The Rediscovery of Antonia Bembo’s Forgotten Opera

The Paris Opera maintains a storied history of presenting iconic works such as “Don Carlos” and “Les Troyens.” It has also showcased celebrated ballets including “Les Indes Galantes” and “The Rite of Spring.” Yet, despite this rich cultural legacy, most audiences have never encountered the name Antonia Bembo. Her 1707 opera, “Ercole Amante,” which translates to “Hercules in Love,” is scheduled to make its world premiere at Paris’ Opéra Bastille on May 28, 2026. Born around 1640, Bembo and her musical compositions remained largely obscure for over three centuries. This prolonged neglect resulted from the disappearance of her music manuscripts and a historical tendency within musicology to overlook the contributions of women composers.

I have dedicated my scholarly career to studying Bembo’s life and work since 1990. When I began my research, academic knowledge regarding her personal history was virtually non-existent. She was recognized primarily as a name printed on the title pages of her surviving music manuscripts. My breakthrough came when I confirmed that she had married into the patrician Bembo family rather than being born into it. This crucial distinction allowed me to trace her true origins and reconstruct her biography. This research culminated in my 2006 biography, titled “Desperate Measures: The Life and Music of Antonia Padoani Bembo.”

Until very recently, public and academic interest in Bembo was modest. Her name was frequently overshadowed by other historical women composers. Consequently, a European premiere dedicated exclusively to her work represents a significant milestone in recognizing her contribution to the history of music. This event corrects a historical oversight and allows contemporary audiences to experience her artistry firsthand.

Bembo’s historical obscurity was partly self-imposed. Trained as a musician in Venice, she fled from an abusive husband to escape a dangerous domestic situation. She settled in Paris in 1677, seeking to establish a new life away from the violence of her past. In Paris, she sang before Louis XIV, the King of France. The king’s benevolence provided for her basic living needs, allowing her to reside in a women’s residential community. This community was situated near the newly constructed Porte Saint-Denis, a triumphal arch located along the Boulevard de Bonne-Nouvelle.

Bembo composed music by hand and presented these manuscripts to the king as a gesture of gratitude for his generosity. During her residence in Paris, she produced a substantial body of work, including numerous cantatas, arias, celebratory motets, and dramatic compositions. Nevertheless, she likely lived in constant anxiety that her abusive husband might discover her location in Paris. She only felt secure enough to assemble her manuscripts into finished, presentable volumes after his death in 1703. By the time of her death around 1720, she had carefully bound eight volumes of her compositions. Four of these volumes have remained in France’s National Library for centuries.

Two volumes are currently lost, but the two containing “Ercole Amante” were acquired by the Music Department at the National Library in 1937. That same year, musicologist Yvonne Rokseth published an article in The Musical Quarterly, discussing the contents of the opera and the other compositions in Bembo’s volumes. This publication was pivotal for future research. I was a graduate student at Duke University in 1990 when I searched for a dissertation topic. I encountered Rokseth’s article, which introduced me to Bembo’s name for the first time. I subsequently obtained microfilms of Bembo’s music and received approval from my adviser to study her life and works in depth.

For several months, I searched for documents mentioning the composer in the Paris National Archives but found no useful records. During a short trip to Venice in 1991, I consulted a book listing women who had married into noble families. From its contents, I posited that she had been born Antonia Padoani and had married into the Bembo family. The following year, I achieved a major breakthrough. I discovered an envelope of documents at the State Archives of Venice. These documents revealed that she had left most of her belongings at the Convent of San Bernardo in Murano. She had also left her 14-year-old daughter, Diana, at the convent to protect her from her father.

With these clues, I was able to locate additional information about Bembo’s life. I found documents at the Patriarchal Archive, the Correr Museum, and the Marciana Library in Venice. Over time, I gathered enough details from her life and works to write a comprehensive biography.

Antonia Padoani was the only child of medical doctor and amateur poet Giacomo Padoani and his wife, Diana Paresco. She received a rigorous education in music and grammar in Venice. Her father arranged for Francesco Cavalli, the foremost Venetian composer of the era, to teach his daughter. Famously, Cavalli had been summoned to Paris in 1660 to write an opera for the wedding of Louis XIV and the Spanish infanta, María Teresa. The opera, “Ercole Amante,” was based on a libretto by Francesco Buti.

Giacomo Padoani’s Venetian contemporary, the poet Giulio Strozzi, also hired Cavalli to teach his daughter, Barbara. Barbara went on to publish a series of her compositions. Antonia, however, chose a different path. This decision likely disappointed her father. Instead of pursuing a career as a musician or poet, she married Lorenzo Bembo. This marriage granted her noble status and three children, but it also brought significant hardship.

In 1672, Antonia Bembo, then living in the back part of a house known as Cà Bembo in the neighborhood of Santa Maria Nova, sued for divorce. She cited Lorenzo’s infidelity along with mental and physical abuse. The lawsuit was unsuccessful. Five years later, she slipped out of town to start a new life in Paris. She left her husband and children behind, severing ties with her past.

In 1707, Bembo completed a new musical score for Buti’s opera libretto. Like Cavalli’s original opera, the story follows Hercules, who becomes obsessed with Iole, the daughter of a man he has killed. Iole is also involved with Hercules’ son. Hercules’ pursuit sets off a chain of rivalries among gods and mortals. In some ways, Bembo improved upon Cavalli’s original opera. A narrative about an aging Hercules in the 1700s coincided better with Louis XIV’s life arc than Cavalli’s version, which was composed for the 22-year-old king’s wedding. Furthermore, the French public had objected to the Italian language used in Cavalli’s original opera. Bembo’s fusion of Italian and French musical styles made her version more accessible to local audiences. This style reflected the diverse musical influences she had absorbed in both Venice and Paris.

Why did Bembo’s opera reach the stage only in 2026? First, her handwritten score was difficult to decipher. Unlike Barbara Strozzi’s scores, which were printed and published during her lifetime, Bembo’s manuscripts presented significant challenges for performers. The Opéra de Paris created a performance score of “Ercole Amante” by employing an editorial team to correct mistakes and rectify inconsistencies in the music. This painstaking process was necessary to ensure accurate performance.

Second, women composers of early music operas have only recently begun to have their works staged. These composers were traditionally excluded from the operatic canon. In 2023, for example, “Céphale et Procris,” an opera written by Bembo’s French contemporary Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, was performed at the Boston Early Music Festival. Francesca Caccini’s “Alcina” was also performed there, signaling a broader shift in recognition.

With a star-studded cast and a large Baroque orchestra under the baton of Leonardo García-Alarcón, the staging of Bembo’s manuscript is an occasion for celebration. The manuscript had lain dormant for centuries. Now, Bembo’s operatic masterpiece can claim its place alongside the legacy of her teacher, Francesco Cavalli. This performance also positions her alongside Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, and Michel-Richard de Lalande. She is now recognized as one of Louis XIV’s “artisans of glory.” These artists, architects, composers, and performers helped construct the image of the “Sun King” as a divinely ordained monarch. Bembo’s return to the stage is not merely a revival of an old work, but a reclamation of her rightful place in musical history.