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Alejo Carpentier 's novel '' Concierto Barroco '' (1974) draws upon the opera's story and characters. The Music was supposed to be lost, but was discovered in 2002 by the musicologist Steffen Voss (with the beginning of the first act and a fragment of the third missing), in the archive of the Berlin Sing-Akademie, then in Kiev. Jean-Claude Malgoire did a reconstruction, which was in 1992 directed by Maté Rabinovski for TV screening. A concert version of the opera, apparently the first performance since the 18th century, was performed on Saturday, 11 June 2005 at 8:15 p.m. in Concert Hall De Doelen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli. On July 18th 2005, a version of Montezuma was supposed to be performed by the Opera Barga Festival in Barga (LU) Italy conducted by Frederico Maria Sardelli. It did not happen due to really bizarre copyright dispute (see below.) The modern world premiere will be 21 September in Duesseldorf, in a production by Uwe Schmitz-Gielsdorf, scenography by Paolo Atzori, with l’Orchestra Modo Antiquo, conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli. The legal travesty preceding all of this was the following. The lost manuscript was in the very disorganized music library of the Sing-Akademie of Berlin, an independent old choral association with a rich musical tradition. After World War II their library was "liberated" by the Red Army, and taken to the USSR. Eventually it ended in Kiev, now Ukraine. Where it was discovered by Steffen Voss. Musicologists started working on obtaining a performable version. Meanwhile, Ukraine -- perhaps as part of their bid to become acceptable to the EU -- returned all the books from the Sing-Akademie to their rightful owners. The organization decided to organize their collection, apparently also restricting access, and supposedly having plans to publish their manuscripts. The Sing-Akademie asserted that they had full copyright -- including derivative rights, like performance rights -- to the opera. While common sense would lead one to believe that a work presented in 1733 would not have copyright protection, and that Vivaldi's heirs would have these rights, the judicial case was not clear. The Rotterdam performance went ahead only after a substantial payment to the Sing-Akademie, and the Barga performance was halted by an injunction, with a potential 250,000 Euro penalty for non-compliance. The reason was that German law offers copyright protection to entities that publish previously inaccessible works. The injunction was issued one week before the date of the performance, so a "pastiche" was performed: the Montezuma libretto recitatives were spoken, and other Vivaldi arias sung between them. As of mid-September 2005, the injunction was lifted, so, barring new legal maneuvers the Duesseldorf premiere is on. CHARACTERS
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