Ezio is an eighteenth-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 the composer's first setting of 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 with music by Pietro Auletta

Pietro Auletta

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

 in 1728, one of the most popular of the Metastasian librettos in Mysliveček's day. The story is based on incidents from the lives of the 5th-century Roman emperor Valentinian III

Valentinian III

-Family:Valentinian was born in the western capital of Ravenna, the only son of Galla Placidia and Flavius Constantius. The former was the younger half-sister of the western emperor Honorius, and the latter was at the time Patrician and the power behind the throne....

 and his 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...

. 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. The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1775 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 San Carlo in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 on 30 May 1775 in honor of the nameday of Ferdinand

Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies

Ferdinand I reigned variously over Naples, Sicily, and the Two Sicilies from 1759 until his death. He was the third son of King Charles III of Spain by his wife Maria Amalia of Saxony. On 10 August 1759, Charles succeeded his elder brother, Ferdinand VI, as King Charles III of Spain...

, the king of Naples. It was the last of a brilliant series of four operas composed by Mysliveček for the Teatro San Carlo between the years 1773-75, the last two commissions made possible by the failure of Johann Christian Bach

Johann Christian Bach

Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...

 to make good on a commitment to the management of the theater. Ezio (and all three of the other operas from this series) were very well received by the Neapolitan musical public. The cast was distinguished, as would expected at the San Carlo; it included the great 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...

 Gaspare Pacchierotti

Gaspare Pacchierotti

Gaspare Pacchierotti was a great mezzo-soprano castrato, and one of the most famous singers of his time.-Training and first appearances:...

.

Connection with Mozart

The musicologist Daniel E. Freeman has demonstrated that Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 used Mysliveček's scene and aria, "Misera, dove son?/Ah, non so io che parlo," as a partial model for his own setting of the same texts, K. 369.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 30 May 1775, Teatro San Carlo, Naples
Valentiniano III, emperor of Rome, in love with Fulvia	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...	Giuseppe Benedetti
Fulvia, daughter of Massimo, a Roman patrician, in love with Ezio and betrothed to him	soprano	Anna de Amicis-Buonsollazzi
Ezio, general of the imperial armies, in love with Fulvia	soprano castrato	Gaspare Pacchierotti Gaspare Pacchierotti Gaspare Pacchierotti was a great mezzo-soprano castrato, and one of the most famous singers of his time.-Training and first appearances:...
Onoria, sister of Valentiniano, secretly in love with Ezio	soprano	Elisabetta Ranieri
Massimo, Roman patrician, father of Fulvia, confidant and secret enemy of Valentiniano	soprano castrato	Arcangelo Cortoni
Varo, prefect of the Praetorian guard, friend of Ezio	soprano castrato	Nicola Lancelotti

Vocal Set Pieces

Act I, scene 2 - Aria of Valentiniano, "Se tu la reggi al volo"

Act I, scene 3 - Aria of Ezio, "Pensa a serbami, o cara"

Act I, scene 4 - Aria of Varo, "Più lieti imagini" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act I, scene 5 - Aria of Fulvia, "Caro padre, a me non dei"

Act I, scene 6 - Accompanied recitative for Massimo, "Che sventura è la mia"

Act I, scene 6 - Aria of Massimo, "Il nocchier che si figura"

Act I, scene 8 - Aria of Onoria, "Quanto mai felici siete"

Act I, scene 12 - Accompanied recitative for Ezio and Fulvia, "Fu questo il primo oggetto"

Act I, scene 12 - Duet for Ezio and Fulvia, "Mia vita, se m'ami" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 3 - Aria of Valentiniano, "Vi fida lo sposo"

Act II, scene 4 - Aria of Massimo, "Va, dal furor portata"

Act II, scene 6 - Aria of Ezio, "Recagli quell'acciaro"

Act II, scene 7 - Aria of Varo, "Mostra per poco almeno" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 9 - Aria of Onoria, "Fin che per te mi palpita"

Act II, scene 11 - Aria of Ezio, "Caro mio bene, addio"

Act II, scene 12 - Aria of Valentiniano, "A tuo dispetto ingrata" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act II, scene 13 - Accompanied recitative for Fulvia, "Misera, dove son?"

Act II, scene 13 - Aria of Fulvia, "Ah, non son io che parlo"

Act III, scene 2 - Aria of Ezio, "Mi dona, mi rende" [a non-Metastasian text]

Act III, scene 6 - Aria of Massimo, "Tergi l'ingiuste lagrime"

Act III, scene 7 - Aria of Fulvia, "Dei clementi amici" [a non-Metastasian text]

External links

Complete score in manuscript available for viewing and downloading at http://www.internetculturale.it (Subcategory: Digital Contents)