Organization

Singer

Tenor

Omar Najmi

Alessandro

Soprano

Katherine Whyte

Aminta

Holly Flack

Elisa

Madeline Ross

Tamiri

Brandon Michael

Agenore

Conductor

Nicholas Fox

Stage director

Dan Rigazzi

Set designer

Peter Ksander

Costume designer

Sydney Dufka

Lighting designer

Connie Yun

Hairstylist

Sara Beukers

Makeup artist

OrpheusPDX

Il re pastore -  (The Shepherd King)

Portland

United States

Lincoln Hall

Public

The Shepherd King

Approved

Il re pastore Mozart

Il Re Pastore (The Shepherd King) is an opera, K. 208, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Metastasio, edited by Giambattista Varesco. It is an opera seria. The opera was first performed on 23 April 1775 in Salzburg in the Rittersaal (knight’s hall) of the Residenz-Theater in the palace of the Archbishop Count Hieronymus von Colloredo.

In 1775 the opera was commissioned for a visit by the Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa, to Salzburg. Mozart spent six weeks working on the opera. It consists of two acts and runs for approximately 107 minutes.

Metastasio wrote the libretto in 1751, basing it on a work by Torquato Tasso called Aminta. The libretto was picked up when Mozart (just 19 at the time) and his father saw a performance of it set to music composed by Felice Giardini – Mozart’s version, however was two acts rather than Giardini’s three, and has a few substantial changes. Each act lasts for around an hour in performance. The Salzburg court chaplain Varesco was largely responsible for this editing of Metastasio’s libretto.

It is often referred to not as an opera, but as a serenata, a type of dramatic cantata. The appearance of a quartet of lovers (Aminta and Elisa, Agenore and Tamiri) of somewhat dubious fidelity automatically puts a modern audience in mind of Così fan tutte. The principal psychological theme of the opera is, however, the demands of love against the demands of kingship, as Aminta, the shepherd-king, tussles with his conscience, and in this Il Re Pastore is closer in theme to Idomeneo than any other of Mozart’s operas. Indeed, Idomeneo was the next completed opera that Mozart wrote after Il Re Pastore, after his six-year-long break from the stage. Furthermore, the theme of qualities for kingship appears in another opera, La Clemenza di Tito, his last one.

English

The Shepherd King by Mozart, From (2023/2023), Directed by Dan Rigazzi,, Conductor Nicholas Fox, Lincoln Hall, Portland, United States

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues