La Real Cámara & María Espada

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Photo courtesy of LA REAL CÁMARA & MARÍA ESPADA

In 1708, Italian composer Antonio Caldara spent a few months in Barcelona working as chamber composer to Archduke Charles (Charles III). The aspirant to the Spanish crown had settled in Barcelona a few years earlier, bringing over his future wife and an entire royal entourage, in which there was no shortage of composers, singers, musicians, painters and architects to stage a show that would be new to the city: the opera. Thus, Caldara is famed for having written the first opera to premiere in Spain, in the midst of the Spanish War of Succession.

Close to the Palau Reial, the Llotja de Mar (former marketplace) in Barcelona hosted this first opera, as well as other similar performances to the liking of the Austrian court. La Real Cámara, conducted by Emilio Moreno and accompanied by María Espada as soloist, commemorates the 350th anniversary of the Italian composer by performing arias and instrumental pieces from the operas Il più bel nome (Barcelona, 1708), Il nome più glorioso (Barcelona, 1709), L’Atenaide (Barcelona, 1709), Scipione nelle Spagne (Vienna, 1722), Don Chisciotte in corte della Duchessa (Vienna, 1727) and Sancio Panza governatore de l’Isola Barattaria (Vienna, 1733). 

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