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The queen as king: Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Wendy Heller
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Extract

‘From Nino and Semiramide, rulers of Assyria, was born a son who carried the name of his father, and so resembled his mother that the people could distinguish them only by means of masculine and feminine clothing.’ Thus begins the argo-mento to the libretto La Semiramide, produced in Venice at the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo for the 1670–71 season. The gender ambiguity described in the argomento is evident in the portrait of Semiramide from the frontispiece of that libretto (see Fig. 1). She sits alone at her dressing table, adorning her hair with roses in anticipation of her lover's arrival. She admires herself in the mirror, eternal symbol of female vanity. Her bare breasts and navel contrast strikingly with the metal shield that girds her chest. A high-topped military sandal is displayed prominently beneath the folds of her skirt. Prior to assuming the male disguise that she will wear for much of the opera, Semiramide is already pictured in a manner that is warlike and sexually dangerous, challenging and seductive. This mixture of male and female attributes is critical to her new guise as a Venetian heroine.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , July 1993 , pp. 93 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

An earlier version of this paper was read at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society in Chicago in 1991. Research was carried out with the assistance of a generous grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. I would like to thank Laurie Blunsom, Eric Chafe, Beth Glixon, Susan McClary, Ellen Rosand and Gregory E. Smith for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts.

1 The association of the mirror with vanity and the unfaithful woman can be seen in numerous seventeenth-century allegorical depictions. For example, in Ripa's, CesareIconologia overo Descrittione di diverse imagine cavate dall'antichità, e di propria inventione (Rome, 1603), 142Google Scholar, the mirror is used for the allegorical representation of ‘Falseness in love or deception’. ‘Lasciviousness’ is also represented as a richly clad young woman, a mirror in her left hand, beautifying herself with her right hand (p. 289). Karen Newman points out the prevalence in English Renaissance literature of ‘mirrors wherein readers could learn proper forms of behaviour or lessons about improper forms.… The ideological texts written to advise women how to behave continually allude to the mirror, often in their title’; see Fashioning Feminism and English Renaissance Drama (Chicago, 1991), 7–8.Google Scholar Semiramide's self-admiration in the mirror thus alludes not only to her vanity and lasciviousness, but may also reflect her role as an exemplum of feminine behaviour.

2 Moniglia's libretto was originally written for a Medici-Habsburg wedding in 1665 in Innsbruck. Owing to the untimely death of groom Sigmund Franz, the work was never performed; but it travelled with the composer Antonio Cesti to Vienna, where it was produced for the Emperor's birthday in 1667. The version printed for the Vienna production most closely matches Cesti's score. A somewhat longer version, minus the ballet, is included in volume two of Delle poesie drammatiche di Gio. Andrea Moniglia (Florence, 1690)Google Scholar under the title La Semiramide. Moniglia's preface indicates that this was the version originally intended for the cancelled Innsbruck performance. Noris's version was published in two editions, both from December 1670. The preface by Venetian publisher Nicolini mentions Moniglia as the author of the original work, yet does not name Noris as reviser. This attribution is found in Ivanovich's chronological listing of the repertoire of the Venetian stage in the appendix to his Minerva al tavolino (Venice, 1681; 2nd edn., 1688), 441.Google Scholar Noris apparently used the 1667 Vienna libretto as the basis of his revision, as none of his borrowings draws upon material unique to the later Florence print.

3 On opera as a projection of Venice's civic glory, see Rosand, Ellen, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (Berkeley, 1991), especially 125–53.Google Scholar On the ways in which opera in Venice was used as a tool of the upper classes, see for example Bianconi, Lorenzo and Walker, Thomas, ‘Production, Consumption and Political Function of Seventeenth-Century Opera’, Early Music History, 4 (1984), 211–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the use of cultural products to influence Baroque society, see Maravall, José Antonio, Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure. Theory and History of Literature, trans. Cochran, Terry (Minneapolis, 1986).Google Scholar

4 While catalogues of the lives of illustrious male heroes had long existed, those of women did not emerge until the fourteenth century, with Boccaccio's, De mulieribus clans.Google Scholar See Jordan, Constance, Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models (Ithaca, 1990).Google Scholar The practice of using female figures to represent abstract ideas or attributes had a strong historical tradition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but waned in the eighteenth century; in the revision of Ripa's, CesareIconologia (1758–1760)Google Scholar many of the original allegorical women were replaced by male figures. See Ripa, Cesare, Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery: The 1758–60 Hertel Edition of Ripa's Iconologia with 200 Engraved Illustrations (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

5 I donneschi difetti. Nuovamente formati, e posti in luce (Venice, 1599).Google Scholar Many of the views are also reflected in his marriage manual, Dello stato maritale (Venice, 1602).Google Scholar

6 Books of this nature were published throughout the century, for example, Tondi, Bonaventura, La femina origine d’ogni male, overo Frine rimproverata (Venice, 1687)Google Scholar and Botti, P. D. Paolo, La donna di poche parole commendata (Padua, 1661).Google Scholar While Botti's only concern is to urge women to ‘be seen and not heard’, he also argues his case by citing such legendary women as Poppea and Dido. For further discussion on some of these writings, see Odorosio, Ginevra Conte, Donna e società nel Seicento (Rome, 1979)Google Scholar, and Taricone, Fiorenza and Bucci, Susanna, La condizione della donna nel XVII e XVIII secoli, part II (Rome, 1983).Google Scholar

7 Capaccio, Giulio Cesare, Il principe … tratto de gli emblemi delle Alciato, con duecento e più avvertimenti politici e morali (Naples, 1592; Venice, 1620).Google Scholar Cited by Jordan, , Renaissance Feminism (see n. 4), 252–3.Google Scholar

8 For a thorough discussion of Tarabotti's life and works, see Medioli, Francesca, L' ‘Inferno monacale’ di Arcangela Tarabotti (Turin, 1990)Google Scholar, Zanette, Emilio, Suor Arcangela monaca del Seicento veneziano (Rome, 1963)Google Scholar and Odorosio, , Donna e società (n. 6), 79–111 and 199–239.Google Scholar On Lucrezia Marinelli, Moderata Fonte and the feminist polemic in the early years of the seventeenth century in Venice, see Odorosio, , Donna e società, 47–78Google Scholar, and Zanette, , Suor Arcangela, 214–20.Google Scholar

9 On Tarabotti's literary battles, see Zanette, , Suor Arcangela, 239–87.Google Scholar Both Tarabotti's supporters and enemies were members of the Accademia degli Incogniti, who not only dominated literary life in Venice, but were also involved in the opera industry. See Rosand, , Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (n. 3), 37–40.Google Scholar The intrinsic nature of women and their role in society was evidently a topic of concern to Incogniti members, who wrote about the issue from both sides of the polemic. Incogniti founder Francesco Loredano became Tarabotti's literary protector, and it was largely through his influence that her works were published. Nevertheless, other Incogniti members were bitter enemies of Tarabotti, as was, for example, the notorious Ferrante Pallavicino, whose novelle demonstrate a distinct anti-female bias. The apparently ambivalent attitudes of the Incogniti towards women are of particular importance for the study of gender representation in the operas, as so many of the so-called conventions developed under their influence. See also Rosand, Ellen, ‘Barbara Strozzi, virtuosissima cantatrice: The Composer's Voice’, Journal of theAmerican Musicological Society, 31 (1978), 241–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Luca, Giovanni Battista De, Il cavaliere e la dama (Rome, 1675; 2nd edn, 1700), 563–602Google Scholar, on the history of female rule. De Luca recommends spiritual books as appropriate reading for all young women, yet he also declares that if women wish to read profane books to ‘learn of the school of honesty’, they should be those of history, in order ‘to see how much the Semiramides, Cleopatras, Messalinas, Faustinas, and Giovannas, and similar ones were cursed and condemned to perpetual damnation for their dishonesty, even though they were rulers and great queens’ (pp. 559–60).

11 In addition to Diodorus Siculus, whose twenty-one chapters on Semiramide were published extensively throughout Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, other important ancient sources include Justinius (reporting the version recounted by Latin historian Pompeius Trogus), Plutarch and Aelinus. For further details on the ancient and modern sources of the Semiramide legend, see Capomacchia, Anna Maria G., Semiramide. Una femminilità ribaltata (Rome, 1986)Google Scholar; Edwards, Gwynne, ‘La Hija del Aire in the Light of Its Sources’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 43 (1966), 177–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bergel, Lienhard, ‘Semiramis in the Italian and Spanish Baroque’, Forum italicum, 7 (1973), 227–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Questa, Cesare, Semiramide redenta: A rchetipi, fonti classiche, censure antropologiche nel melodramma (Turin, 1991).Google Scholar

12 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Concerning Famous Women, trans. Guarino, Guido A. (New Brunswick, 1963), 4–7.Google Scholar On Boccaccio's ambivalent attitude towards his women see Jordan, who notes that they are not only ’poor examples of virtue’, but also ‘condemned, however covertly, for venturing into a world reserved for men’; Renaissance Feminism (n. 4), 37.Google Scholar

13 Passi, , I donneschi difetti (see n. 5), 60.Google Scholar

14 Passi, , 35.Google Scholar Semiramide was not, however, Passi's most depraved heroine. He notes that she was not nearly as lascivious as Glaucippe, who apparently struck up with an elephant.

15 Ribera, , Le glorie immortali di trionfi et heroiche imprese (Venice, 1619), 206.Google Scholar

16 Incogniti member Francesco Busenello's portrait of Poppea in L’incoronazione di Poppea should also be considered in this context, though this type of character seems to appear with greater frequency in later operas. For a provocative hypothesis on Poppea and the Incogniti, see McClary, Susan, ‘Constructions of Gender in Monteverdi's Dramatic Music’, in Feminine Endings (Minneapolis, 1991), 48–52.Google Scholar See also Fenlon, Iain and Miller, Peter, The Song of the Soul: Understanding Poppea (London, 1992).Google Scholar

17 Pona, , La galleria, 58–9.Google Scholar

18 On the importance of the concept of the androgynous female for feminist arguments in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Jordan, , Renaissance Feminism (n. 4), especially Chapter 3, 134–247.Google Scholar Jordan notes (p. 137) that the virile woman can also be seen as ‘reinforcing patriarchal values’ at the expense of feminine values, as in Boccaccio's characterisation of Semiramide's feats, in which Semiramide's excellence resides in her masculinity – that is, her rationality, courage and physical strength.

19 Manfredi must also have been under the spell of Semiramide's dual nature; he immediately followed this play with a second work, La Semiramis: Boscareccia (Bergamo, 1593)Google Scholar, which takes a lighthearted pastoral approach to Semiramide's courtship by her first husband, Mennone.

20 Seventeenth-century Venetian authors were also fascinated by the period in Semiramide's life when she first meets her husband Nino. In Bertini's, NicolòLa Semiramide (Venice, 1649)Google Scholar, a translation of a French novella, Semiramide attempts to defeat Nino in war by donning male attire and challenging him to a duel. This same episode is treated in a play by Rota, Carlo, Sciagure venturose overo Le nozze di Semiramide (Venice, 1653).Google Scholar Both versions made much of Semiramide's sexual ambiguity while celebrating her eventual surrender to love.

21 La Semiramide, 6.Google Scholar On the question of libretto revisions and ‘Venetian use’ see Rosand, , Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (n. 3), 155–69, especially 157nGoogle Scholar; Fabbri, Paolo, Il secolo cantante. Per una storia del libretto d'opera nel Seicento (Bologna, 1988), 259–60Google Scholar; and Bianconi, Lorenzo, ‘Ercole in Rialto’, Venezia e it melodramma nel Seicento, ed. Muraro, Maria Teresa (Florence, 1976), 259–67.Google Scholar Bianconi compares the 1661 Ercole in Tebe – a five-act Florentine coup entertainment – to the three-act Venetian version which, like La Semiramide, was performed during the 1670–71 season. The most important change in content involved a reduction in the role of the deities, resulting in what Bianconi describes as a son of ‘Venetian civic realism’. However, as the original of La Semirami was similar in style and structure to the typical Venetian libretto of the 1660s and 1670s and there were no gods to eliminate, it would seem that Noris had something rather different in mind. Our most valuable contemporary witness, Cristoforo Ivanovich, notes the variable nature of ‘Venetian use’: his repertoire list describes the revision of La Semiramide as a mascherata, but the reworking of Ercole in Tebe from the same year is referred to merely as a ritoccata or retouching.

22 While Moniglia places each act in a single locale, Noris's lack of concern with the unity of place allows him to juxtapose disparate events, thereby increasing audience suspense. For example, Moniglia includes all Babylonian actions in Act II, concluding this act with Semiramide's escape from prison and an intermedio-style frolic with simple fishermen on the shores of the Tiber. Noris eliminates this trivialisation; he postpones Semiramide's escape until Act III, concluding his second act with the male-clad Semiramide denouncing her fate in the Babylonian prison.

23 Concerning Famous Women (see n. 12), 5.Google Scholar

24 Noris further evokes Semiramide's association with women of power, creating the ritualistic quality of an incantation using sdrucciolo or antepenultimate accent for this aria. This would have been immediately recognisable to seventeenth-century audiences from Medea's incantation from Cicognini's and Cavalli's Giasone, probably the most famous scene from the most frequently performed opera of the century. On the incantation convention, see Rosand, , Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (n. 3), 342–6.Google Scholar

25 For instance, Passi cites Venus as the first adulterous woman in I donneschi difetti (see n. 5), 99.Google Scholar

26 Henkel, Arthur, Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. and XVII. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1967)Google Scholar, contains numerous examples of allegorical depictions containing roses, such as the one representing ‘defloratio’, cited from a sixteenth-century allegory book by Anulus Barptolemaeus (Göttingen, 1652).

27 The significance of this was apparently not lost on Ziani the composer. This comparatively brief text is given uncharacteristically grandiose treatment, with accompanying treble instruments and both external and internal ritornelli. It is also unusually modern-sounding in its use of tonality, with strong and unambiguous modulations to the relative major and dominant. Pietro Ziani, La Semiramide (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Ms. It. N. 455 [ = 9978]), f. 4r–5r.

28 In many instances, Noris not only breaks monologues into rapid-fire dialogue, but also uses shover lines, with few internal clauses and adjectives. This is one source of the differences in the musical setting of these works. Another imponant result, however, is that Noris's royal characters employ a far less formal style of speech than Moniglia's. In the Venetian version there is less difference between master and servant in both speech and deed.

29 While it might seem that the use of a castrato for the role of Nino would minimise the gender incongruity, I would argue that the mere availability of castrati does not explain the Venetian delight in plots involving transvestism; rather, the acceptance of castrati is but another symptom of contemporary questioning about gender. On castrati, see McClary, , ‘Constructions of Gender’ (n. 16), 181 n. 31.Google Scholar Indeed, as the surviving cast lists for other operas indicate, castrati were generally assigned only to male roles. This Venetian preference for casting with ‘correct’ gender assignments differs from the widespread use of transvestism in English Renaissance drama, in which all parts were played by boys and men, and the men were often said to make better women than women themselves. See Garber, Marjorie, ‘The Transvestite's Progress’, in Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York, 1992), 67–9Google Scholar, for more on transvestism in Shakespeare and bibliography on the extensive recent work in this area.

30 Garber notes a similar use of the word ‘effeminate’ in Renaissance England, where effeminacy was ‘generated by sexual voluptuousness towards women, not towards men’. She adds that ‘historically, then, effeminacy is misogynistic as well as homophobic … since what is being protected here is a notion of manhood and manliness as a society norm’, Vested Interests (see n. 29), 138–9.Google Scholar On the relationship between effeminacy and rhetorical power, see McClary, , ‘Constructions of Gender’ (n. 16), 35–52.Google Scholar There is no consistent or direct connection between the re effeminati and the frequent cross-dressing plots; these weak men do not necessarily don female attire. In La Semiramide, Nino's womanly disguise may well have been perceived as a sort of double entendre on the idea of effeminacy.

31 While transvestism is one of the devices through which the contemporary crisis concerning women and power was enacted in La Semiramide, it would be wrong to assume that the very frequent use of transvestism in other operas always carries the same meaning. Garber has recently pointed out that transvestism is not necessarily about either male or female; this most basic cultural phenomenon represents a ‘crisis of category’ that may reflect a crisis or crises on numerous different levels: economic, racial or gender-based. See Vested Interests (n. 29), 1–17.Google Scholar

32 The Venetians were particularly fond of scenes involving homoerotic innuendo. For example, Noris's other very elaborate revision of a libretto for Venice, Apolloni's, GiovanniAmor per vendetta (Rome, 1673)Google Scholar, as Astiage (Venice, 1677)Google Scholar, adds a new character, who unknowingly falls in love with another man disguised as a woman. Noris also expands the role of the male-disguised warrior, making her of Assyrian origin so as to align her implicitly with the other great Assyrian warrior, Semiramide. My comparison of these two libretti was inspired by Walker's, Thomas suggestion in ‘Giovanni Apolloni’, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1981), I, 540.Google Scholar

33 The Viennese seem to have held a more benign view of the legendary Queen Semiramide. For example, a brief cantata entitled La Semiramide, presented for the birthday of Marianna of Austria in December 1673 (music by Antonio Draghi; lost), is a dramatisation of Semiramide's famous flight from the dressing table, presenting a complimentary and heroic view of Semiramide with a concluding chorus praising ‘Semiramide Innocente’ and comparing her to the illustrious Marianna.

34 The term ‘anti-heroic’ has been associated with the Venetian libretto by a number of writers: Dean, Winton, Handel and the Opera Seria (Berkeley, 1967), 100–32Google Scholar; see also Hill, John Walter, ‘Vivaldi's “Ottone in villa“: A Study in Musical Drama’Google Scholar, in Lalli, Domenico and Vivaldi, Antonio, Ottone in villa, ed. Hill, John Walter, Drammaturgia musicale veneta, 12 (Milan, 1983), IX–XXXVI.Google Scholar An important, previously unrecognised feature of anti-heroism in the Venetian libretto is the reversal of traditional gender roles. The men – i.e., the heroes – are weakened and the women are strengthened. Rosand notes, for example, that in Aureli's L'Orfeo of 1673 (music by Sartorio), the one-time operatic hero Orfeo is ‘de-mythified’ – transformed from the quintessential operatic hero into a jealous husband. While Rosand associates Orfeo's loss of heroism with opera's decline and subsequent critical censure, she also notes that it is Euridice who assumes the more heroic role. Whether or not Orfeo's anti-heroism is symptomatic of a decline (indeed his behaviour in the Striggio and Monteverdi setting was not always strictly heroic), reversal of gender roles may have been a factor in the perception of a decline in opera and an increase in the desire to ‘reform’ the young genre. See Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (n. 3), 389–91Google Scholar, and McClary, , ‘Constructions of Gender’ (n. 16), 222–3.Google Scholar

35 Rosand cites a letter to Johann Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg from his secretary in Venice, Francesco Maria Massi, dated 12 December 1670, in which Massi reveals that the first performance of La Semiramide the previous evening was not a success, despite excellent singers (Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice, 240n). As Ziani immediately went onto write two more operas for the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo – Heraclio and Attila the following year, both of which are similar in style to La Semiramide – it seems unlikely that the quality of the music alone would have been responsible for the failure of this work. Perhaps at that time Semiramide's challenge to the conventional order offended even Venetian audiences. Notably, the 1673 season at the Teatro SS Angelo featured a much more faithful revision of Moniglia's libretto (and Cesti's music) under the title La schiava fortunata, with some new arias by Marco Antonio Ziani, Pietro's nephew. The new title is indicative of the change in focus away from the problematic Semiramide to the happy fortunes of the slave-girl – Nino's lover – turned Princess. Significantly, it is this version that travelled later to other Italian cities; there is no record of any reprises of the 1670–71 version by Noris and Pietro Ziani.

36 The argomento describes the heroine in terms that are familiar from our examination of Semiramide. The recently widowed Ermengarda is also ‘incited by the ambition to reign’, and although she never dons male attire, she is similarly portrayed with mixed gender signs. She is fonified ‘not only by the weapons of Mars but also those of Venus’ – with traditional arms and with ‘feminine’ weapons: ‘feigned wanton deeds’ and ‘deceitful ways’. Her desire to avoid marriage to the enemy King Ridolfo is in part motivated by her love for Guido, who may or may not be her brother. When it is revealed finally that Guido is her brother (and as a male the true heir to the throne), she must decide whether to allow brother or spouse to assume power. She chooses the latter and, throwing down her sceptre, offers herself and her throne to Ridolfo.

37 For an interpretation of Messalina as a forerunner of the eighteenth-century soubrette, see Wolff, Helmuth, Die Venezianische Oper in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1937), 131–8Google Scholar, which discusses Messalina along with La Semiramide as an example of a comic opera. For a discussion of Messalina in terms of anti-heroism and the use of this libretto as a model for Antonio Vivaldi's Ottone in villa, see Hill, John Walter, ’Vivaldi's “Ottone in villa“’ (n. 34), IX–XXVI.Google Scholar

38 Like Semiramide, Messalina also appears in writings about women, but rarely as a positive exemplum. Giuseppe Passi describes her unbridled libido, her celebrated visits to brothels and her compulsion to lead other women to adultery, Donneschi difetti (see n. 5), 52.Google Scholar Messalina also interested members of the Incogniti. Zaguri's, Pietro AngeloLa Messalina: Opera scenica (Venice, 1656)Google Scholar, presented in a private performance at the home of Giovanni Battista Sanudo and dedicated to Incogniti founder Loredano, includes a debate between Honour and Lasciviousness on Messalina's sins. The Incognito author Pona, whose Galleria delle donne we have already noted, devoted an entire novella to the lascivious queen, providing a detailed description of her many adulterous activities. Pona's moralistic intentions (’Draw near, young maidens – Come chaste matrons … A glance at this face can show you how deforming promiscuity may be …’) are only a thin disguise for what was acknowledged as one of the most pornographic (and popular) works of the century. Pona, Francesco, La Messalina (Venice, 1628).Google Scholar

39 As Paolo Fabbri has noted, the librettos of the later 1670s and 1680s seem particularly preoccupied with the erotic; hence the lascivious woman is ’a popular character type. For a compilation of other conventional topics in the Italian libretto in the seventeenth century, see Fabbri, , Il secolo cantante (n. 21).Google Scholar

40 Passi, Giuseppe, Dello stato maritale (see n. 5), 156–7.Google Scholar