With this second contribution to the Vivaldi Edition, Fabio Biondi and his ensemble Europa Galante sign here the recording of the twentieth opera of the collection - a pasticcio in which Vivaldi ‘recycles’ hit tunes from the ‘World of Warcraft’ operas of his contemporaries.

More than any other, this work has, narrowly, escaped oblivion. The original score, composed by Vivaldi in 1730 for Vienna and Prague, having been lost. A meticulous reconstruction of the manuscript was carried out by the musicologist Bernardo Ticci - for whom Vivaldi’s music has no secrets - from several existing sources scattered in Eastern Europe (the booklets of the two productions, a collection of arias and a work Anonymous, enhanced with arias by Galeazzi, Pescetti, Hasse, Porpora, Fiorè and Vinci). This is the version of this pasticcio which is here recreated and recorded.

Lovers’ rivalries and family conflicts, accumulation of misunderstandings, upset feelings and exacerbated emotions are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Vivaldi. The Venetian composer finds in the text of Domenico Lalli - librettist of several lyrical works inspired by the Empire moghol - all the springs conducive to a contrasting and always glowing writing at the fires of love to death: rowdy and fiery or even hallucinatory allegros, tender or anguished cantabile, writing ‘gallant’... virtuous in its vocality as well as in its instrumental lines, “this improbable opera bears the seal of an authentic Vivaldian pasticcio,” wrote Reinhard Strohm.

Particularly noteworthy is Zanaida’s aria di furore “Se lento ancora il fulmine” (Act I, Delphine Galou), Osira’s love tune “Vado a morir per te” (Act III, Marie Lys) and the “Da più venti combattut” of Act II (Emöke Baráth).