Antonio Cesti's Orontea
Monday, February 2, 2015
Yesterday, February 1, the Oper Frankfurt celebrated the premiere of Antonio Cesti’s opera Orontea.
Almost all of the over 100 records in the RISM database by Antonio Cesti are for cantatas or individual opera arias with continuo accompaniment—including four arias from Orontea. Of the eleven operas by Cesti known today, eight were written in Innsbruck or for the Innsbruck court, which had a close connection to Italy, not least through the marriage of Ferdinand Karl of Tirol to Anna de’ Medici. The big success of Cesti’s operas – Orontea alone was performed for over 30 years – is also reflected in its reception by contemporary composers and musicians: in Kroměříž there is ballet music by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer to the opera Il pomo d’oro.
Below, Joyce DiDonato sings the aria “Intorno all’idol mio,” which is in the RISM database three times (RISM ID nos. 853000144, 452008401, and 850009718). This third record is for the manuscript seen in the video, located in I-Nc 6.4.6 (Naples, Conservatorio di Musica S. Pietro a Majella). The digitized manuscript (also the source of the image above) is available online.
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