After lengthy and thorough research, backed by forty years of studying Vivaldi’s sources and curating his immense catalogue (RV), Federico Maria Sardelli has managed to trace, reconstruct and restore no fewer than 18 arias from La Costanza Trionfante, RV 706-A, a lost work that bears witness to the Red Priest’s most flourishing creative period, namely his full maturity. It is a substantial fragment which, quantitatively, represents about a half of the opera and offers a concrete and surprising idea of its great quality. At the head of the modo antiquo baroque orchestra and with a cast of great value, Federico Maria Sardelli offers the public the first performance in modern times of this substantial fragment woven with unpublished arias: a unique opportunity to enjoy a title that is today completely new and absent from the repertoire. A window onto a chapter of Vivaldi’s work rich in extraordinary beauty.

Il Bajazet was commissioned in 1735 to open Verona’s carnival season. Vivaldi chose a libretto by Agostino Piovene drawn from the well-known story of the defeated Ottoman sultan, King Bajazet, captured by Tamerlane who duly falls in love with Bajazet’s proud daughter, Asteria. Vivaldi was in his late maturity when he completed the opera, modifying his music to suit contemporary taste, and using the pasticcio form, incorporating some arias written by other, mostly Neapolitan, composers. Repurposing of this kind was wholly acceptable at the time and such works enjoyed great popularity. The conductor and Vivaldi specialist, Federico Maria Sardelli, has integrated lost arias, clarified the use of historically appropriate orchestration, and brought the opera to rich theatrical life.

Misattributed in the past to composers such as Pergolesi, the enduring success of Pietro Auletta ’s L’Orazio saw it staged and adapted so many times over the centuries that its original 1737 structure is now lost. This is the opera’s first revival in modern times. The style of L’Orazio reflects the end of the Baroque period at a time in which refined galant and pre-Classical inflections were taking hold. The work’s comic narrative of romantic complications and rivalries take place amidst scenarios in which the music lessons of maestro Lamberto alternate with dubious theatrical engagements and carnival masquerades.

Francesco Cavalli succeeded Monteverdi as the most influential composer of the new genre of opera that emerged in mid-17th-century Venice. Il Xerse is a fictitious dramma per musica that tells of Persian King Xerxes’ love for Romilda, who in turn is in love with his brother Arsamene. The plot is an entertaining and extremely intricate human comedy of crossed loves, court intrigues and disguises – the work’s popularity saw it staged in Paris at the wedding of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain. Since overshadowed by Handel’s later Xerxes, this Martina Franca production is the first in modern times.