Vivaldi: LA COSTANZA TRIONFANTE

After more than forty years devoted to the study of Antonio Vivaldi’s sources and the reconstruction of his catalogue (RV), conductor and musicologist Federico Maria Sardelli presents a major rediscovery: La Costanza trionfante degl’amori, e de gl’odii (RV 706-A), a long-lost opera now partially restored and recorded with Modo Antiquo for Passacaille.

Through years of archival investigation and philological work, Sardelli has traced, identified and reconstructed eighteen arias from the score, representing approximately half of the original opera. This painstaking effort sheds new light on Vivaldi’s theatrical production at the height of his creative maturity and restores to the repertoire a work considered lost for more than three centuries.

A leading authority on Vivaldi, Sardelli has played a central role in redefining modern understanding of the composer’s operatic output. His long-term engagement with the sources—combining scholarship, performance practice and editorial work—forms the foundation of this project, which stands as both a musicological achievement and a living artistic reconstruction.

Recorded in July 2025 at the Oratorio di San Francesco in Florence, the album brings together the period ensemble Modo Antiquo and an international cast including Cecilia Molinari (mezzo-soprano), Valeria La Grotta (soprano), Valentino Buzza (tenor) and Biagio Pizzuti (bass), under Sardelli’s direction. The recording offers the first modern performance of this substantial fragment, built largely from unpublished arias, and opens a new perspective on Vivaldi’s dramatic language and expressive range.

Originally staged at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice as the final opera of the 1715–1716 Carnival season—most likely towards the end of January 1716—La Costanza trionfante degl’amori, e de gl’odii quickly established itself as one of the most successful works associated with Vivaldi’s early operatic career. The libretto by Antonio Marchi, resident poet at several Venetian theatres from 1692 onwards, became one of his most celebrated texts, its dissemination closely tied to the circulation of Vivaldi’s music.

The opera’s success led to numerous revivals and adaptations across Europe well into the 1730s, including productions in Munich, Venice, Vicenza, Hamburg, Mantua and Prague under various titles and reworkings. This widespread circulation attests to the work’s enduring theatrical appeal and cultural impact far beyond its Venetian origins.

This new release represents the culmination of Sardelli’s lifelong engagement with Vivaldi: a project that bridges scholarship and performance, and that allows modern audiences to encounter, for the first time, a substantial fragment of a once-celebrated opera now returned to the sound world for which it was conceived.

 

Booklet: EN, IT