Motezuma (complete opera)

"The recording engineers are to be congratulated for providing an excellent sound quality and the comprehensive annotation is out of the top-drawer. Vivaldi lovers will not want to be without this beautifully performed and recorded opera."
(MusicWeb March 2006)

Alan Curtis conducts the world-premiere recording of Vivaldi's rediscovered opera.

Archiv Produktion present the world premiere recording of the recently rediscovered opera Motezuma, one of Antonio Vivaldi's most ambitious, colorful and exotic scores. The manuscript was rediscovered in 2002 among the archives of the Berliner Singakademie, which were lost after the war and returned to Berlin in 1999. The opera is loosely based on Hernán Cortés's conquest of Mexico and the downfall of its former emperor Moctezuma (also 'Montezuma'; there are a variety of theories as to why the librettist adopted 'Motezuma'). The libretto includes a fictive love story between Moctezuma's daughter and Cortés's brother.

Editor, harpsichordist and conductor Alan Curtis - one of the leading experts of Baroque music - has assembled some of the finest baroque opera vocalists for this world premiere recording, among them Vito Priante, Marijana Mijanovic and Maite Beaumont. Curtis was also a leader in editing and reconstructing the third of the music that was missing from the recovered manuscript. A rediscovered opera by one of the worlds most popular composers, first time on disc, featuring a carefully chosen cast of brilliant singers directed by a musical mastermind completely in his element - this recording is set to ignite the classical music scene.