Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena
Music by Francesco Bartolomeo Conti · libretto by Apostolo Zeno · premiered 1719 · at Old Burgtheater
Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena is a tragicomic opera in five acts composed by Francesco Bartolomeo Conti to an Italian libretto by Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Pariati. The libretto is based on the episodes set in the Sierra Morena mountains of Spain in Book I of the Miguel de Cervantes novel Don Quixote. The opera premiered on 6 February 1719 at the Hoftheater in Vienna and proved to be one of Conti's most successful ones. It has had several revivals in modern times beginning in 1987 at the Buxton Festival.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Francesco Bartolomeo Conti (20 January 1682 – 19 July 1732) was an Italian composer and player of the mandolin and theorbo. Little is known about the biography of Conti. He was born in Florence, Italy. By 1700 he was already known as a theorbist not only in his native Florence, but also in other cities such as Ferrara and Milan. The fame he enjoyed by 1701 enabled him to obtain appointment as an auxiliary theorbist at the Habsburg court in Vienna with the same salary as the main theorbist, Orazio Clementi. At the 1706 carnival he made his debut as an opera composer with Cleotide, and in 1713 was appointed as a court composer. In 1708, with the death of Clementi, Conti was promoted senior…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Francesco Bartolomeo Conti", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.