Il gran Tamerlano

Il gran Tamerlano ("The Great Tamerlane") is an opera in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček.

The opera was first performed at the Regio-Ducal Teatro in Milan on 26 December 1771 (that is, the first day of the operatic carnival season of 1772).

Il gran Tamerlano was revived in Pavia in 1776, but not performed in modern times until a production was mounted in Brno in the former Czechoslovakia in 1967 (an abbreviated version was given in Prague in 1977).

Eighteenth-century Italian operas in serious style are almost always set in a distant or legendary past and are built around historical, pseudo-historical, or mythological characters.

The story of Il gran Tamerlano is based on events surrounding the Battle of Ankara of 1402, fought between the forces of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I and the Turco-Mongol ruler Timur, who is known in English-speaking countries as Tamerlane.

Tamerlano has the idea of offering Andronico his own kingdom and the hand of his current betrothed, Irene, if he can persuade Bajazette to give his permission to allow him to marry his daughter Asteria.