The composer Leonardo Vinci, no relation to the artist and polymath, was born in 1690 and died in 1730, apparently after being poisoned by a jealous husband. He was thus 20 years older than Pergolesi, but his music was nearly as progressive as that of the better-known younger composer. At the turn of the century, he was known mostly to musicologists, but his scores, often fresh and action-packed, are percolating out to the general operatic public. This is the world premiere of Vinci's 1727 opera Gismondo, Rč di Polonia. The ...
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The composer Leonardo Vinci, no relation to the artist and polymath, was born in 1690 and died in 1730, apparently after being poisoned by a jealous husband. He was thus 20 years older than Pergolesi, but his music was nearly as progressive as that of the better-known younger composer. At the turn of the century, he was known mostly to musicologists, but his scores, often fresh and action-packed, are percolating out to the general operatic public. This is the world premiere of Vinci's 1727 opera Gismondo, Rč di Polonia. The presentation is a bit musicological, with a massive booklet delving into, among other things, why Italians should have wanted to take up a Polish subject, but the music itself is lots of fun. The opera, with its tale of power at the medieval Polish court, could be classified as an opera seria, but the story is told through a series of romantic entanglements that, although not exactly comic, keep the action moving along through intrigue rather than through splendid arias, aided by...
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