Given Pietro Metastasio's enormous popularity in the 17th and early 18th centuries and his significance as a librettist for opera seria, and the fact that there are well over 1,000 known settings of his texts, it's perhaps surprising that his work is so rarely seen or heard today. A few works, most notably Mozart's La clemenza di Tito and perhaps Il rè pastore and Il sogno di Scipione, hover around the fringe of the repertoire, but the strict and artificial conventions of opera seria are so much scorned by modern audiences ...
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Given Pietro Metastasio's enormous popularity in the 17th and early 18th centuries and his significance as a librettist for opera seria, and the fact that there are well over 1,000 known settings of his texts, it's perhaps surprising that his work is so rarely seen or heard today. A few works, most notably Mozart's La clemenza di Tito and perhaps Il rè pastore and Il sogno di Scipione, hover around the fringe of the repertoire, but the strict and artificial conventions of opera seria are so much scorned by modern audiences that these works are probably only ever performed because their dramatic stiffness can be forgiven for the sake of Mozart's music. There were well over 50 settings of L'Olimpiade, and the music directors of the Venice Baroque Orchestra drew on the settings of 16 composers for this pasticcio. The intent was to include all the arias, ensembles, and choruses that Metastasio wrote for the opera in order to showcase the variety of composers, mostly somewhat obscure (with some extremely...
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Seller's Description:
Fair. Ex-Library rental. Disc(s) are professionally cleaned and may contain only light scratches that do not effect functionality. Includes disc(s), case, booklet, and back artwork. Disc(s), case, booklet, and back artwork may contain library/security stickers and ink writing. Case and artwork may show some wear. Case may not be an original jewel case. All disc(s) are authentic.
