About the work
Telemaco, ossia L'isola di Circe is an opera in three acts by Alessandro Scarlatti, with a libretto by Carlo Sigismondo Capece. It premiered during the 1718 carnival season at the Teatro Capranica in Rome, with the castrato Domenico Gizzi in the title role, and ranks among Scarlatti's last works for the stage.
Plot
Drawing on Homer's Odyssey and François Fénelon's didactic novel "Les Aventures de Télémaque," the libretto follows young Telemaco's search for his father Odysseus. On the island of the sorceress Circe he becomes caught up in a web of seduction, intrigue and divine intervention, from which only the goddess Minerva's help can free him.
Cultural significance
The score is notable for its dense contrapuntal writing and striking onstage instrumental effects – horns, oboes and bassoon for Neptune's entrance, and a separate string band with trumpets in Minerva's chariot. Rediscovered in the Austrian National Library, the opera was revived in 2005 at the Schwetzingen Festival with the Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble under Thomas Hengelbrock.