Metastasio, Pietro

explaining that, after forty years’ experience, he can say that the most difficult and crucial ingredient in writing librettos is the choice of subject, praising the Count's choice of “Moses in Egypt” and his literary style (whilst pointing out two exceptions), remarking on the violent transition from “pity” into “fury” in one of the arias, without passing through the intermediate stage of “disdain”, which is “unusual”, criticizing the irregular metre of the preceding recitative, and fondly recalling the memory of Fattiboni's uncle Count Ercole Dandini (“...La più difficile impresa d'un poeta drammatico è la scelta del soggetto, dalla quale dipende la sorte di tutto il suo lavoro. Questa difficoltà si sente dopo quarant' anni di prattica. La mente creatrice del dramma dee veder ne fatto che elegge tutte, o le principali almeno circostanze della tela che vuole ordire...”)


4 pages, 4to (c.23 x 19cm), Vienna, 30 September 1762, some wear at folds, slightly affecting the signature, remains of mount

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Metastasio (1698-1782) was the most famous librettist of the eighteenth century.  Count Francesco Fattiboni's “azione sacra” Mosè in Egitto was performed in 1762; the libretto was published in 1777, and appears to show that the author took notice of Metastasio's advice.   Metastasio had been a fellow student of Fattiboni's uncle Ercole Dandini under Vincenzo Gravina; his first libretto was Siface (1732), written before Fattiboni was born.