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" Ombra mai fu" ("Never was a shade…"), also known as "Largo from Xerxes" or "Handel's Largo", is the opening aria from the opera Serse (1738) by George Frideric ...
The King of Persia, Serse, gives effusive, loving thanks to the plane tree for furnishing him with shade (Arioso: "Ombra mai fu"). His brother Arsamene, with his buffoonish servant Elviro, enters, looking for Arsamene's sweetheart Romilda. They stop as they hear her singing from the summerhouse. Romilda is making gentle fun of Serse with her song.
In March 1757, possibly without much involvement from the blind and aging Handel, the oratorio was further expanded and revised. The libretto was reworked into English, probably by the composer’s prolific last librettist, Thomas Morell, while John Christopher Smith Jr. probably assembled the score.
The first act begins with the well-known aria "Ombra mai fu" ("There was never a shadow"). [7] According to Martha Novak Clinkscale, Handel's later, more famous setting "is neither more poignant nor mellifluous than Cavalli's".
The aria has been cited as an example of a "simile aria", because the words and the music both reflect, in metaphor, the situation of the character.[19] [20] Caesar, at Tolomeo's palace in Alexandria, compares himself to a stealthy hunter carefully tracking his prey; the prey in this case is Tolomeo, king of Egypt, who has just given Caesar a cool reception and whom Caesar views with suspicion.
George Frideric Handel. Alexander's Feast (HWV 75) is an ode with music by George Frideric Handel set to a libretto by Newburgh Hamilton.Hamilton adapted his libretto from John Dryden's ode Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music (1697) which had been written to celebrate Saint Cecilia's Day.
"Largo" is the opening aria from Handel's opera Serse (Xerxes), a popular composition titled "Ombra mai fu" but usually nicknamed "Largo" (despite being larghetto). "Laurelei" is a variant spelling of the Lorelei Rhine maiden, so as not to conflict with a song by fellow 4AD artists Cocteau Twins.
Ombra mai fu – Based on the aria from Handel's Serse; Furioso – Based on Handel's "Sarabande", words from Psalm 7; Sogno – Based on the aria from Puccini's La rondine; Metamorphosis 2: Danae; Ballo – Based on an aria from Verdi's Ballo in maschera; Interlude: Lorchestre Engloutie; Amami – Based on the aria from Verdi's La traviata