Based on the anonymous recasting of a libretto derived in turn from La fede tradita e vendicata by Francesco Silvani (1705), Il prigionier superbo by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was first performed on 5 September 1733 at the Teatro di San Bartolomeoin Naples. With this opera – his second dramma serio for San Bartolomeo in less than two years – the young composer (who had already acquired considerable professional stature in the city’s theatres, churches, and aristocratic circles) reprised aperen...