Tolomeo

Tolomeo, re d'Egitto ("Ptolemy, King of Egypt", HWV 25) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel to an Italian text by Nicola Francesco Haym, adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's Tolomeo et Alessandro. It was Handel's 13th (or 14th if the one act Handel contributed to the collaborative opera Muzio Scevola is counted) and last opera for the Royal Academy of Music (1719) and was also the last of the operas he composed for the triumvirate of internationally renowned singers, the castrato Senesino and the sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni.

The story of the opera is a fictionalisation of some events in the life of Ptolemy IX Lathyros, king of Egypt.

An aria from the opera, Non lo dirò col labbro, was adapted by Arthur Somervell (1863–1937) as the popular classic 'Silent Worship', 1928.

Performance history

Tolomeo was first performed at the King's Theatre, London on 30 April 1728 and received seven performances. It was revived with revisions on 19 May 1730 and 2 January 1733, a mark of the work's popularity. The first production of modern times was conducted by Fritz Lehmann at Göttingen on 19 June 1938. As with all Baroque opera seria, Tolomeo went unperformed for many years, but with the revival of interest in Baroque music and historically informed musical performance since the 1960s,Tolomeo, like all Handel operas, receives performances at festivals and opera houses today. Among other productions, Tolomeo was performed at the Handel Festival in Halle in 1996, by English Touring Opera in 2006, and by Glimmerglass Opera in 2010.

Tolomeo (horse)

Tolomeo (1980 – circa 2000) was an Irish-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He is best known for his upset victory in the 1983 Budweiser Million, when he became the first European horse to win the race and the first British-trained horse to win a major race in the United States for fourteen years. He recorded only one other success (in a minor event for two-year-olds) in a seventeen race career but was placed in many major European races including the 2000 Guineas, Eclipse Stakes, Sussex Stakes, Benson and Hedges Gold Cup, Champion Stakes and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. After his retirement from racing he stood as a breeding stallion in Australia with moderate results.

Background

Tolomeo was a big, powerful bay horse with a white star and three white socks bred in County Kildare, Ireland by the Corduff Stud. His sire Lypheor won the Prix Quincey in 1978 and showed great promise as a breeding stallion before his death at age of eleven: his other good winners included the inaugural Breeders' Cup Mile winner Royal Heroine and the Japanese champion Nippo Teio. Tolomeo was the first foal of his dam Almagest, whose only win came in a maiden at Leicester Racecourse.