Tolomeo

Tolomeo, re d'Egitto ("Ptolemy, King of Egypt", HWV 25) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel to an Italian text by Nicola Francesco Haym, adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's Tolomeo et Alessandro. It was Handel's 13th (or 14th if the one act Handel contributed to the collaborative opera Muzio Scevola is counted) and last opera for the Royal Academy of Music (1719) and was also the last of the operas he composed for the triumvirate of internationally renowned singers, the castrato Senesino and the sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni.

The story of the opera is a fictionalisation of some events in the life of Ptolemy IX Lathyros, king of Egypt.

An aria from the opera, Non lo dirò col labbro, was adapted by Arthur Somervell (1863–1937) as the popular classic 'Silent Worship', 1928.

Tolomeo was first performed at the King's Theatre, London on 30 April 1728 and received seven performances. It was revived with revisions on 19 May 1730 and 2 January 1733, a mark of the work's popularity. The first production of modern times was conducted by Fritz Lehmann at Göttingen on 19 June 1938. As with all Baroque opera seria, Tolomeo went unperformed for many years, but with the revival of interest in Baroque music and historically informed musical performance since the 1960s,Tolomeo, like all Handel operas, receives performances at festivals and opera houses today.Among other productions, Tolomeo was performed at the Handel Festival in Halle in 1996, by English Touring Opera in 2006, and by Glimmerglass Opera in 2010.

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