ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Debora e Sisara by Guglielmi and Sernicola, among the most widely circulated operas of the late eighteenth century. Among the early works in the genre it represents the paradigm for the Neapolitan tradition of Lenten tragedy. Guglielmi demonstrates again a mastery of the large orchestral component available at the royal theater in his score to Debora e Sisara. The political, ideological, and social currents that animated the ongoing discourse between Rome and Naples found creative expression in the emergence of Lenten tragedy in the waning years of the 1780s. The institution of the Lenten dramas represented an autonomous period of opera performance in Naples as well as introducing an entirely new rendering of a well-known sacred genre. Sernicola's libretto for Debora e Sisara presents an innovative fusion of traditional elements of sacred drama and tragedy with qualities entirely striking and original to the stage of the San Carlo.
