Ormindo is the third melodrama to have been born of the collaboration between librettist Giovanni Faustini and composer Francesco Cavalli. The plot, following the established code of dramatic convention, tells the story of two pairs of lovers (Erisbe and Ormindo, Sicle and Amida) as they experience reversals of fortune, disguise and a ficticious death, all of which culminates in the agnizione of Ormindo as Hariadeno’s long-lost son in an incomparable coup de theatre. In Ormindo, as in the majority of Venetian operas from the same period, all is wagered upon the expressive power of the voices. It is no wonder that the instrumental accompaniment is entrusted to a string ensemble backed by a continuo. The symphonies and ritornelli, sometimes merely sketched out in the score and left to be improvised by the singers during performance, have the role of giving body to the fine texture of the character’s monologues and dialogues, accompanying them throughout the vicissitudes with which they are confronted.