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''Ottone, re di Germania'' ("Otto, King of Germany", HWV 15) is an opera by George Frideric Handel, to an Italian–language libretto adapted by Nicola Francesco Haym from the libretto by Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino for Antonio Lotti's opera ''Teofane''.〔McLauchlan, Fiona, "Lotti's ''Teofane'' (1719) and Handel's ''Ottone'' (1723): A Textual and Musical Study" (August 1997). ''Music & Letters'', 78 (3): pp. 349-390.〕 It was the first new opera written for the Royal Academy of Music (1719)'s fourth season and had its first performance on 12 January 1723 at the King's Theatre, Haymarket in London. Handel had assembled a cast of operatic superstars for this season and the opera became an enormous success. The story of the opera is a fictionalisation of some events in the lives of Adalbert of Italy, his mother Willa of Tuscany (called "Gismonda" in the opera), Otto II, and the Byzantine Princess Theophanu, who became the wife of Otto II in a state marriage intended to form an alliance between the Byzantine and Holy Roman empires. ==Background== The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera ''Rinaldo''. A tremendous success, ''Rinaldo'' created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. In 1719, Handel was appointed music director of an organisation called the Royal Academy of Music (unconnected with the present day London conservatoire), a company under royal charter to produce Italian operas in London. Handel was not only to compose operas for the company but hire the star singers, supervise the orchestra and musicians, and adapt operas from Italy for London performance.〔Dean, W. & J.M. Knapp (1995) Handel's operas 1704-1726, p. 298.〕 For the fourth season in 1723, for which his first opera was ''Ottone'', Handel assembled a cast of star singers including the internationally famous castrato, Senesino, beginning a long and sometimes stormy association with Handel that included creating seventeen leading roles in his operas for London, at a vast salary.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.handelhouse.org/discover/george-frideric-handel/opera-synopses/ottone )〕 The star soprano Margherita Durastanti, who had sung in many of Handel's early works in Italy as well as his previous operas in London, joined the cast, as did English soprano Anastasia Robinson, who was unhappy about much of the music Handel had written for her to sing in ''Ottone'', feeling that she could not portray, as he desired, scorn and anger, and appealed in a letter to one of the patrons of the Royal Academy to intervene with Handel to write gentler music for her to suit her abilities. Also in the cast was another internationally renowned castrato, Gaetano Berenstadt, in the first of three roles he created in Handel operas. New to London for ''Ottone'', in addition to Senesino, was celebrated Italian soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. She knew that Handel had written much of the music for the opera before he had hired her, and at the first rehearsal with the composer, indicated that she would like him to write a new entrance aria especially for her, to show her unique talents and make a good first impression with the London public. On being asked to replace the aria ''Falsa imagine'' with a new one, Handel, according to his first biographer John Mainwaring, flew into a rage: Having one day some words with CUZZONI on her refusing to sing Falsa imagine in OTTONE; Oh! Madame, (said he), je sçais bien que Vous êtes une véritable Diablesse: mais je Vous ferai sçavoir, moi, que je suis Beelzebub le Chéf des Diables (I know that you are a very devil: but I must tell you, I am Beelzebub the Chief of the Devils).; With this he took her up by the waist, and, if she made any more words, swore that he would fling her out of the window.〔 Cuzzoni yielded and sang the aria Handel had written with enormous success, including it throughout her career in recitals and concerts.〔 Handel had seen Antonio Lotti's opera ''Teofane'', to the same libretto as ''Ottone'', in Dresden in 1719, and with three of the same singers in the same roles, though with newly written music by Handel, they had played in the Lotti work - Senesino, Giuseppe Maria Boschi and Margherita Durastanti repeated their roles from the Lotti opera in ''Ottone''.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ottone」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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