Il re pastore

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Il re pastore (The Shepherd King) is an opera, K. 208, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Pietro Metastasio. It is an opera seria. The opera was first performed on April 23 1775 in Salzburg.

In 1775 the opera was commissioned for a visit by Archduke Maximillian Franz, son of Empress Maria Theresa, to Salzburg. After Mozart spent six weeks working on the opera, it was performed in the Archbishop's palace in Salzburg.

Metastasio wrote the libretto in 1751, basing it on a work by Torquato Tasso called Aminta. The libretto was picked up when Mozart (just 19 at the time) and his father saw a performance of it set to music composed by Felice Giardini — Mozart's version, however was 2 acts rather than Giardini's three. Each act lasts for around an hour in performance. The Salzburg court chaplain, one Gianbattista Varesco, was largely responsibly for this editing of Metastasio's libretto. Mozart then wrote the opera in six weeks (it is often referred to not as an opera, but as a serenata, a type of dramatic cantata).

Dramatis Personæ

Aminta, a shepherd, rightful heir to Sidon (soprano)
Elisa, Phoenician shepherdess (soprano)
Tamiri, daughter of the deposed tyrant, Stratone (soprano)
Agenore, Sidonian aristocrat (tenor)
Alessandro, King of Macedonia (tenor)

The apperarance of a quartet of lovers (Aminta and Elisa, and Agenore and Tamiri) of somwhat dubious fidelity automatically puts a modern audience in mind of Così fan tutte. The principal psychological theme of the opera is, however, the demands of love against the demands of Kingship, as Aminta, the Shepherd-king, tussles with his conscience, and in this Il re pastore is closer in theme to Idomeneo than any other of Mozart's operas. Indeed, Idomeneo was the next completed opera that Mozart wrote after Il re pastore, after his six-year-long break from the stage.

External links

[Il rè pastore, introduction and synopsis at The Mozart Project]

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