ABSTRACT
An implacable animosity against ‘questa ferrea e plumbea etate’ (to use again the words sung by the Pedant in EX. 149 ) lies at the very root of Uno dei Dieci, the earlier and more important in that extraordinary pair of very short operas which Malipiero wrote in 1970, completing them actually after his eighty-eighth birthday When Uno dei Dieci and L’Iscariota had their joint première in 1971, 1 the simple fact that the composer was on the threshold of his tenth decade induced some critics, amazed by such signs of exceptional creative longevity, to overrate the results a little. 2 Yet Uno dei Dieci, in its small way, is indeed a remarkable achievement, which becomes still more fascinating if we bear in mind its personal and even (perhaps) covertly autobiographical associations.
