Cesare e Cleopatra is a dramma per musica

Dramma per musica

Dramma per musica is a term which was used by dramatists in Italy and elsewhere between the late-17th and mid-19th centuries...

 in three acts by composer Carl Heinrich Graun

Carl Heinrich Graun

Carl Heinrich Graun was a German composer and tenor singer. Along with Johann Adolf Hasse, he is considered to be the most important German composer of Italian opera of his time.-Biography:...

. The opera uses an Italian language libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by Giovan Gualberto Bottarelli.

Royal Opera House premiere

It was commissioned by Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II of Prussia

Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...

 for the opening of the newly built Königliches Opernhaus (Royal Opera House) in Berlin, and was notably the inaugural performance of the newly formed Berlin State Opera

Berlin State Opera

The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...

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Although construction of the opera house was not entirely complete, the opera premiered in the new theatre using a German language translation on 7 December 1742 under the baton of the composer. The production starred soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 Maria Giovanna Gasparini as Cleopatra VII and castrato

Castrato

A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...

 Paolo Bedeschi as Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

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