Wikipedia
Bajazet (; also called Il Tamerlano) is an Italian opera composed by Antonio Vivaldi in 1735. Its libretto was written by Agostino Piovene. It was premiered in Verona, during the Carnival season of that year. This opera (catalog number RV 703) is presented in 3 acts, with a three-movement sinfonia as an introduction. The story is about the fate of Bajazet (known as Beyazid I) after being captured by Tamerlane ( Timur Lenk). The famous aria, " Sposa son disprezzata" is from this opera.
Bajazet is a tragedy by Jean Racine in five acts (composed of 4, 5, 8, 7, and 12 scenes, respectively), in Alexandrines, first played at the Hotel de Bourgogne, on January 5, 1672, after Berenice, and before Mithridate. Like Aeschylus in The Persians, Racine took his subject from contemporary history, taking care to choose a far off location, the Ottoman Empire. In 1635, the sultan Murad IV (Amurat, in the work of Racine) had his brothers and potential rivals Bajazet and Orcan executed. Racine was inspired by this deed, and centered his play on Bajazet. Racine also develops several romantic subplots in the seraglio. The action is particularly complex, and can only be resolved by a series of deaths and suicides.
The initial success of the play was not prolonged. Today, it is one Racine's least played pieces. The character of Bajazet in the opera of the same name by Antonio Vivaldi is not the same as the protagonist of Racine. The play was translated into English by Alan Hollinghurst. This translation was published by Chatto & Windus in 1991. In 2011 Pennsylvania State University Press published an English translation of the play by Geoffrey Alan Argent in iambic pentameter couplets. A translation in Alexandrines was made, as for all the other Racine plays, by Samuel Solomon and published by Random House (1967).