This volume collects essays by leading scholars from the USA, Germany, Italy, and the UK on J.C. Bach’s eleven full-length operas. Beginning with a historical overview of Bach’s career as an opera composer, the individual essays are then organized chronologically by opera: Artaserse, written for Turin (1761); the two operas for Naples, Catone in Utica (1761) and Alessandro nell’Indie (1762); then Orione, ossia Diana vendicata and Zanaida (both 1763), Adriano in Siria (1765), and Carattaco (1767), all four of which were written for London over three seasons; Temistocle (1772) and Lucio Silla (1775) for Mannheim; one more opera for London, La clemenza di Scipione (1778); and finally Bach’s sole French opera, Amadis de Gaule (1779), written for Paris.
The essays serve a dual purpose: first, to provide stand-alone studies of Bach’s operas to promote admiration and understanding of those works; and secondly, to serve as introductions to the critical editions in Johann Christian Bach: Dramatic Works.
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