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The Peak Period of Venetian Public Opera: The 1650s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1975

Jane Glover
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Extract

In the early months of 1637, a Roman opera company of six singers with instrumentalists presented Francesco Manelli's Andromeda in the newly reopened Teatro San Cassiano at Venice. These performances marked the beginning of a vital period of development in opera: the new art form of drama in continuous music had hitherto been largely the privilege of the aristocratic few, but was now presented to a cross-section of Venice's richly varied population. Andromeda and its successor, La Maga Fulminata, given by the same company in the following year, aroused in Venetian dramatists, composers and audiences alike a voracious appetite for operas, and were the source of an almost continuous flow of such works presented in Venetian theatres throughout the rest of the century.

Type
Eleventh Annual Conference
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 102 , 1975 , pp. 67 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 The Teatro San Cassiano had been closed since 1639, when it had been damaged by fire. See Galvani, LivioNiso, I teatri musicali di Venezia nel secolo XVII (Milan, 1878), 17.Google Scholar

2 For a complete list of operas performed in Venice in the 17th century see Bonlini, GiovanniCarlo, Le glorie della poesia e della musica contenute nell'esatta notizia de' Teatri della città di Venezia (Venice, 1730)Google Scholar

3 For a complete list, see Galvani, op. cit.Google Scholar

4 Italians were generally well-practised in the art of theatrical design. See Sabbatini, Nicolo, Pratica di fabricar scene e machine ne' teatri (Ravenna, 1638; ed. E. Povoledo, Rome, 1955).Google Scholar

5 Libretto by Bissari; music by an unknown composer Its former attribution to Cavalli is now thought unlikely. See Walker, Thomas, ‘Gli errori di Minerva al Tavolino, osservazioni sulla cronologia delle prime opere veneziane’, Venezia e il melodramma nel Seicento (Florence, 1976), 7 20.Google Scholar

6 Performed in the Teatro San Salvatore; music by Boretti.Google Scholar

7 It is interesting that a similar move was being made in Rome Rospigliosi's Dal male il bene of 1653 has only six characters, two pairs of lovers and two servants, and this pattern was becoming very popular with the fast-developing opera buffa In the following century it became standard in Metastasian opera seria and finally culminated in da Ponte's Cosi fan tutte.Google Scholar

8 Performed in the Teatro Sant' Apollinare; music by P. A. Ziani.Google Scholar

9 Preface to Amor Guernero, performed at the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo with music by P A. Ziani.Google Scholar

10 Sir Philip Skippon, Journey through the Lou Countries, Germany, Italy and France (London, 1682, republished 1752), 521Google Scholar

11 For discussions of the Venetian orchestra, see Arnold, Denis, ‘L'Incoronazione di Poppea and its Orchestral Requirements’, Musical Times, civ (1963), 176–8, Janet Beat, ‘Monteverdi and the Opera Orchestra of Hb Time’, The Monteverdi Companion, ed Denis Arnold and Nigel Fortune (London, 1968), 277–301, Raymond Leppard, ‘Cavalli's Operas’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, xciii (1967), 67–76, Robert L Weaver, ‘Orchestration in Early Italian Opera’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, xvii (1964), 83ff.Google Scholar

12 The illustration tape, of a radio performance edited and conducted by the author, was made available by courtesy of the B B C The English translation was by Anne RidlerGoogle Scholar

13 The illustration tape, of a public performance edited and conducted by the author at the Wexford Festival, was made available by courtesy of the B B C. The English translation was by Anne Ridler.Google Scholar

14 For discussions of Cavalli's anas, see Bj⊘m Hjelmborg, ‘Aspects of the Aria in the Early Operas of Francesco Cavalli’, Natalicia Musicologica Knud Jeppesen (Copenhagen, 1962), 173–98; Ellen Rosand, Aria in the Early Operas of Francesco Cavalli (unpublished dissertation, New York University, 1971); Nino Pirrotta, ‘Early Opera and Ana’, New Looks at Italian Opera: Essays in Honor of D J Grout (Ithaca, 1968), 39–107, Jane Glover, ‘Aria and Closed Form in the Operas of Francesco Cavalli’, The Consort, xxxii (1967), 167–75Google Scholar

15 Performed in the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo, music by Mattioli.Google Scholar

16 Performed in the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo; music by PagliardiGoogle Scholar

17 In the account of his Grand Tour, 1648–55, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C799, f. 174.Google Scholar