Domenico Cimarosa. Artemisia : Dramma Tragico. Venezia, [1801].

Artemesia is the last of Cimarosa’s almost sixty operas, with libretto by Count Giovanni Battista Colloredo who wrote under the pen name of Cratisto Jamejo. Cimarosa completed only two of the acts; the third was completed by an unknown person. The opera premiered at La Fenice in Venice in January 1801, was performed in Florence in 1806, and was likely performed in England, Germany and Russia. Arias from the opera were published in the early nineteenth century and the overture in 1957. However the full opera has never been published. This two-volume manuscript copy was produced in Venice by the well known copying shop of Valentino Bertoja, who at one time was Haydn’s second cellist at Esterháza. It is inscribed to Alvise Mocenigo, a member of one of the most renowned patrician families of the Venetian Republic.

Acquired through the Lucie King Harris Books for Music Fund.