Orlando Furioso (Italian: [orˈlando fuˈrjoːzo; -oːso]; The Frenzy of Orlando, more literally Raging Roland; in Italian furioso is seldom capitalized) is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was not published in its complete form until 1532. Orlando Furioso is a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished romance Orlando Innamorato ("Orlando in Love", published posthumously in 1495). In its historical setting and characters, it shares some features with the Old French Chanson de Roland of the eleventh century, which tells of the death of Roland.

Orlando is the Christian knight known in French (and subsequently English) as Roland. The action takes place against the background of the war between Charlemagne's Christian paladins and the Saracen army that has invaded Europe and is attempting to overthrow the Christian empire. The poem is about war and love and the romantic ideal of chivalry. It mixes realism and fantasy, humor and tragedy. The stage is the entire world, plus a trip to the moon. The large cast of characters features Christians and Saracens, soldiers and sorcerers, and fantastic creatures including a gigantic sea monster called the orc and a flying horse called the hippogriff. Many themes are interwoven in its complicated episodic structure, but the most important are the paladin Orlando's unrequited love for the pagan princess Angelica, which drives him mad; the love between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero, who are supposed to be the ancestors of Ariosto's patrons, the d'Este family of Ferrara; and the war between Christian and Infidel.

Orlando (RV 728), usually known in modern times as Orlando furioso (Italian pronunciation: [orˈlando fuˈrjoːzo]), is an opera in three acts by Antonio Vivaldi to an Italian libretto by Grazio Braccioli, based on Ludovico Ariosto's epic poemOrlando Furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando). The first performance of the opera was at the Teatro San Angelo, Venice, in November 1727. It is to be distinguished from an earlier Vivaldi opera of 1714, Orlando furioso, set to much the same libretto, once thought to be a revival of a 1713 opera by Giovanni Alberto Ristori but now considered by Vivaldian musicologists to be a fully-fledged opera by Vivaldi himself.

The opera – more formally, the dramma per musica – alternates arias with recitative, and is set on an island at an unspecified time. The story line combines several plot lines from Ariosto: the exploits of the hero Orlando are detailed, as well as the tale of the sorceress Alcina.

Roles

Synopsis

Act 1

In a delightful garden in which two springs are seen, Medoro escapes from a shipwreck into the arms of his beloved Angelica. Alcina magically helps Medoro and he recounts how he was first captured, then shipwrecked. Orlando is jealous of Medoro, but Angelica lies and says Medoro is her brother.

Orlando furioso RV 819 (Italian pronunciation: [orˈlando fuˈrjoːzo], Teatro San Angelo, Venice 1714) is an opera surviving in manuscript in Vivaldi's personal library, only partly related to his better known Orlando furioso (RV 728) of 1727. It is a recomposition of an Orlando furioso written by Giovanni Alberto Ristori in 1713, whose score survives in a few fragments retained in the score of RV 819. Therefore, Vivaldi's first cataloguer Peter Ryom did not assign the opera a RV number, but catalogued it as RV Anh. 84.

Authorship

Federico Maria Sardelli, according to the studies of Reinhard Strohm, argues that Orlando RV 819 was entirely recomposed by Vivaldi, starting from the original Ristori's opera that Vivaldi himself had already changed during the numerous representations of the season 1713. He assigned to it the catalogue number RV 819. One suggestion is that Vivaldi avoided putting his own name on the opera having himself only recently taken direction of the Teatro San Angelo. Against this others consider that the bulk of the opera is a copy of Ristori's lost work.