Francesco Gasparini’s Atalia is reborn at the Château de Versailles. This is a forgotten masterpiece, an oratorio of great dramatic intensity and exuberant music; it is also the first oratorio inspired by a work of French literature, Athalie by Racine. This piece by the French genius of tragedy was in fact first performed a year earlier, in 1691, at the Collège de Saint-Cyr near Paris. In Rome, pupils at religious colleges were also accustomed to performing his works; one version of this sacred story was played, in Italian, at the Collegio Clementino in 1692. Gasparini himself wrote the music – he was a famous pupil of Corelli and would soon go on to become Maestro di Coro de l’Ospedale de la Pietà in Venice, where Vivaldi officiated.

First part: 1h10

Intermission: 

Second part: 50 min

Oratorio in two parts to an anonymous libretto, after Racine’s tragedy Athalie, premièred in Rome in 1692.

Concert in Italian with no surtitles.