Mercadante: Pelagio

Mercadante had lived in Spain, where his operas had been popular and appreciated, and it was here that he had started to think about an opera based on a typically Iberian subject to win the appreciation of the local public: the story of the king of the Asturias Pelagio, who in 718 (or, according to other sources, in 722) defeated the Arabs in the battle of Covadonga. The story have left a strong mark on the composer, for almost thirty years later, in 1855, he entrusted the production of a libretto to Marco D’Arienzo, who had already worked with him writing. First performed at the San Carlo theatre in Naples on 13th February 1857, Pelagio is the last but one of the operas that Mercadante saw on stage but in chronological terms, however, this was his last one.