is an

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

Antonio Salieri Antonio Salieri (18 August 17507 May 1825) was an Italian composer and teacher of the classical period (music), classical period. He was born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, and spent his adult life and career as a subje ...

: more specifically, it is a ''

dramma eroicomico This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names. "Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most co ...

''. The opera is in two acts and is set to a

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

Giovanni de Gamerra Giovanni de Gamerra (26 December 1742 – 29 August 1803) was an Italian cleric, a playwright, and a poet. He is best known as a prolific librettist. Gamerra was born in Livorno, and worked from 1771 at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan � ...

. Salieri mingled elements of comic opera and heroic opera to produce a work that was a popular success at the time of its first performance, also partly due to the grandiose staging that is called for.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna on 14 October 1795, and staged 39 times in the Austrian capital between then and 1798. It was also given in Germany in translation.

Roles

Synopsis

Set in ancient

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, three Kings, arriving variously on a camel, an elephant and a horse, vie for the honour of killing a monster and winning the hand of the Persian princess Palmira.

References

* John A. Rice: "Palmira, regina di Persia", ''

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

'' ed L. Macy (accessed 29 May 2007)
grovemusic.com
, subscription access. * John A. Rice: "Palmira, regina di Persia" in 'The

New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes. The dictionary was first published in 1992 by Macmillan Reference, L ...

', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) {{authority control 1795 operas Operas Operas set in ancient Persia Cultural depictions of Darius the Great Operas based on real people Operas by Antonio Salieri