Maria Antonia of Bavaria - Overture "Talestri, Regina delle Amazzoni" (c. 1759)

Maria Antonia Walpurgis Symphorosa of Bavaria (18 July 1724 – 23 April 1780) was a princess of the House of Wittelsbach and Electress of Saxony from 5 October 1763 to 17 December 1763. After his death, she was guardian regent until her son Friedrich August came of age. In addition, unlike other princesses of her time, she not only pursued superficial musical occupations, but was also successful as a patron of the arts, composer, opera singer (soprano), painter and poet.

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Overture (Sinfonia) to the Opera Talestri, Regina delle Amazzoni (c. 1759)
Librettist: Composer

The Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Richard Egarr
Recorded Live at All Hallows, Gospel Oak, London 2019
https://youtu.be/gpLO5HgL5lM?si=07LL7eRG9zytQDio

Her parents, the Bavarian Elector Karl Albrecht, the later Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII, from his marriage to the Austrian Archduchess Maria Amalie, celebrated her birth with the performance of Pietro Torri's opera Amadis di Grecia. In her youth in Munich, she received composition lessons from the renowned opera composers Giovanni Battista Ferrandini and Nicola Antonio Porpora. At the celebrations of her wedding to Frederick Christian of Saxony (1747), Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera Le nozze d'Ercole e d'Ebe and Johann Adolf Hasse's La Spartana generosa were performed. In Dresden, she continued her music studies with Hasse and Nicola Porpora and felt particularly connected to the style of opera seria. Both in the performance of her own works of this genre and in numerous performances at court, she appeared as a singer and harpsichordist. In 1747 she was admitted to the Accademia dell'Arcadia in Rome, an internationally active literary academy and institution for the reform of opera. The members socialized with each other without regard to their differences in status and adopted so-called shepherd names for this purpose in the sense of a simple, natural country life. Maria Antonia was given the name Ermelinda Talea Pastorella Arcadia (ETPA).

In addition to many other artists and scientists, she also supported the Kapellmeister Johann Gottlieb Naumann and the Mengs family of painters.