Alessandro Scarlatti: La Guerriera Costante
Commedia in Musica (Rome 1683)
Libretto: Flavio Orsini
Premiere:
Rome, Palazzo Orsini a Pasquino, carnival of 1683.
Performers:
Kamila Zbořilová, Dora Rubart-Pavlíková, Eva Benett, Tomáš Lajtkep, Petr Svoboda, Ivo Michl;
Baroque ensemble Hof-Musici, stage director and Baroque gestures Zuzana Vrbová, directed from the harpsichord by Ondřej Macek.
Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725), a native of Palermo, linked his life and work to the musical life of Naples and Rome during the High Baroque period. Even during his lifetime, he was considered an unsurpassed master of church music, chamber cantata, oratorio, and especially opera. This reputation remained with him during the following centuries – Scarlatti's name is an integral part of even the briefest overview of the history of European music. However, the situation on concert and theatre stages contrasts with this: only a small part of his extraordinarily extensive work has been performed again in modern times.
The comic opera La Guerriera Costante is one of Scarlatti's first operas, which he wrote during his first stay in Rome in 1679–1683 for members of the Roman aristocracy. It was performed in Rome on the occasion of the celebration of the birth of Louis Bourbon, Duke of Burgundy, grandson of the French King Louis XIV. By performing this early opera by Alessandro Scarlatti, the score of which is uniquely preserved in the Vatican Library, we want to honor the three hundredth anniversary of the death of this famous, yet still underappreciated master of Italian Baroque music.
Tickets are online and in Infocentre Cesky Krumlov available.