Bajazet was a work of Vivaldi’s late maturity, a dramatic tale that recounts the capture of the Turkish sultan Bajazet by the all-conquering Tartar, Tamerlane. It is a pasticcio, a well-established form in which Vivaldi incorporated arias by some of the greatest young composers of his time—Johann Adolf Hasse, Geminiano Giacomelli, and Riccardo Broschi, brother to the famous castrato Farinelli—to form a generous buffet of musical fireworks. Still, Vivaldi’s recitatives, choruses, and arias form the backbone of the opera and constitute the majority of the music, producing a work of kaleidoscopic invention.