''Zenobia, regina de’ Palmireni'' (Zenobia, Queen of the Palmyrans) is an opera in three acts by

Tomaso Albinoni Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni (8 June 1671 – 17 January 1751) was an Italian composer of the Baroque era. His output includes operas, concertos, sonatas for one to six instruments, sinfonias, and solo cantatas. While famous in his day as an opera co ...

with a libretto by Antonio Marchi. It was Albinoni’s first opera, written when he was only 23, and was first performed at the 1694 carnival at the

Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo The Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo (often written as Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo) was a theatre and opera house in Venice located on the Calle della Testa, and takes its name from the nearby Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Built by the ...

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

. The work was popular and performances continued for several weeks. Albinoni was also the first composer to write an opera on the theme of Zenobia.

Action

Zenobia Septimia Zenobia (Greek: Ζηνοβία, Palmyrene Aramaic: , ; 240 – c. 274) was a third-century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner, and she married the ruler of the ...

(soprano), queen of Palmyra, has been defeated by the Roman emperor Aureliano (alto) because of the treachery of the governor of

Palmyra Palmyra ( ; Palmyrene dialect, Palmyrene: (), romanized: ''Tadmor''; ) is an ancient city in central Syria. It is located in the eastern part of the Levant, and archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first menti ...

, Ormonte (tenor), who hopes to marry his daughter Filidea (soprano) to the emperor. Zenobia refuses to submit to him, even when he offers to marry her. Infuriated, Aureliano decides to put Zenobia and her son to death, but when he overhears Ormonte offer to kill him and Zenobia refuses, he thinks better of it. Instead, Aureliano restores Zenobia to her throne. Ormonte is exiled and unity and order restored. The above

Happy ending A happy ending is an ending of the plot of a work of fiction in which there is a positive outcome for the protagonist or protagonists, and in which this is to be considered a favourable outcome. In storylines where the protagonists are in phy ...

is contradictory to the facts of recorded history. Zenobia was taken as a captive to Rome, some sources state that she was ultimately beheaded, others that Aurelian spared her life and allowed her to live as private citizen. In either case, unlike in the opera, Zenobia's throne was irrevocably lost and her kingdom annexed to the Roman Empire.

Style

Marchi’s libretto did not give his characters great emotional presence and offered little insight into their motivations. Albinoni was an experienced writer of instrumental music but a newcomer to opera; the sung music he wrote consisted mostly of standard

da capo Da capo ( , , ; often abbreviated as D.C.) is an Italian musical term that means "from the beginning" (literally, "from the head"). The term is a directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space, and thus is an easie ...

arias which overall lacked great dramatic power. The arias are generally short to keep the action moving and provide interest through contrast.

Modern revival

The opera’s first modern performance was at the

Damascus Opera House The Damascus Opera House (formerly Dar al-Assad for Culture and Arts) () is the national opera house of Syria. Inaugurated on 7 May 2004, it is located in central Damascus, on the Umayyad Square. History Damascus already had an opera house in ...

in 2008. It was also performed at

La Fenice Teatro La Fenice (; "The Phoenix Theatre") is a historic opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th cen ...

in Venice in 2018.

References

External links

digital copy of original libretto
{{authority control Operas by Tomaso Albinoni 1694 operas Italian Baroque 1694 in music Cultural depictions of Aurelian Cultural depictions of Zenobia