Ferdinando Paer was one of the more important transitional opera composers during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His works illustrate the types of changes taking place in Italian opera and theater, and the early influence of the Romantics. They also show the influence of German and French music. Schooled in the traditional forms of the Italian opera, he had both a gift for comedy and for the suave, sweet, Italian melodic style. By 1789 he had been invited to compose for Vienna, and from there he made his way to Paris, where he was appointed musical director to Napoleon. Agnese was his final opera semi seria, and mingles the tragic, pathetic, and comic veins in ways that anticipate the masters of bel canto tragedy of the later nineteenth century, such as Donizetti and even Verdi. The plot involves estranged lovers and father, a tragi-comic mad scene in an asylum depicted by a buffo bass, and a reconciliation filled with pathos. Agnese premiered in Parma at the Teatro Ponte d'Attaro in October 1809. It was not a huge success at its premiere. Paer's works had to compete with the operas of Rossini, who was by far the greater genius and excelled him in popularity with the public.

© Rita Laurance, Rovi