La grotta di Trofonio
Music by Antonio Salieri · libretto by Giovanni Battista Casti · premiered 1785 · at Burgtheater
La grotta di Trofonio (Trofonio's Cave) is an opera, described as an opera comica, in two acts (five scenes) composed by Antonio Salieri to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Battista Casti. The work was first performed in Vienna at the Burgtheater on 12 October 1785. The similarity of the story of the opera may have influenced Lorenzo da Ponte when he wrote the libretto of Mozart's Così fan tutte.
Text from the Wikipedia article "La grotta di Trofonio", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Antonio Salieri (18 August 1750 – 7 May 1825) was an Italian composer and teacher of the classical period. He was born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, and spent his adult life and career as a subject of the Habsburg monarchy. Salieri was a pivotal figure in the development of late 18th-century opera. As a student of Florian Leopold Gassmann, and a protégé of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Salieri was a cosmopolitan composer who wrote operas in three languages. Salieri helped to develop and shape many of the features of operatic compositional vocabulary, and his music was a powerful influence on contemporary composers. Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Antonio Salieri", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.