Johann Gottlieb Naumann’s ‘Pria che all’amato bene’, Or the Dresden Trail at the Origins of the Polish Polonaise Aria

This article is devoted to the polonaise aria ‘Pria che all’amato bene’, crucial to the history of opera in Warsaw under the reign of King Stanislaus Augustus, but which has been known hitherto solely from the text preserved in Warsaw prints and from evidence of its popularity at that time. Brought to Warsaw by an Italian company active here between 1774 and 1776 as part of Antonio Sacchini’s opera Il finto pazzo per amore, it was written for the Dresden production of that opera (1769) by Johann Gottlieb Naumann, and then added to his Venetian opera Ipermestra (1774). It presents some of the features typical of the Dresden polonaise style, but they are less prominent than in Saxon instrumental polonaises.