About the work
Kain und Abel – in the original Il primo omicidio, after the libretto also known as Cain, overo Il primo omicidio – is an oratorio in two parts for six voices by Alessandro Scarlatti. According to the score he wrote it in Venice in January 1707; the anonymously printed libretto, usually attributed to Antonio Ottoboni, had appeared there dated "1706" in the Venetian calendar. The score, long thought lost, was only rediscovered in 1964, and the work was heard in public again for the first time in Siena in 1966.
Plot
After the expulsion from Paradise, Adam and Eve are tormented by guilt. When both sons make offerings, God accepts Abel's gift but not Cain's; goaded by the voice of Lucifer, Cain feigns brotherly love, leads Abel out to his fields and strikes him dead after Abel has fallen asleep by a stream. God curses Cain but protects him from death with a mark – life itself is to be his punishment. The parents mourn both sons until God promises Adam descendants from whom the Redeemer will one day come.
Cultural significance
The oratorio has distinctly operatic features: the characters carry the action themselves, there is neither chorus nor narrator, and alongside Lucifer, God also appears as a solo voice, which was unusual in oratorios of the period. Several recordings have appeared since the 1990s, including one under René Jacobs, and since the 2000s the work has also been staged in opera houses.