Pietro Metastasio
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Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.
Metastasio, c. 1770 by Meytens or Batoni
Statue of Metastasio in Rome, in front of the Santa Maria in Vallicella
Opere drammatiche, oratorj sacri e poesie liriche (1737)
Opera seria
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Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to about 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the t
Pietro Metastasio
…known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio (Italian pronunciation: ), was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti. Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, a native of Assisi, had taken service in the Corsican regiment of the papal…
Caricature of a performance of Handel's Flavio, featuring three of the best-known opera seria singers of their day: Senesino on the left, diva Francesca Cuzzoni in the centre, and art-loving castrato Gaetano Berenstadt on the right
Caricature of the castrato singer Antonio Bernacchi by Antonio Maria Zanetti, 1723. The florid line implies that the cadenza is overly long, and ascends higher than the campanile of St Mark's Basilica. It ends with the characteristic trill.
Jacopo Amigoni: Il cantante Farinelli con amici (among which Metastasio), c. 1752 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne)
Illustration from a 1764 edition of the score of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice