Prague, March 8 (CTK) – The Czech Collegium 1704 musical ensemble of Vaclav Luks has prepared a modern premiere of Arsilda, Antonio Vivaldi’s Baroque opera with a surprisingly contemporary effect, and it will present it on a French tour culminating in Versailles, Hospodarske noviny (HN) writes yesterday.
The modern premiere of the 300-year-old and long forgotten opera will take place in the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava on Thursday, and it will set out for a tour across France afterwards.
“The opera is exceptional in the context of Vivaldi’s work, and he was well aware of it. He wrote a very original score for Arsilda, which was unusual at the time. For the rest of his life, he loaned [motifs] from it for his other works,” Luks is quoted as saying.
The production’s director is David Radok, a Czech-born renowned opera maker based in Sweden.
Radok said Arsilda deals with issues that are in fact contemporary.
“It deals with lying, cheating and relativisation of the truth, thereby touching on everything that surrounds us now,” Radok said.
“When I remember Brexit, Donald Trump and the Czech president [Milos Zeman], I realise how horribly contemporary the issues in focus of Arsilda are,” he said.
The first version of Arsilda was banned by a censor in Venice. However, Vivaldi was so interested in seeing the opera on stage that he adjusted the lyrics to remove the most controversial parts with a revolutionary content.
The opera was really premiered afterwards, though the author of the lyrics, Domenico Lalli, distanced himself from its new version.
