Motezuma (Mysliveček)

Motezuma is an opera in three acts by Josef Mysliveček set to a libretto by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi that is based on Spanish histories and chronicles about the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II.

The chronological setting of the opera in the early sixteenth century was unusually late for its day, when serious operas in Italian were typically set in ancient times, and rarely in a time period later than the European Middle Ages.

The libretto was first set for a lavish production in 1765 at the Teatro Regio in Turin with music by Gian Francesco de Majo.

It was likely the exotic setting and the availability of a score of the opera in Vienna, that made it so attractive for revival at that time, perhaps as a response to a trend in German-speaking lands in the 1920s to revive works by pre-Romantic German composers such as George Frideric Handel.

Motezuma's aria "Cara che torna in pace" is available in an anthology recorded by the Czech soprano Zdena Kloubová.