''Adriano in Siria'' ("

Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...

in Syria") is an 18th-century Italian

opera seria ''Opera seria'' (; plural: ''opere serie''; usually called ''dramma per musica'' or ''melodramma serio'') is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to abo ...

in 3 acts by the Czech composer

Josef Mysliveček Josef Mysliveček (9 March 1737 – 4 February 1781) was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music. Mysliveček provided his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with significant comp ...

. It was composed to a libretto of the same name by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first performed in 1732 with music of Antonio Caldara and in more than 60 further settings until 1828. 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. No other of the composer's settings of Metatasio's texts contains as many substitute aria texts as this one does. The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1776 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

on 8 September 1776 as the last dramatic composition he produced for the musical public of that city.Detailed documentation concerning the Florentine performance of Mysliveček's ''Adriano in Siria'' is found in

Daniel E. Freeman Daniel Evan Freeman (born 27 April 1959) is an American musicologist who specializes in European art music of the eighteenth century, in particular the musical culture of eighteenth-century Prague and the Bohemian lands. He is also active as a ...

, ''Josef Mysliveček, "Il Boemo"'' (Sterling Heights, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 2009). His earlier dramatic works for Florence include the operas ''Ipermestra'' (1769) and ''Motezuma'' (1771) and the oratorios ''Adamo ed Eva'' (1771), ''La passione'' (1773), and ''Isacco figura del redentore'' (1776) The electoral court of Munich intended to engage Mysliveček to compose an opera for the

carnival Carnival is a Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typi ...

season of 1776, but the composer found himself unable to travel due to the effects of

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...

. He remained in Florence for an extra year, but made remarkable use of his time. He was able to see productions of his new oratorio ''Isacco figura del redentore'' (perhaps his greatest composition) during Lent of 1776 and the opera ''Adriano in Siria'' in the autumn. He also came into contact with the Florentine music publisher Ranieri del Vivo, who published a number of his orchestral works, including a collection of his

symphonies A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

that constituted the first anthology of symphonies ever published in Italy. The opera was very successful, in particular the music written for the tenor singer

Giovanni Ansani Giovanni Ansani (11 February 1744 – 15 July 1826) was an Italian tenor and composer. In 1770, he was singing at Copenhagen. About 1780 he came to London, where he at once took the first place; but, being of a most quarrelsome temper, he threw u ...

, and was revived in

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part o ...

for the carnival operatic season of 1777, then in

Pavia Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...

in the spring of the same year. The outstanding aria for Ansani was "Leon piagato al morte," which was widely disseminated in manuscript form in the 18th century. Mysliveček's friend and close professional associate, the noted

castrato A castrato (Italian, plural: ''castrati'') is a type of classical male singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto. The voice is produced by castration of the singer before puberty, or it occurs in one who, due to ...

Tommaso Guarducci, repeated his role of Farnaspe in the Perugia production.

Roles

Vocal set pieces

*Act 1, scene 1 – Aria of Adriano, "Dal labbro, che t'accende" *Act 1, scene 2 – Aria of Farnaspe, "Cari affanni, amate pene" non-Metastasian text*Act 1, scene 3 – Aria of Osroa, "Chi della sorte infida" non-Metastasian text*Act 1, scene 5 - Aria of Farnaspe, "Dopo un tuo sguardo, ingrata" *Act 1, scene 9 – Aria of Emirena, "Prigionera abbandonata" *Act 1, scene 11 – Aria of Sabina, "Numi se giusti siete" *Act 1, scene 13 – Aria of Osroa, "Parto? Resto? Figlia, amico" non-Metastasian text*Act 1, scene 14 – Duet of Farnaspe and Emirena, "Se non ti moro allato" non-Metastasian text*Act 2, scene 1 – Aria of Aquilio, "Quanto è facil trionfare" non-Metastasian text*Act 2, scene 2 – Aria of Emirena, "A ritrovar mi chiama" non-Metastasian text*Act 2, scene 4 – Aria of Adriano, "Fra l'amore, e la ragione" non-Metastasian text*Act 2, scene 6 – Aria of Emirena, "Che fa il mio bene" non-Metastasian text*Act 2, scene 6 – Aria of Sabina, "Volga il ciel, felici amanti" non-Metastasian text*Act 2, scene 7 – Aria of Farnaspe, "Cara se le mie pene" non-Metastsian text*Act 2, scene 9 – Aria of Osroa, "Leon piagato a morte" *Act 2, scene 11 – Quartet for Adriano, Emirena, Farnaspe, and Osroa, "Tutti nemici, e rei" *Act 3, scene 2 – Aria of Adriano, "Barbaro non comprendo" *Act 3, scene 3 – Aria of Osroa, "Non ritrova un'alma sorte" *Act 3, scene 4 – Aria of Farnaspe, "Io ti lascio, e questo addio" non-Metastasian text*Act 3, scene 5 – Aria of Emirena, "Ah che mancar mi sento" non-Metastasian text*Act 3, scene 7 – Chorus, "S'oda, Augusto, infin sull'etra"

Recording

The aria "Barbaro non comprendo" has been recorded by Max Emanuel Cenčić with the Orquestra Barocca de Sevilla,

George Petrou George Petrou ( el, Γιώργος Πέτρου) is a Greek conductor, pianist and stage-director. Biography George Petrou was born in Greece. He studied at the Athens Conservatoire, the Royal College and the Royal Academy of Music in London. He ...

, conductor, in the anthology ''Venezia'', released by Virgin Classics in 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adriano In Siria Italian-language operas Operas by Josef Mysliveček 1776 operas Opera seria Operas