The incomplete score of Farnace is the ultimate testimony to Vivaldi's lyrical writing. The work reaches an absolute peak with the air of Farnace in the 2nd act, Gelido in ogni vena, in which Farnace, king of the Bridge, after having ordered the death of his son to preserve him from the enemy's hands, collapses in the announcement of the execution of his order. With this air of suffocating beauty, Vivaldi composes a major page of his work, plunging the drama into a funeral, almost sepulchral climate, dominated by a remarkable harmonic instability that betrays the bewilderment of the hero.
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