Demofonte (Berezovsky)
Opera by Maksym Berezovsky
Il Demofonte, also: Demofonte, Demofoonte or Demofont (Russian and Ukrainian: Демофонт or Демофон) is an opera seria by the Ukrainian composer Maksym Berezovsky (1745–1777) composed in 1773 to an Italian libretto by Pietro Metastasio.
The opera libretto Il Demofonte was written by Metastasio in 1731 (or 1733) and became immensely popular. By 1800 it had inspired at least 73 operas (according to the Encyclopaedia Musical St. Petersburg: The 18th Century)
The version by Maksym Berezovsky is especially important for music history as the first opera by a Russian as well as a Ukrainian composer.
Creation and performance history
Berezovsky worked on the opera during his 4-year stay in Italy. It was for a winter carnival in Livorno, where a Russian flotilla was anchored, written at the request of his patron, count Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov, the commander-in-chief of the Russian fleet. The opera was premiered in February 1773 and was well received by the local press.
The review in the Livorno newspaper Notizie del mondo published on February 27, 1773 noted that the “opera with music composed by Maestro Beresovsky, the Russian maestro di cappella at the service of Her Majesty the Empress of the whole Russia, combines liveliness and good taste with the possession of musical science”.
The full score of the opera has been lost and is preserved only in a few remaining fragments: sinfonia (that regarded as the first Symphony of a Russian/Ukrainian composer), which probably served as an introduction to the opera, and four arias:
Sinfonia in C major (1770–1773) in three short movements listen to the beginning of Sinfonia
Aria of Demofonte “Per lei fra l’armi”
Aria of Demofonte “Mentre il cor con meste voci”
Aria of Timante "Prudente mi chiedi" from Act II listen to the introduction to the Aria
Aria of Timante "Misero pargoletto" from Act III, Scene 5
It is known via Sergei Prokofiev that Sergei Diaghilev had an intention to re-stage the opera; however, this plan had not been realized. The arias were published in Kiev in 1988.
The public source identifies “Demofonte (Berezovsky)” as opera by Maksym Berezovsky. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Demofonte, Berezovsky and Opera.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5255929. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1745, 1777, 1773 and 1731.
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This entry incorporates text from “Demofonte (Berezovsky)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.