By Antonio Vivaldi

Libretto by Pietro Metastasio and music by Baldassare Galuppi

Facsimile edition of the score and edition of the libretto, with an essay by Francesca Menchelli Buttini

«Drammaturgia musicale veneta», 20

Ricordi, Milan, 2010

The present volume in the series “Drammaturgia musicale veneta” is a facsimile reproduction of Baldassare Galuppi’s Artaserse, which was staged in 1749 in Vienna at the Burgtheater. This setting is noteworthy for showing the success that the composer enjoyed outside his native country, for employing the poetic and dramatic materials of one of the most famous librettos of Pietro Metastasio, and for lending a new aspect to the close of the fi rst act by inserting a quartet. The reproduction of the score is complemented by a transcription of the libretto in modern orthography, with the addition of a “Nota al testo” (“Notes on the Text”) section that explains its general criteria and clarifi es the relationship of the surviving sources. The introductory essay makes comment on the text and the music, illuminating the problem of the tradition relating to Artaserse with reference to the revivals of Galuppi’s music and to the subject of the relationship of the libretto to its own models; from there, it moves on to consider certain important aspects – the conclusion of the fi rst two acts; the figure of the villain; the opening scenes; the episode of the duet – in the perspective of the interrelationship between drama and music and between verbal, musical and visual meaning.