Motezuma is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in three acts by Josef Mysliveček

Josef Myslivecek

Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music...

 set to a libretto by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi that is based on legends associated with the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II

Moctezuma II

Moctezuma , also known by a number of variant spellings including Montezuma, Moteuczoma, Motecuhzoma and referred to in full by early Nahuatl texts as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, was the ninth tlatoani or ruler of Tenochtitlan, reigning from 1502 to 1520...

 . This opera (and all the rest of Mysliveček's operas) belong to the serious type in Italian language referred to as opera seria

Opera seria

Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Teatro della Pergola

Teatro della Pergola

The Teatro della Pergola is a historic opera house in Florence, Italy. It is located in the centre of the city on the Via della Pergola, from which the theatre takes its name...

 in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 on 23 January 1771. It was the second of the composer's three operas produced in Florence, in this case at a time of intense activity as a composer in the city. The chronological setting of the opera in the early sixteenth century was unusually late for its day, when serious operas in Italian were typically set in ancient times, and rarely in a time period later than the European Dark Ages. The libretto was first set for a lavish production in 1765 at the Teatro Regio in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 with music by Gian Francesco de Majo

Gian Francesco de Majo

Gian Francesco de Majo was an Italian composer. He is chiefly known for his more than 20 operas. He also composed a considerable amount of sacred works, including oratorios, cantatas, and masses.-Life and career:...

. It is unlikely that the Florence production was equally sumptuous, and the cast was not particularly distinguished, although it was an interesting one for the dominance of male singers (it was generally only in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, wear women were forbidden to appear on stage, that casts would feature so many male singers). Motezuma was the first of the composer's operas to be revived in modern times (for a performance in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 in 1931). It was likely the exotic setting and the availability of a score of the opera in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 that made it so attractive for revival at that time, apparently a response to a trend in German-speaking lands in the 1920s to revive works by pre-Romantic German composers such as George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

. A revival in Znojmo

Znojmo

Znojmo is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic, near the border with Lower Austria, connected to Vienna by railway and road . The royal city of Znojmo was founded shortly before 1226 by King Ottokar I on the plains in front of Znojmo Castle...

 took place in summer 2011.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 23 January 1771, Teatro della Pergola, Florence
Motezuma	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...  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...	Carlo Nicolini
Guacozinga	soprano castrato	Giovanni Carmignani
Ferdinando Cortes	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Salvator Casetti
Teutile	tenor	Marcello Pompili
Lisinga	soprano	Maddalena Mori della Casa
Pilpatoe	soprano castrato	Francesco Papi

Vocal Set Pieces

Act I, scene 2 - Accompanied recitative for Motezuma, "Dove son? Che m'avvene?," with cavatina, "Ah, numi tiranni"

Act I, scene 2 - Aria of Lisinga, "So che non cangio stato"

Act I, scene 3 - Aria of Motezuma, "Cara fiamma del mio seno"

Act I, scene 4 - Aria of Guacozinga, "Nel mar di tanti affanni"

Act I, scene 6 - Aria of Cortes, "Rammenta al tuo sovrano"

Act I, scene 9 - Aria of Teutile, "Di fieri sdegni armato"

Act I, sceen 11 - Aria of Guacozinga, "Ah no, arresta, o caro"

Act I, scene 12 - Aria of Motezuma, "A morir se mi condanna"


Act II, scene 2 - Aria of Cortes, "A mio danno in vano"

Act II, scene 4 - Aria of Lisinga, "Mi scordo lo scempio"

Act II, scene 5 - Aria of Pilpatoe, "Pensa che dell'impero"

Act II, scene 7 - Aria of Cortes, "Cara che torna in pace"

Act II, scene 8 - Aria of Guacozinga, "Frena l'insano orgoglio"

Act II, scene 10 - Aria of Teutile, "Scherza il nocchier"

Act II, scene 13 - Aria of Cortes, "Perche ogn'ombra ti parta dal core"

Act II, scene 14 - Duet for Guacozinga and Motezuma, "Ah, se mi sei fedele"


Act III, scene 3 - Aria of Teutile, "Non lasci le sponde"

Act III, scene 4 - Aria of Lisinga, "M'ingombra d'orrore"

Act III, scene 9 - Aria of Cortes, "Basta il mio brando solo"

Act III, scene 10 - Aria of Motezuma, "Vorrebbe il core sperar la calma"

Act III, scene 11 - Accompanied recitative for Guacozinga, "Eccomi sola al fine"

Act III, scene 11 - Aria of Guacozinga, "Ombre dolenti"

Recording

The overture to Mysliveček's Motezuma is included in a collection of symphonies and overtures by the composer recorded by the L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg, conductor, CPO 777-050 (2004).