The Venice Carnival 2025 ended on March 4. Let’s look back at the Carnival of 1729, with Ann Hallenberg and Il Pomo d’Oro performing the greatest opera arias of that year in a private concert at Palazzo Zenobio in Venice. 
In 1729, Tiepolo painted his first masterpieces in Venice: a series of enormous canvases depicting battles and ancient triumphs, intended to decorate a grand reception hall in the Palazzo Dolfin Manin. That same year, among a dozen newly created operas, composers such as Nicola Porpora, Giuseppe Orlandini, Leonardo Vinci, and Leonardo Leo achieved great success, while the castrati Farinelli and Senesino engaged in long-distance vocal duels across various operas and private music salons.
1729 was also the year of a particularly remarkable Carnival: George Frideric Handel was present in the city. Legend has it that Domenico Scarlatti recognized him, masked, playing the harpsichord, and exclaimed: “If it is not the famous Saxon, then it is the devil himself!”However, none of the German maestro’s works were performed that year—this, despite his triumph twenty years earlier with Agrippina at the renowned Teatro San Grisostomo.
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