Riccardo Primo
Riccardo primo, re d'Inghilterra ("Richard the First, King of England", HWV 23) is an opera seria in three acts written by George Frideric Handel for the Royal Academy of Music (1719) .
[1] Riccardo Primo was the third opera Handel composed for the trio of famous star Italian singers, the castrato Senesino and the sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni.
[3] Later performances were given at Kourion Amphitheater in Cyprus at 1991, in order to mark the 800th anniversary of the historical events on which the opera is based, at the 1996 Göttingen Festival[4] and at the Händelfestspiele at the Badisches Staatstheater in 2014 and 2015.
The work was given its United States premiere, presented as Richard the Lionheart, by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis during the summer 2015 season.
She finds shelter at the court of the local governor, Isacio, pretending that she and her tutor, Berardo, are actually brother and sister, Doride and Narsete, servants of Costanza.
A tremendous success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers.
The two prima donnas had appeared in continental European countries in operas together without incident, but in London they developed rival groups of fans who interrupted the performances with rowdy displays of partisanship for one lady or another.
This came to a climax on 6 June 1727 during a performance at the King's Theatre of Astianatte by Giovanni Bononcini with both singers onstage and royalty in the audience.
Fist fights and disorder between rival groups of fans broke out in the audience and the two sopranos exchanged insults and came to blows onstage.
The scandal was gleefully repeated in the newspapers, in satirical skits on other stages, and in mock-heroic verse, bringing the entire form of Italian opera into a certain amount of disrepute in London.
As one of Handel's most loyal supporters, Mary Delaney, wrote in 1727: I doubt operas will not survive longer than this winter, they are now at their last gasp; the subscription is expired and nobody will renew it.
[11]The Royal Academy of Music collapsed at the end of the 1728–29 season, partly due to the huge fees paid to the star singers, and Cuzzoni and Faustina both left London for engagements in continental Europe.
"[12] The opera was not revived by Handel, although to 18th century musicologist Charles Burney it contained much fine music, including an aria for Faustina, Vado per obedirti, which: is the most agreeable song of execution of the times.
