Ezio is an opera set by many composers including first by Nicola Porpora

Nicola Porpora

Nicola Porpora was an Italian composer of Baroque operas and teacher of singing, whose most famous singing student was the castrato Farinelli. One of his other students was composer Matteo Capranica.-Biography:Porpora was born in Naples...

 (20 November 1728) and Pietro Auletta

Pietro Auletta

Pietro Antonio Auletta was an Italian composer mainly known for his operas....

 (26 December 1728), and notably Hasse

Johann Adolph Hasse

Johann Adolph Hasse was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music...

's Ezio (Naples, 1730; Dresden, 1755), Handel's Ezio (London, 1732) and Latilla's Ezio

Ezio (Latilla)

Ezio is an opera eroica or "heroic" opera in 3 Acts by Gaetano Latilla. The opera uses an Italian language libretto by Pietro Metastasio. Metastasio's libretto was partly inspired by Jean Racine's play Britannicus and had earlier been set to music by George Frideric Handel in 1732...

 (Naples, 1758).
Gluck set 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:...

's 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...

 first for Prague (1750), then revised it for Vienna (1763). Unlike Mysliveček's first Ezio

Ezio (Mysliveček) (1775)

Ezio is an eighteenth-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It was the composer's first setting of a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first performed with music by Pietro Auletta in 1728, one of the most popular of the Metastasian librettos in...

 (Naples, 1775) and Mysliveček's second Ezio

Ezio (Mysliveček) (1777)

Ezio is an eighteenth-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It was the composer's second setting of a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first performed in 1728, one of the most popular of the Metastasian librettos in Mysliveček's day...

 (Munich, 1777), Gluck's two versions contain around half the same music.

Plot and Cast

The action takes place in 500AD as the Christian general Aetius

Aetius

Aetius or Aëtius may refer to:* Aetius , 1st- or 2nd-century doxographer and Eclectic philosopher* Aëtius of Antioch, 4th-century Anomean theologian, called "Aetius the Atheist" by his Trinitarian enemies...

 has just defeated Attila the Hun

Attila the Hun

Attila , more frequently referred to as Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in 453. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire, which stretched from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. During his reign he was one of the most feared...

.

• Ezio, general (alto castrato), who loves Fulvia
• Valentiniano, emperor (soprano castrato), who loves Fulvia
• Massimo, Roman patrician (tenor), conspiring against Valentiniano
• Fulvia, Massimo’s daughter (soprano), who loves Ezio
• Onoria, sister of Valentiniano, who loves Ezio
• Varo, prefect and confidant of Ezio

After many plot turns, at the end Ezio saves the emperor from the plot of Massimo, who is arrested but spared. In gratitude Valentiniano allows Fulvia and Ezio to marry.

The Prague Ezio 1750

The original Ezio, a full-blown opera seria with no trace of the Gluck "reform" to come, was premiered at impresario Giovanni Battista Locatelli's theatre on v Kotcích Street (German "Kotzentheater" Czech "Divadlo v Kotcích

Divadlo v Kotcích

The Divadlo v Kotcích, German Theater an der Kotzen, in English more usually Kotzen Theatre, was a Prague theatre and opera venue on v Kotcích street, which had its heyday 1739-1783 as the first public theatre in Prague and a home of Italian opera...

," 1739-1783) and ran for two seasons.

The Vienna Ezio 1763

Gluck, as Handel and Vivaldi before him and all composers of his time, naturally recycled the "numbers" (arias and choruses) from older operas, rewriting the connecting recitative as necessary. In 1763 he reused nearly half of the 25 musical numbers from the Prague Ezio of 13 years earlier, avoiding material like "Se povero il ruscello" from the Prague Ezio which he had already used at the Vienna Burgtheater the previous year in the Vienna Orfeo as "Che puro ciel," and Gluck filled up the rest with 7 arias from Il trionfo di Clelia

Il trionfo di Clelia

Il trionfo di Clelia is an 18th-century Italian opera in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček composed to a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio. It was common in the 1760s for composers to set Metastasian texts written decades before...

, which was also unknown to Viennese audiences. Recycling the arias from the Prague Ezio and Il trionfo di Clelia still required Gluck to transpose and adjust for the new singers, and reorchestrate for a bigger orchestra. Gluck also trimmed the opera by shortening the ouverture and cutting repeats. Ezio was sung by Gaetano Guadagni

Gaetano Guadagni

Gaetano Guadagni was an Italian mezzo-soprano castrato singer, most famous for singing the role of Orpheus at the premiere of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice in 1762.- Career :...

, Valentiniano by Giovanni Toschi, Massimo by Giuseppe Tibaldi, and Fulvia by Rosa Tibaldi.

Recordings

• Prague version 1750,Jana Levicová (Ezio) Eva Müllerová (Fulvia), Martin Šrejma (Massimo), Michaela Šrůmová (Valentiniano), Ondřej Socha (Varo), Yukiko Šrejmová (Kinjo), Prague Symphony Orchestra
  Prague Symphony Orchestra
  The Prague Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1934 by Rudolf Pekárek. In the 1930s the orchestra performed the scores for many Czech films, and also appeared regularly on Czech radio. An early promoter of the orchestra was Dr...
  
   Chamber Players dir. Jiří Petrdlík, ArcoDiva Classics 2010
• Prague version 1750, Sonia Prina
  Sonia Prina
  Sonia Prina is an Italian operatic contralto who has had an active career in concerts and operas since the mid 1990s. She is particularly known for her appearances in Baroque operas and for her performances of the Baroque concert repertoire...
  
   (Ezio), Max Emanuel Cenčić
  Max Emanuel Cencic
  Max Emanuel Cencic is a countertenor, currently based in Austria.- Early Career as a Boy Soprano :...
  
   (Valentiniano), Topi Lehtipuu
  Topi Lehtipuu
  Topi Lehtipuu is a Finnish operatic tenor. He has sung a variety of roles from different periods, including the title role in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring at the Finnish National Opera, several roles in Mozart operas, including Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Tamino in Die...
  
   (Massimo), Ann Hallenberg (Fulvia), Julian Pregardien (Varo), Mayuko Karasava (Onorio), Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis
  Alan Curtis (harpsichordist)
  Alan Curtis is a noted American harpsichordist, musicologist, and conductor of baroque opera. After graduate studies at the University of Illinois , where he wrote his dissertation on the keyboard music of Sweelinck, he studied in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt, with whom he subsequently recorded...
  
  . Virgin Classics 2010
• Prague version 1750, Matthias Rexroth countertenor (Ezio), Mariselle Martinez (Fulvia), Max Emanuel Cencic (Valentiniano), Netta Or (Onoria), Mirko Roschkowski (Massimo), Andréas Post (Varo), Neue Düsseldorfer Hofmusik, dir. Andreas Stoehr, Coviello Classics 2009
• Vienna version 1763, Franco Faglioni countertenor (Ezio), Ruth Sandhoff (Valentiniano), Kirsten Blaise (Fulvia), Sophie Marin-Dregor (Onoria), Stefano Ferrari (Massimo), Netta Or (Varo), Orchester der Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, dir Michael Hofstetter. Oehms Classics. 2009