Alessandro Stradella (opera)

Alessandro Stradella
Romantische Oper by Friedrich von Flotow
The composer in 1847
Librettist	Friedrich Wilhelm Riese
Language	German
Based on	Alessandro Stradella
Premiere	30 December 1844 (1844-12-30) Stadttheater, Hamburg

Alessandro Stradella is a romantic opera (Romantische Oper) in three acts composed by Friedrich von Flotow to a German libretto by "Wilhelm Friedrich" (Friedrich Wilhelm Riese). Set in Venice and the countryside near Rome, it is loosely based on the colourful life of the 17th-century Italian composer and singer Alessandro Stradella. It was first performed in its full version on 30 December 1844 at the Stadttheater in Hamburg.

Alessandro Stradella began its life as Stradella, a one-act comédie en vaudeville which opened in Paris at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal on 2 February 1837. Flotow then revised and expanded the work to a full three-act opera which had a successful premiere at the Stadttheater in Hamburg on 30 December 1844. The work proved to be very popular in Germany and in Austria where its successful debut at the Theater am Kärntnertor in 1845 led to a commission from the theatre to compose another opera, Martha, which premiered there in 1847. Alessandro Stradella was performed in an Italian translation by Callisto Bassi in several opera houses in Italy, including the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa and the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan. It was also heard in Warsaw at the Teatr Wielki in 1858, in Brussels at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (in a French translation by Alphonse Royer) in 1859, in Paris at the Théâtre des Italiens (in Italian) in 1863, and in London at the Royal Opera House in 1864.