La Morte delusa
ovvero
Il trionfo della Pietà
"La Morte delusa" or "The Triumph of Piety" was performed for the first time in 1686 in Ferrara, the city where, in the same year, the composer was appointed to the prestigious position of maestro di Cappella at the Cathedral. This oratorio was composed to commemorate the victory of the Holy League, promoted by Pope Innocent XI with the aim of ending the Turkish military and expansionist pressure on Europe.
The plot of the work unfolds starting from Lucifer’s lament because not all souls descend into Hell and remain in Purgatory, and from Death, whose power appears diminished since, thanks to the intervention of Piety, the souls of those who lost their lives during the Holy War are destined for eternal glory. Thus, Justice has decided following a heated "debate" between Death and Lucifer on one side, and Piety and Glory on the other: the former are forced to succumb to the tenacious arguments of the latter in favor of those who sacrificed themselves for the Christian cause.
Regarding the staging:
Thanks to the sources that have reached us to this day, we can form a fairly precise idea of what performances were like in the seventeenth century, as treated by figures like Niccolò Sabbatini, Fabrizio Carini, and particularly the anonymous author of Corago, who tells us how to stage a musical performance. Although we know that the oratorio is a religious genre that was performed exclusively in churches, today we propose looking at it from a different perspective, imagining what it would have been like if these performances had had certain elements to enrich the presentations. The Lanterna Magica, the earliest description of which dates back to 1646 when Athanasius Kircher included it in his book Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, had two primary uses: educational and for entertainment. Painted glass slides were projected through the lantern. We have decided to include it by choosing Cesare Ripa and his treatise Iconologia, titled Descrittione Dell’imagini Universali cavate dall’Antichità et da altri luoghi, published in Rome in 1593.
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