- Poro (opera)
"Poro, re dell'Indie" (or "Porus, King of the Indians") (HWV 28) is an
opera seria in three acts byGeorge Frideric Handel . The Italian-languagelibretto was adapted from "Alessandro nell'Indie" byMetastasio , and based onAlexander the Great 's encounter with KingPorus in 326 BC.Graham Cummings has examined in detail the composition history of "Poro" in the context of Handel's work on his London operas during the 1730's, and has postulated the principal time of Handel's composing from September 1730 to 16 January 1731, with small revisions prior to the 2 February premiere. [Cummings, Graham, "Handel's Compositional Methods in His London Operas of the 1730s, and the Unusual Case of "Poro, Rè dell'Indie" (1731)" (August 1998). "Music & Letters", 79 (3): pp. 346-367.]
The opera shifted the story's emphasis from Alessandro to Poro and Cleofide, and their relationship.
Performance history
The opera was first given at the
King's Theatre inLondon on2 February 1731 and on 15 further occasions. It was revived on23 December 1731, and again in a revised form on8 December 1736 . It was also given inHamburg and Brunswick.The first modern performance, also in Brunswick, was in 1928. The first UK performance since Handel's time was in 1966 at Abingdon. [Dean, Winton, "Reports: Abingdon - Handel's "Poro" (November 1966). "The Musical Times", 107 (1485): p. 978.]
Roles
elected recordings
Opus 111 OP30-113/5: Gloria Banditelli, Rossana Bertini; Europa Galante; Fabio Biondi, conductor [Burrows, Donald, "Recording Reviews: Three Handel Operas" (August 1996). "Early Music", 24 (3): pp. 522-524.]
E-book
[http://mdz1.bib-bvb.de/~db/0001/bsb00016924/images/ Score] of "Poro" (ed.
Friedrich Chrysander , Leipzig 1880)References
ources
*citation|first=Winton|last=Dean|title=Handel's Operas, 1726-1741|publisher=Boydell Press|year=2006
id=ISBN 1843832682 The second of the two volume definitive reference on the operas of Handel
*"Poro" by Anthony Hicks, in 'TheNew Grove Dictionary of Opera ', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
