La Griselda

Vivaldi wrote La Griselda in 1735 as a showcase for mezzo-soprano Anna Girò, who was close to him both musically and personally. The opera’s subject matter comes from the Medieval Italian tale of  The Patient Griselda, recounted by Boccaccio and Chaucer as an example of feminine constancy through the cruellest ordeals. It was with Griselda that Vivaldi, hitherto considered too low-brow a composer to be performed in the finest theatres of Venice, finally got his foot into the fashionable Teatro Grimani di San Samuele. There are six characters singing a variety of “simile arias” whose texts refer to storms, birds, arrows etc., each with the fanciful musical illustrations well known from Vivaldi’s concertos.

The performance lasts about 2 hours and 35 minutes including one interval