Siroe : A.Spering / Cappella Coloniensis, Hallenberg, Noack, Stojkovic, etc (2003 Stereo)(2CD)

The hmHeritage series offers a new lease on life to the major productions that have established the reputation of the harmonia mundi catalogue: operas, oratorios, extensive cycles, and large-scale projects of every kind are presented in full to ensure this precious legacy remains available. Handel's opera Siroe, r di Persia was premiered at London's Haymarket Theatre in 1728. Not entirely by coincidence, in the year following George II's accession to the throne, it forms with Riccardo Primo, r d'Inghilterra and Tolomeo a kind of triptych on royal subjects. But this was also the first time Handel had set a libretto by a young beginner, Pietro Antonio Trapassi, who would come to symbolize eighteenth-century Italian opera, and, under the name of Metastasio, wrote more than 27 librettos which inspired around 850 works by 260 composers.