Admeto
Music by George Frideric Handel · libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym · premiered 1727
Admeto, re di Tessaglia ("Admetus, King of Thessaly", HWV 22) is a three-act opera written for the Royal Academy of Music with music composed by George Frideric Handel to an Italian-language libretto prepared by Nicola Francesco Haym. The story is partly based on Euripides' Alcestis. The opera's first performance was at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 31 January 1727. The original cast included Faustina Bordoni as Alcestis and Francesca Cuzzoni as Antigona, as Admeto was the second of the five operas that Handel composed to feature specifically these two prime donne of the day. The opera was very successful at its first performances. However the presence of two prima donnas in the London operas had created factions of very partisan supporters of either one or the other ladies, and some performances were disrupted by hisses and loud cat calls by supporters of one of the star sopranos whenever the other one was singing, creating public scandal.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Admeto", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel ( HAN-dəl; baptised Georg Fried[e]rich Händel, German: [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈhɛndl̩] ; 5 March [O.S. 23 February] 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. Born in Halle, Handel spent his early life in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian…
Text from the Wikipedia article "George Frideric Handel", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by George Frideric Handel
- Flavio
- Floridante (1696)
- Almira (1705)
- Daphne (1706)
- Florindo (1708)
- Agrippina (1709)
- Berenice (1709)
- Amadigi di Gaula (1715)