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Antonio Vivaldi, Farnace

★★★☆☆

Venice, Teatro Malibran, 2 July 2021

   Qui la versione in italiano

Vivaldi’s Farnace returns to Venice at the Teatro Malibran

Historical truth has never been librettists’ greatest concern, especially for Baroque opera: real events were just a pretext for fictional plots, often far-fetched and intricate. Vivaldi’s Farnace (1727) is no exception. The text had already been set to music by Leonardo Vinci three years earlier, but the subject was of great interest for 18th-century composers, riveted by events in the Anatolian region. There are almost thirty libretti about Farnace II (97-47 BC), Mithridates VI’s son.

Despite the title, the real protagonists of the drama are three women…

continues on bachtrack.com

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