CONCERT VERSION

Three-act opera. Libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym, loosely based on the story of the Ottoman Emperor Bayezid and his defeat by Tamerlane (Timur). Music by Georg Friedrich Händel. First performed on 31 October 1724 in London at the King’s Theatre Haymarket. First performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

Händel wrote this opera for the King’s Theatre in London during an especially brilliant phase in his career. The plot focusses on a theme dealt with by many coetaneous operas and plays: the defeat and imprisonment of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid by the great Turkish-Mongol warrior Tamerlane, a descendant of Genghis Khan. The tremendous popularity of tenor Francesco Borosini in London at the time explains why the role of the Sultan, the true protagonist of the work, was written for the tenor voice, something very unusual in that age.  Tamerlano is one of the Händel’s most tragic operas. The final scene, in which Bayezid expresses his love for his daughter Asteria and his hatred of the tyrannical Tamerlane, has great dramatic force.