ABSTRACT
The libretto moves both dramaturgically and thematically within the trusted confines of the mixed genres of Italian opera, which around 1815 was beginning to settle down into the descriptive category of melodramma semiserio. Meyerbeer's successful Italian debut with Romilda e Costanza attracted the attention of many impresarios. Out of several offers, he accepted one for the Teatro Regio in Turin, and chose for his next scrittura a classical text of eighteenth-century Italian opera seria by the legendary Pietro Metastasio which was transformed for him into a contemporary melodramma serio. The distribution of the voice types is typical of the opera seria of the early nineteenth century, with a soprano/mezzo-soprano as prima donna, a mezzo-soprano or contralto as the primo uomo/musico, and a tenore or high tenor, sometimes a barytenore in the tertiary role. Semiramide explains herself and reminds the people that she was always a good ruler even though she belongs to the weaker sex.
