italian mezzo-soprano/contralto of the 18th century. She is best remembered for her numerous collaborations with composer Antonio Vivaldi who wrote operatic roles for her. She is the singer who performed the greatest number of Vivaldi's operas, the one who kept them in her repertoire the longest time and who made them known across the largest geographical area.
Artaserse is an opera in three acts composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to an Italian libretto adapted from that by Metastasio by Giovanni Boldini first shown in Venice on 11 February 1730.
Pietro Giuseppe Gaetano Boni was an Italian composer.
Semiramide is a dramma per musica in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi composed to a libretto by Francesco Silvani.
