Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: Il prigionier superbo: Mixed Choir And Ensemble

Based on the reworking of an old anonymous libretto by Francesco Silvani (1705), La fede tradita e vendicata, the dramma serio Il prigionier superbo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was presented at the Teatro di San Bartolomeo in Naples on 5 September 1733. It was the work of a young composer who in a few months had already collected the first and important successes in theaters, churches and families of the Neapolitan aristocracy. With Il prigionier superbo, Pergolesi approached a lucky theatrical subject, whose vitality was ensured by the dramatic conflict between filial love and conjugal love, which manifests itself in the central scene of the opera. Among the acts of the drama serio were the interludes La serva padrona, whose overwhelming success would soon become a European phenomenon.
The main source of the edition is a copy of the score kept at the Conservatorio “San Pietro a Majella” in Naples, written by Giuseppe Sigismondo who most likely had the lost autograph manuscript by Pergolesi at his disposal. In addition to the main source, the edition draws on two other copies of the score, kept respectively at the Biblioteca Oratoriana dei Girolamini and the Conservatorio of Naples, and on a number of handwritten arias extracted. The critical edition is accompanied by a historical introduction, which traces the events of the dramatic subject and illustrates the circumstances of the commission, the genesis, the representation and the success of the work, and a critical apparatus with notes to the verbal text and musical. Two appendices contain a first draft of the last movement of the Symphony and an additional aria for the third act, the text of which does not appear in the printed libretto.