Il trionfo di Clelia 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 three 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...

 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:...

. It was common in the 1760s for composers to set Metastasian texts written decades before. Exceptionally, the text for Il trionfo di Clelia, first produced in Vienna in 1762, was almost new when Mysliveček was commissioned to compose his setting for Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

, and all of the aria texts used for his setting derive from the original libretto. This opera (and all the rest of Mysliveček's operas) belong to 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...

.

Metastasio's libretto was also set by Gluck, and others.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 26 December 1767 at the beginning of the 1768 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...

 operatic season. Opera productions at the royal court of Turin, which were sponsored only for the carnival season that took place at the beginning of each year, were famed for their lavish staging. Mysliveček's commission was the first after his overwhelming successes 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...

 in the year 1767, particularly with Il Bellerofonte

Il Bellerofonte

Il Bellerofonte is an 18th-century Italian opera in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It conforms to the serious type that was typically set in the distant past. The libretto, based on the Greek legend of Bellerophon, was written by Giuseppe Bonecchi...

. He soon was given commissions from every major operatic center 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 cast of the Turin production of Il trionfo di Clelia included the noted soprano Caterina Gabrielli

Caterina Gabrielli

Caterina Gabrielli was an Italian soprano.-Biography:Caterina Gabrielli was the daughter of a cook in the service of prince Gabrielli, in Rome...

, who had contributed enormously to the success of Il Bellerofonte in Naples. Francesca Gabrielli, probably her sister, also appeared in the Turin production along with the aging 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...

 Sebastiano Emiliani. Mysliveček's opera Il trinfo di Clelia was never performed in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, but he clearly brought the music with him when he returned to Prague for a visit early in 1768, since aria

Aria

An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

s from it were copied into ecclesiastical collections in Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

 for decades after the 1760s. The same phenomenon is noticeable for arias from the operas Semiramide

Semiramide (Mysliveček)

Semiramide is an 18th-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It was composed to a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first set to music in 1729. For a performance in the 1760s, it would only be expected that a libretto by Metastasio would be...

and Il Bellerofonte, works that were revived in Prague after the composer's return in 1768.

Roles

Roles	Voice type	Premiere, 26 December 1767, Teatro Regio, Turin
Porsenna, king of the Etrusans	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...	Gaetano Ottani
Clelia, a noble Roman virgin held hostage in the Etrusan encampment, intended to be the bride of Orazio	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...	Caterina Gabrielli Caterina Gabrielli Caterina Gabrielli was an Italian soprano.-Biography:Caterina Gabrielli was the daughter of a cook in the service of prince Gabrielli, in Rome...
Orazio, the ambassador from Rome	soprano 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...	Luca Fabri
Larissa, daughter of Porsenna, secretly in love with Mannio, intended bride of Tarquinio	soprano	Francesca Gabrielli
Tarquinio, in love with Clelia	soprano castrato	Sebastiano Emiliani
Mannio, prince of the Veneti, in love with Larissa	soprano castrato	Filippo Lorenzini

Vocal Set Pieces

Act I, scene 2 - Aria of Tarquinio, "Sì, tacerò, se vuoi"

Act I, scene 3 - Aria of Larissa, "Ah, celar la bella face"

Act I, scene 5 - Aria of Orazio, "Resta, o cara"

Act I, scene 7 - Aria of Clelia, "Mille dubbi me destano in petto"

Act I, scene 8 - Aria of Porsenna, "Sai che piegar si vede"

Act I, scene 10 - Accompanied recitative for Orazio, "Che crudel sacrifizio"

Act I, scene 10 - Aria of Orazio, "Saper ti basti, o cara"

Act I, scene 11 - Aria of Clelia, "Tempeste il mar"

Act II, scene 1 - Accompanied recitative of Tarquinio, "Dei, scorre l'ora"

Act II, scene 1 - Aria of Orazio, "Dei di Roma"

Act II, scene 3 - Duet for Clelia and Orazio, "Sì, ti fido al tuo gran core"

Act II, scene 5 - Aria of Porsenna, "Sol del Tebro"

Act II, scene 8 - Aria of Larissa, "Dico che ingiusto sei"

Act II, scene 9 - Aria of Mannio, "Vorrei che almen per gioco"

Act II, scene 13 - Aria of Clelia, "Io nemica, a torto il dici"

Act II, scene 14 - Accompanied recitative for Tarquinio, "Ma quel mai sì possente"

Act II, scene 14 - Aria of Tarquinio, "Non speri onusto il pino"

Act III, scene 1 - Aria of Clelia, "Tanto esposta alle sventure"

Act III, scene 3 - Aria of Larissa, "Ah, ritorna età del oro"

Act III, scene 5 - Aria of Porsenna, "Spesso, se ben l'affretta"

Act III, scene 6 - Aria of Tarquinio, "In questa selva oscura"

Act III, scene 8 - Aria of Orazio, "De' folgori di Giove"

Act III, scene 10 - Chorus, "Oggi a te, gran re toscano"