Demofoonte
Music by Josef Mysliveček · libretto by Pietro Metastasio · premiered 1769 · at Teatro San Benedetto
Demofoonte is an opera in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It was the composer's first setting of this popular libretto by Metastasio first produced in 1733 (it was common in the second half of the eighteenth century for composers to set Metastasian texts two or more times over). This setting stays remarkably close to the original drama for its day (it was customary to alter Metastasian texts considerably so long after their original performances), but the role of Timante was augmented in order to highlight the talents of its interpreter, the distinguished male soprano Gaetano Guadagni. All of Mysliveček's operas are of the serious type in Italian referred to as opera seria.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Demofoonte (Mysliveček, 1769)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Josef Mysliveček (9 March 1737 – 4 February 1781) was a Czech composer. He contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music. Mysliveček provided his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with significant compositional models in the genres of symphony, Italian serious opera, and violin concerto; both Wolfgang and his father Leopold Mozart considered him an intimate friend from the time of their first meetings in Bologna in 1770 until he betrayed their trust over the promise of an operatic commission for Wolfgang to be arranged with the management of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. His closeness to the Mozart family resulted in frequent references to him in the…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Josef Mysliveček", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.