Production, consumption and political function of seventeenth-century opera

Lorenzo Bianconi; Thomas Walker

doi:10.1017/S0261127900000450

Production, consumption and political function of seventeenth-century opera

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2008

Lorenzo Bianconi and

Thomas Walker

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Lorenzo Bianconi: Affiliation:
University of Bologna
Thomas Walker: Affiliation:
University of Ferrara

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This article was first planned in 1976. It owes its existence to Pierluigi Petrobelli who, charged with organising a round table on seventeenth-century music drama for the Twelfth Congress of the International Musicological Society, Berkeley 1977, invited the authors to prepare a paper as a focus for discussion and offered them constant encouragement throughout its preparatory stages. It is our pleasant duty to mention that during the time of preparation of the paper Lorenzo Bianconi held scholarships from the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani and the Istituto Storico Germanico of Rome.

Type: Research Article
Information: Early Music History , Volume 4 , October 1984 , pp. 209 - 296

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261127900000450 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

¹ A series of questions analogous to those raised here, but addressed to a rather broader theme, will be found in Jacquot's, J. introduction to Dramaturgic et société: rapports entre l'oeuvre théâtrale, son interprétation et son public aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris, 1968), i, pp. xiii–xviGoogle Scholar.

² Which is forced to rely on such abstractions as ‘baroque’, ‘spirit of the baroque’, ‘absolutism’, etc. General historical investigation of seventeenth-century Europe has tended to polarise in the past two decades around ostensibly materialist versus idealist lines, epitomised by the ‘general crisis’ essays of E. J. Hobsbawm, ‘The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’ (originally in Past and Present, nos. 5 and 6 (1954)) and H. R. Trevor-Roper, ‘The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’ (originally in Past and Present, no. 16 (1959)), both published, together with a number of complementary contributions by other scholars, in Crisis in Europe 1560–1660, ed. Aston, T. with an introduction by C. Hill (London, 1965), pp. 5–58 and pp. 59–95Google Scholar, respectively. While our views are closer to those of Hobsbawm (despite the nearly tautological character of his main thesis: essentially, that capitalist growth was limited by the remains of feudalism) than to those of Trevor-Roper, and while many of the former's observations are stimulating by way of general background, there is too little consideration of the relationship between base and cultural superstructure for his essay to be of much direct help here. Despite the author's allergy to materialist thinking, Rabb, T. K., The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1975)Google Scholar provides an intelligent critique of the recent polemics and useful bibliographical material. See also the fine materialist critical study of Rosario Villari: ‘Rivolte e coscienza rivoluzionaria nel secolo xvii’, Studi storici, 12 (1971), 235–64Google Scholar.

³ A historico-literary model for this direction of research is provided by so-called Rezeptions-geschichte; see Jauss, H. R., Literaturgeschichte als Provokation (Frankfurt am Main, 1970), pp. 144–207Google Scholar.

⁴ The bibliographical model for and repertorial equivalent to these dramaturgical collections is Allacci, L., Drammaturgia (Rome, 1666; greatly enlarged 2nd edn, Venice, 1755)Google Scholar. The exception of the systematic, chronological collections of Venetian dramas exclusively ‘per musica’ (for example, those in I–RVI, Vcg, Vnm, US–LAuc) is also formed on a bibliographical model, the Venetian chronologies of Cristoforo Ivanovich (‘Memorie teatrali di Venezia’, appendix to Minerva al tavolino, Venice, 1681; brought up to date and reprinted in the enlarged edition of 1688), Bonlini, Giovanni Carlo (Le glorie della poesia e della musica, Venice, [1731])Google Scholar and Groppo, Antonio (Catalogo di tutti i drammi per musica, Venice, [1745])Google Scholar. See Walker, T., ‘Gli errori di Minerva al tavolino: osservazioni sulla cronologia delle prime opere veneziane’, in Venezia e il melodramma nel Seicento, ed. Muraro, M. T. (Florence, 1976), pp. 7–16Google Scholar.

⁵ See Crescimbeni, G. M., La bellezza della volgar poesia spiegata in otto dialoghi (Rome, 1700), Dialogo vi, pp. 140–2Google Scholar, and L'istoria della volgar poesia, i (3rd edn, Venice, 1731)Google Scholar, book iv, chapter xi, pp. 292–6; Quadrio, F. S., Della storia, e della ragione d'ogni poesia, iii/2 (= Tomo v) (Milan, 1744)Google Scholar, book iii, Sect, iv, chs. 1–2, pp. 425–48; Tiraboschi, G., Storia della letteratura italiana, xii (2nd edn, Modena, 1792)Google Scholar, book iii, ch. 3. lxx, p. 1329, and viii (2nd edn, Modena, 1793), book iii, ch. 3. xxix, pp. 490–4.

⁶ That is the case with the collection made by Marco Contarini at Piazzola about 1680–5, almost as a historical legitimation for his own theatrical undertakings (I–Vnm, MSS It. Cl. iv. 351–462 (=9875–9986)); with the only substantial collection of seventeenth-century Roman operas, put together by a cardinal whose patronage of opera at Rome was never more than indirect (I–Rvat, MSS Chigi Q.v.51–73); and with the collection of the Duke of Modena, who about 1688 gathered a series of manuscripts of arias from operas performed in various north Italian cities. For a different kind of collection of opera manuscripts see n. 74 below.

⁷ See the two articles by Schmidt, Carl B.: ‘Antonio Cesti's La Dori: a Study of Sources, Performance Traditions and Musical Style’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 10 (1975), pp. 455–98Google Scholar; and ‘La Dori di Antonio Cesti: sussidi bibliografici’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 11 (1976), pp. 197–229Google Scholar. A study and an edition of Giasone by Lorenzo Bianconi is forthcoming.

⁸ See, for example, Imperiale, G. V., ‘Viaggi’, ed. Barrili, A. G., Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, 29 (1898), pp. 5–279 (272)Google Scholar: ‘Giornata Sesta’ ( = 3 November 1635) ‘… La sera si andò a sentir i primi vespri alli Frari, chiesa di San Carlo. Fummo partecipi d'una musica in ogni squisitezza perfetta, essendo guidata da Monteverde, uomo di gran spirito.’ On the elusory nature of contemporary comment, see Reiner, S.; ‘La vag'Angioletta (and others)’, Analecta musicologica, 14 (1974), pp. 84–5Google Scholar, and Bianconi, L., Il Seicento (Turin, 1982), pp. 63–5Google Scholar.

⁹ Perugia, 1695, Part i, Corollary iv, pp. 17–20.

¹⁰ Edited by Müller-Blattau, J., in Die Kompositionslehre Heinrich Schützens in der Fassung seines Schülers Christoph Bernhard (2nd edn, Kassel etc., 1963)Google Scholar.

¹¹ As a singer at S. Marco under Monteverdi and Rovetta Bontempi had ‘l'esperienza di sette anni continui’ of Venetian music ‘quando, oltre al continuo esercitio del Canto, era l'animo nostro alimentato dalla continua et erudita conversatione di Gio. Francesco Loredano, Pietro Michele, Scipione Herrico, Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, Giulio Strozzi, et altri Letterati insigni, che fiorivano tra l'anno 1643 e l'anno 1650 in Venetia’ (Historia musica, p. 188; might Angelini, who here shows his familiarity with the Accademici Incogniti – that is, with some of the main promoters of Venetian opera theatre – be a candidate for the musical paternity of those Venetian operas of the period orphaned by the efforts of Thomas Walker in ‘Gli errori’?).

¹² See the series of communications, mostly from Venice, , in Mercure galant: 08 1677, pp. 74–104Google Scholar; February 1679 (from Turin), pp. 155–9; April 1679, pp. 118–50; December 1679 (from Piazzola), pp. 105–23; February 1680 (postscript to the report from Piazzola), pp. 124–5; February 1683 (‘Discours de Monsieur [Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, Seigneur] Evremont sur les opéra françois et italiens à M^r de Boukinkan [presumably = George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham]’), pp. 72–105; March 1683 (letter from Chassebras de Cramailles, dated 20 February 1683), pp. 230–309; April 1683 (continuation, dated 6 March 1683), pp. 22–89 (there is more than one edition of Mercure galant; datings and paginations given here follow the series in F–Pn). Further, see de Saint-Didier, A. T. Limojon, La ville et la république de Venise (Paris, 1680; reflects travels of 1672–1674), pp. 417–23Google Scholar; Misson, F. M., Nouveau voyage d'Italie fait en l'année 1688 (The Hague, 1691), pp. 184ffGoogle Scholar; [François Raguenet], Paralèle des Italiens et des François en ce qui regarde la musique et les opéra (Paris, 1702)Google Scholar; [Jean Laurent Le Cerf de la Viéville de Fresneuse], Comparaison de la musique italienne, et de la musique françoise (2nd edn, Brussels, 1705)Google Scholar.

¹³ The vicissitudes of Francesco Cavalli's involvement at Teatro S. Cassiano, Venice, from 1638, are recorded in Morelli, G. and Walker, T., ‘Tre controversie intorno al San Cassiano’, in Venezia e il melodramma, ed. Muraro, , pp. 97–120Google Scholar; on Cavalli's subsequent impresarial entanglement at Teatro S. Moisè, see Pirrotta, N., ‘Il caval zoppo e il vetturino: cronache di Parnaso 1642’, Collectanea historiae musicae, iv (1966), pp. 215–26Google Scholar.

¹⁴ For Badoaro, see Bianconi, L. and Walker, T., ‘Dalla Finta pazza alla Veremonda: storie di Febiarmonici’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 10 (1975), pp. 379–454 (415)Google Scholar; for Giulio Cesare Corradi, see Giazotto, R., ‘La guerra dei palchi: documenti per servire alla storia del teatro musicale a Venezia come istituto sociale e iniziativa privata nei secoli xvii e xviii’, Nuova rivista musicale italiana, 1 (1967), pp. 245–86, 465–508 (496)Google Scholar; for the other Venetians, see Mangini, N., I teatri di Venezia (Milan, 1974), pp. 67–8, 53–4Google Scholar. Giulio Rospigliosi states explicitly that the Barberini gave him ‘la cura della soprintendenza della Musica [=del teatro]; che è carico di qualche autorità, e di stima, potendosi fare molti servitij, per essere [la famiglia Barberini] una delle meglio provviste Chiese di Roma in questo genere’; on another occasion he complains at having taken on ‘l'intrigo de' Bullettini [=theatre tickets (by invitation?)]’ (letters of 3January 1637 and 29 December 1635; I–Rvat, Vat. lat. 13362, fols. 224–5 and 208).

¹⁵ It is at least the case that Sartorio served his employer Duke Johann Friedrich of Hanover-Calenberg in procuring singers in Venice, both during and after his term as maestro di cappella; see Wolff, Helmuth Christian, Die venezianische Oper in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1937), pp. 64–70Google Scholar. For the character of Steffani's activity at Hanover, see Sievers, H., ‘Hannover (Stadt)’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Kassel and Basel, 1949–)Google Scholar, and Brockpähler, R., Handbuch zur Geschichte der Barockoper in Deutschland (Ems-detten, 1964), p. 215Google Scholar; or, for greater detail about both Sartorio and Fischer, Steffani G., Musik in Hannover (Hanover, 1903)Google Scholar and Sievers, H., Die Musik in Hannover (Hanover, 1961)Google Scholar, which we were not able to consult.

¹⁶ A first tentative inquiry into the methods of musical learning and training available to a young opera composer of the seventeenth century may be found in Surian, Elvidio, ‘L'esordio teatrale del giovane Gasparini: alcune considerazioni sull'apprendimento e tirocinio musicale nel Seicento’, in Francesco Gasparini (1661–1727): atti del primo convegno internazionale, ed. Seta, F. Della and Piperno, F. (Florence, 1981), pp. 37–54Google Scholar.

¹⁷ The expenses of the 1637 performance are summarised in I–Rvat, MS Ottob. lat. 2476, fols. 497–8, and published in Kast, P., ‘Unbekannte Dokumente zur Oper Chi soffre speri von 1637’, in Helmuth Osthoff zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag, ed. Stauder, W., Aarburg, U. and Cahn, P. (Tutzing, 1969), pp. 129–34Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Apart from a revival performed by students in 1669 (see Murata, M., ‘Il carnevale a Roma sotto Clemente ix Rospigliosi’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 12 (1977), pp. 83–99 (92)Google Scholar). On the circumstances surrounding the two productions of 1637 and 1639, see Reiner, S., ‘Collaboration in Chi soffre speri’, Music Review, 22 (1961), pp. 265–82Google Scholar (however, the question of the collaboration between Mazzocchi and Marazzoli is probably to be resolved along the lines proposed by Fritz Zeigler in a forthcoming article).

¹⁹ For the theatrical activity of the Barberini family, see Murata, M., Operas for the Papal Court, 1631–1668 (Ann Arbor, 1981)Google Scholar; on their music patronage in general, see Hammond, F., ‘Girolamo Frescobaldi and a Decade of Music in Casa Barberini: 1634–1643’, Analecta musicologica, 19 (1979), pp. 94–124Google Scholar. On their art patronage see Haskell, F., Patrons and Painters: a Study in the Relations Between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque (New York, 1963), pp. 24–62Google Scholar; and Lavin, M. Aronberg, Seventeenth-Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art (New York, 1975)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Milton's letter of 30 March 1639 to Luca Holstenio and Montecuccoli's dispatch of 2 March 1639 to the Duke of Modena are quoted in Ademollo, A., I teatri di Roma nel secolo decimosettimo (Rome, 1888), pp. 25–6, 28ffGoogle Scholar.

²¹ I–Rvat, Archivio Barberini, Giustificazioni del card. Francesco, 3315: Commedia del Carnevale 1639. Lavin, Barberini Documents, records a few other payments (documents 382, 437, 438) and supplies the surname of ‘Don Servio’ (e.g. p. 218).

²² Some of their names are probably among those which appear on the bill for ‘stivaletti e scarpe fatti per l'atione intitolata chi sofre speri’ (Giustificazioni, fol. 35): Prospero Meocci, G. B. Vallemani, Carlo Albani, Girolimo Pavoluci, Clemente Capponi, Pier Francesco Fioravanti, Giuseppe Bianchi (see Culley, T. D., Jesuits and Music, i: a Study of the Musicians Connected with the German College in Rome during the 17th Century and of their Activities in Northern Europe, Rome, 1970, particularly pp. 232–3)Google Scholar, Giovanni Pavoluci, Conte della Massa, Giuseppe Colista (see Wessely-Kropik, H., Lelio Colista, ein römischer Meister vor Corelli: Leben und Umwelt, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, ccxxxvii/4, Vienna, 1961, pp. 11, 15)Google Scholar, Girolimo dell'Apolinara (=Zampetti? see Culley, , Jesuits and Music, pp. 228–9Google Scholar and Hammond, ‘Casa Barberini’, p. 100), Anibale Biancheli, Antonio Gisilieri, Malatesta ( = the ‘Sign.r Malatesta’ to whom were entrusted some drawings of Giulio Romano on 10 October 1638? see Lavin, Barberini Documents, document 153), Luca Antonio, Don Giovanni, Ludovico, Marco (Marazzoli?), Alvida (the name of one of the female characters), Flaminio Catalani.

²³ Giustificazioni, fols. 20–1: ‘Denari spesi dal S.^r Cav.^r Gio: Lorenzo Bernini per far fare la prospettiva della fiera' and fol. 25^v: ‘per il S.^r Cav.^re Bernino per giornate n.° 43 pagato [scudi] 19.30.’ Similarly, the numerous mentions of Bernini in the Barberini documentation published by Pollak, Oskar, Die Kunsttätigkeit unter Urban viii (Vienna, 1928, 1931)Google Scholar, record money that passed through his hands by way of expenses, rather than salary as such. Bernini was probably paid in silverware, according to a custom common in the seventeenth century: see Murata, ‘Il carnevale’, pp. 91–2, n. 19b, for the gift worth nearly 300 scudi accorded to Bernini in 1668.

²⁴ Giustificazioni, fol. 84^r-v.

²⁵ It is worth noting that Chi soffre speri was not the first opera performed at the Barberini's Palazzo alle Quattro Fontane, where spectacles had been held during each Carnival since 1632. Nonetheless, there was no stable Barberini theatre properly speaking: it was described as ‘teatro fatto apposta … per simili occasioni’ (our emphasis: see Giazotto, R., ‘Un inedito contributo di Benedetto Croce: documenti sui teatri di Roma nel xvii secolo’, Nuova rivista musicale italiana, 2 (1968), pp. 494–500)Google Scholar and the opera is mentioned in one source as ‘la Comedia recitata alle 4 Fontane nel salone grande da basso’ (Hammond, ‘Casa Barberini’, n. 78). Thus 530.14 scudi were spent on work setting up the stage, the machines and the wings (Giustificazioni, fols. 22–25^v; these tasks included the installation of 840 ‘p' (=piedi, c. 280 metres?; or palmi, c. 90–220 metres, according to different measures?) of ‘canali fatti su il palcho parte, e parte di sopra sotto il cielo dove corrano le scene’). On the other hand some materials used for previous spectacles could be recovered: for example the four columns on two pedestals (probably for the proscenium) moved from the Palazzo della Cancelleria to the Palazzo alle Quattro Fontane (fols. 1–10); see also the considerable list of costumes and other stage properties in the inventory of Cardinal Francesco Barberini taken in 1649 (I–Rvat, Archivio Barberini, Armadio 155) given in Lavin, , Barberini Documents, pp. 257ffGoogle Scholar. The benches for the public were borrowed from the Palazzo della Cancelleria (Giustificazioni, fol. 46) and from a dozen Roman churches (fol. 120).

²⁶ Giustificazioni, fols. 18, 22–5. This sum does not include 30.44 scudi for the wood that figures among the materials used for the ‘fiera’ (see n. 29 below), but does include the carpentry necessary for the machines.

²⁷ Ibid., fols. 43–5.

²⁸ Ibid., fols. 103–5; 35; 121–2; 65 (for 5000 flowers), 67, 125.

²⁹ Ibid., fols. 1–10, 133–4 (six painters were needed: Giovan Francesco Bolognese, Giovanni Fiamengo, Giovanni [Maria] da Urbino, Giovanni Fiorentino, Girolamo painter of perspectives, Gio: Battista Speranza); fols. 20–1 (‘denari spesi’, see n. 23; apart from materials, 50 scudi were spent on the painter of the perspective, Guido, and 51.60 for the 24 men who handled the scenery).

³⁰ Ibid., fols. 56–7 (15 tailors).

³¹ Ibid., fols. 84–5 (given, only slightly incomplete, in Hammond, ‘Casa Barberini’, nn. 84–5). The expenses also take account of the players used in San Bonifatio, performed four times (the month before) at the Palazzo della Cancelleria. In all, the instruments played in Chi soffre speri were two harpsichords (but on fol. 25^v is noted an expenditure for three pairs of stands for the harpsichords!), two violoni, a lute, a harp, two violins and a cetra (zither; in San Bonifatio there was no harp nor cetra). On fol. 88 are listed expenses for moving the harp and two harpsichords; and on fol. 89 for ‘suonatori’ of cetra, piva (bagpipe), zufolo (flageolet) and scacciapensieri (Jew's harp), probably employed in the ‘fiera’.

³² Ibid., fol. 83: bill for copying which Virgilio Mazzocchi had done, 112 scudi (75 for ‘tre libri novi di musica’, 15 for ‘aggiuntamenti [sic] di altri libri due vecchi’, 10 for music paper and plain paper of various sizes, the rest for separate parts, binding, two librettos); fol. 86: bill of Marco Marazzoli for Belardino Terentio's copying of the whole ‘comedia’ (30 scudi). On fol. 87 is the bill for music paper ‘ordinata dal Sig.^r Marco’: 30 folios in 4° of long royal (with 6 staves), 39 in folio of royal (with 14 staves), a volume in 4°of long royal consisting of 36 folios (6 staves) ‘coperto di cartone per il Sig.^r Marco’, another 61 folios of royal and 68 of imperial, also the binding of two volumes ‘scritti per servizio della Comedia’ and of three volumes bound in parchment (two in folio royal and one in folio imperial), for a total of 6.58 scudi. There exist two musical sources for the opera: I–Rvat, Barb. lat. 4386 (Comedia Chi Soffre Speri Poesia Dell'Illustrissimo Mon. Ruspigliosi Posta in Musica Dalli Signori Vergilio Mazzocchi, E Marco Marrazzoli), and I–Rvat, Chigi q.viii.190 (only the ‘Fiera di Farfa’).

³³ Giustificazioni, fol. 84 (see n. 31 above).

³⁴ Ibid., fols. 37, 40. 3910 copies of the argument were bound in plain paper, 100 in ‘carta turchesca ondata’ (45.60 scudi). Compare the total of c. 4000 copies with the 1500 and 2350 printed for the two Barberini spectacles of the previous year (Hammond, ‘Casa Barberini’, n. 75), as well as with the 2000 printed librettos for a Venetian opera of the 1660s (I–Vas, Scuola Grande di S. Marco (SGdSM), b (busta) 194, fol. 80) and with the 1000 printed for an opera which the Chigi put on at Ariccia in 1672 (I–Rvat, Archivio Chigi 458, p. 241). See also p. 234 below. A copy of the Argomento et allegoria della comedia musicale intitolata Chi soffre speri (Rome, Rev. Camera Apostolica, 1639)Google Scholar is in I–PESo, a.ii.b. 12.M.7 (together with the edition of 1637).

³⁵ Giustificazioni, fol. 15.

³⁶ See n. 20 above; Giulio Rospigliosi confirms that: ‘Il teatro è capace di 3500 persone, o di vantaggio’ (letter of 1 March 1642; I–Rvat, Vat. lat. 13364, fols. 19–21). The Roman ‘avvisi’ of 5 March 1639 state that there ‘capono commodamente da 4000 persone’; see Giazotto, ‘Un inedito’.

³⁷ In many cases the merchants were to recover the merchandise in pristine state; it is symptomatic that one of them, the jeweller Gio. Gasparo Decametti, drew up a bill for ‘robba che si è riauta brutta rotta e guasta’ (Giustificazioni, fols. 41–2). A slipper-seller, a haberdasher, a leatherware merchant and a seller of dolls took part in seven rehearsals and the performances ‘con le lor robbe di bottega’ (fol. 89). It is worth noting that Cardinal Francesco Barberini was Abbot of Farfa, and that there is thus a direct feudal reference in the location of the ‘Fiera’.

³⁸ The part of Zanni was probably performed (and thus also composed?) by Marazzoli; the bill of the costume seller includes a ‘zani con barba fino dato al Sig.^e Marcho delarpe [de l'arpa]’ (Giustificazioni, fol. 106). Clear evidence that Monteverdi's Eighth Book was appreciated in Roman circles comes from Maugars, André, Reponse faite à un curieux, sur le sentiment de la musique d'ltalie. Escrite à Rome le premier octobre 1639 (n.p., n.d.), p. 30Google Scholar. It also appears, however, that copies were not easily available in Rome, since Maugars hoped to pass through Venice in order to be able to buy Monteverdi's latest published works for his French correspondent.

³⁹ Antioco Drama Per Musica Nel Teatro A San Cassano Per l'Anno 1658 (Venice, 1658; dedicated by Nicolò Minato to Marcellino Airoldi, Venice, 21 01 1658 (Venetian style equals; 1659); I–Rsc, Carvalhaes 1077)Google Scholar; other performances are documented at Reggio Emilia (see below n. 56), Florence (libretto, with the name of Francesco Cavalli, dated 6 December 1669; I–Bc, 920), Bologna (libretto dated 17 April 1673; I–Bu, Aula iii. Caps.101.74). The same drama, in a revised form, was given in 1678 at Genoa with the title Amor per destino (libretto I–MOe, 83.D.29.2) and the music of Carlo Ambrogio Lonati (score I–Rvat, Chigi q.v.70); and again, in a new revision, at Genoa in 1690 with the title Antioco principe della Siria (libretto US–Wc).

⁴⁰ I-Vas, SGdSM, b 194, not included in the numeration. This account book is fleetingly quoted in Arnold, D., ‘L'incoronazione di Poppea and its Orchestral Requirements’, Musical Times, 104 (1963), 176–8CrossRef Google Scholar; and in Beat, J. E., ‘Monteverdi and the Opera Orchestra of his Time’, The Monteverdi Companion, ed. Arnold, D. and Fortune, N. (London, 1968), pp. 277–301 (284)Google Scholar.

⁴¹ I–Vas, SGdSM, b 194, fols. 24–5. The partial reproduction of documents relating to S. Cassiano in Giazotto: ‘La guerra’, pp. 250–65, should be read with great caution.

⁴² The documents relating to this activity, in I–Vas, SGdSM, buste 188 and 194, receive detailed examination in Glover, J. A., ‘The Teatro Sant'Apollinare and the Development of Seventeenth-Century Venetian Opera’ (diss., Oxford U., 1975), ch. 3, pp. 15–40Google Scholar; see also (with caution) Giazotto, ‘La guerra’, pp. 278–82.

⁴³ I–Vas, SGdSM, b 194, fols. 69–71, 73–5; reproduced integrally, though not without errors, in Cavalcaselle, G. B., Tipi di scritture teatrali attraverso luoghi e tempi diversi: contributo storico-giuridico allo studio della natura contrattuale delle scritture teatrali (Rome, 1919), document 64, pp. 125–6Google Scholar, as, also, the contract of 9 October 1658 (fol. 12) with the singer Elena Passarelli (not Pazzerelli) for the performance of Antioco, document 1, p. 3. The list of rent payments to the Tron family is on fol. 241. A few documents have come to light on the subsequent career of Elena Passarelli. On 4 December 1666 she wrote from Genoa to the Roman poet Sebastiano Baldini (I–Rvat, Chigi r.iii.69, fol. 967): thus she may have sung in Scipione affricano, which at that moment was probably in rehearsal at Genoa (the libretto, in I–Rn, is dated 26 December). On 30 April 1670 she signed the libretto for the performance of Dori at Florence (in I–MOe). During the 1672 season she sang, under the protection of Queen Christine of Sweden, the roles of Celinda/Tolomeo, Livia and Marzia in the operas given at Teatro Tordinona in Rome (respectively: Dori, La prosperità di Elio Seiano and Tito), as appears from a number of laudatory sonnets by Baldini (I–Rvat, Chigi r.iii.69, fols. 502, 503,661,672,673,678). In Carnival 1673 she played the part of Irene in Pasquini's Alcasta, performed at the same theatre, according to a list of the singers in the score (Dbrd–MÜs, Santini 3000 (olim Chigi)).

⁴⁴ ‘Memorie teatrali di Venezia’, pp. 401–3.

⁴⁵ I–Vas, SGdSM, b 194, fol. 168 (contract for Teatro S. Aponal) and fol. 69 (contract for Teatro S. Cassiano); see Glover, ‘Teatro Sant'Apollinare’, especially pp. 17–18, 24, and Giazotto, ‘La guerra’, pp. 257–8, 278–9. For the price of box rental, see I–Vas, Archivio Notarile, Alessandro Pariglia, Atti, b 10864, fol. 122^r-v (4 January 1657 and 12 February 1657 (Venetian style = 1658 in both cases)), copies of notes to recalcitrant box-holders.

⁴⁶ Cf. Giazotto, ‘La guerra’, p. 260.

⁴⁷ A clue to the late opening, as well as an indication of the sort of practical difficulties which beset the organisation of musical spectacle may be found in a letter from Alvise Duodo to Marco Faustini dated 5 November 1658 (I–vas, SGdSM, b 188, fols. 19–20): ‘… mentre siamo alli 5 novembre gl'habiti, non si lavorano, li Musici, che vi sono non hanno havuta la parte, … et per Dio, che non si reciterà opera in questa forma. S'arricordi poi, che per condimento di tutto ci manca una parte principale. Né del Contralto di Roma al quale si sono rimessi li Scudi 30, ne sappiamo alcuna nova.’

⁴⁸ See in particular, Brunelli, B., ‘L'impresario in angustie’, Rivista italiana del dramma, 5 (1941), pp. 311–41Google Scholar; and an article by Schmidt, Carl B., ‘An episode in the history of Venetian opera: the Tito commission (1665–66)’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 31 (1978), pp. 442–66CrossRef Google Scholar. Both are based on I–Vas, SGdSM, buste 188 and 194.

⁴⁹ I–Vas, SGdSM, b 188 contains documents pertaining to Girolama's employment: fols. 19, 22 (undated contract) and 409 (letter of 20 October 1658 concerning her journey to Venice in which mention is made of Marazzoli having been engaged by the Grimani in the same season). A Girolama (again without surname) sang in Le fortune di Rodope e Damira (November-December 1662) and in Erismena (winter 1662–3) at the Teatro dei Sorgenti in Florence; see Hill, John Walter, ‘Le relazioni di Antonio Cesti con la corte e i teatri di Firenze’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 11 (1976), p. 31, n. 20Google Scholar. Although the account book lists payments to eleven persons in addition to Cavalli, the libretto has roles for only ten singers. The other names of singers which can be read from the list (apart from Elena Passarelli, for whom see n. 43) are a Giulio di Ferrara and Orsetta Parmine. The latter can be identified with the Orsola Parmini, Bolognese, who sang in Eliogabalo at Teatro del Falcone, Genoa, in 1670 (libretto in I–Vgc) and in La costanza trionfante at the Teatro S. Moisè, Venice, in 1673 (libretto in I–Vnm, Dramm. 940.4).

⁵⁰ Pietro Andrea Ziani was paid 310 VI for an opera in 1660 at the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo (probably Annibale in Capua, performed fourteen times according to a bill in I–Vas, SGdSM, b 194, fol. 8) and 200 ducats for composing Amor guerriero for the same theatre in 1663; he was again offered the latter amount for Carnival 1666 (letter to Marco Faustini, Vienna, 25 July 1665; I–Vas, SGdSM, b 188, fol. 82). From Antonio Cesti's letter to Nicolò Beregan (Innsbruck, 21 June 1665; I–Vas, SGdSM, b 188, fol. 119), it seems that he, too, was offered substantially less than Cavalli. Cavalli's contract is in I–Vas, SGdSM, b 194, fols. 266–7; see also n. 72 below.

⁵¹ Cf. the remarks of Robert Bargrave (who attended sixteen performances of the same opera at Venice during Carnival 1656) quoted in Tilmouth, M., ‘Music on the Travels of an English merchant: Robert Bargrave (1628–61)’, Music and Letters, 53 (1972), pp. 143–59 (156)CrossRef Google Scholar.

⁵² See Rapp, R. T., Industry and Economic Decline in Seventeenth-Century Venice (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), pp. 176–7Google Scholar.

⁵³ Letter of 20 February 1683, published in Mercure galant; see n. 12 above.

⁵⁴ The first ‘public’ opera production was Il Vespesiano [sic] (libretto in I–Bc); Fontanelli's season took place in the autumn. Before then there had been spectacles of various kinds (including Venetian operas) in the Teatro Ducale: see Gandini, A., Cronistoria dei teatri di Modena dot 1539 al 1871 (Modena, 1873), i, pp. 15ff, 71ff; iii, p. 205Google Scholar. Oreste in Argo (27 January 1685; I–Bc) and L'Alcibiade (6 March 1685; I–M0e) are both signed by a Carlo Bertini; they seem to have been the last two operas given at the Teatro Ducale (even if Oreste does not indicate it explicitly), which was, in practice, replaced by Teatro Fontanelli from 1685 on.

⁵⁵ That was the case with La finta pazza, performed in 1648 (see Bianconi, and Walker, , ‘Dalla Finta pazza alla Veremonda’, p. 401Google Scholar) at the initiative of Paolo Parisetti, an impresario of Reggio who had ‘li musici di Bologna’ come there to perform ‘una comedia … pendendo al presente lettere al sig. Francesco Sacrati maestro di cappella di quelli’: see Rombaldi, O., ‘Profilo della storia del teatro in Reggio Emilia dal 1568 al 1857’, in Il teatro a Reggio Emilia (Reggio Emilia, 1957), pp. 57–97 (p. 77, n. 61)Google Scholar. However, the first real opera was Rospigliosi's, G.Santo Alessio (Argumenti (Reggio, 1645) in I–REm)Google Scholar, performed in 1645 at the initiative of three townsmen – G. B. Franchi, G. Arlotti and P. Parisetti – who had put the theatre in order at their own expense; see Crocioni, G., I teatri di Reggio nell'Emilia (secoli xvi–xx) (Reggio Emilia, 1907), p. 17Google Scholar. See also Zarotti, M., ‘Documenti d'archivio (1610–1802)’, in Teatro a Reggio Emilia, ed. Romagnoli, S. and Garbero, E. (Florence, 1980), i, pp. 297–308Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Here are the other operas known by librettos (in I–MOe, unless otherwise indicated) to have been given at Reggio before 1683: Il Giasone, 1668 (I–REm); La Dori, 1668; Antioco, 18 November 1668; Argia, 1671; Le fortune di Rodope, 1674; L'Orontea, 1674 (I–Bc); La Stratonica, overo Né stati, o qualitade amor osserva, 1676; il Girello, 1676 (reported in Allacci, 2nd edn, 1755); Floridea regina di Cipro, February 1677; Gli amori sagaci, 1 July 1679 (based on La finta pazza); Tullia superba, 1679; L'onor vindicato, o sia L'Armisia gran dinastessa di Tauris, 28 April 1681 (=Sardanapalo). In addition a trial for obscenity in the ‘Sala per le Commedie’ held in February 1670 mentions ‘il drama musicale dell'Artemisia’ (I–MOs, Archivio per materie, b 8, Teatri in Modena enelDucato, internal). With the exception of Il Girello ( = Rome, 1668), Floridea (= Milan, c. 1669) and La Stratonica (apparently original, though the three main characters are those of Minato's Seleuco (Venice, 1666)), all these operas had been previously performed at (if not directly imported from) Venice.

⁵⁷ I–MOs, Archivio per materie, b 8, Spettacoli pubblici, interno 15. The fascicle is numbered throughout by categories of expenditure or receipt.

⁵⁸ Libretto, , Il talamo preservato dalla fedeltà di Eudossa opera dramatica (Reggio Emilia, 1683; in i-Bu, Aula iii. Caps.99.20)Google Scholar. Besides the original Venetian performance as L'innocenza risorta overo Etio (Venice, 1683; I–Bc, 5618)Google Scholar, there was a performance at Naples during Carnival 1686 under the title L'Etio (Naples, 1686; I–Bc, 6363), apparently with music by Alessandro Scarlatti. The score in I–MOe (Mus.F. 1554), entitled simply Ezio Dramma, corresponds to the libretto of Reggio, 1683; this score is number 12 of the facsimiles edited by Howard Mayer Brown in the series Italian Opera 1640–1770 (New York, 1978)Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ The others, all dated 28 or 29 April, are: La calma fra le tempeste, 1684 (= Il carceriere di se medesimo, Florence, 1681); L'Anagilde, 1685 (=Il Roderico, Brescia, 1684): see the article ‘G. B. Bottalini’ in Mazzuchelli, G., Gli scrittori d'Italia (Brescia, 1753–1763)Google Scholar; Alba soggiogata da Romani, 1686 (= Tullo Ostilio, Venice, 1685); L'Odoacre, 1687 (=Venice, 1680) (all these librettos in I–MOe); there were subsequently performaces of Clearco in Negroponte, 1689 (=1685 and 1686) (I–Bc); and, finally, an opera composed expressly for Reggio, , Ottaviano in Sicilia, 1692 (I–Bc)Google Scholar. The possibility that an opera was also performed in 1688 is suggested by the fact that on 4 April of that year (thus shortly before the fiera) a request was made to the court of Mantua to allow Maria Maddalena Musi to come to Reggio ‘a recitar’ see Cosentino, G., La Mignatta: Maria Maddalena Musi, cantatrice bolognese famosa, 1669–1751 (Bologna, 1930), pp. 25, 112Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ For Bassiano, see n.78 below.

⁶¹ For careers of these singers as a function of their patronage see Appendix 1.

⁶² In the summary of the bookkeeping they are divided into two main categories: ‘apparato delle scene’ and ‘musici e suonatori’ (including the costumes), at 6023,6 and 12684,8 Ml, respectively. The only item besides musicians not included in our calculation of labour vs. material is 367 Ml spent in travel to obtain the music. A summary of our division follows:

⁶³ Leone Parisetti, known to have been active (as impresario?)at the Reggio theatre in 1668, 1671, 1674 and 1696, was responsible for them.

⁶⁴ Costa was a painter and engraver from Sassuolo (d. Reggio, 28 December 1690), who had been active since his youth at Modena and Parma:see Thieme, U. and Becker, F., Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, xvii (Leipzig, 1912), p. 533Google Scholar. Gandini, , Cronistoria, ii, p. 5Google Scholar, lists him as one of the scenery painters at the construction of the Teatro di Corte at Modena in 1686. Costa was contractually bound by ‘una scrittura presson il Sig.^r Cap[ita?]no Gio: Batta Vigarani’, presumably a member of the famous family of theatre architects, though we have found no mention of him in that connection.

⁶⁵ In 1688 and 1690 there were nine trumpeters on the rolls at Modena, seven described as ‘trombetti tedeschi’ and only two Italians, Francesco Grana and Domenico Covetta (i-MOs, n.6912: Camera Ducale: Amministrazione dei Principi, 222: 1680[–1692] Racordi). See Tarr, E. H. and Walker, T., ‘Bellici carmi, festivo fragor: die Verwendung der Trompete in der italienischen Oper des 17. Jahrhunderts’, Hamburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, 3: Studien zur Barockoper, ed. Floros, C., Marx, H.J. and Petersen, P. (1978), pp. 143–203Google Scholar, for the special status that the trumpet enjoyed in the Seicento.

⁶⁶ Respectively 392, 508, 425, 274, 350, 435 and 427; it is odd that only 1800 bollettini were printed!

⁶⁷ See Crocioni, I teatri di Reggio, Rombaldi, ‘Profilo’ and Zarotti, ‘Documenti’.

⁶⁸ See the testimony of Ottonelli, G. D. in Della Christiana moderatione del theatro, book [iv] (Florence, 1652)Google Scholar, quoted in Taviani, F., La commedia dell'arte e la società barocca, i: La fascinazione del teatro (Rome, 1969), pp. 504–13Google Scholar; see also Bianconi, and Walker, , ‘Dalla Finta paiza alla Veremonda’, pp. 405–10Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Comparaison de la musique italienne, p. 137.

⁷⁰ See Jander, O., ‘Concerto grosso instrumentation in Rome in the 1660s and 1670s’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 21 (1968), pp. 168–80CrossRef Google Scholar; for an extensive summary of the composition of the Venetian opera orchestra, see also Tarr, and Walker, , ‘Bellici carmi’, pp. 147–52Google Scholar.

⁷¹ For an explicit and well-documented case, see Murata, ‘II carnevale’, p. 92, n. 19.

⁷² The contract between Cavalli and Marco Faustini and company under which Antioco falls (I–Vas, SGdSM, b 194, fols. 266–7; 24 July 1658) only implies that the materials are to be handed over: ‘Sig.^r Cavalli [è] obligate e tenuto poner in musica dette Opere con la diligenza et Virtú sua propria, facendo a tutte sue spese far tutte le Copie et Originali che seranno necessarij senza che detti Sig.^ri Compagni hahhbino in ciò a sentire alcuno aggravio cosí di Carta come copista et altro.’ A later contract between Cavalli and Faustini for Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo is more explicit (I–Vas, SGdSM, b 194, fol. 50; 29 June 1667): ‘Il Sig.^r Franc.^o Cavalli s'obliga di poner in musica … un’ opera … et occorrendo anco aggiunger’ alterare, et levare quelle cose, che fossero necessarie, et occorressero conforme alia sodisfazione d'esso Sig.^r Faustini, al quale doverano restare li originali.’ See, by way of comparison, [Chrysander, Friedrich], ‘Ein Hamburger Opern-Pachtcontract vom Jahre 1707, und Einnahmen dieses Theaters in den zehn Jahren 1695–1705’, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 12 (1877), cols. 241–4Google Scholar; his source is Mattheson, J., Der musikalische Patriot (Hamburg, 1728), pp. 195ffGoogle Scholar. This contract of 1707 (between Madame Schott, impresaria/proprietress of the theatre, and Joh. Heinrich Saurbrey, lessee) is explicit about the destination of opera scores: ‘Weil dieses Jahr wenigstens sechs neue Opern aufgefuhret werden sollen, so ist Mad. Sch(ott) zufrieden, wenn Häurer sich dazu verbindet, dass er die meisten neuen Stücke, so resonnable als miiglich, mit Kleidern, Decorationen, und was dazu gehörig, vorstellen lassen will; wobey sich Mad. doch ausbedinget, dass so wol die neugemachte Kleider und Decorationen, als auch diejenigen Partituren, so in diesem Jahr neu componirt werden, bey dem Hause verbleiben sollen. Diejenigen Partituren aber, zusamt deren Instrument-Stimmen, welche man anitzo von fremden lehnen und abschreiben lassen muss, sind fur Mad. ihre Rechnung.’

Thus clearly the property of the operas (in this case the scores) remained with the theatre, even if, according to the contract, as many copies could be made as desired. On the Hamburg ‘Opernarchiv’ see Schulze, W., Die Quellen der Hamburger Oper (1678–1738). Eine bibliographisch-statistische Studie zur Geschichte der ersten stehenden deutschen Oper (Hamburg-Oldenburg, 1938), pp. 54–8Google Scholar.

⁷³ See Shergold, N. D.: ‘La vida es sueño: ses acteurs, son théâtre et son public’, in Dramaturgie et société, i, pp. 93–109Google Scholar; and also the editions of documents by Varey, J. E. and Shergold, N. D., Fuentes para la historia del teatro en Espana, iii–vi (London, 1971–1979)Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Notwithstanding a certain number of problematic scores, the collection of seventeenth-century operas in I–Nc reflects more or less the activity of the Teatro S. Bartolomeo; see Bianconi, L., ‘Funktionen des Operntheaters in Neapel bis 1700 und die Rolle Alessandro Scarlattis’, Colloquium Alessandro Scarlatti, Wurzburg 1975 (Tutzing, 1979)Google Scholar, ‘Chronologischer Anhang’, pp. 41 ff. An analogous case, for Venice, is the collection, now lost, but owned in the nineteenth century by Giovanni Rossi (1776–1852), of thirty-five scores of operas performed at the Grimani theatres (SS. Giovanni e Paolo, 1663–81, and S. Giovanni Grisostomo, 1678–93; see I–Vnm, It. CI. vii 1613–1614 (=9035–9036)). A possible (and indirect) confirmation of the existence of other series of sources deriving from a single Venetian theatre is the fact that among the manuscripts collected by Francesco Caffi for his (never completed) history Della musica teatrale in Venezia there is an Indice de Drammi di S. Gio: Grisostomo (I–Vnm, It. CI. iv 748 (=10466), fols. 44–100) that gives the names of all the singers from 1678 to 1766, otherwise rarely documented.

⁷⁵ Illustrative of Venetian practice, by way of its exceptional features, is the agreement (I-Vas, SGdSM, b 194, fol. 31; 10 October 1667) made between Marco Faustini and the librettist Aurelio Aureli to have the latter adjust ‘alcune cose’ in the text of the opera Eliogabalo (by a so far unidentified, then deceased poet, music by Francesco Cavalli, intended for Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Carnival 1668, but not performed; see the preface to Aureli's own Eliogabalo of the same year): ‘si contenta però, ch'esso S^r. Aurelio facci la dedicatoria dell'Opera predetta con espressa conditione, che tutto quello, che di essa se ne ricavasse sia diviso tra essi per giusta metà’; by the same token, since in this case Faustini was paying for the printing and binding of the libretto, proceeds from its sale were to be ‘egualmente per metà diviso’. See also n. 150.

⁷⁶ For example the transformation of Aureli's, AurelioLe fortune di Rodope e Damira (Venice, 1657, Teatro S. Aponal, with music by P. A. Ziani)Google Scholar into Damira placata (Venice, 1680, Teatro S. Moisè, with music by M. A. Ziani)Google Scholar; see Antonicek, Th., ‘Die Damira-Opern der beiden Ziani’, Analecta musicologica, 14 (= Studien zur italienisch-deutschen Musikgeschichte, 9) (Cologne, 1974), pp. 176–207 (186)Google Scholar. In the preface to Felicità d'imenei dal destino, a pastorale per musica performed privately in the garden of D. Gasparo Altieri (Venice, 1697), Antonio Arcoleo, who prepared the text comments: ‘Ho … ubbedito con la variazione del titolo, e de' Nomi de' Pastori senza toccarla punto nel recitativo’ and, concerning the arias, ‘In alcune poche ebbi l'arbitrio del metro, le rimanenti furono obligate, oltre al sentimento delle primiere, alia Musica, ch'era già fatta’ (i.e., ‘prima la musica e poi le parole’!). The drama is a revision of La costanza in amor vince l'inganno (Parma, 1694; see also the list for Treviso in Appendix 4 with three names changed out of five; that work may in turn be based on a model which remains unidentified precisely because of the masquerading of characters). A good example, which we were fortunate enough to unmask, is Ariobarzane (Udine, 1685; see Appendix 4); it proved to be the same opera as Sardanapalo (Venice, 1679), with few changes other than the names of all but one of the characters.

⁷⁷ Contract of 15 December 1667, I–Vas, SGdSM, b 188, fols. 199–200.

⁷⁸ An explicit case is nearby Modena, where until 1685 the performance of operas took place between January and March: in the preface to Bassiano, overo Il maggior' impossibile (Modena, 31 January 1683; I–Bc), Antonio Cottini notes, concerning the ‘qualità de Cantanti’, that ‘più rari non ce li permette il concorso de' Teatri Veneti’. From Vespesiano on (see n. 54 above), until 1697, spectacles were given at Modena in the autumn.

⁷⁹ For Naples see, besides the writings of Croce and Prota-Giurleo cited in n. 141, Prota-Giurleo, U., ‘Breve storia del teatro di corte e della musica a Napoli nei secoli xvii–xviii’, in Il teatro di corte del Palazzo Reale di Napoli (Naples, 1952), pp. 19–158Google Scholar; for Florence see Hill, ‘Le relazioni’; for Modena see above, n. 54, and Appendix 3.

⁸⁰ See, in general, Mangini, , I teatri di Venezia, as well as I teatri pubblici di Venezia (secoli xvii– xviii) (Venice, 1971)Google Scholar.

⁸¹ ‘Memorie teatrali’, p. 411.

⁸² See below, section IV.3. For the opposition between court (or academy) theatre and public theatre, see the testimony of Giovan Domenico Ottonelli, quoted in Taviani, La commedia dell'arte (see n. 68 above).

⁸³ For the concept of ‘repräsentative Öffentlichkeit’, see Habermas, J., Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (6th edn, Neuwied, 1974), pp. 19–24Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Tommaseo, N. and Bellini, B., Dizionario della lingua italiana, iii/2 (Turin, 1861)Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ More completely, Segneri, P. S.J., Il cristiano instruito nella sua legge: ragionamenti morali (Florence, 1686)Google Scholar, Part iii, Discourse 31: ‘In detestazione delle Commedie scorrette’, pp. 460–81 (464); reprinted in Taviani, F., La commedia dell'arte, pp. 289–309 (293)Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ For the concepts of ‘cultural horizon’ and ‘Erwartungshorizont’, see Jauss, Literaturgeschichte.

⁸⁷ Auerbach, E., Das französische Publikum des 17.Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1933, 2nd edn, 1965)Google Scholar, also published as ‘La cour et la ville’, Vier Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der französischen Bildung (Bern, 1951), pp. 12–50Google Scholar. See also the documentary publication of Mélèse, P., Le théâtre et le public à Paris sous Louis xiv, 1659–1715 and Répertoire analytique des documents contemporains d ' information et de critique concemant le théâtre à Paris sous Louis xiv, 1659–1715 ( = Bibliothèque de la Société des Historiens du Théâtre, vi and vii) (Paris, 1934)Google Scholar. On the French theatre-going public see further Lough, J., Paris Theatre Audiences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1957)Google Scholar. Above all, see the exemplary sequel to Mélèse by Lagrave, H., Le théâtre et le public à Paris de 1715 à 1750 ( = Bibliothèque franĉaise et romane, Ser. C, no. 37) (Paris, 1972)Google Scholar, particularly Part II, ch. 3, ‘La composition sociale du public’. Lagrave adduces many circumstances indicative of the class character of the theatre, from the pay and hours of working people to the places where spectacles were advertised.

⁸⁸ Libretto in I–Bc, 4610.

⁸⁹ December 1663; I–Mc, Coll.lib. 15.

⁹⁰ Libretto in I–MOe, 83.g. 14.4; text by Gio. Battista Boccabadati, music by Padre Sisto Reni (=Reina), scenery by Ottavio Biavardi.

⁹¹ The music, by Antonio Maria Abbatini, is in I–Rvat, Chigi q.vii.100–102.

⁹² Published in Primera parte de comedias escogidas de los meiores de España (Madrid, 1652), fols. 1–16Google Scholar; see y Mori, E. Cotarelo, ‘Dramáticos del siglo xvii: Don Antonio Coello y Ochoa’, Boletín de la Real Academia Española, 5 (1918), pp. 550–600 (569–70)Google Scholar.

⁹³ See Spencer, F. E. and Schevill, R., The Dramatic Works of Luis Vélez de Guevara: Their Plots, Sources, and Bibliography (Berkeley, 1937), pp. 322–4Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ Music by Francesco Antonio Boerio, I–Nc, Rari 6.7.3 (=32.3.22); text by Baldassare Pisani, I–Bu, Aula v. Tab.i.f.iii. 10.2.

⁹⁵ Libretto in GB–Lbm, 905.a.3.(5); text by Matteo Noris, music by Giuseppe Felice Tosi, performed at the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo.

⁹⁶ A vast anthology of polemics against the theatre is contained in Taviani, La commedia dell'arte. For the social history of the commedia dell'arte, see Taviani, F. and Schino, M., Il segreto della Commedia dell'Arte. La memoria delle compagnie italiane del xvi, xvii e xviii secolo (Firenze, 1982)Google Scholar.

⁹⁷ See n. 68.

⁹⁸ A fine example is the case of Giusto Fontanini (1666–1736), a fierce critic of the dramma per musica in his Biblioteca dell'eloquenza italiana, ed. Zeno, A. (Venice, 1753), i, pp. 488–9Google Scholar, but also author of a Bellerofonte, Melodrama which is imitative of every aspect of Venetian opera librettos: structure, merits and defects (MS in I–Vnm, It.Cl.ix 190 (=6316), fols. 63–107).

⁹⁹ For example, Act 1 scene iv of Pompeo Magno, in which the crazy vecchia, Atrea, fishes for constellations in the zodiac: ‘Hor ch'il folgor è spento,/Dorme Giove inerme, imbelle/ Gettisi l'hamo, e peschinsi le stelle./… Piano a fe: buona pesca:/Presi la Libra. O quanto/ Gioverà ne' Conviti/A dar il cibo a peso ai Parasciti’. In Act 3 scene v she returns carrying a large stone on her shoulders, making allusion to the legend of Sisyphus!

¹⁰⁰ On Faustini, see I–Vas, SGdSM, b 188, fol. 112 (letter of Archangelo Cori, dated 28 February 1665): ‘Mi accenna anco, d'haver per le mani opere bellissime; l'esortarei, quando il Cavalli non le volesse metter in musica, far le comporre in Roma, che so la Città le agradirebbe più per sentir la varietà delli stili’. For Faustini's reply to Masotti, see I–Vas, SGdSM, b 188, fols. 294–6: ‘ch'io mandi le mie due opere a farle cathechizare a Roma, è dimanda poco aggiustata, né credo che simil richiesta sia mai stata fata ad alcuno’. On Il ratto delle Sabine see I–Vmc, MS pd.c.1067, fol. 338 (letter from Settimio Olgiati at Rome to Polo Michiel at Venice dated 3 February 1680): ‘qui in Roma delle vostre [opere] se ne discorre molto male et in verità stupisco come la musica di Pier Simone non piaccia’. The Satire of Bartolomeo Dotti (1651–1713), published at Geneva in 1757, had previously circulated in manuscripts; besides Satire XL (‘Contro il Scarlatti musico’), several refer to the world of the theatre: ‘Il Carnovale’ (vi), ‘Ricordo al Serenissimo Doge’ (viii), ‘Alcune dame cenando in palco alia comedia, regalano il Dotti d'un pan di Spagna, con dirgli che mangiasse, e tacesse’ (xxv); in ‘Il Carnovale’ Dotti mentions and mocks Arcoleo, [M. A.] Ziani, Pollarolo, Noris, Frigimelica Roberti, Silvani, Nicolini. About the failure of Mitridate see also I–Vmc, Cod. Cicogna 2991.ii.29, fol. [2], quoted in Colloquium Alessandro Scarlatti, p. 170; an appreciation of the context of Dotti's satires is to be found in Limentani, U., La satira nel Seicento (Milan and Naples, 1961), p. 7Google Scholar.

¹⁰¹ See I–Vas, SGdSM, b 188, fol. 380, and b 194, fol. 49.

¹⁰² See Bianconi, and Walker, , ‘Dalla Finta pazza alia Veremonda’, pp. 445ffGoogle Scholar; Bianconi, L., ‘L'Ercole in Rialto’, in Venezia e il melodramma, pp. 259–68Google Scholar.

¹⁰³ See Clubb, L. G., ‘The Making of the Pastoral Play: Some Italian Experiments between 1573 and 1590’, in Petrarch to Pirandello: Studies in Italian Literature in Honour of Beatrice Corrigan, ed. Molinaro, J. A., (Toronto and Buffalo, 1973), pp. 45–72Google Scholar; and Corrigan, B., ‘All Happy Endings: Libretti of the Late Seicento’, Forum italicum, 7 (1973), pp. 250–67CrossRef Google Scholar. Some indication of the interconnections between traditions may also be found in the introduction to Clubb, L. G., Italian Plays (1500–1700) in the Folger Library (=Biblioteca di Bibliografia Italiana, lii) (Florence, 1968)Google Scholar. The bibliography itself is richly suggestive; see also Corrigan, B., Catalogue of Italian Plays, 1500–1700, in the Library of the University of Toronto (Toronto, 1961)Google Scholar and the catalogue of the Collana Palatina (ed. Ritzu, F., Favilli, G., de Bello, R. and Maggini, M. C. Frulli) in Studi secenteschi, 2 (1961), pp. 293–320Google Scholar; 3 (1962), pp. 185–224; 4 (1963), pp. 193–223; 5 (1964), pp. 161–74; 6 (1965), pp. 285–98; 7 (1966), pp. 145–54; 9 (1968), pp. 299–361; 11 (1970), pp. 181–203.

¹⁰⁴ Predieri, a member of the Bolognese family of musicians, was employed at Mantua from 1684 to 1687, and taken into the service of the Duke of Parma on 1 September 1687. According to Pelicelli, N., ‘Musicisti in Parma nel sec. xvii’, Note d'archivio per la storia musicale, 10 (1933), p. 248Google Scholar, he was dismissed on 15 February 1695, but librettos continue to list him as being there at least through 1699. In addition to taking part in many operas in the two capitals of the Duchy of Parma, he also sang in Rome, Genoa, Milan, Modena, Pesaro, Naples and Turin, nearly always in comic female (vecchia) roles. An indication that he often portrayed a particular type is the fact that character names migrate from one opera to another in his wake. So, for example, ‘Zelta’, originally a character in Galieno (Venice, 1676, but Predieri sang it at Milan in 1687, so that is where the story begins) was inserted into revivals of Il re infante (Rome, 1696; I–Bc)Google Scholar, Flavio Cuniberto (Rome, 1696; B–Bc)Google Scholar and Tito Manlio (Naples, 1698Google Scholar; I–Bc), as well as being written into the original productions of Diomede punito da Alcide (Piacenza, 1691; I–Bc)Google Scholar, L'Aiace (Milan, 1694; I–Bc)Google Scholar and L'Anfitrione di Plauto (Turin, 1695; I–Bu)Google Scholar, sung in every case by Predieri. There is a striking negative confirmation of the phenomenon in the preface to the libretto of L'Aiace for performance at the Teatro Capranica, Rome, in 1697, after Predieri had sung two ‘Zeltas’ there the year before (see above): ‘Ora ti si aggiunge che secondo la prima impressione, il riconoscimento, che Idraspe sia figlio del Re, e fratello di Aiace, si faceva per mezo di Zelta vecchia nutrice di Corte; ma essendo in lontane Parti il Soggetto, che doveva representare questo Personaggio, ed essendosi dovuta sostituire una Damigella Giovanetta, è convenuto per salvare parte dell' Improprietà supporre, che questa sia figlia della medesima nutrice informata di tutto.’ On the strength of the presence of ‘Zelta’, one might suppose that Predieri sang in a revival of Temistocle in bando (Rome, 1698Google Scholar; I–Bc) and in Silvio re degli Albani (Turin, 1689; 1–Mb).Google Scholar Another case is that of Tommaso Bovi, who sang the comic role in nearly every opera performed at the Teatro S. Giovanni Grisostomo from its opening in 1678 to 1700 (according to the Indice mentioned in n. 74). The characters which he interpreted up to 1692 generally had stock names of two syllables (Zelto, Lesbo, Gildo, Leno, Bleso, Breno, etc.), often carried from one opera to another; thereafter the names change from work to work (and tend to be longer: Padiglio, Adolfo, Colobolo, Vafrino, etc.) in the dramas of such ‘classicists’ as Dominico David and Frigimelica Roberti.

¹⁰⁵ Döring, R., Ariostos ‘Orlando furioso’ im italienischen Theater des Seicento und Settecento (Hamburg, Romanisches Seminar der Universität, 1973) provides a wealth of material (pp. 331ff)Google Scholar, but emphasises the continuity of theatrical productions using plots drawn from Ariosto more than its discontinuities (and leaves out the opera from the end of the seventeenth century that most displays that manner, Carlo il Grande, by Morselli, Adriano, Venice, 1688Google Scholar; see below, section V.6).

¹⁰⁶ See Osthoff, W., ‘Antonio Cestis Alessandro vincitor di se stesso’, Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 24 (1960), pp. 13–43Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁷ ‘Non vi fu mai alcuna Republica nel Mondo, che meglio superasse tutte le altre Republiche, che quella di Roma; né alcun'altra, che meglio imitasse questa, che la Republica di Venezia; onde con ragione nel Sonetto, ch'io feci in lode di questa inclita Città … la dichiarai Delle Glorie Latine unica Erede' (p. 369).

¹⁰⁸ See Bianconi, ‘Funktionen’, especially pp. 112–13.

¹⁰⁹ A chronology of musico-dramatic performances at Rome in the Seicento by L. Bianconi, L. Lindgren, M. Murata and T. Walker is planned for publication in Analecta musicologica. For Florence, see Weaver, R. L. and Weaver, N. W., A Chronology of Music in the Florentine Theater 1590–1750: Operas, Prologues, Finales, Intermezzos and Plays with Incidental Music (Detroit, 1978)Google Scholar.

¹¹⁰ See Galasso, G., ‘Le forme del potere, classi e gerarchie sociali’, Storia d'Italia, i. I caratteri originali (Turin, 1972), pp. 486–508Google Scholar.

¹¹¹ See Greisenegger, W., ‘The Italian Opera in Vienna in the xviiith Century’, in Venezia e il melodramma nel Settecento, ed. Muraro, M. T. (Florence, 1978), pp. 89–101Google Scholar.

¹¹² See Isherwood, R. M., Music in the Service of the King: France in the Seventeenth Century (Ithaca, 1973), pp. 214–38Google Scholar.

¹¹³ See Lefevre, R., ‘Gli “Sfaccendati”’, Studi romani, 8 (1960), pp. 154–65, 288–301Google Scholar.

¹¹⁴ These appear in the score (I–MOe, Mus. f.906), but not in the printed libretto; they are described in Roncaglia, G., ‘Il Tirinto di B. Pasquini e i suoi “intermezzi”’, Rassegna musicale, 4 (1931), pp. 331–9Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ See Golzio, V., Documenti artistici sul Seicento nell'archivio Chigi (Rome, 1939), pp. 149ff, 239ffGoogle Scholar; and Petrocchi, M., Roma nel Seicento (=Storia di Roma, xiv) (Bologna, 1970), pp. 84–90Google Scholar.

¹¹⁶ Costa, G., La leggenda dei secoli d'oro nella letteratura italiana (Bari, 1972), pp. 143–4Google Scholar.

¹¹⁷ For the concept of ‘semantische Einheit der Arie’, see Strohm, R., Italienische Opernarien des frühen Settecento (1720–1730), i (Cologne, 1976), pp. 11, 224Google Scholar.

¹¹⁸ On the literary tradition of the lament see Murata, M., ‘The recitative soliloquy’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 32 (1979), pp. 45–73CrossRef Google Scholar.

¹¹⁹ Pirrotta, N., Li due Orfei: da Poliziano a Monteverdi (Turin, 1975)Google Scholar; Osthoff, Wolfgang, ‘Maschera e musica’, Nuova rivista musicale italiana, 1 (1967), pp. 16–44Google Scholar; Sternfeld, Frederick William, ‘The Birth of Opera: Ovid, Poliziano, and the lieto fine’, Analecta musicologica, 19 (1979), pp. 30–51Google Scholar.

¹²⁰ See Guthmüller, B., ‘Die literarische Übersetzung im Bezugsfeld Original-Leser (am Beispiel italienischer Ubersetzungen der Metamorphosen Ovids im 16. Jahrhundert)’, Bibliothèque d'humanisme et renaissance, 36 (1974), pp. 233–51Google Scholar. For Le Metamorfosi d'Ovidio … di Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara see the chronologically ordered bibliography of editions of works by Ovid published between 1481 and 1804 in Naso, P. Ovidius, Opera omnia ex editione burmanniana … accurate recensita, vii (London, 1821), pp. 4264–76Google Scholar. For the seventeenth-century editions of this and similar works cited in this paper, see also S., and Michel, P. -H., Répertoire des ouvrages imprimés en langue italienne au XVlle siècle (Florence, 1970–)Google Scholar and Répertoire des ouvrages imprimés en langue italienne au XVIIe siècle conservés dans les bibliothèques de France (Paris, 1967–)Google Scholar.

¹²¹ The connection is documented on what was presumably a modest social level by a popular (8 pp.) Bolognese print of 1640, which contains the thirty-six stanzas of the Lamento d'Ariana abandonata da Teseo, di Gio. Andrea dell' Anguillara and as an appendix the text (without title) of the lament by Rinuccini (I–Bu, Aula v. Tab.i.E.ii. vol. 386.42).

¹²² See Rosand, E., ‘The Descending Tetrachord: an Emblem of Lament’, Musical Quarterly, 65 (1979), pp. 346–59CrossRef Google Scholar.

¹²³ That this piece, despite its arrangement as a monologue and the title of ‘lament’ given to it by Monteverdi, is an aria, is already obvious in the strophic organisation of Rinuccini's text, published (without title) in his Poesie (Florence, 1622), p. 223Google Scholar.

¹²⁴ See Dörrie, H., Der heroische Brief: Bestandsaufnahme, Geschichte, Kritik einer humanistisch-barocken Literaturgattung (Berlin, 1968), pp. 172–81Google Scholar.

¹²⁵ It is indicative of the decreasing importance of the ‘lamento-scena’ and the growing importance of the ‘aria-lamento’ that in the later versions of Giasone the final lament tends to be reduced to its own arioso section.

¹²⁶ Concini, the favourite of Maria de' Medici, was in the end both a servant and a victim of royal absolutism; see the oddly partisan account in Dictionnaire de biographie française, ix (Paris, 1961)Google Scholar, cols. 433–5, and Mousnier, R., ‘French Institutions and Society 1610–61’, New Cambridge Modern History, iv. The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 474–502 (481ff)Google Scholar. The most sober of the rather novelesque full-length studies on Concini, despite its early date, is probably Pouy, L. E. F., Concini, Maréchal d'Ancre, son gouvernement en Picardie 1611–1617 (Amiens, 1885)Google Scholar. Concini was, among other things, the intended original dedicatee of Marino's Adone: see the partial MS F–Pn, ital. 1516, and Marino, G. B., L'Adone, ed. Pozzi, G. (Milan, 1976), ii, pp. 728, 732, 740fGoogle Scholar. Matthieu's theme was put quite explicitly in a violent anonymous polemic against Concini in the year before his death. The polemic took the form of an epistle addressed to the French King and entitled Seianus François. Au Roy (GB–Lbm, 8050.bb.45.(1), without colophon). How enduring was the image of Sejanus in an epoch of absolute royal authority is indicated by the quasi-Machiavellian treatise dedicated to Emperor Charles vi by Giacomazzi, B., Massime politiche necessarie a' sovrani, per conoscere i vizj del ministro di stato, o altrofavorito, scoperti nella vita di Elio Sejano … (Venice, 1725)Google Scholar. Barkan, L., Nature's Work of Art: the Human Body as Image of the World (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1975), pp. 90–5Google Scholar (in the chapter ‘The human body and the commonwealth’), uses a dramatic version of Sejanus (that of Ben Jonson) to exemplify the metaphorical sphere of the ‘body politic’. It is clear that the case of Sejanus belongs to a larger tradition of political parallels with classical figures by way of positive and negative example. Barkan discusses also the case of Coriolanus, but does not mention two interesting crypto-political publications making use of it: Malvezzi, V., Il Coriolano (Bologna, 1648Google Scholar; dedicated to Padre Sforza Pallavicino: see above, section iv.3.c); and Mascaron, Pierre Antoine, Rome delivrée, ou La retraite de Gaius Martius Coriolanus (Paris, 1646; dedicated to Cardinal Mazarin)Google Scholar.

¹²⁷ The librettos of both Sejanus dramas (texts arranged by Christian Richter, music by Nikolaus Adam Strungk; Hamburg, 1678) are described in E. Thiel and Rohr, G., Libretti: Verzeichnis der bis 1800 erschienenen Textbücher (=Kataloge der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, xiv) (Frankfurt am Main, 1970)Google Scholar, nos. 823 and 1648, respectively. The two Cara Mustapha operas are discussed in Wolff, H. C., Die Barockoper in Hamburg (1678–1743) (Wolfenbüttel, 1957), i, pp. 38–43Google Scholar; Wolff lists there several other dramas on the same theme, but is more concerned to elucidate the works' traditional aspects of love intrigue than to place in relief their possible political significance.

¹²⁸ The best documented account of the venture is in Westerling, H. J., ‘De oudste Amsterdamsche opera, geopend Dinsdag 31 December 1680, en de opera to Buiksloot van 1686’, De Gids, 83 (1919), no. 3, pp. 276–94Google Scholar. According to Westerling, Strijker (Strycker, Stryker) was the son of the consul to Venice, Joseph Strijker, and spent his youth in Italy, returning to Amsterdam at the age of about 35. The contract allowing him to build a theatre, dated 28 October 1679, involved heavy financial payments to the governors of the orphanage and old men's home, institutions which received two thirds and one third respectively of the profits of the Amsterdam Schouwburg (theatre). A communication from Venice of 28 September 1680 (I–MOs, b 5218: Avvisi dall'estero, 63) announces: ‘V'è qui persona, che cerca Musici per condurli in Amsterdam a recitar un'Opera per il prossimo Carnevale, ma vorrebbe anco trovare chi componesse il Dramma e la Musica.’ Striker's enterprise seems to have foundered because of the obligation to charity: on 4 July 1681 he admitted owing 3000 gulden to the church, and about January 1682 his permit was revoked. On 6 April 1683 he handed his theatre over to the city in payment of his debts, receiving only 200 gulden in compensation. The librettos of both the operas known to have been performed there were by Aurelio Aureli; Le fatiche d'Ercole per Deianira was first given at Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo in 1662, Helena rapita da Paride at Teatro S. Angelo in 1677. The two Amsterdam librettos (Van den Daller, 1681) are described in Thiel and Rohr, Libretti, nos. 680 and 855; no. 856 is an edition of Helena rapita for a performance at the theatre of Hanover in the same year (Hanover, 1681). The only singers of the Amsterdam company who can be identified are ‘Matheo Batalje’ (= Matteo Battaglia of Bologna, cf. Eitner, R., Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon, 2nd edn, Leipzig, 1959–1960)Google Scholar and his wife, at that time in the service of the Prince of Pfalz-Neuburg.

See also Wagenaar, J., Amsterdam …, ii (Amsterdam, 1765), p. 400Google Scholar, who mentions Striker's contract, and adds: ‘Doch in deeze eeuwe, heeft men, voor eenen korten tyd, Fransche Tooneelspeelers, en ook, nu en dan, eene Italiaansche Opera, op den Schouwburg gedoogd’; Wybrands, C. N., Het Amsterdamsche Tooneel van 1617–1772: bewerkt naar meerendeels onuitgegeven, authentieke Beschieden (Utrecht, 1873), pp. 231–2Google Scholar (Wybrand also gives (p. 153) the following relevant quotation from Petrii Francii Oratio xxiii, Laus Amstaelodami (ed. 1705), p. 306:Google Scholar ‘Quid [dicam] de Urbis Theatro, in pauperiorum subsidium, et ad honestam animi remissionem excitato, Musarum illo nostratium Atheneo?’); Scheurleer, D. F., ‘Het Muziekleven’, Amsterdam in de zeventiende eeuw, iii (The Hague, 1901–1904), pp. 34ffGoogle Scholar; Fransen, J., Les comédiens francais en Hollande au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1925), pp. 162ffGoogle Scholar; Bottenheim, S. A. M., De opera in Nederland (Amsterdam, 1946), pp. 11–48Google Scholar. An important insight into the financial structure of the theatre is afforded by the account of Regnard, J. F., published as ‘A Journey through Flanders, Holland,’ in A General Collection of the Best and most Interesting Voyages and Travels in all Parts of the World, ed. Pinkerton, J., i (London, 1805), pp. 138–9Google Scholar: ‘We knew M. de Reswis, who is descended of one of the first families in Holland, and who in the late wars, expended large sums of money. He shewed Miss Hornia, his mistress, heiress to a very fine fortune, and like him, a Catholic. We saw them together at the opera, at the representation of the rape of Helen. We were informed at the comedy that the whole sum received is given to the poor, and that the city pays the comedians, who receive a certain salary. We left Amsterdam on the twenty-fifth day of May 1681’ (he had left Paris on 26 April).

¹²⁹ See especially y Mori, E. Cotarelo, Orígenesy establecimiento de la ópera en España hasta 1800 (Madrid, 1917), ch. 1, pp. 7–24Google Scholar; Subirá, J., Historia de la música teatral en España (Barcelona, 1945), ch. 4, pp. 52–98Google Scholar; Shergold, N. D., A History of the Spanish Stage, from Medieval Times until the End of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar; Sage, J., ‘Texto y realizatión de La estatua de Prometeo y otros dramas musicales de Calderón’, Hacia Calderon: coloquio anglo-germano Exeter 1969, ed. Parker, A. A. and Flasche, H. (Berlin, 1970), pp. 37–53Google Scholar; and Stevenson, R. M., Foundations of New World Opera with a Transcription of the Earliest Extant American opera, 1701 (Lima, 1973)Google Scholar.

¹³⁰ See Varey, J. E., ‘L'auditoire du Salón dorado de l'Alcázar de Madrid au XVIIe siècle’, in Dramaturgic et société, pp. 77–91Google Scholar; de Guevara, J. Vélez, Los celos hacen estrellas, ed. Varey, J. E., Shergold, N. D. and Sage, J. (London, 1970), pp. lv–lxxi, 143–68Google Scholar.

¹³¹ Bianconi, and Walker, , ‘Dalla Finta pazza alla Veremonda’, p. 382, n. 14Google Scholar; Bianconi, ‘Funktionen’, p. 25, n. 94.

¹³² Besides El robo de Proserpina (Naples, 1677/1678; I–Rc, Comm. 185.6Google Scholar; repeated in 1681 under the title Las faticas de Ceres; I–Rc, Comm. 487.2), ‘comedia armonica’ with music by Filippo Coppola (score in 1–Nc, Rari 6.7.5 (=32.3.25)), and the opera La Psiche by Alessandro Scarlatti (Naples, 1683), taken from the Tragicomedia intitolata Né meno Amore si libera da amore (performed at the Spanish embassy at Rome in 1682; Scenario in I–Rvat, Chigi iv.2197, fols. 247–65), which in turn derives from Ni Amor se libra de amor by Calderón (by the same token, Il Fetonte of 1685 derives from Calderón's El hijo del Sol, Faetón); there is also a Neapolitan edition of 1682 of La gran comedia Zelos aun del ayre matan, de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Fiesta que se representò a Sus Magestades en el Coliseo del Buen Retiro. Y repetida en Napoles por el … Prinzipe de Pomblin, y de Venosa (I–Rc, Comm. 487.4); the music, by Juan Hidalgo, for the original performance of 1660 is reproduced in Pitts, R. Landes, ‘Don Juan Hidalgo, seventeenth-century Spanish composer’ (diss., Peabody College, Nashville, 1968)Google Scholar.

¹³³ See Guevara, J. Vélez de, Los celos hacen estrellas, pp. cv–cviiGoogle Scholar. The reason for this interest was clearly above all dynastic in nature: the Empress was the Spanish infanta Margherita.

¹³⁴ Dietrich, M., ‘Le livret d'opéra et ses aspects sociaux à la cour de Léopold I^cr’, in Dramaturgic et société, pp. 203–10Google Scholar.

¹³⁵ For example I–Vnm, Dramm. 832.2. Others are cited in Osthoff, , ‘Antonio Cestis Alessan-dro–, p. 24Google Scholar, and Rutschman, E. R., ‘Minato and the Venetian Opera Libretto’, Current Musicology, 27 (1979), pp. 84–91Google Scholar.

¹³⁶ There is an attempt at a political and ideological analysis of a Viennese festa teatrale of 1678 in Dietrich, M., ‘Goldene Vlies–Opern der Barockzeit: ihre politische Bedeutung und ihr Publikum’, Anzeiger der phil.-hist. Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 111 (1974), pp. 469–512Google Scholar. It is symptomatic, however, that in her analysis Dietrich hardly mentions the most successful Giasone of the century, that by Cicognini and Cavalli, which obviously does not lend itself to the kind of ‘iconological’ deciphering applied by the author to the court spectacles which she considers.

¹³⁷ Pablo Spínola was Spanish ambassador to the court at Vienna. See Fiedler, J., ed., Die Relationen der Botschafter Venedigs über Deutschland und Österreich im siebzehnten Jahrhundert, ii: Leopold i (=Fontes rerum austriacarum, Part 2, vol. xxvii) (Vienna, 1867), p. 183Google Scholar. Michiel became ambassador in 1674. ‘Carnovale del 1674’ refers to the season 1674/5. La lanterna di Diogene was first performed on 5 February 1674, I pazzi Abderiti during the following Carnival; see Hadamowsky, F., ‘Barocktheater am Wiener Kaiserhof: mit einem Spielplan (1625–1740)’ in Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Wiener Theaterforschung 1951/52 (Vienna, 1955), pp. 78–9Google Scholar, where is mentioned a ‘stattliche Comödie’ performed on 21 November 1675 ‘Bei der verwittweten Kaiserin zur Hochzeit der Tochter des spanischen Botschafters mit dem Herzog von Spinola’, one of the candidates for the portrayal of the Spanish ambassador on the stage (the others are, essentially: Pirro, 30 May 1675; Zaleuco, 9 June 1675; Turia Lucretia, 18 November 1675).

¹³⁸ The opera was performed at Linz on 9 June 1684, the Emperor's birthday (libretto in I– Vnm, Misc. 2529. (12)). The librettist, Nicolò Minato, writes in the dedication: ‘Questa è la grandezza dell'eroe Leopoldo, che non move le sue armi, se non, o per diffendere l'altrui corone, o per resistere a i persecutori delle sue: e questa è la gloria, che non impugna mai brando, che non riporti trionfi. Gli li conceda sempre maggiori il dio delle vittorie: a scorger le sue falangi trionfatrici a coglier le palme sino sul limitar de gl'uscij dell'Aurora: et a far cader all'occaso la Tracia Luna nell'oriente.’

¹³⁹ Both these operas are reworkings by Rospigliosi of Spanish ‘cloak and dagger’ comedies. L'armi e gli amori (1656) is derived fairly faithfully from Los empeños de un acaso by Calderón de la Barca. The direct source of Dal male il bene (1654) is No ay bien sin ageno daño by Antonio Sigler de Huerta, published in Flor de las meiores doce comedias, de los mayores ingenios de España (Madrid, 1652). Like the source for La comica del cielo (see n. 92), it was published during Rospigliosi's term as papal nuncio at Madrid.

¹⁴⁰ Maggi, C. M., Rime varie, ed. Muratori, L. A. (Milan, 1700)Google Scholar, which includes three of his librettos (vol. iv) and several poems related to opera performances (vol. iii). See also Muratori's, Vita di Carlo Maria Maggi (Milan, 1700)Google Scholar.

¹⁴¹ See Croce, Benedetto, I teatri di Napoli: secolo XV–XVIII (Naples, 1891), pp. 56–7, 85–7Google Scholar; Prota-Giurleo, U., I teatri di Napoli nel '600: la commedia e le maschere (Naples, 1962), pp. 37, 123–43Google Scholar.

¹⁴² Ricci, C., I teatri di Bologna nei secoli xvii e xviii: storia aneddotica (Bologna, 1888), pp. 35, 529, 531–2Google Scholar.

¹⁴³ Geflcken, J., ‘DerersteStreit überdieZulässigkeit des Schauspiels (1677–1688)’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für hamburgische Geschichte, 3 (1851), pp. 1–33 (16)Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁴ [Chrysander, Friedrich], ‘Geschichte der Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttelschen Capelle und Oper vom sechzehnten bis zum achtzehnten Jahrhundert’, Jahrbuch für musikalische Wissenschaft, i (1863), pp. 147–286 (185–97)Google Scholar. Chrysander gives the expenses as 2770,6,4 and the income variously as 2544,15,1 and 2541,3,1, inclusive, in both cases, of the 1556,14 paid by the Duke. For comparison, the largest intake for a single performance (Andromeda, 10 February 1692) was 209,6,8 and the smallest (12 February) 95,16,4. 319 librettos were sold for a total of 53,4 and ‘Capellmeister Cusser’ (=Cousser) received 50 Thaler for his services.

¹⁴⁵ Comprehensive modern accounts of the siege, with some consideration of its aftermath may be found in Stoye, J. W., The Siege of Vienna (London, 1964)Google Scholar; Barker, T. M., Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna's Second Turkish Siege and its Historical Setting (Albany, 1968)Google Scholar; and, from the other side, Abrahamowicz, Z., Kara Mustafa pod Wiedniem (Cracow, 1973)Google Scholar. The earliest extensive Venetian account was probably that of Steffani, S., Il faro della fede, cioè Venetia supplichevole, e festiva, per la liberatione di Vienna, vittorie, e Santa Legha tra principi christiani contra Turchi (Venice, 1684)Google Scholar. The entire history of the war is chronicled exhaustively from the Venetian standpoint in Garzoni, P., Istoria della repubblica di Venezia in tempo della Sacra Lega (Venice, 1705)Google Scholar; see also the fundamental study by Romanin, S., Storia documentata di Venezia, vii (Venice, 1859)Google Scholar. For the role of Pope Innocent xi, Fraknói, W. ( = Frankl), Papst Innocenz xi. (Benedikt Odescalchi) und Ungarns Befreiung von der Türkenherrschaft (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1902)Google Scholar is one of several useful studies. Some of the contemporary Venetian literature is described in Cicogna, E. A., Saggio di bibliografia veneziana (Venice, 1847), nos. 965–93, 1954–1962Google Scholar; but the key to the sea of literary response, Italian and otherwise, to the Turkish siege and its suite is Sturminger, W., Bibliographie und Ikonographie der Türkenbelagerungen Wiens 1529 und 1683 (=Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für neuere Geschichte Öster-reichs, xli) (Graz and Cologne, 1955)Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁶ GB–Lbm, MS Add. 10130; fols. 71–124^v (80^v).

¹⁴⁷ For the background to this ‘rarissimo ed oscenissimo libercolo’ which ‘per beffarda audacia immoralistica, non trova confronto nel suo secolo’, by the Accademico Incognito Padre Antonio Rocco, see Spini, G., Ricerca dei libertini: la teoria dell'impostura delle religioni nel Seicento italiano (Rome, 1950), pp. 155ffGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴⁸ On the role of Johann Georg iii in the defence of Vienna and the campaign against the Turks, see Stoye, The Siege of Vienna, and Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent. On his activities at Venice in 1685 and their consequences, see Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte, and Ademollo, ‘Le cantanti’, cited on p. 278 below.

¹⁴⁹ Libretto, with parallel texts in German and Italian (Dresden, 1687) in B–Bc, as is that of the Venetian performance at the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo (Venice, 1687); see Wotquenne, A., Catalogue de la Bibliothèque du Conservatoire Royal de Musique: annexe I, libretti d'opéras e d'oratorios italiens du XVII^e siècle (Brussels, 1901), p. 79Google Scholar. The score, which together with a set of parts and a copy of the bilingual libretto was in the Kgl. Öffentliche Bibliothek, Dresden, is published in an edition by Abert, Hermann, in Denkmäler Deutscher Tonkunst, Folge i, vol. lv (Leipzig, 1916)Google Scholar; on the overture, see Tarr, and Walker, , ‘Bellici carmi’ pp. 177–9Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁰ For the part played by the house of Hanover in the raising of the siege of Vienna and the subsequent campaigns, see Schnath, G., Geschichte Hannovers im Zeitalter der neunten Kur und der englischen Sukzession 1674–1780, i (Hildesheim and Leipzig, 1938)Google Scholar; Schwencke, A., Geschichte der Hannoverschen Truppen in Griechenland 1685–1689 (Hanover, 1854)Google Scholar; Malortie, C. E. von, Der Hannoversche Hof unter dem Kurfürsten Ernst August und der Kurfürstin Sophie (Hanover, 1847)Google Scholar; and the works by Stoye and Barker cited inn. 145 above. Ernst August's boredom at Venetian entertainments is reflected in several remarks in letters to his wife, quoted in Wendland, Anna, ‘Briefe des Kurfürsten Ernst August von Hannover an seine Gemahlin, die Kurfürstin Sophie’, Niedersächsisches Jahrhuch für Landesgeschichte, 7 (1930), pp. 206–64Google Scholar; for example, on 25 December 1671 he comments: ‘Les opéra ont comensé et Ion men a dédié une qui ne vaut pas gran chause’ (?=L'Heraclio, text by Nicolò Beregan, music by P. A. Ziani, Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo, 17 January 1671 [!]). Schnath writes (pp. 380–1) of the trip in 1686: ‘für drei Opern, die dem Herzog gewidmet wurden, erhielten die Komponisten und Librettisten eine “Ergötzlichkeit” von 266 Talern, ungefähr den gleichen Betrag, den die zehn Hausgondolieri an monatlichem Lohn bekamen’.

¹⁵¹ Alberti, G. M. (the Duke's physician), Giuochi festivi, e militari, danze, serenate, machine, boscareccia artificiosa, regatta solenne, et altri sontuosi apprestamenti di allegrezza esposti alla sodisfattione universale dalla generosità dell'A. S. d'Ernesto Augusto … (Venice, 1686), p. 10Google Scholar.

¹⁵² The visit to Piazzola was celebrated in [Francesco Maria] Piccioli, , L'orologio delpiacere che mostra l'ore del dilettevole soggiomo hauto dall'Altezza Serenissima D. Ernesto Augusto … nel luoco di Piazzola (Piazzola, 1685)Google Scholar, which besides a description of Piazzola and a chronicle of the event was accompanied by the publication (with separate frontispieces and numerous engravings) of the texts of the musical entertainments, all by Piccioli, with the music of Contarini's ‘house composer’ Domenico Freschi. In one of these, Il merito acclamato (‘armonici tributi d'ossequio’), Adria (Venice personified) explains to Fame:

Quello, o Fama, che miri

D'armate squadre a fronte,

De gl'anni suoi nel quarto lustro a pena,

D'ernesto inclito Figlio

Massimian s'apella: ei in mia diffesa,

Minaccia il crollo all'Ottomano Atlante,

Onde il Trace sconfitto

Pianga sua sorte estrema

Nell'Ecclissi fatal di Luna scema.

See also Camerini, P., Piazzola (Milan, 1925), particularly pp. 265–98Google Scholar.

¹⁵³ See Stefani, G., Musica barocca: poetica e ideologia (Milan, 1974)Google Scholar; and the same author's Musica e religione nell'Italia barocca (Palermo, 1975)Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁴ See nn. 18, 19, 20, 109, 113 and 115. Further, Montalto, L., Un mecenate in Roma barocca: il cardinale Benedetto Pamphilj (1653–1730) (Florence, 1955)Google Scholar; Bjurström, P., Feast and Theatre in Queen Christina's Rome (Stockholm, 1966)Google Scholar; Bridges, D. M., ‘The Social Setting of “musica da camera” in Rome: 1667–1700’ (diss., Peabody College, Nashville, 1976)Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁵ See Cametti, A., Il teatro di Tordinona poi di Apollo (Tivoli, 1938)Google Scholar. A few years after the Tordinona experiment, the same Count Giacomo D'Alibert was quite explicit about the advantageous combination of ‘royal’ prerogative and commercial value in operatic theatre. In a letter of 1678 to the MadamaReale of Savoy (the regent, after the death of the duke, and thus in effect the ruler) he argued for the opening of a public theatre in Turin on the model of the Venetian Teatro S. Giovanni Grisostomo: ‘II n'y a point de divertissement qui marque d'avantage la grandeur des Cours … que les Opéras en musique … Spectacle qui attire de plus loing le concours des étrangers’. See Ferrero, M. Viale, ‘Die Bühnenausstattung des “Teatro Regio di Torino” (1667–1740)’, Hamburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, 3 (1978), pp. 239–72 (245)Google Scholar. On the outcome of D'Alibert's attempts to organise the theatrical life of Turin on the Venetian model see the same author's ‘Repliche a Torino di alcuni melodrammi veneziani e loro caratteristiche’, Venezia e il melodramma nel Seicento, pp. 145–72Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁶ I–Rvat, Vat. lat. 10232; there is another copy of the frontispiece alone in I–Rvat, Chigi r.iii.69, fol. 1385.

¹⁵⁷ See Isherwood, Music in the Service of the King; further, Ducrot, A., ‘Les représentations de l'Académie Royale de Musique à Paris au temps de Louis xiv (1671–1715)’, Recherches sur la musique française classique, 10 (Paris, 1970), pp. 19–55Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁸ See Torrefranca, F., ‘La prima opera francese in Italia? (L'Armida di Lulli, Roma 1690)’, Musikwissenschaftliche Beiträge: Festschrift für Johannes Wolf, ed. Lott, W., Osthoff, H. and Wolffheim, W. (Berlin, 1929), pp. 191–7Google Scholar; the score of Thésée is in I–Vnm, It. Cl.iv 458 (=9982). A rather mysterious indication of Lully's (or better, Louis's) penetration in Italy is the manuscript of four overtures by Alessandro Scarlatti to French spectacles (La grotte de Versailles, Amadis, Phaeton and Les plaisirs de golitier) once (and still?) in the Santini collection at Münster (Dbrd–MÜs); see Strohm, R. (review of R. Pagano and L. Bianchi, Alessandro Scarlatti (Turin, 1972), etc.)Google Scholar, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 11 (1976), pp. 314–28 (322)Google Scholar; cf. the writer of the preface to L'Armida, who claimed to have translated ‘dall'Opera di Fetonte in quà … sei altre opere composte successivamente dal medesimo Lulli, fin alla sua morte’.

¹⁵⁹ See, for example, Muratori, L. A., Della perfetta poesia italiana (Modena, 1706), ii, p. 76Google Scholar.

¹⁶⁰ Quondam, A., ‘L'istituzione Arcadia: sociologia e ideologia d'un'accademia’, Quaderni storici, 8 (1973), pp. 389–438Google Scholar.

¹⁶¹ See Battisti, E., ‘Per una indagine sociologica sui librettisti napoletani buffi del Settecento’, Letteratura, 8 (1960), pp. 114–64Google Scholar (particularly 118–19, 121, 124).

¹⁶² Some hint of changing attitudes towards French culture may be had from comic moments in two Roman librettos. In Act 2 scene xvi ( = intermezzo) of La prosperità di Elio Seiano (Rome, 1672; GB–Lbm, 906.l.13.(1)Google Scholar), Plancina, in an attempt to simulate ‘la musica Romea’, ‘canta un'Arietta Francese’; to which Eudemo responds: ‘Chi diavol t'imparò/Canzona sì bestiale,/Io mai non la dirò’. L'amante combattuto (Rome, 1695; GB–Lbm, 906.L.13.(4))Google Scholar has a prologue between ‘Celia, giovinetta italiana’ and ‘Clorinda Mad-musella francese’. Clorinda confesses to not knowing Italian; Celia reassures her with the following aria:

Il parlare alia Francese

È alia moda d'oggidì

E chi vole esser cortese

Tosto impara a dire uvì.

¹⁶³ Mattheson, pp. 199f.

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Production, consumption and political function of seventeenth-century opera

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