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Becoming a citizen: The chorus in Risorgimento opera

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Philip Gossett
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Extract

Just as politics can be analysed as a cultural and symbolic enterprise (that is, as theatre in the broadest sense), so too can theatre or opera (in a narrower sense) be analysed as political. Jonathan Dollimore identifies various conflicting processes at work in Renaissance English theatre: the ‘consolidation’ of power by a dominant order; the ‘subversion of that order’ and the ‘containment of ostensibly subversive pressures’. We need not accept Dollimore's essentially Marxist analysis of these processes in order to recognise the validity of his assertion that ‘the theatre [is] a prime location for the representation and legitimation of power’. But the way such power is consolidated, subverted or contained depends on the political and social systems in which the theatre operates. The issues are complex enough when one focuses on plays produced in Elizabethan or Jacobean London. They become even more difficult to sort out when single works or groups of related works are performed over a period of time in various locations, each with its own societal configuration, as in the different political entities that comprised the Italian peninsula during the first half of the nineteenth century (to which might be added the other European and even American audiences to which they were played). Under such circumstances, how can we measure the political implications of these works? Where does their meaning reside? How does that meaning change as a function of time or geography?

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 41 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 A version of this paper was delivered at the Gauss seminar, The Theatre of Politics in Europe: 1789 and After, at Princeton University in the spring of 1989.Google Scholar Other versions were earlier presented at Reed College and Mount Holyoke College. I am grateful to Gabriel Dotto and Roger Parker for helpful readings and suggestions.

2 See his introduction to Dollimore, Jonathan and Sinfield, Alan, eds., Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism (Ithaca and London, 1985), 10.Google Scholar

3 Dollimore, , 3.Google Scholar

4 Characteristic and important studies that emphasise this viewpoint are Monterosso, Raffaello, La musica nel Risorgimento (Milan, 1948)Google Scholar and Martin, George, ‘Verdi and the Risorgimento’, in Aspects of Verdi (New York, 1988), 3–28.Google Scholar For an extended discussion of Verdi's use of the chorus in his early operas, see Engelhardt, Markus, Die Chöre in den frühen Opern Giuseppe Verdis (Tutzing, 1988).Google Scholar

5 Mazzini, Giuseppe, Filosofia della musica, with an introduction by Adriano Lualdi (Rome and Milan, 1954), 169.Google Scholar Mazzini actually couches his opinion in a rhetorical question, but one that admits a single response: ‘Or, perché il coro, individualità collettiva, non otterrebbe come il popolo di ch'esso è; interprete nato, vita propria, indipendente, spontanea?’

6 Letter of 19 March 1847, printed in Cesari, Gaetano and Luzio, Alessandro, eds., I copialettere di Giuseppe Verdi (Milan, 1913), 449–50:Google Scholar ‘La specie di dolore che occupa ora gli animi di noi Italiani, è il dolore d'una gente che si sente bisognosa di destini migliori; è il dolore di chi è caduto e desidera rialzarsi; è il dolore di chi si pente e aspetta e vuole la sua rigenerazione. Accompagna, Verdi mio, colle tue nobili armonie questo dolore alto e solenne; fa di nutrirlo, di fortificarlo, d'indirizzarlo al suo scopo.’

7 Verdi had met Mazzini in London in July 1847, during preparations for the première of I masnadieri.

8 Letter of 18 10 1848, printed in I copialettere, 469:Google Scholar ‘Possa quest'inno, fra la musica del cannone, essere presto cantato nelle pianure lombarde’.

9 Foremost among the critics of traditional methodologies was, of course, Carl Dahlhaus. See in particular his Foundations of Music History, trans. Robinson, J. B. (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar

10 Howard, Jean E., ‘The New Historicism in Renaissance Studies’, in Kinney, Arthur F. and Collins, Dan S., eds., Renaissance Historicism (Amherst, 1987), 16.Google Scholar

11 Among recent books the problem is particularly manifest in Clément, Catherine, Opera, or the Undoing of Women, trans. Wing, Betsy (Minneapolis, 1988).Google Scholar A beautiful and moving book in its own way, it nonetheless assumes the extraordinary viewpoint that words, librettos, plots are ‘the forgotten part of opera’ (12). But the situation is quite the opposite: popular literature about opera focuses almost exclusively on these matters (though not from the feminist viewpoint that informs Clément's analysis).

12 Have we really left behind the static periods of Lorenz's, Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1924–33)Google Scholar, only to throw ourselves head-long into the Schenkerian voice-leading graphs of Brown, Matthew, ‘Isolde's Narrative: From Hauptmotiv to Tonal Model’, in Abbate, Carolyn and Parker, Roger, eds., Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner (Berkeley, 1989), 180–201?Google Scholar Recent Wagnerian studies by Abbate and Anthony Newcomb offer encouraging alternatives.

13 This point was made brilliantly by Weiss, Piero in his article ‘“Sacred Bronzes”: Paralipomena to an Essay by Dallapiccola’, Nineteenth-Century Music, 9 (1985), 42–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 The complaint, however, does resonate throughout the history of opera: see the words of Ludovico Antonio Muratori, from his 1706 treatise, Della perfetta poesia italiano, quoted in Fubini, Enrico, Musica e cultura nel Settecento Europeo (Turin, 1986), 45–6.Google Scholar

15 For a fascinating discussion of the various versions of Manzoni's novel and the circle in which he worked, see the book by the distinguished Italian writer Ginzburg, Natalia, La famiglia Manzoni (Turin, 1983).Google Scholar

16 A list is provided by Conati, Marcello in his ‘“Ernani” di Verdi: le critiche del tempo. Alcune considerazioni’, in Ernani ieri e oggi: Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Modena, Teatro San Carlo, 9–10 dicembre 1984, published as Verdi: Bollettino dell'Istituto di studi verdiani, 10 (1987), 207–72;Google Scholar see in particular 261–3.

17 The comparison is best known from the opening words of the Preface (dated 1823) to Stendhal's Vie de Rossini, ed. Litto, V. del (Lausanne, 1960), 27:Google Scholar ‘Depuis la mort de Napoléon, il s'est trouvé un autre homme duquel on parle tous les jours à Moscou comme à Naples, à Londres comme à Vienne, à Paris comme à Calcutta’ [‘Since the death of Napoleon, another man has arisen who is spoken of every day from Moscow to Naples, from London to Vienna, from Paris to Calcutta’].

18 I owe that last, rather neat formulation to Roger Parker.

19 Only in the case of a comic chorus of Turks towards the beginning of the second act, ‘Viva it grande Kaimakan’, can some hint of ‘Turkish’ colour be heard, with music that recalls passages in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. (The subject of Rossini's indebtedness to Mozart remains to be addressed in a comprehensive fashion.)

20 The letter, dated from ‘Passy de Paris’ on 12 June 1864, is addressed to Filippo Santocanale. It is reprinted in Lettere di G. Rossini, raccolte e annotate per cura di G. Mazzatini – F. e G. Manis (Florence, 1902), 270–2.Google Scholar

21 For further information, see the critical edition of the opera, ed. Gorghi, Azio, in Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini, sezione prima, vol. 11 (Pesaro, 1981).Google Scholar The manuscripts are Venezia, Biblioteca del Conservatorio, Busta 89 and Vicenza, Biblioteca Civica, FF 2–6–5, 6. When Rossini presented the opera in Naples in October 1815, he was compelled to replace Isabella's Rondò with a new, politically neutral aria, ‘Sullo stil de' viaggiatori’ (see the critical edition, 751–81); the censors, however, appear to have been untroubled by the opening chorus.

22 I have discussed this example before, with a rather different emphasis, in my ‘The Tragic Finale of Tancredi’, Bollettino del centro rossiniano di studi (1976), 5–79;Google Scholar see particularly 72–7.

23 Bruno Cagli has pointed out one significant exception, in Maometto II (Naples, Teatro San Carlo, 3 12 1820).Google Scholar See his ‘Le fonti letterarie dei libretti di Rossini: Maometto II’, in Bollettino del centro rossiniano di studi (1972), no. 2, 10–32.Google Scholar The political disturbances in Naples of 1820–21 surely influenced Rossini's decision to eliminate Anna's final speech, whose text nonetheless remains in the original printed libretto:

E to the Italia … conquistar … presumi

Impara or to … da un'itala donzella

Che ancora degli eroi la patria è quella.

[And you who presume … to conquer … Italy / Learn now … from an Italian maiden / That this is still the homeland of heroes.]

24 Fulcher, Jane, The Nation's Image: French Grand Opera as Politics and Politicized Art (Cambridge, 1987), 24.Google Scholar

25 The history of these performances is traced by Cametti, Alberto, ‘Il “Guglielmo Tell” e le sue prime rappresentazioni in Italia’, Rivista musicale italiana, 6 (1899), 580.Google Scholar

26 The translation was finally brought closer to the original meaning in December 1988, when the critical edition of the opera, edited by Elizabeth Bartlet for the Fondazione Rossini of Pesaro, was unveiled at the Teatro alla Scala, in the Italian translation revised by Paolo Cattelan. The new text of this passage reads: ‘Ei canta, e Elvezia intanto piange la libertà’.

27 This problem affected other composers. Well known is the situation of Bellini's I Puritani, originally written for the Théaˇtre Italien of Paris. When Bellini prepared a version for Naples, he felt compelled to omit the duet that concludes the second act, with its text:

Suoni la tromba, e intrepido

Io pugnerò da forte.

Bello è affrontar la morte

Gridando libertà.

[Let the trumpet sound, and, intrepidly, / I will fight with courage. / It is a fine thing to face death / Crying ‘liberty’.]

See my introduction to the facsimile edition of both versions of I Puritani, published in Early Romantic Opera (New York and London, 1983).Google Scholar

28 Lettere (see n. 20), 271Google Scholar: ‘[…] ho vestito le parole di libertà nel mio Guglielmo Tell a modo di far conoscere quanto io sia caldo per la mia patria e pei nobili sentimenti che la investono’.

29 The new translation (see n. 26), ‘Di tuo regno fia l'avvento / Sulla terra, o libertà’, is more faithful to Rossini's meaning.

30 The story is told at length by Raffaello Barbiera in his essay ‘Crepuscoli di libertà nella Venezia e la tragedia dei fratelli Bandiera’, published in Voci e volti del passato (1800–1900) da archivi segreti di stato e da altre fonti (Milan, 1920), 117–63;Google Scholar see particularly 151–2. Although there is some conflicting evidence as to whether the conspirators actually sang the Mercadante chorus, Barbiera rightly insists that the event's significance lies in the widespread popular acceptance of the anecdote.

31 Such reactions could be accentuated by the performers. Walker, Frank, The Man Verdi (London, 1962;Google Scholar rpt. Chicago, 1982), 151Google Scholar, reports an incident from the spring of 1847:

[…] the young Angelo Mariani, after conducting Nabucco at the Teatro Carcano, Milan, was to be rebuked and threatened with arrest by Count Bolza, commissioner of police, ‘for having given to Verdi's music an expression too evidently rebellious and hostile to the Imperial Government’.

32 I have discussed the textual problems surrounding this chorus in my article ‘Censorship and Self-censorship: Problems in Editing the Operas of Giuseppe Verdi’, to be published in the forthcoming (1990) Festschrift for Alvin Johnson. For fuller details, consult the critical edition of the opera, Nabucodonosor, ed. Parker, Roger, in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, Series I, vol. 3 (Chicago, 1987).Google Scholar

33 Without entering into the complex aesthetic and philosophical issues raised by such an assertion, suffice it to say that in Italian opera of the Ottocento, just as in Baroque opera, it is possible to identify musical elements (orchestral, melodic, harmonic) whose dramatic associations or affects are coloured by similar patterns and associations found throughout the repertory to which they belong. These meanings may be in constant and subtle flux; indeed, they may be received differently by different individuals or audiences. But they cannot be ignored.

34 This document is found in the Biblioteca Trivulziana of Milan: spettacoli pubblici (1842). Let me thank Roger Parker for bringing it to my attention.

35 All these works were actually performed during the Spring season at the Teatro alla Scala, with the exception of Il colonello, presumably the 1835 opera by the brothers Federico and Luigi Ricci. See Gatti, Carlo, Il Teatro alla Scala nella storia e nell'arte, 2 vols. (Milan, 1964), IIGoogle Scholar, Cronologia completa degli spettacoli e dei concerti, ed. Tintori, Giampiero, 43 and 189.Google Scholar

36 Even after approving an opera for performance, the censors in Milan reserved the right to witness the dress rehearsal, so as to guard against any difficulties that had gone unobserved in the written materials submitted to them.

35 Although, as Roger Parker has pointed out, we have very little information about the composition of Nabucco, there is no reason to believe that Verdi had not yet written the score on 28 February 1842! The phrase means only that the libretto was to be performed with new music by Verdi.

38 See n. 36.

39 A sample page is reproduced as Plate 5 in the critical edition of the opera, cited in n.32.

40 See Parker, Roger, ‘The Critical Edition of Nabucco’, in The Opera Quarterly, 5 (1987), 2/3, 91–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 See Monterosso, , (n. 4), 59–60.Google Scholar The articles he cites are dated 29 December 1847 (reporting on a performance of I Lombardi in Cremona) and 9 February 1848 (Norma in the same city).

42 Piave's letter (dated Venice, 13 November 1843) is to his Roman friend, the librettist Jacopo Ferretti: ‘Ti mando un coro di congiurati Spagnuoli, che peraltro non so se la Polizia vorrà passarmi’. This fascinating document, and others of equal importance, were first brought to light by Bruno Cagli in his article’“… questo povero poeta esordiente”: Piave a Roma, un carteggio con Ferretti, la genesi di “Ernani”’, in Ernani ieri e oggi (see n. 16), 3–18.Google Scholar

43 Letter of 13 August 1846, published in Garibaldi, Luigi Agostino, ed., Giuseppe Verdi nelle lettere di Emanuele Muzio ad Antonio Barezzi (Milan, 1931), 259:Google Scholar ‘[…] vi si cambiò it nome di Carlo in quello di Pio – e fu tanto l'entusiasmo the si ripetè tre volte; quando poi erano alle parole “Perdono a tutti” scoppiarono gli evviva da tutte le parti’.

44 I have discussed the interactions between political and musical events in Naples in this period in my article ‘La fine dell'Età borbonica 1838–1860’ in Il Teatro di San Carlo, 2 vols. (Naples, 1987), I, 165–203.Google Scholar

45 By Buden, Julian, for example, in The Operas of Verdi: From ‘Oberta’ to ‘Rugiketta’; (London, 1973), 407Google Scholar, or by Kimbell, David R. B., Verdi in the Age of Italian Romanticism (Cambridge, 1981), 569Google Scholar (where the Battaglia pasage is, However, misidentified as the ‘Act III finale’).

46 For a discussion of these political currents in Italy during this period, see Woolf, Stuart, A History of Italy 1700–1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change (London and New York, 1979), 418–24.Google Scholar

47 In a letter to Opprandino Arrivabene, published in Verdi intimo: carteggio di Giuseppe Verdi con il Conte Opprandino Arrivabene [1861–1886], ed. Alberti, Annibale (Milan, 1931), 288:Google Scholar ‘Ho un tristo presentimento sul nostro avvenire! I Sinistri distruggeranno l'Italia.’

48 The phrase comes from a letter to Giulio Ricordi of 20 November 1880. After describing the two letters of Petrarch to the Doges of Genoa and Venice, in which the poet begs them to avoid a fratricidal war, Verdi writes: ‘Tutto ciò è politico non drammatico; ma un'uomo d'ingegno potrebbe ben drammatizzare questo fatto’ [‘All of this is political, not dramatic; but a man of imagination could successfully dramatise this event’]. See Petrobelli, Pierluigi, Casati, Marisa Di Gregorio and Mossa, Carlo Matteo, eds., Carteggio Verdi – Ricordi 1880–1881 (Parma, 1988), 70.Google Scholar