Ivano Bettin

La Dorilla RV 709

The present reduction derives from the critical edition of the score, published in this catalog in November 2019. Antonio Vivaldi's La Dorilla, a heroic-pastoral opera on a libretto by Antonio Maria Lucchini, was premiered at the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice on 6 November 1726. Six years later it was revived in a much shortened and altered form at the Sporck Theatre in Prague. In 1734 it returned for the last time to the Venetian stage at the Teatro Sant'Angelo, where, despite being greatly revised, it was once again successful. Many of its recitatives had been shortened and several arias replaced, some with movements borrowed from other operas by Vivaldi and some with arias taken from ones by other composers, such as Johann Adolf Hasse, Geminiano Giacomelli, Domenico Sarro and Leonardo Leo. The adaptation was the work of the Venetian man of letters Bartolomeo Vitturi, who adjusted the libretto with the precise aim of satisfying the demands of the public, which wished to hear the most famous pieces by the composers who were fashionable in those years. This vocal-score edition includes a synthetic introduction of the historical context, the description of the main source employed and a choice of the critical Notes to the musical text.