Vivaldi opera to get rare staging

A Vivaldi opera that has not been performed officially for several centuries will be featured at this summer’s Festival of the Two Worlds in the Umbrian hill town of Spoleto, Italy, organizers said Monday.

American conductor Alan Curtis, who said he has been working on the opera for more than 10 years, will lead the Baroque Ensemble in the first performance since 1723 of “l’Ercole su’l Termodonte.”

“The mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli said some of her favorite arias were from this opera, so I set out to find all of them,” Curtis said at a news conference to present the festival’s program, running June 30 to July 16 in Spoleto, 80 miles north of Rome.