Didone is an 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...

 by Francesco Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...

, set 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 Giovanni Francesco Busenello

Giovanni Francesco Busenello

Giovanni Francesco Busenello was an Italian lawyer, librettist and poet of the 17th century.Born to a high-class family of Venice, it is thought that he studied at the University of Padua, where according to himself he was taught by Paolo Sarpi and Cesare Cremonino...

 (later librettist for Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...

). The opera was first performed at Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

's Teatro San Cassiano

Teatro San Cassiano

The Teatro San Cassiano or Teatro di San Cassiano in Venice was the first public opera house when it opened in 1637. The theatre takes its name from the neighbourhood where it was located, the parish of San Cassiano near the Rialto. It was a stone building owned by the Venetian Tron family...

 during 1641.

The plot is based on Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

(Book 4 in particular), though Busenello, in his second libretto for Cavalli, replaces Dido's tragic suicide of Virgil with a happy ending in which Dido marries Iarbas, King of the Getuli, who saves Dido from herself after Aeneas

Aeneas

Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

 abandons her. The action is divided into a prologue and 3 acts.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 1641 (Conductor: - )
Enea Aeneas Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...	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...
Didone	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...
Iarbas Iarbas In Roman mythology, Iarbas or Hiarbas was the son of Jupiter Hammon and a Garamantian nymph. He became the king of Gaetulia. According to Virgil's Aeneid, he fell in love with the Carthaginian queen Dido, who rejected his advances in favour of Aeneas...	contralto Contralto Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
Cassandra Cassandra In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy...	soprano
Anchise Anchises In Greek mythology, Anchises was the son of Capys and Themiste . His major claim to fame in Greek mythology is that he was a mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite . One version is that Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced him for nearly two weeks of lovemaking...	tenor
Ascanio Ascanius Ascanius is the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas and a legendary king of Alba Longa. He is a character of Roman mythology, and has a divine lineage, being the son of Aeneas, who is son of Venus and the hero Anchises, a relative of Priam; thus Ascanius has divine ascendents by both parents, being...	soprano
Hecuba Hecuba Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer's Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris, and the prophetess Cassandra...	contralto
Creusa Creusa In Greek mythology, four people had the name Creusa ; the name simply means "princess".-Naiad:According to Pindar's 9th Pythian Ode, Creusa was a naiad and daughter of Gaia who bore Hypseus, King of the Lapiths to the river god Peneus. Hypseus had one daughter, Cyrene. When a lion attacked her...	soprano
Anna	soprano
Mercurio Mercury (mythology) Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...	contralto
Sicheo	tenor
Pirro Neoptolemus Neoptolemus was the son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia in Greek mythology. Achilles' mother foretold many years before Achilles' birth that there would be a great war. She saw that her only son was to die if he fought in the war...	tenor
Corebo	contralto
Sinone Sinon In Greek mythology, Sinon a son of Aesimus , or of the crafty Sisyphus, was a Greek warrior during the Trojan War...	bass
Ambasciatore Ilionèo	contralto
Acate	tenor
Giove Jupiter (mythology) In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....	bass
Giunone Juno (mythology) Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...	soprano
Iride Iris (mythology) In Greek mythology, Iris is the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. As the sun unites Earth and heaven, Iris links the gods to humanity...	soprano
Venere Venus (mythology) Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...	soprano
Amore Cupid In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...	soprano
Nettuno Neptune (mythology) Neptune was the god of water and the sea in Roman mythology and religion. He is analogous with, but not identical to, the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter and Pluto, each of them presiding over one of the three realms of the universe,...	bass
Eolo Aeolus Aeolus was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which...	tenor
Fortuna Fortuna Fortuna can mean:*Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck -Geographical:*19 Fortuna, asteroid*Fortuna, California, town located on the north coast of California*Fortuna, United States Virgin Islands...	soprano
Three court ladies	sopranos

Recordings

• Live Video recording on DVD - 2006 - Teatro Malibran, Venice - Fabio Biondi
  Fabio Biondi
  Fabio Biondi is an Italian violinist and conductor.Born in Palermo, Sicily, Biondi began his international career at the age of 12 playing a concerto with the RAI Symphony Orchestra. When he was 16, he performed Bach's violin concertos at the Musikverein in Vienna...
  
  , conductor - Orchestra Europa Galante
  Europa Galante
  Europa Galante is an Italian period instrument Baroque orchestra founded by violinist Fabio Biondi in 1990 and directed by him since that time....
  
  
  Cast: Claron McFadden
  Claron McFadden
  Claron McFadden is an American soprano. McFadden studied voice at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, finishing her degree in 1984....
  
  , Magnus Staveland, Jordi Domènech, Manuela Custer, Marina De Liso, Donatella Lombardi - Dynamic
  Dynamic (record label)
  Dynamic is an Italian independent record label located in Genoa. Founded in 1978, it specialises in classical music and opera, especially rarely performed works and has produced several world premiere recordings...
  
   cat. 33537

External links

• Free score of La Didone in the International Music Score Library Project
  International Music Score Library Project
  The International Music Score Library Project , also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a project for the creation of a virtual library of public domain music scores, based on the wiki principle...