Castore e Polluce
Castore e Polluce is an opera seria by Francesco Bianchi. The libretto was one translated by Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni, from Pierre-Joseph Bernard's French text for Rameau's Castor et Pollux.
The opera was extravagantly in the French style. As Marita P. McClymonds explains, "Castore contains all the elements that had been purged from Italian serious opera before the turn of the century: gods appearing in machines, miraculous scene changes, arias without exit, much use of chorus, and an infernal scene in the underworld with dancing."
Performance history
The opera was first performed in four acts at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence on 10 January 1779. It was revised for a three-act version for the same theatre on 8 September 1779.Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 10 January 1779 |
| Polluce | soprano castrato | |
| Castore | soprano castrato | Luigi Marchesi |
| Telaira | soprano | |
| Febe | soprano | Nancy Storace |
| Giove | tenor | |
| Mercurio | tenor |