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Since it does not appear in Ottoboni’s Trattenimenti poetici
and fails to exhibit one of his most consistent stylistic ‘trademarks’ – the use of end-rhyme throughout the recitative stanzas (i.e., not merely in a final couplet) – the text for Filli, un solo tuo sguardo is probably by another, as yet unknown, author. Its subject is the familar one of the timid lover, too embarrassed to confess his love but tormented beyond endurance if he does not do so. The text comprises three arias, each introduced by a short recitative. This ‘RARARA’ structure, common enough in the later seventeenth century, tends to give way to a ‘RARA’ or even ‘ARA’ structure in the eighteenth century and is here a conservative feature.
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