Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera in German-Speaking Lands
THE COURTS IN GERMAN-SPEAKING LANDS were not slow to import Italian opera. As early as 1614, performances are recorded at Salzburg; performances at Vienna and Prague soon followed in 1625 and 1627, respectively. Cesti’s works were performed at Innsbruck beginning in 1655, and there was Italian opera at Regensburg and Munich from 1653.
Cesti served as Kapellmeister at the court of Archduke Ferdinand Carl in Innsbruck from 1652 until 1657, during which time he composed three of his most successful operas: Argia (1655), Orontea (1656), and La Dori (1657).1 Argia was commissioned for festivities related to Queen Christina’s sojourn there on her way from Sweden to Rome. After the opening prologue in which the queen’s virtues are glorified, the opera, ripe with mistaken identities and humorous episodes, unfolds without any regard for verisimilitude.2
The court poet Giovanni Apollini, who provided the libretto for Argia, was also called upon to adapt Cicognini’s Orontea for a production by Cesti the following year. This version of Orontea proved to be one of the most popular of seventeenth-century operas. Contributing to this popularity were the antics of the two principal comic characters: the perpetually drunken servant, Gelano (bass), and the old nurse, Aristea (alto). Gelano’s role is of particular interest, for it is fully integrated into the main plot, thereby allowing Gelano to participate in the action of the drama.3 The stature of Gelano was elevated even further by giving him several solo scenes (which incidentally have nothing to do with the main plot) and providing him with some of the opera’s finest arias.4
EXAMPLE 7.1 La Dori, Act I, scene ix
La Dori has been described as a “masterpiece of mistaken identities.”5 No doubt its complicated plot and comic intrigues contributed to its popularity, with revivals continuing well into the 1680s. Cesti may have sung one of the roles in the 1661 revival of this opera at Florence, for in that same year he sang the title role in the Florentine production of Jacopo Melani’s Ercole in Tebe.
The favorite ensemble in seventeenth-century Italian opera was the duet. With Monteverdi and (to a lesser degree) Cavalli, the duet, when not merely a recitative dialogue, showed, by its imitative style, the derivation from the older madrigal. In Cesti, the contrapuntal feature is less favored, often being only suggested in the opening phrase and then giving way to melismatic passages in thirds or sixths. The opening measures of “Se perfido re” from La Dori are typical of this graceful, amiable style (example 7.1).
The arias are not of large dimensions, but they show a remarkable variety of types and much care in planning the order in which these occur. There are serene, long-breathed, noble Handelian melodies, and playful airs with graceful and piquant rhythms. One such example is Arsete’s “Non scherzi con amore” from La Dori, which has a complete da capo form with the ritornello repeated between the first and second parts and again at the end of the aria.
EXAMPLE 7.2 La Dori, Act I, scene ix
The traditional strophic air is also represented in Cesti’s operas; the characteristic form of each strophe in these airs is two-part, frequently with the second part repeated (a–b–b). Arias on a ground bass are also used, and there are a considerable number of complete da capo arias. Yet the forms are not stereotyped; subtleties of detail abound. One feature of Cesti’s melody, found typically in slow-moving airs of an elegiac character, is the melodic interval of the diminished third at cadences—or, harmonically expressed, the Neapolitan sixth followed by the dominant (example 7.2)
In 1666 Cesti accepted the post of “honorary chaplain and director of theatrical music” at the Habsburg court in Vienna. Upon arrival he found himself in the company of some of the musicians who had produced his operas in Innsbruck, for when the last of the Tyrolese Habsburg archdukes died in 1665, the entire musical establishment relocated to the imperial city. Vienna, by this date, was the chief center where Italian operas, both revivals and commissioned works, were being presented.6
Cesti wrote five operas for the Habsburg court. They include Nettuno e Flora festeggiante (1666), with its musical tour de force for the bass role; Le disgrazie d’Amore (1667); and Il pomo d’oro, one of the most famous examples of a Baroque court opera in the grand style.7 Francesco Sbarra’s libretto for Il pomo d’oro was commissioned by Emperor Leopold I of Austria to celebrate his forthcoming marriage to Margherita, Infanta of Spain. The wedding was planned for December 1666. Although Cesti began work on the score in the summer of 1666 and presumably completed it by the end of that year, Il pomo d’oro was not performed in connection with the wedding festivities.
The first known performance of Il pomo d’oro occurred in July 1668 to honor Empress Margherita on her birthday. The division of the production into two days was necessitated by the length of the opera.8 According to contemporary documents, Cesti’s opera was presented in a new theater designed specifically for this production, and it was staged with a magnificence appropriate to an imperial court desirous of not being outdone by the royal festivals of Louis XIV at Versailles.9 The five acts included sixty-six scenes, in the course of which more than twenty different stage sets were required, some of them involving exceedingly elaborate machines.10 There were several ballets in each act and a grand triple ballet at the end. Ballets, a regular feature of Italian opera, were of course staged with especial magnificence in court spectacles. Often the music for them was written by a different composer.11
The story of Il pomo d’oro was based on the myth of Paris and the golden apple; in the licenza (epilogue), the god Jupiter presents this prize of beauty to the new empress, as being more worthy of it than the goddesses whose contention for it had brought about the Trojan War. In addition to the chorus there were forty-eight roles, though not necessarily this number of singers, since doubling was customary. The gods of Olympus, as well as a host of heroes and other legendary personages, were represented in the cast. All the parts were sung by men, with the quaint consequence that some of the male characters in the opera have higher voices than the female ones—a situation not uncommon in Italian seventeenth-century opera even when there were women singers, for the composers favored the woman’s alto voice and commonly reserved the soprano roles for castrati. The orchestra consisted of six violins, twelve viols (alto, tenor, and bass), two flutes (for pastoral scenes), trumpets in two parts (used chiefly in sinfonias and choruses), a gravicembalo (harpsichord), which was occasionally replaced by a graviorgano (a theater organ—probably a positiv or one-manual organ with wooden pipes), and other continuo instruments (lutes, theorbo). There was also a special group of instruments for infernal scenes, consisting of two cornetts, three trombones, a bassoon, and a regale.
The prologue and each act are opened by stately instrumental “sonatas,” and there are also many short sinfonias and ritornellos in the course of the opera. Choruses, found chiefly in the prologue, epilogue, and ballet scenes, are of comparatively little musical interest. The recitatives on the whole are not as flexible and expressive as those found in La Dori; they are for the most part mere perfunctory settings of dialogue, with the usual continuo accompaniment. There are, however, a few very beautiful accompanied (continuo and strings) recitatives, notably that of Aurindo in Act I, which show what Cesti could do in the expressive style when he had occasion.12 Martial airs with strong rhythms and much bravura passage work are in evidence, and his buffo arias—lively, moving by wide intervals—exploit the virtuoso powers and comic possibilities of the bass voice (example 7.3).
EXAMPLE 7.3 Il pomo d’oro, Act I, scene xi
Other Italian composers active in Vienna in the seventeenth century include Antonio Bertali (1605–69), Giovanni Felice Sances (c. 1600–1679), Pietro Andrea Ziani, Emperor Leopold I (who reigned from 1658 to 1705), and the most prolific of all, Antonio Draghi, who between 1663 and 1699 contributed more than one hundred dramatic pieces of various kinds to the Viennese repertoire, including the first opera performed in Vienna that was entirely a comedy, Comedia ridicula (1668).13 Draghi, his librettist Nicolo Minato, and the court architect Ludovico Burnacini were the leaders of opera at Vienna during the last three decades of the century.
Draghi possessed skill and facility as a composer, if not distinction. The airs of his early works are usually short and in strophic form, typically with the first part returning after a middle section in the dominant (or relative major), either with or without thematic contrast. In his later works this evolved into a full da capo form, with much textual repetition and extremely difficult bravura passages. His recitatives are of the parlando variety, generally barren of musical interest, though occasionally a few measures of arioso are introduced, as in the older Venetian style. His overtures also follow the Venetian model and frequently have dance movements at the end.
Scene from Il fuoco eterno by Antonio Draghi; designed by Lodovico Burnacini.
(FROM Denkmäler des Theaters, MAPPE 7, no. 5)
A style similar to Draghi’s is found in the later works of Carlo Pallavicino, director of the first permanent opera theater at Dresden from 1686.14 The libretto of his Gerusalemme liberata, composed for Dresden in 1687, combines three episodes from Tasso with a number of newly invented incidents in considerable confusion but with opportunity for several of the favorite spectacular scenes.15 Comic episodes are less conspicuous than in most contemporary operas, and each of the three acts ends with a ballet. Despite its melodic inventiveness and surety of style, the music tends to give an overall impression of monotony. With the exception of two duets, everything is for solo voice. The sixty-six arias are for the most part very short and preponderantly in da capo form; the orchestral ritornello, played either at the beginning or end, is based on a motif from the aria itself. Certain mannerisms obtrude: phrases are constantly repeated in echo style, whether or not the text justifies such a procedure (example 7.4) and the device of sequence is ever present. There are numerous passages of brilliant coloratura, especially in the larger arias accompanied by the full orchestra. Some of the smaller arias are in simple, popular style, including examples of the barcarole and siciliano types. In them, the formal balance is always clear; the middle sections of the da capo arias are shorter than the first part and usually offer contrast of key, material, phrase structure, and general design (example 7.5).
EXAMPLE 7.4 Gerusalemme liberata, Act II, scene xii
There are three accompanied recitatives and two ostinato bass arias. One of the latter (Act I, scene i), in genuine passacaglia style, is nevertheless in a–b–a form, the third and last variation being a literal repetition of the first—a striking instance of the imposition of the da capo idea on the older form.
One feature of the instrumental music in Pallavicino’s operas is the frequent repetition of phrases. Sometimes this is merely the echo effect common in the arias, but the repetition may also involve a contrast of instrumentation. The second movement of the overture, for example, consists only of five two-measure phrases, each of which is first played by the continuo instruments alone and then immediately repeated by the full orchestra. Similar places are found in many of the ritornellos: usually (as in the overture) a mere antiphony of short phrases between different instrumental groups, but occasionally a more freely developed concerto-like structure in miniature.16 Essentially, this procedure amounts to no more than taking over into the instrumental field a practice already established in the orchestrally accompanied arias, with their interplay of solo voice and orchestra. Yet it is worth noting that the appearance of the concerto principle in the instrumental music of opera at this time coincides with the earliest independent compositions for string orchestra in concerto style. The trumpet concerto, a favorite of a slightly earlier period, is represented in the overture to Pallavicino’s Diocletiano (Venice, 1675) and in a sinfonia from the first act of Sartorio’s Adelaide (Venice, 1672).17
EXAMPLE 7.5 Gerusalemme liberata, Act II, scene iii
* These six measures are repeated.
One of the leading Italian composers in the German-speaking lands was Agostino Steffani (1654–1728), whose eighteen operas were written between 1681 and 1709. Steffani was at Munich from 1667 until 1672 and again from 1674 to 1688, with an occasional sojourn in such cities as Rome and Paris. After this he went to Hanover to serve Duke Ernst August as a musician and as a diplomat. In this fifteen-year period (1688–1703), he composed six operas that were performed in Hanover’s newest theater, built in 1688 for the benefit of a resident Italian opera company.18 During the same period he became increasingly involved with affairs of state, to the extent that his diplomatic missions ultimately brought about a change in the direction of his career. One manifestation of this change was his move to Düsseldorf, where his duties were primarily of a diplomatic and administrative nature. Although his musical activities continued, as evidenced by the production of Arminio (1707), which is a pasticcio of his own works, and Il Tassilone (1709), the majority of his compositions were written before 1703, including the excellent chamber duets and the sacred works. He was the principal intermediary between the Italian opera of the late seventeenth century and the German operas of Keiser and Handel, so that, even apart from his own achievements as a composer, his historical position is an important one.19
The librettos of Steffani’s operas differ from Pallavicino’s and other contemporary Italian composers’ only in their use of subjects drawn from German history and a diminished emphasis on mythological and spectacular elements. The musical form shows the usual regular alternation of recitative and aria, relieved only by an occasional accompanied recitative or duet. But the contrapuntal texture of the music marks a profound break with the prevailing tendencies in Italy, which were toward the homophonic style. Steffani’s basses in the continuo arias are independently moving contrapuntal lines. In the orchestrally accompanied arias, the voice is treated as one instrument among several, yet without ever sacrificing its position as “chief among equals” or taking on any nonvocal traits. Concertizing instruments (solo flutes, oboes, violins, bassoon, or trumpet) weave strands of melody about the vocal part, while the full orchestra joins in at the cadences. The characteristic arias are lyrical rather than dramatic, noble and serious in expression, and have long-breathed, leisurely melodies, effortlessly flowing. This type of aria is exemplified in “Deh stancati” from Steffani’s opera that was originally titled La libertà contenta and composed for Hanover in 1693, then presented in German translation at Hamburg in 1697 as Der in seine Freyheit vergnügte Alcibiades (example 7.6).
Attention must be called in example 7.6 to the way in which the voice makes a false start, beginning the first phrase of the aria only to abandon it during a short instrumental interlude, after which the phrase is begun again and continues normally. This peculiarity—called by German writers Devise and often rendered in English as the “motto beginning”—first came prominently into operatic music with Legrenzi: twenty-six of the arias in his Eteocle e Polinice (Venice, 1675) begin in this way. Instances may be found also in Cesti and earlier; it was very commonly used by Pallavicino and P. A. Ziani and by the end of the century had become an almost unconscious mannerism of style, constantly present in the arias of Steffani, Handel, Fux, and other composers. In many of Scarlatti’s arias, the first word or phrase of the text will be repeated but with different music—the first statement being like a mere prelude or announcement, whereas the second is the real beginning of the aria.
The fundamental simplicity of Steffani’s arias does not exclude melismatic passages, many of which have no particular justification in the text but seem to well forth as the natural completion of the musical idea (example 7.7).
The bravura aria is less characteristic of Steffani, though it was a favorite of Cesti, P. A. Ziani, Sartorio, and other Italian composers.20 Written for texts of stirring or martial character, these airs abounded in virtuoso passage work. Trumpet-like figures in the melody or the addition of a trumpet obbligato rendered the effect even more brilliant (example 7.8).
Steffani’s arias are nearly all in da capo form. In keeping with the contrapuntal character of his music, there is an unusually high proportion of arias on a ground bass, which sometimes itself determines the form but more often is simply incorporated in the da capo pattern. In many instances, the ostinato principle is modified, leaving a bass consisting of a steady movement in quarter or eighth notes (walking bass), or of a characteristic rhythmic motif constantly repeated.21 The accompanied recitatives, with their flexible structure and free mingling of declamatory and arioso phrases, recall the old Monteverdi-Cavalli ideal of purely dramatic song.
EXAMPLE 7.6 Alcibiades, Act I, scene iii
EXAMPLE 7.7 ll tassilone, Act III, scene vi
His overtures are obviously modeled on those of Lully, with whose music he had become acquainted on a visit to Paris in 1678–79. In them, one finds trio sections introduced into the fast movement—short interludes for solo instruments, contrasting with the tutti in the manner of the concerto grosso.22
Steffani stands at one of the culminating points of operatic style at the end of the seventeenth century. He was a spontaneous genius on the order of Mozart or Schubert rather than a dramatist like Cavalli or Handel, and his works represent in perfection the goal of musical opera toward which the whole century had been moving. In his music at last is achieved the reconciliation of the monodic principle with the contrapuntal tradition. Steffani’s operas, like the (contemporary) trio sonatas of Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713), exemplify that balanced classical style of the late Baroque that led the way in the next generation to the monumental achievements of Bach and Handel. The aristocratic, dignified, musically serious style of Steffani found successors in the early eighteenth century only in the works of a few exceptional northern composers—for example, Johann Christoph Pez (1664–1716) at Munich and Bonn, and more notably in the works of Keiser and Handel. In Italy it was a stranger; there the demand for simplicity and melody, always immanent in the Italian temperament as well as in the nature of opera itself as a large public spectacle, led ineluctably to the galanteries of the eighteenth century.
EXAMPLE 7.8 Il Tassilone, Act IV, scene viii
1. In 1654 Cesti’s La Cleopatra inaugurated the Komödienhaus, a building erected by the archduke to enhance his theatrical entertainments. La Cleopatra represents a reworking of Cesti’s Il Cesare amante to suit the tastes of the Innsbruck court; it was given a new prologue and each act concludes with a ballet.
2. When this opera was revived in Venice, the prologue and choral numbers were omitted.
3. This is one of the earliest known instances in which a comic character is placed on the same level as the serious characters in an Italian music drama.
4. On Orontea, see Holmes, “Giacinto Andrea Cicognini’s and Antonio Cesti’s Orontea (1649).”
5. This phrase appears in Carl Schmidt’s article on Cesti in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.
6. See Köchel, Die kaiserliche Hofmusikkapelle in Wien; Weilen, Zur Wiener Theatergeschichte; idem, Geschichte des Wiener Theaterwesens; Haas, Die Wiener Oper; Adler, “Die Kaiser … als Tonsetzer” Wellesz, Essays on Opera, nos. 2–5;Seifert, Die Oper am Wiener Kaiserhof im 17. Jahrhundert.
7. A less well known but equally magnificent festival opera of the same period was Angelini-Bon-tempi’s Il Paride. See Briganti, Gio. Andrea Angelini-Bontempi.
8. Although no complete score of this opera is available, it is estimated that the production lasted eight hours. In addition to the extant prologue and Acts I, II, and IV, an important manuscript collection has come to light that contains some of the musical material from Acts III and V. For a discussion of this manuscript, see C. B. Schmidt, “Antonio Cesti’s Il pomo d’oro.”
9. See Wellesz, Essays on Opera, 54–81; Hadamowsky, Barocktheater am Wiener Kaiserhof.
10. For a complete set of these engravings, see DTOe III2 and IV2.
11. For some of the ballets in the Vienna court operas, see DTOe XXVIII2.
12. DTOe III2, 97, 100ff. For another example of Cesti’s effective use of accompanied recitative, see the “ghost” scene in La Dori.
13. See Neuhaus, “Antonio Draghi” (with a catalog of works and many musical examples), and Seifert, Neues zu Antonio Draghis weltlichen Werken (on the authenticity of Draghi’s secular works).
14. Although the first opera house in Dresden, the Komödienhaus, was opened in 1667, Italian singers were not engaged to sing there on a regular basis until the 1680s.
15. See Hermann Abert’s introduction to the edition of this work in DdT, vol. 50.
16. See also the overture to L’amazone corsara (1688) in Heuss, Die Instrumental-Stücke, 121.
17. Sartorio also used the trumpet in a solo capacity in several arias in later operas.
18. All six of these operas were presented in German translation at the Hamburg opera house between 1695 and 1699.
19. On Steffani, see studies by Baxter and Marles. See also Chrysander, G. F. Händel, 1:309–73; Fischer, Musik in Hannover; Werner, “Agostino Steffanis Operntheater”; Keppler, “Agostino Steffani’s Hannover Operas”; Hammer, Oper in Hannover; Timms, “The Dissemination of Steffani’s Operas”; Croll, “Musik und Politik: Steffani-Opern in München, Hannover und Düsseldorf.”
20. Cf. Bücken, Der heroische Stil.
21. Cf. Riemann, “Basso continuo und Basso quasi ostinato.”
22. Steffani is credited with being the first to interject these trio sections into the fast movement.