Arianna in Nasso (Porpora)

Arianna in Nasso is a 1733 opera by Nicola Porpora to a libretto by Paolo Rolli, chief conductor of the Opera of the Nobility. The choice of the subject of Ariadne was a challenge to Handel, whose Arianna in Creta was completed by 5 October 1733.[1] Handel's Arianna in Creta was based on Pietro Pariati's much-set Arianna e Teseo, in the later of two versions by Leonardo Leo (1729). This was a libretto which Porpora himself had also used for his own Arianna e Teseo (1721).[2] Handel's choice of libretto obliged Porpora to turn to Rolli's libretto which was modeled not on Pariati but on Stampa's libretto to Giovanni Porta's dramma pastorale, Arianna.[3][4]

References

1. Essays on Handel and Italian Opera -Reinhard Strohm - 1985 Page 183 0521264286 Porpora was now chief conductor of the Opera of the Nobility and his setting of a new drama by Rolli on the subject of Ariadne (Arianna in Nasso) was a deliberate challenge to Handel, whose Arianna was already completed on 5 October 1733. The very fact of Handel's having anticipated him obliged Porpora to set a different Ariadne text, although a comparison of his two scores suggests ...
2. Con Che Soavità: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and Dance, 1580-1740 0198163703 Iain Fenlon, Tim Carter, Nigel Fortune - 1995 -"Only two operas were given, but both settings were commissioned from Neapolitan composers. The libretto of Porpora's Arianna e Teseo, in autumn, was a reworking of Pietro Pariati's Teseo in Creta (1715, Vienna) following, with slight alterations, a revision made by an unknown librettist for the Teatro S. Bartolomeo in Naples in 1721. Here, Leonardo Leo had arranged the music as a pasticcio, with many arias of his own, and in 1729 he returned to the libretto, giving it a new setting all ...
3. Helen M. Greenwald The Oxford Handbook of Opera 2014 0195335538 Page 148 "Rolli's libretto is modeled not on Pariati but on Stampa's libretto to Giovanni Porta's dramma pastorale, Arianna "
4. Colin Timms, Bruce Wood Music in the London Theatre from Purcell to Handel 1108124569 - 2017 "It should be remembered that the choice of Arianna in Creta was not necessarily influenced by royal wishes (Handel found the libretto most probably in Rome in early 1729) and that Nicola Porporaʼs opera Arianna in Nasso was a spin-off from it not vice versa.