The 15-year-old Mozart's Il Sogno di Scipione, K. 126, has not been much performed. It's too late to be truly the work of a prodigy, but not really a mature work, and it's not an opera but a serenata drammatica, a little one-act allegory in which the titular African king has to choose between Fortune and Constancy, prepared for the same Archbishop Colloredo who would later make Mozart's life hell. However, it followed the genuine opera Mitridate, re di Ponto, K. 87, and its big arias arguably mark an advance over that more ...
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The 15-year-old Mozart's Il Sogno di Scipione, K. 126, has not been much performed. It's too late to be truly the work of a prodigy, but not really a mature work, and it's not an opera but a serenata drammatica, a little one-act allegory in which the titular African king has to choose between Fortune and Constancy, prepared for the same Archbishop Colloredo who would later make Mozart's life hell. However, it followed the genuine opera Mitridate, re di Ponto, K. 87, and its big arias arguably mark an advance over that more successful work. Sample the arias by Scipione and Fortuna (Fortune): they are laid out on grand harmonic plans, and they offer technical challenges surmounted elegantly by tenor Stuart Jackson and soprano Soraya Mafi, respectively. If Mozart the vocal writer came into his own slightly before this, Mozart the aria composer took decisive steps forward here. Much credit is due to the ensemble Classical Opera and its conductor Ian Page, who get the precise combination of modest size and...
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