Eliogabalo

1667 opera by Francesco Cavalli

Eliogabalo (Heliogabalus) is an opera by the Italian composer Francesco Cavalli based on the reign and assassination of the debauched teenage Roman emperor Heliogabalus. The author of the original libretto remained anonymous, but it was probably reworked by Aurelio Aureli. The opera was composed in 1667 and was intended to be premiered during the Venetian Carnival season of 1668. In fact, it was not staged in Cavalli's lifetime and was replaced with a revised text by Aureli, in which Eliogabalo repents and lives, and with music by the much younger composer Giovanni Antonio Boretti, perhaps because Cavalli's style was considered too old-fashioned or because the Jesuits, who were regaining power in Venice at the time, were thought likely to oppose putting a story about a regicide on stage.

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