As one of the leading operatic composers of his generation, Johann Simon Mayr nurtured a fascination with the chivalric stories of medieval England. Le due duchesse, an opera semiseria with buffa elements, is set during the reign of the 10th-century King Edgar. Huntsmen’s and Knights’ choruses and troubadour-like songs give great vivacity to a score that is both lyrical and dramatic. Mayr’s compound of Viennese Classicism and Italianate melodic beauty, allied to his ambitious writing and a skilful libretto, produced an important and influential opera couched in his own unmistakable idiom.

Artists

Young -Jun Ahn (Edgar), Jaegyeong Jo (Loredano), Eun-Hye Choi (Malvina), Markus Scafer (Enrico), Jorg Lindemann (Artur), Harald Thum (Ruggiero), Tina Marie Herbert (Laura), Anna Feith (Betzi), Samuel Hasselhorn (Berto), Niklas Mallmann (Guglielmo), Andreas Mattersberger (Pietro), Simon Mayr Chorus and Members of the Bavarian State Opera Chorus, Concerto de Bassus, Franz Hauk