Agostino Steffani's path once led him to Frankfurt. The composer died here in 1728 on his way to Italy and found his final resting place in the imperial cathedral. Almost 300 years later, the music of this artist, who also made a career as a diplomat and high ecclesiastical dignitary, can be heard for the first time in Frankfurt's opera house. Amor vien dal destino was composed alongside seven other operas in the 1690s for the new theater in Hanover's Leineschloss, where the Venetian Steffani worked in the service of Elector Ernst August as court conductor. However, the work was not premiered until 1709 in Düsseldorf.
Steffani and his librettist tell the Aeneid episodein which Aeneas and Turnus fight over the beautiful Lavinia in contrasting arias, recitatives and duets as well as an extraordinary instrumental and vocal colorfulness. She is supposed to save her father Latinus by promising to marry Turnus. But Cupid has long since implanted the dream image of Aeneas in her heart ... After a few trials and tribulations, which the composer sometimes ornately, sometimes extremely lyrical and sometimes crudely comedic, Lavinia and Aeneas finally find each other. After all, there's no match for Cupid's power.
Steffani's chamber duets were particularly appreciated by his contemporaries. Georg Philipp Telemann and Georg Friedrich Händel were influenced by his music. He maintained lively correspondence with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Queen Sophie Charlotte of Prussia and even mediated in the dispute between Emperor Joseph I and Pope Clement XI, whereupon he was appointed envoy to the Holy See. While the crime writer Donna Leon dedicated a novel to his eventful biography in 2012, Cecilia Bartoli brought his music to life in several recordings at almost the same time.
Premiere January 25
Further performances: January 30, February 5, 7, 15, 18, 20 and 28, 2026
