Bajazet

Composed for Verona’s 1735 Carnival season, Vivaldi’s Bajazet is a pasticcio—18th-century opera’s equivalent to the jukebox musical. There’s music by Vivaldi himself, but the score also includes hit arias by fashionable contemporaries, including Hasse and Giacomelli. Interestingly (and not accidentally), it’s Vivaldi who supplies the arias for the heroes—the noble Bajazet and his daughter Asteria—while villain Tamerlano and the other principals sing music by his rivals. Ruthless Tartar Tamerlano has defeated and captured Ottoman Emperor Bajazet and plans to throw over his intended bride Irene and marry his enemy’s daughter Asteria instead (against her will, if necessary). Conflict comes to a head at a climactic feast, where Bajazet commits suicide. Finally, Tamerlano chooses mercy over vengeance and pardons Asteria. Vivaldi’s libretto wasn’t new. Venetian count Agostino Piovene’s text—a subtle, psychological portrait of power, its privileges and abuses—was first heard on stage in 1711 and had been set or adapted by a number of composers already, notably by Handel in Tamerlano. But its dramatic set pieces and powerful central rivalry between captor and captive emerge freshly painted in Vivaldi’s vivid recitatives: just listen to the moving Act III dialogue between father and daughter. Other highlights include Giacomelli’s “Sposa, son disprezzata”—a dignified lament for Irene—Asteria’s barnstorming “Svena, uccidi, abbatti” and Bajazet’s death: all the drama of a mad scene, but with a hero who is horrifyingly, terrifyingly sane.