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Vivaldi's Motezuma Given U.S. Premiere at Long Beach Opera

Apr. 01, 2009

On Saturday, March 29 Long Beach Opera gave the US premiere of the Vivaldi rarity Motezuma. First performed in Venice in 1733, this fanciful recounting of Cortés' conquering of Mexico was never revived and the score disappeared until a musicologist stumbled upon the manuscript in 2002 in a Berlin library.

The new Baerenreiter performing edition of Motezuma utilized by Long Beach Opera is edited by Maestro Alan Curtis and his close collaborator and Vivaldi scholar Alessandro Ciccolini. Following the Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv CD release in April 2007, Curtis and the renowned international baroque orchestra Il Complesso Barocco presented a fully staged version of Motezuma at the Teatro Sao Carlos in Lisbon directed by Stefano Vizioli. Further performances of Motezuma by Curtis and his ensemble in stage and concert performances included stops in Wiesbaden, Vienna (Theater an der Wien), Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées), Seville, Valladolid, Ferrara, Modena and Piacenza.

Long Beach Opera's production directed by David Schweitzer, which likens the opening scene to that of a museum exhibition ("Pre-Columbian Aesthetics for a Post-Modern Era"), garnered favorable attention from Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times. He writes:

... an amusingly spirited and sexy production... Vivaldi certainly could write dazzling arias that get at real emotions... Schweitzer takes those arias and runs with them. Teutile–brilliantly sung by a young soprano, Courtney Huffman, just entering the professional arena–is, for instance, treated as a supercilious young starlet. She sings and pouts, sings and strips, sings and has sex with her lover, sings and steals the stage. In the process, we are led to contemplate the impossible, that even Lindsay Lohan might have an inner life.

Featuring Artistic Director Andreas Mitisek leading the early music ensemble Musica Angelica, Long Beach Opera's production of Motezuma plays again on April 5 at 4 PM.

The new performing edition of Motezuma by Alan Curtis and Ciccolini can be heard on the Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv recording performed by Maestro Curtis with Il Complesso Barocco. Purchase your copy here.

Learn more on the music of Antonio Vivaldi at Baerenreiter by visiting www.bearenreiter.com.

Learn more on Long Beach Opera by visiting www.longbeachopera.org.

Antonio Vivaldi
Motezuma (1733) BA 7775
musical drama in three acts
libretto (It) by Girolamo Alvise Giusti
edition and reconstructed missing parts by Alessandro Ciccolini and Alan Curtis
for 4 sopranos, mezzo-soprano and baritone
0.2.0.1-2.1.0.0-str-basso continuo
full evening

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