Siroe, re di Persia HWV

Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis

The Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis is the Catalogue of Handel's Works. It was published in three volumes by Bernd Baselt between 1978 and 1986, and lists every piece of music known to have been written by George Frideric Handel...

 24, 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...

 in three acts by George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

. It was his 12th opera for the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music (company)

The Royal Academy of Music was a company founded in February 1719, during George Frideric Handel's residence at Cannons, by a group of aristocrats to secure themselves a constant supply of baroque opera or opera seria. It commissioned large numbers of new operas from three of the leading composers...

 and was written for the 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...

s Francesca Cuzzoni

Francesca Cuzzoni

Francesca Cuzzoni was an Italian operatic soprano of the Baroque era.-Early career:Cuzzoni was born in Parma. Her father, Angelo, was a professional violinist, and her singing teacher was Francesco Lanzi. She made her debut in her home city in 1714, singing in La virtù coronata, o Il Fernando by...

 and Faustina Bordoni

Faustina Bordoni

Faustina Bordoni was an Italian mezzo-soprano.-Early career:She was born in Venice and brought up under the protection of the aristocratic brother composers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello. Her singing teacher was another composer, Michelangelo Gasparini...

. The opera uses an Italian-language 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 Nicola Francesco Haym

Nicola Francesco Haym

Nicola Francesco Haym was an Italian opera librettist, composer, theatre manager and performer, and numismatist. He is best remembered for adapting texts into libretti for the London operas of George Frideric Handel and Giovanni Bononcini...

, after 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 Siroe. Like many of Metastasio's libretti, it was also set by Handel's contemporaries, e.g. by Leonardo Vinci

Leonardo Vinci

Leonardo Vinci was an Italian composer, best known for his operas.He was born at Strongoli and educated at Naples under Gaetano Greco in the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo. He first became known for his opere buffe in Neapolitan dialect in 1719; he also composed many opere serie...

, Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...

 and Johann Adolph 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...

 (see Hasse's Siroe

Siroe (Hasse)

Siroe, or Siroe re di Persia , is an opera seria in three acts by Johann Adolf Hasse. The libretto was by Metastasio. As with many of the latter's libretti, Siroe was also set by Hasse's contemporaries, e.g...

). Pasquale Errichelli

Pasquale Errichelli

Pasquale Errichelli was an Italian composer and organist based in the city of Naples. Trained at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini, his compositional output consists of 7 operas, 2 cantatas, 1 symphony, 3 sonatas, several concert arias, and the oratorio Gerosolina protetta...

's setting of the libretto (see Errichelli's Siroe

Siroe (Errichelli)

Siroe is a dramma per musica or opera seria in 3 Acts by composer Pasquale Errichelli. The opera uses an Italian language libretto by Pietro Metastasio. The opera premiered at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on 26 December 1758. Vincenzo Re designed the sets for the premiere production.-Roles:...

) premiered in the year of Handel's death.

Performance history

The opera was first given under the direction of the composer at the King's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 on 17 February 1728 and it was also seen in Braunschweig

Braunschweig

Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....

, Germany. It was rediscovered and performed in Gera

Gera

Gera, the third-largest city in the German state of Thuringia , lies in east Thuringia on the river Weiße Elster, approximately 60 kilometres to the south of the city of Leipzig and 80 kilometres to the east of Erfurt...

, Germany, in December 1925.

Roles

Role	Voice type Voice type A voice type is a particular kind of human singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics. Voice classification is the process by which human voices are evaluated and are thereby designated into voice types...	Premiere cast, 17 February 1728 (Conductor Conducting Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble... : –)
Emira	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...	Faustina Bordoni Faustina Bordoni Faustina Bordoni was an Italian mezzo-soprano.-Early career:She was born in Venice and brought up under the protection of the aristocratic brother composers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello. Her singing teacher was another composer, Michelangelo Gasparini...
Laodice	soprano	Francesca Cuzzoni Francesca Cuzzoni Francesca Cuzzoni was an Italian operatic soprano of the Baroque era.-Early career:Cuzzoni was born in Parma. Her father, Angelo, was a professional violinist, and her singing teacher was Francesco Lanzi. She made her debut in her home city in 1714, singing in La virtù coronata, o Il Fernando by...
Siroe	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...	Senesino Senesino Senesino was a celebrated Italian contralto castrato, particularly remembered today for his long collaboration with the composer George Frideric Handel.-Early life and career:...
Medarse	alto Alto Alto is a musical term, derived from the Latin word altus, meaning "high" in Italian, that has several possible interpretations.When designating instruments, "alto" frequently refers to a member of an instrumental family that has the second highest range, below that of the treble or soprano. Hence,...  castrato	Antonio Baldi
Cosroe	bass Bass (voice type) A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...	Giuseppe Maria Boschi Giuseppe Maria Boschi Giuseppe Maria Boschi was an Italian bass singer - though in modern terms a baritone - of the 18th century. He is best remembered for his association with the composer George Frideric Handel, whom he worked for in both Italy and London.During the first decade of the century he is known to have...
Arasse	bass	Giovanni Battista Palmerini

Sources

• Amadeus Almanac, accessed 5 June 2008 The second of the two volume definitive reference on the operas of Handel
• Hicks, Anthony
  Anthony Hicks
  Anthony Hicks was a Welsh musicologist, music critic, editor, and writer.Born in Swansea, Hicks read mathematics at King's College London during the mid-1960s and worked for roughly a quarter of century as a computer systems analyst at the University of London...
  
  , "Siroe", The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes....
  
  , ed. Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
  
  (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7