Chamber opera
Libretto based upon a poem by Pietro Metastasio
Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli, was already in charge of music in the court of Madrid when he hired the court poet for the Habsburgs of Vienna, Petro Metastasio, to write a libretto that would be represented exclusively on the stages of the Bourbons. It was in the mid-18th century that The desert island began its journey, passing through the hands of many composers including none other than Haydn, before emerging in the next century, when in 1831 it would be revived at the hands of another iconic singer of the time, the Spaniard Manuel García.
