Caio Fabbricio.
Opera Pasticcio by A. Hasse arranged and published by G.F. Händel
Musical direction | Nicholas Kierdorf
Director | Ute Monika Engelhardt
Caio Fabbricio (HWV A9) is a dramma per musica in three acts. Based on Johann Adolph Hasse's opera of the same name, it is an adaptation by George Frideric Handel and the second pastiche of no less than three in the 1733/34 season at London's Theatre in Haymarket.
Plot:
Pirro, King of Epirus, is the leader of the Tarentines and other Italian Greeks in their war against Rome. After a great Greek victory, Rome sends the highly esteemed statesman Caio Fabbricio to negotiate with Pirro. Among the Roman prisoners is Fabbricio's daughter Sestia, with whom Pirro falls in love. After an unsuccessful attempt to bribe Fabbricio with valuables, Pirro suggests that he could marry Sestia, but the latter indignantly refuses. Fabbricio sees suicide as the only way out for his daughter in this situation and so he slips her a dagger. When Sestia, in a hopeless situation, wants to commit suicide, her lover Volusio, who is believed dead, saves her from death. Volusio now wants to kill the tyrant, but out of jealousy (i.e. a sensual affect), not for moral reasons. Sestia therefore refuses to let him do the deed. Pirro's fiancée Bircenna, disguised as "Glaucilla", allies herself with Turio, a Tarentine who hates Pirro for his disruption of Tarentine customs and traditions. Turio makes Fabbricio an offer to betray Pirro after all; Fabbricio wants this offer in writing. Volusio is exposed when he intervenes in an assassination plot ordered by Bircenna and Turio, even saving the tyrant's life in the process. Turio helps Sestia and Volusio to escape, but Fabbricio takes them back to Pirro and Volusio is captured again. On Pirro's orders, Fabbricio must now pass sentence on Volusio. After learning that Volusio wanted to kill the tyrant out of jealousy and not for moral reasons, he passes the death sentence on his potential son-in-law, who is guided by blind affect. All seems lost until Fabbricio hands Pirro Turio's letter revealing his treachery and murder plan. Pirro is impressed by so much Roman virtue and pardons everyone. He releases Sestia and Volusio, as well as the other Roman prisoners, and there are even hints of a future reconciliation with Bircenna.