About the work
Il gran Tamerlano is an opera seria in three acts by Josef Mysliveček, on a libretto by Agostino Piovene reworked for the occasion, which Giovanni Battista Lampugnani had already set in 1746. The premiere opened the 1772 carnival season at the Regio-Ducal Teatro in Milan on 26 December 1771 and became one of the most successful operas staged there in its day.
Plot
After the 1402 Battle of Ankara, the Mongol ruler Tamerlano holds the Ottoman Sultan Bajazette and his daughter Asteria captive. When Tamerlano falls in love with Asteria, she feigns affection to save her father while secretly planning to poison the conqueror. Once the deception is discovered, Tamerlano magnanimously allows her to marry the Greek commander Andronico, and the humiliated Bajazette poisons himself with the draught meant for his captor.
Cultural significance
For Bajazette, Mysliveček unusually wrote a substantial bass role — the only one in his entire operatic output — departing from opera seria's usual preference for high voices. Musicologist Daniel E. Freeman also identified a striking resemblance between the overture and the opening movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 9, K. 73, pointing to the two composers' close contact in these years.