Artaserse
Artaserse is the name of a number of Italian operas, all based on a text by Metastasio. Artaserse is the Italian form of the name of a Persian king, Artaxerxes. There are over 40 known settings of Metastasio's text. The libretto was originally written for, was first set by Vinci in 1730 for Rome [1]. It was subsequently set by Hasse in 1730 for Venice and in 1760 for Naples, by Gluck in 1741 for Milan, by Chiarini in 1741 for Verona, by Graun in 1743 for Stuttgart, by Terradellas in 1744 for Venice, by Galuppi in 1749 for Vienna, by Johann Christian Bach in 1760 for London, by Josef Mysliveček in 1774 for Naples (Artaserse), by Marcos Portugal in 1806 for Lisbon and many other times. The text was often altered.
Thomas Arne's 1762 Artaxerxes is set to an English libretto that is based on Metastasio's. Mozart's aria for soprano and orchestra "Conservati fedele" (K. 23, 1765) is set to the parting verses of Mandane (Artaserse's sister) at the end of the first scene.
The opera was famously performed in 1734 as a pastiche, featuring songs by various composers such as Attilio Ariosti, Nicola Porpora and Riccardo Broschi. It was in this that Broschi's brother, Farinelli, sang one of his best known arias, Son qual nave ch'agitata.
References
- Weinstock, Herbert, The Opera: A History of Its Creation and Performance: 1600-1941, Simon and Schuster, 1961, p.64.
Further reading
- Robert Torre: 'Operatic Twins & Musical Rivals: Two Settings of Artaserse (1730)', Discourses in Music, vol. 6 no. 1, (Summer 2006).
External links
- Original text of Metastasio's Artaserse
- Article: Torre, Robert. "Operatic Twins and Musical Rivals: Two Settings of Artaserse (1730)" Discourses in Music: Volume 6 Number 1 (Summer 2006)
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