Diogenio Bigaglia

Plutone e Proserpina

Diogenio Bigaglia's dramatic cantata Plutone e Proserpina for soprano, contralto, strings and continuo, composed around 1710 by this Venetian Benedictine monk highly esteemed as a composer by his contemporaries, represents his vocal chamber music at its most ambitious and attractive. Its twelve short movements comprise five solo arias, one aria for both voices singing in turn, one duet and five recitatives. The subject of the cantata, Proserpine's gradual reconciliation to her kidnap by Pluto, who wants her as his bride, is treated in masterly fashion by the author of the text, Antonio Ottoboni, who was a leading poet in Venice at the time. There is no better work through which to make acquaintance with the fascinating, but still little known, figure of Bigaglia.