Catone in Utica (; ) is an opera libretto by Metastasio, that was originally written for Leonardo Vinci's 1727 opera. Following Vinci's success, Metastasio's text was used by numerous composers of the baroque and classical eras for their own operas, including Pietro Torri (1736), Antonio Vivaldi (1737), Giovanni Battista Ferrandini (1753) and J. C. Bach (1761).
History Before Metastasio's Catone in Utica libretto, Cato the Younger had already been the subject of following operas: Catone il giovane, by Bartolomeo Monari, libretto by (Bologna 1688)Domenico Pietropaolo, Mary Ann Parker (2011). The Baroque Libretto: Italian Operas and Oratorios in the Thomas Fisher Library at the University of Toronto. University of Toronto Press. , p. 109 Catone Uticensi, by Carlo Francesco Pollarolo (Venice 1701) Cato, German opera by Reinhard Keiser, text after Matteo Noris (Hamburg 1715)Cato, Die Liebe gegen das Vaterland, oder Der sterbende Cato at Stanford University website.
Metastasio wrote Catone in Utica in Italian, as a libretto for an opera in three acts. He changed the name of Cornelia to Emilia and that of Juba to Arbace, as better suited for music. Leonardo Vinci set the libretto to music for the first time. Vinci's opera was premiered at the Teatro delle Dame, Rome, during the carnival of 1727.
Content The subject of the libretto is the death of Cato the Younger, set in Utica. Following characters are represented: Catone (Cato the Younger) Cesare (Julius Caesar) Marzia, daughter of Catone, secretly in love with Cesare Arbace, Prince of Numidia, friend of Catone and lover of Marzia Emilia, widow of Pompeo (Pompey) Fulvio, legate of the Roman Senate and lover of Emilia.
Operas Metastasio's libretto was also set by: Geminiano Giacomelli, Vienna, 1727 Leonardo Leo, Venice, 1729 Johann Adolph Hasse, Turin, 1732 George Frederick Handel, London, 1732, a pasticcio adapted mainly from Leo's 1729 setting, but transposing, editing or even entirely replacing its various arias to suit the skills of the singers he had at his disposal; some of the interpolated arias included pre-existing compositions by Porpora, Antonio Vivaldi, Hasse, and Leonardo Vinci. Pietro Torri, Munich, 1736 Antonio Vivaldi, Venice and Verona, 1737 Egidio Duni, Italy, about 1738 , Brunswick, 1743 Carl Heinrich Graun, Berlin, 1744 Niccolò Jommelli, Vienna, 1749 Giovanni Battista Ferrandini, Munich, 1758 Vincenzo Legrenzo Ciampi, Venice, 1750 Florian Leopold Gassmann, Vienna, about 1760 Johann Christian Bach, Naples, 1761 Gian Francesco de Majo, Naples, 1763 Niccolò Piccinni, Naples, 1770 , Naples, 1777 , Milan, 1782 Giovanni Paisiello, Naples, 1788 Peter Winter, Venice, 1791.
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Volume I Volume II Volume III