Opera Seria

La excepcional acogida de las obras de Pietro Metastasio en el siglo XVIII, en Europa y en la península ibérica en particular, está ampliamente documentada. Debido a este éxito sin parangón, es posible afirmar que España y Portugal participaron de los gustos y redes artísticas internacionales del momento. Sin embargo, esta internacionalización ha de ser matizada, ya que el repertorio escrito específicamente para la península muestra que las audiencias cortesanas peninsulares pudieron tener expectativas diferentes a las del público de otros teatros en el resto del continente. Por ello, este trabajo investiga en qué formas varió el estilo de cinco compositores de talla internacional —Perez, Galuppi, Jommelli, Conforto y Corselli— a la hora de enfrentarse a los encargos de opera seria para las cortes ibéricas. El análisis estadístico de quince versiones compuestas específicamente para Madrid y Lisboa nos permite evaluar, en comparación con las tendencias generales de un corpus de 2.404...

Il barese Niccolò Piccinni si trasferisce da Napoli a Parigi su coordinamento dell'ambasciatore in Francia del Regno di Napoli Domenico Caracciolo e dell'ambasciatore francese a Napoli Clermont d'Ambois, sotto il nuovo regno di Luigi XVI e Maria Antonietta. Sedici anni prima, al Teatro delle Dame di Roma, l'opera Cecchina, ossia La Buona Figliola (1759) aveva decretato la sua fama, che presto divenne internazionale, con le prime rappresentazioni in Spagna e Germania. Il merito fu anche del libretto goldoniano, che inaugurò una transizione nel campo dell'opera buffa verso la comédie larmoyante.

Salieri expressed his wishes for his funeral in various forms of evidence, including a written note, giving some details about the music he intended.  Given what is known about his funeral, the meaning of the instructions mentioned in this note remains unclear, but the note sheds light on his thinking about his future obsequies.

SOME BACKGROUND In 1987 I won a fellowship year at Harvard, that bastion of power and privilege. At the reception for incoming fellows I met another Minnesotan, the music historian Carol Oja, and she suggested that we chat over tea at a nearby shop. I was feeling very full of myself, having travelled the long road from Norwegian-American farming village to a minor appointment at one of the great seats of learning. So you can imagine how crestfallen I became when she said "It's wonderful that you've kept your accent!" Accent? My ethnic speech patterns, which I thought had been successfully standardized, had just outed me as a country bumpkin. The sounds of speech, like those of music, present complex patterns that a knowing listener can unpack to reveal not only semantic and emotional contents but also clues to social class and ethnicity. To give an example, I am fully comfortable saying "I'm going for a walk-do you want to come with?" My wife, whose family has been speaking English in America since the Mayflower, finds this intolerable, as if I willfully refuse to add a me after with. The immigrant English in which I grew up was strongly influenced by Norwegian turns of phrase (Norwegian: Kommer du med? = English: Will you come with?), so I have no sense that a "me" is missing.

La excepcional acogida de las obras de Pietro Metastasio en el siglo XVIII, en Europa y en la península ibérica en particular, está ampliamente documentada. Debido a este éxito sin parangón, es posible afirmar que España y Portugal participaron de los gustos y redes artísticas internacionales del momento. Sin embargo, esta internacionalización ha de ser matizada, ya que el repertorio escrito específicamente para la península muestra que las audiencias cortesanas peninsulares pudieron tener expectativas diferentes a las del público de otros teatros en el resto del continente. Por ello, este trabajo investiga en qué formas varió el estilo de cinco compositores de talla internacional —Perez, Galuppi, Jommelli, Conforto y Corselli— a la hora de enfrentarse a los encargos de opera seria para las cortes ibéricas. El análisis estadístico de quince versiones compuestas específicamente para Madrid y Lisboa nos permite evaluar, en comparación con las tendencias generales de un corpus de 2.404...

Carlo Edoardo (1720–1788) ed Enrico Benedetto Stuart (1725–1807) crebbero in una corte permeata di musica e arte: i loro genitori, Giacomo III Stuart e Maria Clementina Sobieska, promuovevano concerti settimanali al Palazzo del Re ed erano mecenati del Teatro delle Dame. Negli anni Quaranta del Settecento, i due principi frequentavano regolarmente i teatri romani e furono destinatari di dediche operistiche. Diverse testimonianze li ritraggono come apprezzati interpreti nei concerti privati di corte, in particolare Enrico, noto per il gusto con cui eseguiva arie italiane.
In questo vivace ambiente musicale si inserisce la figura di Domenico Ricci (c. 1700–1751), celebre castrato soprano romano e maestro di canto dei principi dal 1742 al 1745. Attraverso l’analisi di partiture delle opere da lui interpretate, ricostruirò le caratteristiche della sua vocalità, i ruoli prediletti e il suo stile esecutivo. Da questa indagine emergeranno anche alcune ipotesi sulle motivazioni che indussero Giacomo III Stuart a sceglierlo come insegnante per i propri figli.

It appears to be quite evident, as Richard Schoch somewhat apprehensively pointed out, that academics tend to treat nineteenth-century English stage history in terms of consecutive star actors and their eras of theatre management. But what exactly has made and still makes it convenient for scholars to view almost two centuries of English theatre history as a mere “succession of prominent managements”? This paper intends to consider staging practices, e.g. the mode of acting, and a uniquely British tradition, the publication of performance scripts “printed from the prompter’s copy”, to find an explanation to the curious phenomenon that Schoch criticized. It appears that the serial publication of performance texts further reinforced the extremely star actor-centered repertoires and theatre managements. For a case study I chose the “eminent tragedian” William Charles Macready’s (1793–1873) Diaries and his 1834 promptbook, a personally marked copy of King Lear, that witnessed the actor’...

This thesis examines the intersection of Enlightenment ideals and musical innovation through the relationship between Emperor Joseph II of Austria and composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It explores how the political and intellectual climate under Joseph II's reign shaped Mozart's music, and how Mozart's compositions, in turn, reflected and influenced the cultural currents of the Enlightenment. The study focuses on key aspects of Mozart's operatic works, symphonies, and chamber music, examining how these compositions align with the ideals of reason, freedom, and human dignity promoted by Joseph II.

Metastasio’s libretti (both those written in Italy and those created in Vienna) were reused many times in the Habsburg capital during the 18th century. The presence of the author did not save them from alterations, including some German translations. After offering a provisional list of the operatic productions based on Metastasian creations, the essay focuses on three versions of “L’olimpiade” by Antonio Caldara (1733), Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1749) and Florian Leopold Gassmann (1764) respectively. The viennese tradition of the text appears rather conservative, as the original dramaturgical conception is never questioned. The morphological solutions adopted by the three authors are compared through the analysis of two significant examples, Aristea’s aria “Tu di saper procura” and the famous duet “Ne’ giorni tuoi felici”.

is a peer-reviewed series of monographs and edited volumes published by Stockholm University Press. SiCA strives to provide a broad forum for research on culture and aesthetics, including the disciplines of Art History, Heritage Studies, Curating Art, History of Ideas, Literary Studies, Musicology, and Performance and Dance Studies. In terms of subjects and methods, the orientation is wide: critical theory, cultural studies and historiography, modernism and modernity, materiality and mediality, performativity and visual culture, children's literature and children's theatre, queer and gender studies. It is the ambition of SiCA to place equally high demands on the academic quality of the manuscripts it accepts as those applied by refereed international journals and academic publishers of a similar orientation. SiCA accepts manuscripts in English, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian.

Over mijn en zijn lijk 'Ik smeek jullie, verstoot me niet, maar begraaf me volgens de voorgeschreven grafriten.'1 Zo vraagt Oedipus' zoon Polyneikes in Oedipus te Kolonos2 met aandrang aan zijn beide zussen, Antigone en Ismene, hem niet onbegraven te laten als hij zou sneuvelen. Later doden de broers, Polyneikes, teruggekeerd uit ballingschap, en Eteokles, die weigerde de macht volgens de gemaakte afspraak aan zijn broer over te dragen, elkaar in een tweegevecht in hun strijd om het koningschap over Thebe. Kreon, hun oom en Oedipus' broer, trekt de macht naar zich toe en 1

Il saggio intende affrontare il tema nell’ottica sia del dibattito estetico-filosofico del Sei-Settecento sulla tragedia sia della circolazione di soggetti, intrecci ed episodi teatrali di sicuro effetto. Si considerano anzitutto gli enunciati di “poetica” disseminati all’interno dei drammi di Metastasio, e solo per riflesso l’Estratto dell’Arte poetica di Aristotile e osservazioni sulla medesima (1773), con particolare riguardo per la produzione dei primi anni Trenta, nella quale – poco dopo l’arrivo a Vienna – il poeta cesareo chiarisce i presupposti della propria attività di drammaturgo, sebbene sia possibile rintracciare spunti anche in testi antecedenti.

Frédéric-Jérôme de la Rochefoucauld 1 nacque a Versailles nel 1701 e sin dall'infanzia fu destinato alla vita ecclesiastica. Nel 1729 fu nominato arcivescovo di Bourges. La dichiarata antipatia del pontefice nei confronti dell'abbé de Canillac 2 e la necessità di essere rappresentato a Roma non da un semplice chargé d'affaires, ma da un vero diplomatico, spinsero Luigi xv a nominare al più presto un nuovo ambasciatore. La nomina del cardinal de la Rochefoucauld fu ufficializzata il 24 giugno 1743, ma solamente il 16 giugno 1745 il diplomatico riuscì a raggiungere Roma. Il dilagare delle battaglie legate alla guerra di successione austriaca 3 rendeva infatti arduo il viaggio da Bourges a Roma, e la partenza fu procrastinata varie volte. Ma i reclami del papa Benedetto xiv si fecero insistenti, e il diplomatico si risolse a partire nel maggio 1745. Si trovò dunque a reggere l'ambasciata negli anni conclusivi della guerra di successione austriaca. Il Delfino di Francia, 4 Luigi Ferdinando, si era appena sposato; 5 il cardinale arrivò in tempo a Roma per presenziare alle feste indette dall'abbé de Canillac che si svolsero il 20 giugno. 6 Ci si attendeva evidentemente una stabilità e degli eredi maschi, ma la morte della moglie Maria Teresa 7 comportò una nuova politica dinastica da parte della Francia. Così gli anni romani del cardinal de La Rochefoucauld furono caratterizzati, oltre che dalle impellenti necessità politiche e diplomatiche che la guerra di successione austriaca richiedeva, anche dalle feste per il secondo matrimonio del Delfino. Dalla fine di novembre 1746 iniziò l'organizzazione del secondo matrimonio di Luigi Ferdinando con Maria Giuseppa di Sassonia. 8 Le nozze si celebrarono a Versailles il 9 febbraio Un caso di committenza dell'Ambasciatore francese a Roma: il Componimento Dramatico di Jommelli e il quadro Fête musicale di Pannini per le nozze del Delfino di Francia (1747)* Michela Berti 93 michela berti -un caso di committenza dell'ambasciatore francese a roma * Il presente saggio riprende e integra il contenuto di una relazione da me presentata al XVI Convegno annuale della Società italiana di musicologia (Roma, 1 novembre 2009), dal titolo Un caso di committenza dell'Ambasciatore francese a Roma:

Gennarantonio Federico and Leonardo Leo’s commedia per musica “Amor vuol sofferenza” had its debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples in Autumn 1739. Five years later, the same theatre commissioned to the composer a revamped version of the opera, re-titled “La finta frascatana”, in order to adapt it to the new cast. Leo began working, but death took him suddenly after he had written only two arias; the score was completed by another composer, Matteo Capranica. The essay compares “Amor vuol sofferenza” with “La finta frascatana”, examines the reasons for the changes in relation to the characteristics and skills of the new singers, and presents the few extant musical sources of the 1744 version. The complete trascription of Mosca’s aria “Voi par che gite di palo in frasca”, likely by Leo, is offered in appendix.

Verunsicherung. Emotions of Uncertainty and Insecurity in the 18th Century. IZEA (Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für die Erforschung des Europäischen Aufklärung). Lugar: Halle/Saale (Alemania). 26-27 de septiembre de 2024.

The Age of Enlightenment is often seen as an era of happiness. This idea was shaped in contemporary historiography and is still reproduced in historical scholarship today. A critical examination of the concept reveals that it is rooted in a variety of assumptions, including a pronounced belief in progress. But does this image of the Enlightenment as an era of reason reflect the times? Or does it obscure the developments and events that shocked contemporaries and led Paul Hazard to speak of a crise de la conscience? The conference will take this ambivalence as a starting point. To this end, the historiographical, ideological, artistic and gender-specific constructions of the Enlightenment will be scrutinised from an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective. The concept of uncertainty will be used to productively question the prevailing image of the Enlightenment and stimulate new perspectives.

Christian-Thomasius-Zimmer | Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung (IZEA). Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Franckeplatz 1, Haus 54, 06110 Halle (Saale), Deutschland.

Comprehensive essay about the opera Li prodigi della divina grazia nella conversione e morte di San Guglielmo, duca d'Aquitania by Pergolesi (1731), published as programme notes for the recording by Ensemble Alraune. Analysis of the musical sources (including the Introduzzione), analisys of the libretto (sources and political significance), analysis of the musical dramaturgy.

Camilla Balsamini (Milan, 2 April 1774 - 9 August 1810) was one of the most talented singers of her generation. Her momentous career ended prematurely in 1810, when her journey from Milan to Paris, to perform together with tenor Domenico Ronconi (1770-1839) at Napoleon’s wedding celebration in April 1810, proved fatal. Traces of Balsamini’s successful performances on stage are recorded in several Italian towns (Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Trieste, Udine, Milan, Monza Brescia, Crema, Genoa, Turin, Ferrara, Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Piacenza, Leghorn, Florence, Siena, Rome); her untimely death gave rise to what might well be described as a cult. Among her main supporters was Ambrogio Minoja (1752-1825), censore (censor) of the Milan Conservatory from 28 July 1814, who took a specific interest in her music collection and, in 1823, acted as an intermediary between Balsamini’s widower (Pietro Vincenzo Brambilla) and the Conservatory administrators to deposit the scores in the Conservatory Library.
This paper is the result of a shared research project: Rosa Cafiero wrote the first part (pp. 251-280), while Livio Aragona wrote the second (pp. 280-292). The authors thank Nicholas Baragwanath for brushing up the English prose.

The essay offers insights into the idiosyncratic elements of Luigi Marchesi’s singing style. The analysis of newly discovered and already known sources help to understand not only the perspectives in which Marchesi’s use of the  vocal range and florid embellishments could be read, but also his personal taste in phrasing and the use of dynamics. The essay offers a wide reading of the vocal aesthetic of the celebrated 18th century castrato.

This paper was primarily based on correspondence of Marco Foscari IV, member of respectable patrician family who served from 1789 to 1792 as Captain Raspa of a small fortress in Istria. His correspondence with close friends discloses opportunities in Venice, as well as events related to its nightlife in which the theatre, along with opera, played the dominant role. Its focus is research on influence of French Revolution on Venetian theatre and opera. In search for micro level of analysis, authors put their focus on local perspective on French-Italian relations, and their influence on opera. Therefore, authors singled out one interesting event which sparked great public attention in Venice – debates and process of the construction of a new theatre in the San Fantino, sestiere de San Marco, theatre La Fenice. At the time of prohibition of the public and private gatherings, in early 1790s, in this paper authors analysed position of opera.

The exceptional activities of the impresario Giuseppe Bustelli, who performed operas in Dresden and Prague from 1764/65 to 1777/78, brought about the formation of large music collections and the circulation of materials within Central Europe. New identification of some of Bustelli's scores opens up further possibilities for research on eighteenth-century opera in Prague and Dresden.

Marcello di Capua, Court Composer to Princess Izabela Lubomirska The latest research into his life and works* * This article is based on the author's book Marcello di Capua, nadworny kompozytor księżnej Izabeli Lubomirskiej: Studium źródłoznawcze [Marcello di Capua, court composer to Princess Izabela Lubomirska: A source study] (Kraków: Musica Iagellonica, 2019). 1 The term "Kapellmeister" is a translation of the Italian professional title "maestro di cappella," at that time generally applied to composers.

For about a decade in the early nineteenth century, the castle of Count Heinrich Wilhelm Haugwitz in Moravian Náměšť nad Oslavou hosted a large number of musical activities centered on Mozart's operas. These activities are documented in orchestral scores, manuscript performing materials, and unusually meticulous and detailed financial records. An exploration of the Haugwitz materials associated with La finta giardiniera, Don Giovanni, and La clemenza di Tito shows that due to his historicist and literary interests the Count focused on unusual German adaptations of Mozart's Italian works as well as operas that were not common in regular repertoire of the day. The Haugwitz documents also show that the Count obtained the performing materials not only from Prague and Vienna but probably also from a previously overlooked copyist workshop in Brno.

The other papers were a smorgasbord that included English and French luxury goods at London pleasure gardens that were produced by slave labour in the West Indies (Ashley Greathouse, University of Cincinnati), the unpublished music treatise of the musician-turned-astronomer William Herschel (Sarah Waltz, University of the Pacific), early London musical-miscellany publications that presented excerpts from Handel's operas in new and surprising ways (Alison DeSimone, University of Missouri–Kansas City) and my own paper concerning a satire on French provincial orchestras (Beverly Wilcox, California State University Sacramento). Faith Lanam (University of California Santa Cruz) gave an update on her latest research on the Vezerro de lecciones manuscript, a collection of solfeggi by Feo, Leo and Ignacio Jerusalem that was used to train lower-status girls to enter high-status Mexico City convents as choir nuns. [...]Louise K. Stein (University of Michigan) presented new documentation about the first opera productions in the Americas, La púrpura de la rosa (Lima, 1701), Celos aun del aire matan (Mexico, 1728), El Zeleuco (Mexico, 1710) and La Partenope (Mexico, undated), explaining how they travelled via Spanish diplomatic networks from Naples and Madrid to the colonies and observed a number of typically Spanish performance conventions. Most used the Zoom desktop client, but a few relied on mobile phones, and about half left their cameras off during the talks, so that the audience conserved bandwidth while still giving speakers the sort of visual feedback that a live audience normally provides.

In the concept of the aesthetic formation of knowledge and its as soon as possible and success-oriented application, insights and profits without the reference to the arguments developed around 1900. The main investigation also includes the period between the entry into force and the presentation in its current version. Their function as part of the literary portrayal and narrative technique.

Between 1761 and 1762 Johann Christian Bach composed two operas for the San Carlo theater in Naples, “Catone in Utica” and “Alessandro nell’Indie”. By examining already known and newly discovered sources, the article reconstructs in detail the two productions and their impact on the local audience. The analysis of the scores takes into consideration the characteristics of the singers (the three principal roles in each title were covered by Tommaso Guarducci, Clementina Spagnoli and Anton Raaff). A final paragraph is dedicated to the subsequent attempts by the Neapolitan theatrical authorities to engage Bach again, none of which succeeded.

This thesis is an examination of Niccolò Piccinni’s opera La Cecchina, ossia La buona figliuola (Rome, 1760), the plot of which is based upon the novel Pamela (London, 1740) by Samuel Richardson. In 1756, Carlo Goldoni fashioned the libretto from a spoken comedy on the Pamela story he had written in 1750. Piccinni’s opera buffa became one of the most successful operas in that genre in the eighteenth century and was one of the first operas by a Neapolitan composer to contain sectionalized dramatic finales at the ends of its acts. In order to understand the context in which this opera was composed, the biographies and output of Richardson, Goldoni, and Piccinni leading up to its creation are dealt with at some length in Chapter 1. Emphasis is placed first on Richardson’s literary style and its antecedents. Due to the importance of Goldoni’s contributions to the creation of the buffo finale, the particulars of his life and development are treated in more detail than those of his collaborators. A short biography of Piccinni’s life up to 1760 concludes this chapter. The second chapter contains a discussion of the sources for the plot of both Pamela and La buona figliuola. Goldoni’s play and libretto are examined in the context of the many imitations of Richardson’s novel inspired by its success. In the course of this discussion the point is made that Goldoni’s libretto is the product of eighteenth-century traditions and expectations. The arias in La buona figliuola are classified according to their types in Chapter 3. The problems with the nomenclature of aria forms is discussed briefly before Piccinni’s formal plans are explained. The arias are also classified according to the systems devised by John Brown and Charles de Brosses. A brief discussion of ii Piccinni’s recitatives constitutes the final section of this chapter. In Chapter 4, the development of the ensemble finale before Piccinni’s opera is outlined in detail. This material places La buona figliuola in context and reveals the various mistakes that have been made made in the attribution of the creation of the buffo finale. Goldoni’s importance to this process is made clear here by examining his collaborations with other composers, especially Galuppi. The last chapter presents an analysis of the three finales in La buona figliuola and relates their features to those of previous composers. The main feature of the appendices is a translation by the present author of Goldoni’s libretto. Title pages of works on the Pamela story discussed in Chapter 2 may also be found herein, as can be a list of productions of Piccinni’s opera from 1760 to 1790.

This paper demonstrates the change in position of the use of the counterpoint schema, entitled Romanesca, throughout the 18th century. The way of its use goes from a thematic opening procedure to different positions in the structure of the instrumental and vocal repertoire. Apparently, its recurrence, especially in the latter case, suggests musical topic implications that gradually removed the strong connotation of a musical opening formula, belonging to the 18th century repertoire, the so-called Galant Style, as presented and explained by Robert Gjerdingen. The paper focuses on the verification of this variability of use and suggests that in the process of maturation of its use, Romanesca may have been an expedient of syntactic construction with direction to different meanings, according to the creative project in which it was inserted.

Letters of Hoffmeister Georg Adam Hoffmann to Count Johann Adam von Questenberg provide additional information about 6 of Vienna Kärntnertortheater Singers, and 15 new names. His letters offer a significantly broader picture of the Kärntnertortheater at that time. He not only records the names of solo singers participating during entire theater seasons and singular productions, but also presents surprisingly detailed information about theater funding and contracting of specific singers together with frequent remarks on their voice, acting dispositions, and Letters of Hoffmeister Georg Adam Hoffmann to Count Johann Adam von Questenberg provide additional information about 6 of Vienna Kärntnertortheater Singers, and 15 new names. His letters offer a significantly broader picture of the Kärntnertortheater at that time. He not only records the names of solo singers participating during entire theater seasons and singular productions, but also presents surprisingly detailed information about theater funding and contracting of specific singers together with frequent remarks on their voice, acting dispositions, and so on.

The «festa teatrale» Ascanio in Alba was performed in the Teatro Ducale of Milan as a celebration of Archduke Ferdinand of Habsburg’s wedding with the last heiress of the Este dynasty, Maria Beatrice. The libretto was written by Giuseppe Parini, the music was by Mozart, already famous as a composer although he was only fifteen years old. In the disguise of a pastoral drama, the opera is an allegory where Venus (the Empress) approves the marriage between her son (the Archduke) and Silvia (Beatrice), who are represented as being already in love with each other. Ascanio, the mythical founder of Alba and ancestor of Augustus, was a perfect choice for a dynastic celebration. Parini duly fills his task as a court poet, but stresses the theme of good government and underlies the expectation of Milan (the mythical Alba) that the union will bring about an age of public happiness. The success of Ascanio in Alba was such that it eclipsed the Ruggero, composed by Metastasio and Hasse for the same occasion; but in time, with the rise of Parini to the status of a national bard, the encomiastic apparatus came to be considered too obvious and pervasive, with the frequent result of its disappearance from the canon of Parini’s works.

Anthony Rooley (2002) has asserted that “Eccles awaits the searching light of unbiased study and, particularly, informed performance. ” In this talk, I attempt to engage in such a study of Eccles’s Semele. This opera is rich with interpretive possibilities and subtext, and I will present an analysis of the music that supports a view of the opera as a dramatically

This chapter traces the early performance history of Haydn’s 1789 dramatic cantata Arianna a Naxos. The cantata was sung in Vienna by Marianne von Genzinger’s teenage daughter Josepha, in London by the great castrato Gasparo Pacchierotti, in Venice (to a sacred Latin text) by Bianca Sacchetti, and in Eisenstadt by Emma Hamilton, among others. The catalogue of differences exhibited by these early singers demonstrates the huge flexibility of late eighteenth-century vocal performance. This could well be emulated today, the author argues, enabling singers and instrumentalists to adopt an affective practice that ‘tunes’ their performances to our own time.