Ciro (opera)

Ciro (Cyrus), also written Il Ciro, is a 1653 Italian drama per musica (opera) in a prologue and three acts with music by Francesco Provenzale and a libretto by Giulio Cesare Sorrentino.

The opera was probably first performed during Carnival of that year at the Teatro San Bartolomeo in Naples, in a production by Giovan Battista Balbi (fl 1636–1657).

[3] The libretto credits Sorrentino as the librettist, Francesco Cavalli with revising and adding music and Balbi for the scenery, machines, and dances.

[4] The Venetian poet who, with Sorrentino's permission, revised the text to make it more suitable for presentation in that city is not named,[5] but may have been Aurelio Aureli[2] or Balbi.

[6] In modern times, René Jacobs used it for his 1985 recording of Cavalli's Xerse (for which the music of the original prologue has not been found).