Opera Scotland

Montezuma

Posted 17 Jul 2010

The operatic highlight of the opening week of the Edinburgh Festival will be a rare revival of Montezuma, a tragic opera by Carl Heinrich Graun (c.1703-1759). This younger contemporary of Bach and Handel was a highly successful composer of visually stunning operas in Berlin. The plot concerns the conquest of Mexico by Cortes in 1520 and the destruction of the Aztec empire. Montezuma is executed and his wife Eupaforice commits suicide, but not before singing a succession of spectacular arias. This piece should work particularly well in the intimate surroundings of the King’s Theatre.