NICOLA PORPORA (1686-1768): L’Angelica.

Description: One of the few luminaries of the ‘Neapolitan School’ to actually be born in Naples, Porpora wrote L’Angelica, a serenade for six voices and instruments, to a libretto by the young Pietro Metastasio in 1720. The work was composed for the birthday of Empress Elizabeth Christine, wife of Charles VI, and its plot is comedic, focusing on the travails of a couple in love. The opera’s success was immediate, resulting in the commissioning of further works that would lead to ever more glamorous successes for Porpora in Venice, London, Dresden and Vienna. Italian-English libretto online. Teresa Iervolino, Gaia Petrone (mezzos), Paola Valentina Molinari, Ekaterina Bakanova (sopranos), La Lira de Orfeo; Federico Maria Sardelli.