ABSTRACT
Ercole amante was one of the first operas by Cavalli to be recorded; it appeared on an LP from 1980, conducted by Michel Corboz. 1 Since then it has been performed many times, most recently in 2009 at the Netherlandish Opera in Amsterdam. 2 This firmly established audio-visual presence of Ercole may well have to do with its special position within Cavalli’s output: commissioned by the French prime minister Jules Mazarin on the occasion of the wedding of Louis XIV and the infanta Maria Teresa (1660), Ercole is one of the few “court operas” by the composer, and one of the similarly few Italian operas performed in France during the seventeenth century. 3 Though this opera is regarded by some as a highpoint in Cavalli’s oeuvre, it is clear that the fate of Ercole in its own times was not fortunate. 4 Originally destined for the wedding ceremonies, it was staged for the first time only in 1662, one year after Mazarin’s death. The main reason for this 334was that the new theater (the “Salle des machines”) that had also been ordered by Mazarin for the performances of Ercole could not be finished in time. 5 And the opera itself had only a lukewarm reception at best, which seems to have been the result of several factors such as anti-Italian tendencies at the French court, the acoustically poor structure of the “Salle des machines,” and so on.
