Adriano in Siria is an 18th-century Italian opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček

Josef Myslivecek

Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music...

. It was composed to a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by the Italian poet Metastasio

Metastasio

Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...

 that was first performed in 1732 with music of Antonio Caldara

Antonio Caldara

Antonio Caldara was an Italian Baroque composer.Caldara was born in Venice , the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's in Venice, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi...

. For a performance in the 1770s, it would only be expected that a libretto of such age would be abbreviated and altered to suit contemporary operatic taste. No other of the composer's settings of Metatasio's texts contains as many substitute aria texts as this one does. The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1776 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable. All of Mysliveček's operas are of the serious type in Italian language referred to as opera seria

Opera seria

Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Teatro del Cocomero in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 on 8 September 1776 as the last dramatic composition he produced for the musical public of that city. The electoral court of Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 intended to engage Mysliveček to compose an opera for the carnival

Carnival

Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

 season of 1776, but the composer found himself unable to travel due to the effects of syphilis

Syphilis

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...

. He remained in Florence for an extra year, but made remarkable use of his time. He was able to see productions of his new oratorio Isacco figura del redentore (perhaps his greatest composition) during Lent of 1776 and the opera Adriano in Siria in the autumn. He also came into contact with the Florentine music publisher Ranieri del Vivo, who published a number of his orchestral works, including a collection of his symphonies that constituted the first anthology of symphonies ever published in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The opera was very successful, in particular the music written for the tenor singer Giovanni Ansani, and was revived in Perugia

Perugia

Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....

 for the carnival operatic season of 1777, then in Pavia

Pavia

Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...

 in the spring of the same year. Mysliveček's friend and close professional associate, the noted castrato

Castrato

A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...

 Tommaso Guarducci, repeated his role of Farnaspe in the Perugia production.

Roles

Cast	Voice type	Premiere, 8 September 1776, Teatro Teatro del Cocomero, Florence
Adriano, emperor of Rome, in love with Emirena	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...  castrato Castrato A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...	Michele Neri
Osroa, king of the Parthians, father of Emirena	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Giovanni Ansani
Emirena, prisoner of Adriano, in love with Farnaspe	soprano	Clementina Chiavacci
Sabina, in love with and betrothed to Adriano	soprano	Lucia Alberoni
Farnaspe, a prince of Parthia, friend and tributary to Osroa, in love with and betrothed to Emirena	soprano castrato	Tommaso Guarducci
Aquilio, a tribune	soprano castrato	Francesco Papi

Vocal Set Pieces

Act I, scene 1 - Aria of Adriano, "Dal labbro, che t'accende"

Act I, scene 2 - Aria of Farnaspe, "Cari affanni, amate pene" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act I, scene 3 - Aria of Osroa, "Chi della sorte infida" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act I, scene 9 - Aria of Emirena, "Prigionera abbandonata"

Act I, scene 11 - Aria of Sabina, "Numi se giusti siete"

Act I, scene 13 - Aria of Osroa, "Parto? Resto? Figlia, amico" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act I, scene 14 - Duet of Farnaspe and Emirena, "Se non ti moro allato" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 1 - Aria of Aquilio, "Quanto è facil trionfare" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 2 - Aria of Emirena, "A ritrovar mi chiama" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 4 - Aria of Adriano, "Fra l'amore, e la ragione" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 6 - Aria of Emirena, "Che fa il mio bene" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 6 - Aria of Sabina, "Volga il ciel, felici amanti" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 7 - Aria of Farnaspe, "Cara se le mie pene" [a non-Metastsian text]

Act II, scene 9 - Aria of Osroa, "Leon piagato a morte"

Act II, scene 11 - Quartet for Adriano, Emirena, Farnaspe, and Osroa, "Tutti nemici, e rei"

Act III, scene 2 - Aria of Adriano, "Barbaro, non comprendo"

Act III, scene 3 - Aria of Osroa, "Non ritrova un'alma sorte"

Act III, scene 4 - Aria of Farnaspe, "Io ti lascio, e questo addio" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act III, scene 5 - Aria of Emirena, "Ah che mancar mi sento" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act III, scene 7 - Chorus, "S'oda, Augusto, infin sull'etra"