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- Title
Emperors, ambassadors and opera reviews in 17th-century Venice: an annotated libretto of Cesti's L'Argia (1669).
- Authors
Marcaletti, Livio
- Abstract
This article addresses the rare and fortunate discovery of a printed libretto currently preserved in the National Library of the Czech Republic. The libretto is filled with fascinating manuscript notes on a Venetian performance of Antonio Cesti's L'Argia in 1669, at the Teatro S. Luca. The anonymous author—whose identity is revealed from numerous hints found in the notes themselves—wrote a sort of review of the performance, probably addressed to the emperor Leopold I, who was continuously in search of new singers for his court. The handwritten remarks present a ferocious critique of the Venetian production of L'Argia , which is considered extremely inferior to the original version (Innsbruck, 1655). Almost every scene contains entries praising or criticizing various aspects of the performance. The author's original intention may have been solely to send reports of the performance to the imperial court, but the result constitutes a rare example of late 17th-century music criticism.
- Subjects
VENICE (Italy); OPERA; MUSICAL criticism; EMPERORS; ANONYMOUS authors; AMBASSADORS; NATIONAL libraries
- Publication
Early Music, 2022, Vol 50, Issue 3, p357
- ISSN
0306-1078
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/em/caac013