Benedetto Marcello was an Italian composer, writer, advocate, magistrate, and teacher. He was a member of a noble family and his compositions are frequently referred to as Patrizio Veneto. Although he was a music student of Antonio Lotti and Francesco Gasparini, his father wanted Benedetto to devote himself to law.
Indeed, Benedetto Marcello combined a life in law and public service with one in music. Marcello served the Venetian Republic as a magistrate from about 1708 until 1728, when he was exiled to the resort city of Pula, now in Croatia. In 1711 he was appointed member of the Council of Forty (in Venice’s central government), and in 1730 he went to Pola as Provveditore (district governor. In 1738 Marcello was appointed to his final position as chief financial officer of the city of Brescia, but died after less than a year in this job on or around his 53rd birthday.
Benedetto Marcello was what 18th century chroniclers called a “dilettante”; not a dabbler as in the current vernacular, but an aristocrat who also pursued musical composition as a sideline (one of his appellations was ‘Princeps musicae’). Marcello was a younger contemporary of Antonio Vivaldi in Venice and his instrumental music enjoys a Vivaldian flavor.
As a composer, Benedetto Marcello was best known in his lifetime and is now still best remembered for his massively influential eight-volume publication Estro poetico-armonico (Venice, 1724-1726), popularly known as the “Psalmi.” It is a collection of the first 50 Psalms (as paraphrased in Italian by his friend G. Giustiniani.) musical settings for for voices, figured bass (a continuo notation), and occasional soloist instruments. Marcello’s Psalms were heard during the 18th century at concerts in Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig and London. In Rome, Cardinal Ottoboni decreed that every one of his accademie was to begin with a composition from the Estro poetico-armonico. Innumerable reprintings, as well as translations even into Russian, appeared in Europe during the 19th century. They were much admired by Charles Avison, who with John Garth brought out an edition with English words (London, 1757). Marcello’s sacred vocal music was revered by most of his contemporaries as representing the supreme example of contrapuntal technique, and he was in use in teaching through the end of the 19th century. Now, unfortunately, this monumental work is practically unknown except to specialists.
Scarcely less popular was his treatise, Il teatro alla moda (1720), a satire that skewered the opera world of his time. Marcello wrote nearly 400 cantatas, some so well known that they exist in up to 25 contemporary manuscript copies, in addition to oratorios, operas, and nearly 100 small chamber works for singers. His surviving instrumental catalog is less generous, mostly consisting of keyboard sonatas, but also containing a few sinfonias and concertos. All of Marcello’s instrumental music was composed by 1710 or thereabouts; the set of 12 concerti published as Marcello’s “Op. 1″ in 1708 is lacking its first violin part.
The library of the Brussels Conservatoire possesses some interesting volumes of chamber-cantatas composed by Marcello for his mistress. Although Benedetto Marcello wrote an opera called La Fede riconosciuta and produced it in Vicenza in 1702, he had little sympathy with this form of composition, as evidenced in his writings. He vented his opinions on the state of musical drama at the time in the satirical pamphlet Il teatro alla moda, published anonymously in Venice in 1720. This little work, which was frequently reprinted, is not only extremely amusing, but is most valuable as a contribution to the history of opera.
Before the early years of the 20th century, any list of significant Western composers from past eras would have included the name of Benedetto Marcello. Through his advocacy of a return to the proportional values and simplicity of ancient Greco-Roman civilization, Marcello helped set the stage for the Classical era in Western music, soon to unseat the aesthetic norms of the Baroque in which Marcello lived and worked. Nonetheless, controversy and confusion surrounding his works and history have considerably dimmed Marcello’s star. Many of the instrumental works once believed by Marcello are actually by others. Composer Alessandro Marcello (1669-1747) was Benedetto’s older brother, and some of Alessandro’s music has been misattributed to Benedetto. Various instrumental pieces attributed to Marcello are merely instrumental arrangements of his Psalmi, in some cases made decades after his death. Benedetto Marcello’s music is “characterized by imagination and a fine technique and includes both counterpoint and progressive, galant features” (Grove, 1994). On the other hand, “Today his music is generally found dry and quirkish.” (Oxford Composer Companion J.S. Bach, 1999). The composer Joachim Raff wrote an opera entitled Benedetto Marcello, based loosely on the life of Marcello.
J.S. Bach Connection.
As far as we know, J.S. Bach (unlike Georg Philipp Telemann) did not share in the encomiums, by professional musicians, of Benedetto Marcello’s art, but he did at least make a keyboard transcription (BWV 981) of the second concerto in Marcello’s Concerti a cinque Op. 1 (1708), changing the key from E minor to C minor.

Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique (Théâtre-Lyrique Impérial du Châtelet), Paris on 27 April 1867. This opera is notable for the series of four duets for the main characters and the waltz song “Je veux vivre” for the soprano.
Gounod’s opera Faust had become popular at the Théâtre Lyrique since its premiere in 1859 (it was performed over 300 times between 1859 and 1868) and this led to a further commission from the director Carvalho.[2] Behind the scenes there were difficulties in casting the lead tenor, and Gounod was said to have composed the last act twice, but after the public general rehearsal and first night it was hailed as a major success for the composer. Its success was aided by the presence of dignitaries in Paris for the Exhibition, several of whom attended performances. A parody soon appeared at the Théâtre Déjazet, entitled Rhum et eau en juillet (Rum and water in july).
The opera entered the repertoire of the Opéra-Comique on 20 January 1873 (with Deloffre and Carvalho returning to their roles from the premiere), where it received 391 performances in 14 years. On the 28 November 1888 Roméo et Juliette transferred to the Paris Opéra, with Adelina Patti and Jean de Reszke in the leading roles. The opera was first seen in London (with Patti and Mario) on 11 July 1867 and in New York (with Minnie Hauk) at the Academy of Music on 15 November of that year.
Sutherland Edwards, music critic of the St. James’s Gazette, wrote the following about the opera following its first London performance in 1867:
Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, in which the composer is always pleasing, though seldom impressive, might be described as the powerful drama of Romeo and Juliet reduced to the proportions of an eclogue for Juliet and Romeo. One remembers the work as a series of very pretty duets, varied by a sparkling waltz air for Juliet, in which Madame Patti displays that tragic genius, which belongs to her equally, with the highest capacity for comedy. [Vaccai's] Romeo e Giulietta is an admirable opera for Giulietta; in which Romeo is not forgotten.

The second Electra appears in plays by the Greek writers Aeschylus, Sophocles*, and Euripides*. In their works, Electra was the daughter of Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War, and his wife, Clytemnestra. While Agamemnon was away at war, Clytemnestra took a lover named Aegisthus, and they plotted to murder Agamemnon when he returned. They also wanted to kill Orestes, Agamemnon’s young son, but his sister Electra rescued him and sent him away to live in safety.
As an adult, Orestes returned home with his cousin Pylades to avenge his father’s murder. Although Orestes disguised himself to enter the palace, Electra recognized him. She helped her brother and Pylades murder Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. It was said that Electra later married Pylades.
Titan one of a family of giants who ruled the earth until overthrown by the Greek gods of Olympus
Electra helped her brother Orestes plan the murder of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus to avenge the death of their father.
Stories concerning Electra also appear in the play Mourning Becomes Electra, written by Eugene O’Neill in 1931, and the 1909 opera Elektra by Richard Strauss. In psychology, an “Electra complex” refers to a woman whose unresolved love for her father harms her relationships with other men.

Hildegard Behrens (9 February 1937 – 18 August 2009) was a German soprano with a wide repertoire including Wagner, Weber, Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Alban Berg roles.
Behrens was born in Varel, Germany in 1937 and was graduated from the University of Freiburg as a junior barrister before becoming serious about her talents as a singer, studying at first with Ines Leuwen at the Freiburg Academy Of Music. Her debut was as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro in Freiburg in 1971 and the following year she became a member of the Deutsche Oper. On 15 October 1976 she made her American debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Giorgetta in Il tabarro.
She began her musical career singing small roles at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf where she stayed for six years during which she graduated into bigger roles. Then in the 1975–76 season, while rehearsing Wozzeck, she was “discovered” by Herbert von Karajan, who was then looking for his new Salome. She was summoned to Berlin to audition for the role. Karajan liked what he heard and invited her to portray the role at the 1977 Salzburg Festival.
Behrens was the recipient of many awards – among them the highest civilian honors given by the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz or Order of the Merit Cross of the Federal Republic) and by the state of Bavaria (the Bayerischer Verdienstorden), and the titles of Bayerische Kammersängerin and Österreichische Kammersängerin bestowed by the Bavarian State Opera and the Vienna State Opera respectively. In 1998, she received Denmark’s most prestigious Leonie Sonning Music Prize and in 1999 the Vienna State Opera honored her with the Lotte Lehmann Ring, bequeathed to her by the late dramatic soprano Leonie Rysanek.
Hildegard Behrens died of a sudden aortic aneurysm aged 72 in hospital in Tokyo, Japan, where she had been attending the Kusatsu International Summer Music Fest.
1990 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording: Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Sonning Award (1998; Denmark)
Available on DVD:
Der Ring des Nibelungen, with James Levine conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, in the “classical-manner” production by Otto Schenk, from 1989 to 1990. Deutsche Grammophon 073 049-9.
Tosca, with Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the Metropolitan Opera in the celebrated Franco Zeffirelli production from 1985, also starring Plácido Domingo. Deutsche Grammophon 073 410-1.
Idomeneo, performed at the Met with Luciano Pavarotti, production designer Jean Pierre Ponnelle, conductor James Levine. Deutsche Grammophon ASIN: B000E5KOJI

The tenor is here Luis (Luigi) Alva, a great Peruvian singer.
“This is the greatest recording of this opera ever made. First ,because of the incredible cast (De Los Angeles, Alva, Bruscantini). Second, because of the outstanding conductor (Gui). Mostly, however, because none of the singers distort Rossini’s wonderful melodies with cheap ornamentation and interpolated high notes. What a pleasure.”
(Joe Carbia)

These Callas paintings are stills from concert videos available on YouTube, an upstart startup that has since permitted an unprecedented dissemination of videos of virtually all calibers and contents to anyone who seeks them.
In the 1950s, the artist Jasper Johns took similarly ubiquitous images such as STOP signs and the American flag and painted them onto canvas in simple but conceptually sound composition. The canvas was the flag which was the painting, giving a unique identity and psychological depth to the object. Like Duchamp with his objet trouvé, or readymades, this surprisingly simple concept gave reality to an impossible irony: these non-art objects were bereft of their primary function and instead were appreciated from an aesthetic perspective, thus claiming that art, which until then had been principally of retinal capacity, can enter the realm of ideas and thought.
Johns’ seminal work laid the foundation for the Pop Art movement, perhaps the greatest exponent of which is Andy Warhol. Unlike Johns, however, Warhol responded to his new media-crazed society by merely stating the facts, through an emotionally detached stance from his [literally] mechanically produced, iconographic silk screens. His oeuvre lucidly placed contemporary society in front of the mirror.
Today, that approach to society and art is passé: the shock value produced by television and the media has totally run its course, and [re]stating that it has desensitized the audience has itself become completely banal. The statement has already become the concept.
The Internet has given us a lot more of something: a choice. Information, that invaluable commodity of the modern era, has become a new kind of objet trouvé: one that carries an irony somewhere between Duchamp’s and Johns’ personal, arbitrary choices and Warhol’s detachment from his specific subjects. Only, this time, we can sound the information not just for external phenomena, but for evidence of an individual’s intrinsic motivations. The Callas videos are my personal searches, but I can’t have predicted choosing to incline towards this art form. As available information, the Callas videos are the readymades. As found objects, they obtain a personal meaning. As paintings, they are an insight into my own psychic struggle between the exhibitionist and the idealized poles.
In these paintings, I’m interested in releasing, through the process of portrayal, that psychic struggle; the tension between the diametrically opposed poles of the self. The simple compositional elements intend to underline the subconscious message. The psychological depth comes easily to me because I absorb Callas effortlessly. Her characterization is always complete, in depth, and elegantly within the bounds set forth by the composer: no unnecessarily long-held notes, no excessive gestures. She said whenever you don’t know what to do, just listen to the music because the composer has already seen through it. There’s an aria in Adriana Lecouvreur by Cilea, in which Adriana, a singer, sings to the crowd “Ecco…Io son l’umile ancella del Genio creator.” (I am the humble servant of the creative genius). Callas sang it like no other; perhaps she understood it best, serving both her principles and her respect for the composer. In the course of her artistic life, she damaged her voice, but the drama required it, and she never compromised her artistic integrity for the sake of safety or “pretty sound”.
I share the drive with any artist who would seek to appreciate truly the achievements of the Modernist giants, as Johns, Warhol and the like, while simultaneously engaging in contemporary society with relevant immediacy. I don’t think my work is revolutionary. I think it’s in the same vein outlined by those above and their contemporaries. While undoubtedly a product of my society (albeit I grew up in a very different one), I do my best and remain selfishly uncompromising.
(Irvin Almonte)

http://www.irvinalmonte.com/service/maria-callas-as-objet-trouve/

“Il pirata” (“The Pirate”) is an opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani from a French translation of the tragic play Bertram, or The Castle of St Aldobrando by Charles Maturin. It premiered at La Scala on October 27, 1827.
The original play has been compared with Bellini’s opera and the influence of “Il Pirata” on Gaetano Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” has been noted. Also, Bellini’s recycling of his own music in this opera has been analyzed, as well as his utilizing “a more self-consciously innovative compositional style” and participating more in work on the libretto, as compared with prior efforts where he was more deferential to the librettists chosen by the Naples opera management and the corresponding texts. In addition, 19th-century commentary has noted the musical influence of “Il Pirata” on the early Richard Wagner opera “Das Liebesverbot”.

As many biographers have noted, Maria Callas’s very entry into this world is a matter of controversy. Some sources suggest she that was born on December 3; others say that she celebrated her birthday on December 2; and a few report that she favored December 4, the feast of Saint Barbara, a feisty young martyr and patroness of gunners. Not in dispute is that the New York-born soprano would have turned 80 this week, had death not taken her in 1977, when she was only 53. Predictably, her demise also continues to stir debate. Was it suicide, as her ex-husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini self-servingly maintained? Did she die addicted to barbiturates, as some have alleged, or from taking diet pills that dealt a fatal blow to her chronically weak heart? And why do we continue to ask such unseemly questions?
Beyond morbid curiosity, the answer touches on the types of stories we tell ourselves about Callas. They come in several varieties: Callas, the victim of her own overweening pride and ambition, who withered away and died when her voice gave out. The wicked, frivolous Callas, who threw away her career for the sake of the satyr-like Aristotle Onassis, then died of a broken heart when he married another woman. Finally, the Master Class/Sunset Boulevard variation, perhaps the current favorite: the diva as bitchy, pathetic queen, slavering over her former lover’s “big, thick, uncircumcised Greek dick” as time so ruthlessly passed her by. And what about Callas’s celebrated weight loss? Did she knowingly ingest a tapeworm? Subsist on espresso and diuretics? Surely some witchery was afoot!
Focussing on such dross is one of the many, insidious ways the largely male press has sought to trivialize the accomplishments of this disconcerting woman. Myself, I prefer a different set of stories. For me, the slimmed-down Callas is no mere fashion victim, but a woman who saw that biology wasn’t destiny and took action accordingly. I see the Callas who left her husband for Onassis as neither a trollop nor a “casta diva” who betrayed her art, but as a woman who had the courage to follow the imperatives of her heart even when they collided with the values by which she once lived. And her unruly, prematurely aged voice? Well, her career did last roughly thirty-five years (counting from her début, at age 15, in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana), and few artists have adhered to as punishing a work ethic as Callas. As a girl, she was the first student to arrive at teacher Elvira de Hidalgo’s studio and the last to depart; and at the peak of her career, at La Scala, Callas, director Luchino Visconti, and conductor Leonard Bernstein put in twenty-hour days preparing Bellini’s La sonnambula. Such a level of activity may have been imprudent and unsustainable, but it was also the stuff of which surpassingly great art was made.
Among published work on Callas, the story that speaks most persuasively to me is Cristina Gastel Chiarelli’s Maria Callas (Marsilio). In contrast to nearly all other Callas biographers, Gastel Chiarelli knew the soprano well, over a period of many years. She tells movingly how she learned from Callas’s example: “My uncle, Luchino Visconti, held her up to me as a model of uncompromising hard work, force of will, tenacity, integrity, and character… A monstre sacre on stage, she was also a heroine capable of facing everyday problems with the same stubborn, indomitable spirit.” Gastel Chiarelli presents a Callas radically at odds with the unhinged virago familiar from other accounts: a woman who was sober, disciplined, and implacably honest with herself in life and art. Recalling the performer who made everything seem effortless on stage, she writes, “No one in the audience could imagine the fatigue, the tension, the overpowering emotions” that left Callas “with a profound emptiness” after her performances. “Everyone assumed that singing came very easily to her.”
Still, bookshelves groan with options for those who insist on more colorful treatments of Callas’s life. Pygmalion, Cinderella, Daedalus and his hybris brought low, Proteus and the ever-popular ugly-duckling-turned-swan: these are a few of the myths inevitably lurking just beneath the surface. Nicholas Gage’s Greek Fire (Knopf) all but accuses the soprano of infanticide, completing the Callas/Medea elision rampant in the tabloid press during her lifetime. (Gastel Chiarelli sums up this line of thought: “Callas-Medea… hated her mother, just as Medea was capable of killing her own children, her brother, and her rival for love of a mythical spouse, Jason-Success. For ambition she would commit any abomination, overturn the entire world.”) Iconoclasts, instead, can relish the gallantry of Michael Scott, who writes in Maria Meneghini Callas (Northeastern University Press) of the soprano’s sublimely beautiful Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata: “Up close, after a performance, all I could remember is how much acne and dandruff her Violetta had.”
No wonder Catherine Clément, in her magnificent screed Opera, or The Undoing of Women, rails against the “eulogist clowns” (“all men,” she notes) who began circling like vultures as soon as Callas died. How demeaning and impoverished their views of this great artist are! I propose that we reframe the issue: re-vision Callas, as it were, and focus on what really mattered to her. She was, after all, a proud and reserved woman, “brought up to believe that it was wrong to inflict one’s pain on others,” according to Gastel Chiarelli. Callas, she writes, “wished to be loved without invasions of her private life, though she spoke freely of herself when it could be useful to others. She detested pointless curiosity and was irritated by morbid affection and stupidity.”
How, then, can we fittingly remember Callas? We can recall the musician who re-shaped the operatic canon, revealing the musical and dramatic integrity of works (by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and others) once dismissed as mindless showpieces for canary-like singers. We can think of the artist who, in upholding the ideals of dramma per musica, drew to the opera house directors from the so-called “legitimate” theatre, crossly informing one such colleague who demurred, “I don’t want opera directors. I want directors.” Granted, there remain pockets of provincialism (New York, for example) where opera is seen as a concert in costume, an ingratiating timbre and loud high notes are mistaken for music making, and probing, high-minded productions are reserved for “respectable” (i.e. non-Italian) opera. Most everywhere else, though, Callas’s example continues to shape what audiences see and hear. This is true at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, where world-class scholarship, theatrical values, and musical prowess go hand in hand and at La Scala, where generations of artists (including Giorgio Strehler, Claudio Abbado, and Riccardo Muti) have tended the Italian operatic tradition with seriousness, love, and a spirit of discovery. Finally, we can remember the awkward little girl with a wayward voice who, through unsparing hard work, became an artist whose musicianship, glamour, and quest for dramatic truth transfix music lovers even now, some forty years after her last appearances in opera.
Some say that Callas was fated to die young, that her vanity would not allow her to outlive her beauty or the glory days of her career. Perhaps; but I can picture her as a grand, bejeweled dowager who would rage and thunder when she felt that opera was being ill treated. (She would also, I suspect, loathe much that I admire, including Robert Wilson stagings and come scritto performances.) In her last years, we know that she was a warm, supportive colleague to the students in her master classes and to such fellow artists as Montserrat Caballé. And while most biographers cleave to the soap opera formula of a hermit-like Callas waiting for death in her Paris flat, those who knew her paint a different picture. Gastel Chiarelli notes the determination with which Callas fought glaucoma; and Stelios Galatopoulos, author of Maria Callas: Sacred Monster (Simon & Schuster), writes, “I saw more of this so-called recluse in the last two years of her life than I had in the previous ten years.”
For Callas’s eightieth birthday, then, let us set aside the petty, salacious lore churned out by those determined to make of Callas an image of their own sorry selves. And let us remember the artist who measured herself by standards that were less forgiving but vastly more enriching: “Music is so great that the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. We are interpreters, not geniuses; we serve music.” Buon compleanno, Maria. E grazie infinite, Divina.

‎”I puritani” (“The Puritans”) is an opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini. It was his last opera. Its libretto is by Count Carlo Pepoli, based on “Têtes rondes et Cavaliers” by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, which is in turn based on Walter Scott’s novel “Old Mortality”. It was first produced at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, January 24, 1835. At the same time, Bellini composed an alternative version intended for the famous Maria Malibran, who was to sing it in Naples; in fact, this version was not performed on stage until April 10, 1986 at the Teatro Petruzzelli, Bari.
In the film “Fitzcarraldo” (W. Herzog), some of “I puritani” was on the main character’s boat on his triumphal return to Iquitos.

‎”Guillaume Tell” is an opera in four acts by Gioacchino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller’s play “Wilhelm Tell”. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini’s last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years. The “William Tell” Overture, with its famous finale, is a major part of the concert and recording repertoire.
While it was first performed by the Paris Opéra at the Salle Le Peletier on 3 August 1829, the opera’s length, roughly four hours of music, and casting requirements, such as the high range required for the tenor part, have contributed to the difficulty of producing the work. When it is performed, it is often heavily cut. Performances have been given in both French and Italian. Political concerns have also contributed to the varying fortunes of the work.
Charles Malherbe, archivist at the Paris Opéra, discovered the original orchestral score of the opera at a secondhand book seller’s shop, resulting in it being acquired by the Paris Conservatoire.
In Italy, because the work glorified a revolutionary figure against authority, the opera encountered difficulties with the Italian censors, and the number of productions in Italy was limited. The Teatro San Carlo produced the opera in 1833, but then did not give another production for around 50 years. The first Venice production, at the Teatro La Fenice, was not until 1856. By contrast, in Vienna, in spite of censorship issues there, the Vienna Court Opera gave 422 performances over the years 1830-1907. As Hofer, or the Tell of the Tyrol, the opera was first given in London on 1 May 1830. In New York, William Tell was first presented on 19 September 1831.

“La Gerusalemme liberata” is an epic poem by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso first published in 1581, which tells a largely mythified version of the First Crusade in which Catholic knights, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, battle Muslims in order to take Jerusalem. The poem is composed of eight line stanzas grouped into 20 cantos of varying length.
The work belongs to the Renaissance tradition of the Italian romantic epic poem, and Tasso frequently borrows plot elements and character types directly from Ariosto’s Orlando furioso. Tasso’s poem also has elements inspired by the classical epics of Homer and Virgil (especially in those sections of their works that tell of sieges and warfare).
Tasso’s choice of subject matter, an actual historic conflict between Christians and Muslims (albeit with fantastical elements added), had a historical grounding and created compositional implications (the narrative subject matter had a fixed endpoint and could not be endlessly spun out in multiple volumes) that are lacking in other Renaissance epics. But like other works of the period which portray conflicts between Christians and Muslims, this subject matter had a topical resonance to readers of the period, as the Ottoman Empire was advancing through Eastern Europe.
One of the most characteristic literary devices in Tasso’s poem is the emotional conundrum endured by characters torn between their heart and their duty, and this depiction of love at odds with martial valour or honor is a source of great lyrical passion in the poem.
Tasso began work on the poem in the mid-1560s. Originally, it bore the title Il Goffredo. It was completed in April, 1575 and that summer the poet read his work to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara and Lucrezia, Duchess of Urbino. A pirate edition of 14 cantos from the poem appeared in Venice in 1580. The first complete editions of Gerusalemme liberata were published in Parma and Ferrara in 1581.
The poem tells of the initial disunity and setbacks of the Christians and their ultimate success. The most famous sequences include the following:
Sofronia (in English: Sophronia), a Christian maiden of Jerusalem, accuses herself of a crime in order to avert a general massacre of the Christians by the Muslim king. In an attempt to save her, her lover Olindo accuses himself in turn, and each lover pleads with the authorities in order to save the other.
Clorinda, a warrior-maiden, joins the Muslims, but the Christian knight Tancredi (in English: Tancred) falls in love with her. During a night battle in which she sets the Christian siege tower on fire, she is mistakenly killed by her lover, but she converts to Christianity before dying. The character of Clorinda is inspired in part by Virgil’s Camilla and by Bradamante in Ariosto; the circumstances of her birth (a Caucasian girl born to African parents) are modeled on the lead character (Chariclea) from the ancient Greek novel by Heliodorus of Emesa.
Another maiden of the region, the Princess Erminia (or “Hermine”) of Antioch, also falls in love with Tancredi and betrays her people to help him, but she grows jealous when she learns that Tancredi loves Clorinda. One night she steals Clorinda’s armor and leaves the city, in an attempt to find Tancredi. But she is attacked by Christian soldiers (who mistake her for Clorinda) and she flees into the forest, where she is cared for by a family of shepherds. Later in the poem we find her again in the company of Armida’s ladies, but Erminia abandons her people and goes over to the Christian side. When Tancredi is dangerously wounded in combat, she heals him.
The witch Armida (modeled on Circe in Homer and the witch Alcina in Ariosto’s epic) enters the Christian camp asking for their aid; her seductions divide the knights against each other and a group leaves with her, only to be transformed into animals by her magic.
Armida tries to kill the greatest Christian knight Rinaldo (his name appears in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (III, 30); he is the son of Bertoldo and was the reputed founder of the house of Este) but she falls in love with him instead and takes him away to a magical island where he becomes infatuated with her caresses and grows idle. Two Christian knights seek out the hidden fortress, brave the dangers that guard it and, by giving Rinaldo a mirror of diamond, force him to see himself in his effeminated and amorous state and to return to the war, leaving Armida heartbroken. Armida grieves at this loss and raises an army to kill Rinaldo and fight the Christians, but her champions are all defeated. She attempts suicide, but Rinaldo finds her in time and prevents her. Rinaldo then begs her to convert to Christianity, and Armida, her heart softened, gives her consent. (This sequence echoes a similar storyline in Ariosto: the witch Alcina ensnares the knight Ruggiero, but the spell is broken by a magic ring that the good sorceress Melissa brings him; earlier antecedents include Circe’s attempt to keep Odysseus on her island, and Morgan le Fay taking Ogier the Dane off to a faraway island).
The poem was immensely successful throughout Europe and over the next two centuries various sections were frequently adapted as individual storylines for operas, plays, ballets and masquerades; scenes from the poem were also depicted in paintings and frescoes (for example, at Fontainebleau in France, in the Villa Valmarana (Lisiera) in the Veneto, and at Hohenschwangau in Germany). For the work’s immense influence on painters and musicians, see “Works based on . . .” below.
Certain critics of the period however were less enthusiastic, and Tasso came under much criticism for the magical extravagance and narrative confusion of his poem. Before his death, he rewrote the poem virtually from scratch, under a new title La Gerusalemme Conquistata, or “Jerusalem Conquered.” This revised version, however, has found little favor with either audiences or critics.
The fame of Tasso’s poem quickly spread throughout the European continent. In England, Sidney, Daniel and Drayton seem to have admired it, and, most importantly, Edmund Spenser described Tasso as an “excellente poete” and made use of elements from “La Gerusalemme liberata” in “The Faerie Queene”. The description of Redcrosse’s vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the First Book owes something to Rinaldo’s morning vision in Canto 18 of “Gerusalemme”. In the twelfth canto of Book Two, Spenser’s enchantress Acrasia is partly modelled on Tasso’s Armida and the English poet directly imitated two stanzas from the Italian “The portrayal of Satan and the demons” in the first two books of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” is also indebted to Tasso’s poem. The first attempt to translate “La Gerusalemme liberata” was made by Richard Carew, who published his version of the first five cantos as Godfrey of Bulloigne or the recoverie of Hierusalem in 1594. More significant was the complete rendering by Edward Fairfax which appeared in 1600 and has been acclaimed as one of the finest English verse translations. (There is also an eighteenth-century translation by John Hoole, and modern versions by Anthony Esolen and Max Wickert.) Tasso’s poem remained popular among educated English readers and was, at least until the end of the 19th century, considered one of the supreme achievements of Western literature. Somewhat eclipsed in the Modernist period, its fame is showing signs of recovering.

The real and historical Shammuramat (in Greek, Semiramis), was the Assyrian queen of Shamshi-Adad V (ruled 824 BC–811 BC), King of Assyria and ruler of the Neo Assyrian Empire, and its regent for four years until her son Adad-nirari III came of age.
For the ancient Greeks Semiramis was one of several legendary Assyrian queens. The most recent was Semiramis II for whom the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built.
The legends narrated by Diodorus Siculus, Justin and others from Ctesias of Cnidus make a picture of her and her relationship to King Ninus, himself a mythical king of Assyria, not attested in the Assyrian King List.
The name of Semiramis came to be applied to various monuments in Western Asia, the origin of which was forgotten or unknown. Ultimately every stupendous work of antiquity by the Euphrates or in Iran seems to have been ascribed to her, even the Behistun Inscription of Darius. Herodotus ascribes to her the artificial banks that confined the Euphrates and knows her name as borne by a gate of Babylon. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are also known as the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis.
Various places in Assyria, Mesopotamia, Medea, Persia and Asia Minor bore the name of Semiramis, but slightly changed, even in the Middle Ages, and an old name of the city of Van was Shamiramagerd. Assyrians still name female children Semiramis to this day.
“The Shepherd finds the Babe Semiramis”, by Ernest Wallcousins (1915).
According to the legend as related by Diodorus, Semiramis was of noble parents, the daughter of the fish-goddess Derketo of Ascalon in Syria and a mortal. Derketo abandoned her at birth and drowned herself. The child was fed by doves until she was found and brought up by Simmas, the royal shepherd.
Afterwards she married Onnes or Menones, one of the generals of Ninus. Ninus was so struck by her bravery at the capture of Bactra that he married her, forcing Onnes to commit suicide.
She and Ninus had a son named Ninyas. After King Ninus conquered Asia, including the Bactrians, he was fatally wounded by an arrow. Semiramis then masqueraded as her son and tricked her late husband’s army into following her instructions because they thought these came from their new ruler. After Ninus’s death she reigned as queen regnant, conquering much of Asia.
Not only was she able to reign effectively, she also added Ethiopia to the empire. She restored ancient Babylon and protected it with a high brick wall that completely surrounded the city. She is also credited with inventing the chastity belt. Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus credits her as the first person to castrate a male youth into eunuch-hood: “Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first person to castrate male youths of tender age” (Lib. XIV).
According to Hislop’s “The Two Babylons” (1853) in the end, however, her son Zoroaster killed her. This may be derived from the legend of Ishtar and Gilgamesh.
The association of the fish and dove is found at Hierapolis Bambyce (Mabbog), the great temple at which, according to one legend, was founded by Semiramis, where her statue was shown with a golden dove on her head.
Semiramis staring at the corpse of Ara the Beautiful.
Armenian tradition portrays her as a homewrecker and a harlot. These facts are partly to be explained by observing that, according to the legends, in her birth as well as in her disappearance from earth, Semiramis appears as a goddess, the daughter of the fish-goddess Atargatis, and herself connected with the doves of Ishtar or Astartë.
One of the most popular legends in Armenian tradition involves Semiramis and an Armenian king, Ara the Beautiful. In the 20th century, the poet Nairi Zarian retold the story of Ara the Beautiful and Shamiram, in a work considered to be a masterpiece of Armenian literary drama.
According to the legend, Semiramis had heard about the fame of the handsome Armenian king Ara, and she lusted after his image. She asked Ara to marry her, but he refused; upon hearing this, she gathered the armies of Assyria and marched against Armenia.
During the battle, which may have taken place in the Ararat valley, Ara was slain. In order to avoid continuous warfare with the Armenians, Semiramis, reputed to be a sorceress, took his body and prayed to the gods to raise Ara from the dead. When the Armenians advanced to avenge their leader, she disguised one of her lovers as Ara and spread the rumor that the gods had brought Ara back to life. As a result, the war ended.
Although many different versions of the legend exist, it is usually accepted that Ara never came back to life.
While the achievements of Semiramis are clearly mythical and metaphorical, there was a historical Assyrian queen Shammuramat (Semiramis), wife of Shamshi-Adad V of Assyria. After her husband’s death, she served as regent from 810 – 806 BC for her son, Adad-nirari III. Semiramis would thus have been briefly in control of the vast Neo Assyrian Empire which ruled Babylonia, western Iran (Persia and Media), Israel, much of Asia Minor and Arabia, Phoenicia and Syria among others. Georges Roux has speculated that the many later Indo-Iranian (Persian, Median and Urartian/Armenian) flavoured myths surrounding Semiramis stem from successful campaigns waged by her against these peoples, and the novelty of a woman ruling such an empire.
Some have claimed that her legends were created so that she could be worshiped as a goddess to further solidify her reign and power, but this is not borne out by the Assyrian documents of the time.
Recent developments in forensic archeology and historic inquiry reveal the possibility of a single individual having been in position to have done the majority of acts traditionally ascribed to Semiramis. Further, it is apparent from linguistic and mythologic evidence that this individual may be responsible for the institutions of several diverse religious practices, including many predominate practices in the occident.
In The Divine Comedy, Dante sees Semiramis among the souls of the lustful in the Second Circle of Hell. Semiramis appears in many plays and operas, for example Voltaire’s tragedy “Semiramis” and operas with the title “Semiramide” by Domenico Cimarosa, Marcos Portugal, Josef Mysliveček, Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Gioachino Rossini. Arthur Honegger composed music for Paul Valéry’s eponymous ‘ballet-pantomime’ in 1934 that was only revived in 1992 after many years of neglect. In Eugène Ionesco’s play The Chairs, the Old Woman is referred to as Semiramis.
In 1910 Camille de Morlhon directed a film about Semiramis for Pathé, starring Yvonne Mirval.
She has also appeared in several sword and sandal films, including the 1954 film Queen of Babylon in which she was played by Rhonda Fleming, and the 1963 film “I am Semiramis” in which she was played by Yvonne Furneaux. An Italian progressive rock group named “Semiramis” released one album in 1973.
In John Myers Myers’s novel “Silverlock” (chaps.17-18), Semiramis appears as a lustful, commanding queen, who stops her procession to try to seduce young Lucius (who has been transformed into a donkey).
In literature Semiramis often stands as an icon of beauty.[citation needed]
In William Faulkner’s Snopes Trilogy Eula Varner is her modern incarnation. Faulkner quite likely got the name from Inferno V where she appears in the same list as Helen of Troy as those punished for uncontrolled passion.
Protestant minister Alexander Hislop in The Two Babylons (1853) claims that Semiramis was an actual person in ancient Mesopotamia who invented polytheism and, with it, goddess worship.
Hislop believed that Semiramis was a consort of Nimrod, builder of the Bible’s Tower of Babel, though Biblical mention of consorts to Nimrod is lacking.
According to Hislop, Semiramis invents polytheism in an effort to corrupt her subjects’ original faith in the God of Genesis. She deified herself as Ishtar and her son as Gilgamesh as well as various members of her court and her then deceased husband.
In support of his claim, Hislop talked about legends of Semiramis being raised by doves. He referred to the writings by the church’s Ante Nicene Fathers to suggest that these stories began as propaganda invented and circulated by Semiramis herself so her subjects would ascribe to her the status of virgin birth and view her child as the fulfillment of the “seed” prophecy in Genesis 3:15. Making her son the child of Inaanna (seed of the woman)
Hislop believed Semiramis’ child to be the Akkadian deity Tammuz, a god of vegetation as well as a life-death-rebirth deity.
He maintained that all divine pairings in world myths and religions depicted in art e.g. Isis/Osiris, Aphrodite/Cupid, Asherah/EL,[citation needed] Mary/Jesus and others are retellings of the tale of Semiramis and Tammuz. Semiramis goes on to become the Blessed Virgin Mary according to Hislop’s book. This attempts to support Hislop’s claim that Roman Catholicism is in fact paganism.
Hislop took literary references to Osiris and Orion as “seed of woman” as evidence in support of his thesis. The legends already existing in his day about Semiramis he claimed were distortions of history.
Hislop’s claims continue to be circulated among some fundamentalist Christians today in the form of Jack Chick tracts, comic books, and related media.

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (Giovacchino Antonio Rossini in the baptismal certificate) (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was a great Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces. His best-known operas include the Italian comedies “Il barbiere di Siviglia” (The Barber of Seville) and “La Cenerentola” and the French-language epics “Moïse et Pharaon” and “Guillaume Tell” (William Tell). A tendency for inspired, song-like melodies is evident throughout his scores, which led to the nickname “The Italian Mozart”. Until his retirement in 1829, Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history.
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy which was then part of the Papal States.
In Angelo Tesei, in Bologna, he found a congenial music master, and learned to sight-read, play accompaniments on the piano and sing well enough to take solo parts in the church when he was ten years of age. Important from this period are six sonate a quattro, or string sonatas, composed in three days, unusually scored for two violins, cello and double bass. The original scores were found in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. after World War II, dated from 1804 when the composer was twelve. Often transcribed for string orchestra, these sonatas reveal the young composer’s affinity for Haydn and Mozart, already showing signs of operatic tendencies, punctuated by frequent rhythmic changes and dominated by clear, songlike melodies.
In 1805 he appeared at the theatre of the Commune in Ferdinando Paer’s “Camilla”, his only public appearance as a singer. He was also a capable horn player, treading in the footsteps of his father. Around this time, he composed individual numbers to a libretto by Vincenza Mombelli called “Demetrio e Polibio”, which was handed to the boy in pieces. Though it was Rossini’s first opera, written when he was thirteen or fourteen, the work was not staged until the composer was twenty years old, premiering as his sixth official opera.
In 1806 Rossini became a cello student under Cavedagni at the Conservatorio di Bologna. The following year he was admitted to the counterpoint class of Padre Stanislao Mattei (1750–1825). He learned to play the cello with ease, but the pedantic severity of Mattei’s views on counterpoint only served to drive the young composer’s views toward a freer school of composition. His insight into orchestral resources is generally ascribed not to the strict compositional rules that he learned from Mattei, but to knowledge gained independently while scoring the quartets and symphonies of Haydn and Mozart. At Bologna, he was known as “il Tedeschino” (“the Little German”) on account of his devotion to Mozart.
Through the friendly interposition of the Marquis Cavalli, his first opera, La cambiale di matrimonio (The Marriage Contract), was produced at Venice when he was a youth of 18 years. But two years before this he had already received the prize at the Conservatorio of Bologna for his cantata Il pianto d’Armonia sulla morte d’Orfeo. Between 1810 and 1813 at Bologna, Rome, Venice and Milan, Rossini produced operas of varying success, most notably La pietra del paragone and “Il signor Bruschino”, with its brilliant and unique overture. In 1813, “Tancredi” and “L’italiana in Algeri” were even bigger successes, and catapulted the 20-year-old composer to international fame.
The libretto for “Tancredi” was an arrangement by Gaetano Rossi of Voltaire’s tragedy “Tancrède”. Traces of Ferdinando Paer and Giovanni Paisiello were undeniably present in fragments of the music. But any critical feeling on the part of the public was drowned by appreciation of such melodies as “Di tanti palpiti… Mi rivedrai, ti rivedrò”, which became so popular that the Italians would sing it in crowds at the law courts until called upon by the judge to desist.
By the age of 21, Rossini had established himself as the idol of the Italian opera public. He continued to write operas for Venice and Milan during the next few years, but their reception was tame and in some cases unsatisfactory after the success of “Tancredi”. In 1815 he retired to his home in Bologna, where Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Naples theatre, contracted an agreement that made him musical director of the Teatro di San Carlo and the Teatro del Fondo at Naples. He would compose one opera a year for each. His payment was to be 200 ducats per month; he was also to receive a share from the gambling tables set in the theatre’s “ridotto”, amounting to about 1000 ducats per annum. This was an extraordinarily lucrative arrangement for any professional musician at that time.
He visited the Naples conservatory, and, although less than four years senior to Mercadante, he said to the Director Niccolò Zingarelli, “My compliments Maestro – your young pupil Mercadante begins where we finish.”
Some older composers in Naples, notably Zingarelli and Paisiello, were inclined to intrigue against the success of the youthful composer, but all hostility was rendered futile by the enthusiasm that greeted the court performance of his “Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra”, in which Isabella Colbran, who subsequently became the composer’s wife, took a leading part. The libretto of this opera by Giovanni Schmidt was in many of its incidents an anticipation of those presented to the world a few years later in Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth. The opera was the first in which Rossini wrote out the ornaments of the airs instead of leaving them to the fancy of the singers, and also the first in which the recitativo secco was replaced by a recitative accompanied by a string quartet.
Rossini’s most famous opera was produced on 20 February 1816, at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. The libretto, a version of Pierre Beaumarchais’ stage play “Le Barbier de Séville”, was newly written by Cesare Sterbini and not the same as that already used by Giovanni Paisiello in his own “Barbiere”, an opera which had enjoyed European popularity for more than a quarter of a century. Much is made of how quickly Rossini’s opera was written, scholarship generally agreeing upon two or three weeks. Later in life, Rossini claimed to have written the opera in only twelve days. It was a colossal failure when it premiered as Almaviva; Paisiello’s admirers were extremely indignant, sabotaging the production by whistling and shouting during the entire first act. However, not long after the second performance, the opera became so successful that the fame of Paisiello’s opera was transferred to Rossini’s, to which the title The Barber of Seville passed as an inalienable heritage.
Later in 1822, a 30-year-old Rossini succeeded in meeting Ludwig van Beethoven, who was then aged 51, deaf, cantankerous and in failing health. Communicating in writing, Beethoven noted: “Ah, Rossini. So you’re the composer of The Barber of Seville. I congratulate you. It will be played as long as Italian opera exists. Never try to write anything else but opera buffa; any other style would do violence to your nature.”

In Greek mythology, Hermione (Greek: Ἑρμιόνη) was the eldest child and only daughter of Menelaus and Helen. The Iliad says Helen had only one child, but other sources state that Helen had a daughter, Iphigenia, by Theseus before her marriage to Menelaus, and other myths say Helen and Menalaus had three sons: Aethiolas, Maraphius,and Pleisthenes. Any children born to Helen and Paris, prince of Troy, did not survive the Trojan War.
Hermione was nine when her mother left with Paris. While her father was fighting the war at Troy, Hermione lived with her Aunt Clytemnestra in Mycenae. It seems likely that her brothers were with her, though some stories say her youngest brother, Pleisthenes, went with Helen to Troy. While at Mycenae, Hermione presumably would have met her cousins Iphigenia (whom most sources say was the daughter of Helen’s sister, Clytemnestra and Menelaus’ brother, Agamemnon, although others say that Clytemnestra had taken pity on Helen and adopted Iphigenia from her) and Electra and their younger brother Orestes.
Prior to the Trojan War, Hermione was betrothed by Tyndareus, her grandfather, to Orestes. However, during the Trojan War, Menelaus promised her to Neoptolemus, also known as Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. There is a historical dispute over whether or not such a discrepancy actually occurred, however. Some authors, such as Euripides, have Orestes say: “For you were mine to begin with, and you are married to Neoptolemus only by the baseness of your father. Before he attacked Troy, he gave you to me to be my wife, but later he promised you to your present husband as a reward if he sacked Troy.” — Euripides, Andromache, describing the dual promise, while others, such as Ovid, do not mention it at all.
Regardless, ten years after the end of the Trojan War, Neoptolemus claimed Hermione as his wife. Their marriage is mentioned in Book IV of the Odyssey, when Telemachus, son of Odysseus, visits Sparta and meets Helen and Menelaus.
Shortly after settling into the domestic life, however, conflict arose between Hermione and Andromache (widow of Hector, prince of Troy and elder brother of Paris), the concubine Neoptolemus had obtained as a prize after the sack of Troy. Hermione blamed Andromache for her inability to become pregnant, claiming that she was casting spells on her to keep her barren. She asked her father to kill Andromache while Neoptolemus was away at war, but when he chose not to go through with the murder, Hermione fled from Epirus with her cousin Orestes.
Hermione and Orestes were married, and she gave birth to his heir Tisamenus. The myths do not mention Hermione after that, though it is said that Orestes later married his half-sister Erigone, daughter of Clytemnestra and Aigisthus, who was Orestes’s second cousin.

Exoticism And Orientalism In Classical Music.

There is a long tradition of classical composers writing music evoking the exotic non-western world , and many operas and other works attempt to depict the exotic and the oriental.
For example , the great French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau , a close contemporary of Bach and Handel, wrote an opera called “Les Indes Galantes”, which takes place in both Asia and South America , and in which he made an 18th century attempt to portray exoticism in music . In Mozart’s day, there was considerable interest in Turkish culture , as the Ottoman army had been defeated some time in the past from conquering the Austro-Hungarian empire.
The so-called Janissary music, or Turkish marching bands with exotic percussion instruments captured the imagination of Austrians, and Mozart wrote the famous opera “The Abduction From the Seraglio, ” set to a libretto in German, which takes place in Turkey . In the opera, a Turkish Pasha has captured a young Spanish noblewoman and her maid, and wants to make her part of his Harem . But her betrothed, whom she loves, has come to Turkey to try to rescue her . Everything ends happily when the Pasha magnanimously allows the two to be united and to leave Turkey.
There is the comical character of the Pasha’s grumpy and bombastic servant who guards the Harem and wants the servant girl for himself . Mozart uses percussion in the opera to imitate the exotic Janissary music . It’s a delightful comic opera with spoken dialogue in between the musical numbers.
Giuseppe Verdi’s famous opera “Aida”, which takes place in ancient Egypt, was comissioned by the Khedive of Egypt to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in the early 1870s , and was actually premiered at the opera house in Cairo . Verdi used exotic scales to evoke ancient Egypt in parts of the opera, even though we have no real idea of what ancient Egyptian music was like . But the music certainly sounds convincing.
Likewise, great 19th century Russian composers such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , Alexander Borodin and others wrote music inspired by the orient and the exotic, non-russian parts of the Russian empire . Rimsky’s famous orchestral suite “Scheherezade”, is a vivid and colorful evocation of the Arabian Nights , Borodin’s “Polovetzian Dances” from his opera “Prince Igor” evokes the world of the Turko-Tatar warriors of the ancient Russian steppes.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the great French composer Claude Debussy (1962 -1918) was became fascinated with the orient when he heard the exotic music of the Indonesian Gamelan in Paris and other Asian musics at Parisian expositians . Some of his piano works are inspired by these Asian influences , and a number of people from China have actually stated that Debussy is their favorite Western composer because his music reminds them so much of Chinese music ! There are similar exotic influences in some of the music of his younger contemporary Maurice Ravel (1875 -1937 ), famous for his Bolero.
The less well-known but wonderful French composer Albert Roussel, who was their contemporary , actually spent time travelling in India and what is now Cambodia and Vietnam , and this inspired some fascinating works, such as the exotic opera “Padmavati”, which deals with the Moghul invasion of India in the middle ages , and the “Evocations” for orchestra, which evokes the great temples of Indochina, such as Angkor Wat, which he visited.
!9th century French composers such as Leo Delibes and Georges Bizet of Carmen fame wrote operas such as “Lakne”, the story of the daughter of a Brahman priest in India and her doomed love affair with a handsome young English soldier, and Bizet wrote ” The Pearl Fishers, which takes place on what in now called Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon . These operas, though entertaining, are ot really very authentic at all, unlike Roussel’s Padmavati , the product of an actual visit to India.
More recently, a number of American composers have studied the exotic Gamelan music of Indonesia , such as Lou Harrison (1917 -2003 ), who was very interested in Asian music, and the Canadian composer Colin McPhee wrote an orchestral piece called “Tabuh-Tabuhan “, inspired by Indonesian music, which he studied there . Philip Glass, the most famous minimalist composer, has also written operas inspired by exotic subjects, such as “Satyagraha, ” based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, and “Akhenaten”, which takes place in ancient Egypt.
And contemporary Asian composers such as Chinese-born, New Yorked based Tan Dun (1957-) and Japan’s Toru Takemitsu and others written music which is a kind of fusion between east and west.
Yes, exotic elements have been a fruitful source of inspiration for many Western composers , and there’s much more to explore than the music of the composers mentioned here.

Janet Baker and Melos Ensemble

“Lakmé” is an opera in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet and Philippe Gille. Delibes wrote the score during 1881–82 with its first performance on 14 April 1883 at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Set in British India in the mid 19th century, “Lakmé” is based on the 1880 novel Rarahu ou Le Mariage de Loti by Pierre Loti. The opera includes the famous and popular “Flower Duet” (“Sous le dôme épais”) for sopranos performed in Act 1 by the lead character Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika. Another famous aria from the opera is the “Bell Song” (“L’Air des clochettes”) in the second Act.
Like other French operas of the period, “Lakmé” captures the ambiance of “the Orient” that was in vogue during the latter part of the nineteenth century in line with other operatic works such as Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers” and Massenet’s “Le roi de Lahore”. The subject of the opera was suggested by Gondinet as a vehicle for the American soprano Marie van Zandt.

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (19 February 1932 – 11 August 1988) was a noted French opera director.
Ponnelle was born in Paris. He studied philosophy, art, and history there and, in 1952, began his career in Germany as a theatre designer for Hans Werner Henze’s opera Boulevard Solitude. He was greatly influenced by the work of art director Georges Wakhévitch who also designed sets and costumes for the theatre, the ballet, and the opera.
In 1962, Ponnelle directed his first production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in Düsseldorf. His production of that opera at the Bayreuth Festival in 1981 was widely praised as one of the most aesthetically beautiful in its history.
His work throughout the world included stage productions at the Metropolitan Opera and the San Francisco Opera; productions for television (a Madama Butterfly in 1974 notable for performances by Mirella Freni and the young Placido Domingo); and filmed versions of operas such as the well-known Karl Böhm-conducted The Marriage of Figaro. His 1969 production of Mozart’s then neglected La Clemenza di Tito for Cologne helped re-establish this work in the repertory. Ponnelle also was a frequent guest at the Salzburg Festival.[1]
Often, his productions were controversial. His 1986 Aida at Covent Garden, in which he replaced the usual ballet dancers with young boys, was soundly booed and never revived, though his earlier Don Pasquale at the same theatre had been a triumph ,[2] as were his interpretations of well-known works. [3][4]
He died in Munich, Germany in 1988 of a pulmonary embolism following a tragic fall into the orchestra pit during rehearsals for a production of Carmen with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. His son is the orchestra conductor Pierre-Dominique Ponnelle and his nephew is the French guitarist and producer Jean Pierre Danel.

Now little known in the English-speaking world, Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) was arguably the greatest poet of his age, and his 46-canto epic Orlando furioso (Mad Roland, 1532) was the most celebrated literary work of its era. At a time when books were still new and costly commodities and only a tiny percentage of Europe’s population was literate, Orlando furioso was publishing’s first international sensation—the Harry Potter of its day! By one estimate, at least 113 editions of Ariosto’s poem appeared between 1540 and 1580. It inspired countless sequels and even exerted a retroactive influence on classical letters, with Italian translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses published in the meter and format of Ariosto’s masterpiece. For many of Ariosto’s contemporaries, Orlando furioso surpassed even the epics of antiquity; centuries later, Voltaire would declare it the equal of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Don Quixote combined.
At three times the length of Dante’s Commedia, Orlando furioso is difficult to summarize. Broadly speaking, its two main narrative threads concern the love-inspired madness of Orlando, Charlemagne’s greatest warrior; and the courtship and marriage of two of Alcina’s protagonists: Bradamante and Ruggiero, the mythical forbears of the Este dynasty, Ariosto’s patrons at court of Ferrara. Chivalric literature, both popular and learned, had been all the rage in Europe for centuries, and Ariosto’s poem picks up where Orlando innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo, an earlier Ferrarese court poet, leaves off: with Angelica, the pagan temptress beloved of Orlando, scurrying into the forest pursued (we read twice) by a “cavaliere (‘knight’; literally, ‘horseman’) traveling on foot.”
“A horseman traveling on foot”: from the very first lines of the narrative, things are amiss in the world of Orlando furioso. Though Ariosto’s verses sparkle with humor and grace, the breathless plunge of Angelica and her suitor into the woods inevitably recalls Dante’s “dark forest” of perdition. Ariosto borrows a phrase from Dante’s Inferno V (the canto of the doomed lovers Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta)—“here, there, up and down”—to depict his characters’ pell-mell quests for the objects of their desire. While the narrative, at first glance, seems a genial jumble—Ariosto’s teasing practice of dropping one plot line and turning to another just when things are heating up was dubbed cantus interruptus by critic Daniel Javitch—Orlando furioso is in fact no less carefully structured or cosmic in scope tn haDante’s Commedia.
Orlando furioso’s vast canvas ranges from the icy, wind-whipped shores of northern Europe to the scorched deserts of Ethiopia, and from the maws of hell to the daffy landscape of the moon. Its characters happen upon magic castles and wondrous realms that prove to be traps; they wield, and are frequently undone by, enchanted arms. The British knight Astolfo (one of the many characters liberated in Alcina’s final scene) traverses the globe astride the half-horse, half-gryphon hippogryph (which Orlando furioso’s narrator, with mock sincerity, deems “not feigned, but natural”). At the poem’s center (Cantos XXIII-XXIV), Orlando descends into bestial madness amidst a whirlwind of allusions to virtually the entire European literary canon, including ancient and vernacular lyric poetry, drama, pastoral, and the Bible.
Early modern thinkers invoked the idea of concordia discors or “discordant harmony” to describe the universe, a notion that finds its counterpart in Orlando furioso’s kaleidoscopic play of perspectives. One maiden’s excessive chastity earns her eternal damnation, while randy characters (including Ruggiero) find their way to the straight and narrow, sometimes in spite of themselves. The hippogryph and magic weapons slip away from those who would grasp them too tightly, but the harquebus (a real, early firearm) returns from the depths of the sea, where Orlando scornfully consigns it—as readers of Ariosto’s war-torn times knew all too well. Orlando furioso’s breadth of vision has always appealed to history’s most expansive minds. Galileo likened the poem to “a regal gallery… full of everything that is admirable and perfect,” while Verdi pointed to Ariosto, along with Shakespeare, as an ideal of variety in literature.
Ariosto’s masterwork has inspired countless visual artists, including Dosso Dossi, Tiepolo, Ingres, and Doré. Cervantes, Ronsard, and Spenser owe much to Ariosto, as does Milton (despite his professed disinclination to “dissect/With long and tedious havoc fabl’d Knights/In Battles feign’d”). Among the keenest readers of Orlando furioso are Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, whose final meditations—on such themes as “lightness,” “quickness,” “exactitude,” “visibility,” and “multiplicity”—might serve as a summa the poem’s most striking qualities. Orlando furioso is probably second only to Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered, c. 1581) by Torquato Tasso, another Ferrarese court poet, in terms of the number of operas it has inspired. In addition to Alcina, these include Handel’s Orlando and Ariodante, Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso, and Haydn’s Orlando paladino.
In crafting Alcina, Handel and his unknown librettist seized upon many of the novelties and paradoxes in Ariosto’s poem. With its cross-dressed characters and “emasculated” leading men (castrati), opera of Handel’s day upended conventional notions of gender, just as Ariosto had done in depicting the Este progenitors, Bradamante and Ruggiero. In epic poetry, female characters (Dido, Circe) generally hinder men’s efforts to fulfill their dynastic responsibilities. Bradamante, though, dons arms and takes an active role in leading the wayward Ruggiero to the altar, in contrast to both traditional seductresses and to such characters as Vergil’s silent, blushing Lavinia and Homer’s wily Penelope. In Alcina, as in Orlando furioso, Bradamante’s masculine dress leads to some piquant complications, as she draws the amorous interest of another woman—here, the sorceress Morgan
As for Alcina, she is perhaps Handel’s most stunning, fully drawn heroine, even more multi-layered than her namesake in Orlando furioso. In typically Ariostesque manner, Alcina becomes the victim of her own illusions. At opera’s end, she speaks the truth to Ruggiero and Bradamante—he is destined to die young, and she will bemoan his fate—but, mistress of deceit that Alcina is, no one believes her. Worse still, the crafty sorceress falls sincerely in love with the knight she has enchanted, and not even her own magic can save her. In her Act III aria “Mi restano le lagrime,” she wishes in vain to be turned into stone like her victims, but in the end is left alone with her pain. After Ruggiero destroys Alcina’s magic, the sorceress’s newly liberated victims celebrate their “blessed peace,” grateful for the restoration of their “human will.” In many ways, though, Alcina has proved to be the most deeply, vulnerably human character of all, no less subject to emotional frailties than the mere mortals she has sought to enthrall.
The final canto of Orlando furioso opens with the long-deferred nuptials of Bradamante and Ruggiero, but closes on an unsettling note, with a final duel even darker than its model in Vergil’s Aeneid. To this grim ending Ariosto appends an ambiguous motto: Pro bono malum, which can mean either “Evil for the sake of good” or “Evil in exchange for good.”’ Handel, too, concludes Alcina with a question mark. Does anyone really believe that the ferità or “savagery” of Alcina’s victims has been the result of her witchery alone? Deprived of Alcina—her passion, her beauty, her rage—is the world richer or poorer for its disenchantment?
Centuries ago, Ariosto and Handel probed the mysteries of the human heart—a realm like Alcina’s s enchanted isle, destined to slip away, forever eluding our grasp.

Wilhelm Furtwängler (Berlin, January 25, 1886 – Ebersteinburg, November 30, 1954) was the greatest German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained in Germany during the Second World War. Although he was never a member of the Nazi party, the morality of his decision to remain working in Germany during this period has been continually debated since his death. However even today, many musicians, critics and record collectors still revere him for his very subjective conducting style, which is often compared and contrasted to the more objective style of Arturo Toscanini, who was probably the most famous conductor at the time. Like Toscanini, Furtwängler was a major influence on many later conductors, and his name is often mentioned when discussing their interpretive style.

‎”Der Abschied”
The final movement, “The Farewell”, is nearly as long as the previous five movements combined. Its text is drawn from two different poems, both involving the theme of leave-taking.
“The sun sinks beyond the hills, evening descends into the valleys with its cooling shade. See, like a silver boat the moon sails up into the lake of the sky. I sense a soft wind blowing beyond the dark fir-trees. The brook sings melodiously through the dark. The flowers grow pale in the twilight. The earth breathes a deep draught of rest and sleep. All longing now will dream: tired people go homewards, so that they can learn forgotten joy and youth again in sleep! Birds sit motionless on their branches. The world is slumbering! It grows cool in the shade of my fir-trees. I stand and await my friend, I wait for him for our last farewell. O friend, I long to share the beauty of this evening at your side. Where do you linger? Long you leave me alone! I wander here and there with my lyre on soft grassy paths. O Beauty! O endless love-life-drunken world!
He dismounted from the horse and handed to him the drink of farewell. He asked him where he was bound and why it must be so. He spoke, and his voice was muffled: ‘You, my friend, Fortune was not kind to me in this world! Where do I go? I am departing, I wander in the mountains. I am seeking rest for my lonely heart. I am making my way to my home, my abode. I shall never stray far away. My heart is still and awaits its moment.’
The beloved Earth blooms forth everywhere in Spring, and becomes green anew! Everywhere and endlessly blue shines the horizon! Endless… endless…”
(The last lines were added by Mahler himself.) The singer repeats the final word like a mantra, accompanied by a sparse mix of strings, mandolin, harps, and celesta, until the music fades into silence, the final chord “imprinted on the atmosphere” as Benjamin Britten put it.
The last movement is very difficult to conduct because of its cadenza writing for voice and solo instruments, which often flows over the barlines, “Ohne Rücksicht auf das Tempo” (Without regard for the tempo) according to Mahler’s own direction. Bruno Walter related[cite this quote] that Mahler showed him the score of this movement and asked, “Do you know how to conduct this? Because I certainly don’t.” Mahler also hesitated to put the piece before the public because of its relentless negativity, unusual even for him. “Won’t people go home and shoot themselves?” he asked.

This is an “ancient” recording. Maybe 1910-11. Mattia Battistini was the last baritone in possession of the perfect nineteenth-century voice color and technique. A perfect exemple of how had to be the “real” baritone voice: smooth, light, extended and velvet. Not too big or dark.
Mattia Battistini (27 February 1856 – 7 November 1928) was an Italian operatic baritone. He became internationally famous due to the beauty of his voice and the virtuosity of his singing technique, and he earned the sobriquet “King of Baritones”.
Battistini was born in Rome and brought up largely at Collebaccaro di Contigliano, a village near Rieti, where his parents had an estate. The Battistinis were ancestrally from Rieti, the ancient capital of the Sabines, and Mattia Battistini always looked like an ancient Roman, with his imposing physique, high forehead and monumental nose.
They were a well-to-do family, long established in the field of medicine. His grandfather, Giovanni, and uncle, Raffaele, were personal physicians to the Pope and his knighted father, Cavaliere Luigi Battistini, was a professor of anatomy at the University of Rome. They preferred the future baritone to take up a career in medicine or law, and sent him to old and exclusive preparatory schools (the Collegio Bandinelli and later the Istituto dell’ Apollinare) where he gained a classical education.
From the beginning, Battistini had shown great musical talent, so, to the dismay of his mother, née Elena Tommasi, he dropped out of law school to study singing, first with Emilio Terziani and then with the renowned vocal pedagogue Venceslao Persichini (who also taught Francesco Marconi, Antonio Magini-Coletti, Titta Ruffo and Giuseppe De Luca). Battistini worked, too, with the top-class conductor Luigi Mancinelli and the composer Augusto Rotoli, and he consulted an illustrious baritone of the previous generation, Antonio Cotogni, in an effort to refine his technique.
Most of the following information about Mattia Battistini’s performance venues, dates and roles is drawn from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (second edition, 1980), edited by Harold Rosenthal and John Warrack, and The Record of Singing (Volume One, 1977), by Michael Scott.
A 22-year-old Battistini made his operatic début at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, as Alfonso in Donizetti’s La favorita on 11 December 1878. However, this date is erroneously given by many reference books and articles as correct, but reveals careless and repeated copying from faulty sources. It has been proven by the painstaking research of Jacques Chuilon that the date should most likely be replaced by Saturday, 9 November 1878. For full argumentation please see page 7 of the definitive Battistini biography Mattia Battistini, King of Baritones and Baritone of Kings, 2009 (The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Md, USA), translation by E. Thomas Glasow; also to be found on page 17 of the author’s original French edition Battistini, le dernier divo, 1996 (Editions Romillat, Paris).
During the first three years of his professional career he toured Italy, honing his voice and gaining invaluable experience by singing principal rôles in such varied operas as La forza del destino, Il trovatore, Rigoletto, Il Guarany, Gli Ugonotti, Dinorah, L’Africana, I Puritani, Lucia di Lammermoor, Aïda, and Ernani. He participated, too, in several operatic premières. In 1881 he went to Buenos Aires for the first time, touring South America for more than 12 months. On his return trip, he appeared in Barcelona and Madrid where he sang Figaro in Rossini’s comic masterpiece Il Barbiere di Siviglia. His success in this was enormous and it marked the beginning of his ascent to major operatic stardom.
In 1883, he undertook his first visit to the Royal Opera House at London’s Covent Garden, where he appeared as Riccardo in Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani in a stellar cast containing Marcella Sembrich, Francesco Marconi and Edouard de Reszke. He also sang opposite Adelina Patti, the leading soprano of her era, in other Covent Garden productions. In such exulted and entrenched company there was not much attention paid to a new, unheralded young baritone! However, he would receive much greater réclame in London during subsequent Covent Garden appearances in 1905-1906, when the now mature performer established himself as a darling of Edwardian-era high society due to his dashing vocalism and polished off-stage demeanour.
Unlike his initial London experience, when Battistini made his debut at the important Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1886, he scored an immediate triumph. Two years later, he once more sailed to Buenos Aires to fulfil a series of singing engagements; but this proved to be his last trans-Atlantic excursion, and he never appeared again in South America. He avoided North America, too, despite receiving overtures from the management of the New York Metropolitan Opera, where Battistini’s core repertoire was allocated in his absence to the Italian baritones Mario Ancona, Giuseppe Campanari, Antonio Scotti and, after 1908, Pasquale Amato.
Battistini is said to have developed a permanent horror of oceanic travel due to his adverse experiences on that particularly rough 1888 voyage to Buenos Aires. Eighteen Eighty-Eight was a memorable year for Battistini in another way, however, for it proved to be the year of his début at Italy’s foremost opera house—La Scala, Milan. La Scala’s audiences acclaimed him and he was re-engaged for the next season.

The Russian years.

Battistini contemplates Yorick’s skull as Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet. Photographed in 1911.
From 1892 onwards, Battistini established himself as an immense favourite with audiences at Russia’s two imperial theatres in Saint Petersburg and Moscow: the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi respectively. He returned to Russia regularly, appearing there for 23 seasons in total, and touring extensively elsewhere in eastern Europe, using Warsaw as his stepping-stone. He would journey to Warsaw, Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Odessa like a prince, travelling in his own private rail coach with a retinue of servants and innumerable trunks containing a vast stage wardrobe renowned for its elegance and lavishness. Indeed, the composer Jules Massenet was prepared to adjust the rôle of Werther for the baritone range, when Battistini elected to sing it in Saint Petersburg in 1902, such was the singer’s prestige.
The industrious Battistini also appeared with some regularity in Milan, Lisbon, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Paris (where he sang for the first time in 1907). But his many social connections in Russia, and the favour that he enjoyed with the imperial family and the nobility, ensured that Russia—more than perhaps even Italy—became his artistic home prior to the outbreak of the First World War, in 1914. The war led to the destruction, by the Bolsheviks in 1917, of the Tsarist regime and the aristocratic society which had enriched touring Italian opera stars like Battistini and his tenor compatriots Francesco Tamagno, Francesco Marconi and Angelo Masini. This history-shaping political development, coupled with Battistini’s refusal to sing in the Americas, meant that his career after the war’s conclusion in 1918 was confined to Western Europe.
Incidentally, Battistini’s choice of bride had befitted his esteemed social status in Tsarist Russia and the West: he married a Spanish noblewoman, Doña Dolores de Figueroa y Solís, who was the offspring of a marquis and a cousin of Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val.

Final years & death.

Battistini formed his own company of singers following the 1914-1918 war. He toured with them and appeared frequently in concerts and recitals. Everywhere that he performed, he was hailed as a miraculous survivor from a finer, less-Plebeian era of vocal attainment. Consequently, his musical career lasted for almost 50 years. He sang in England for the final time in 1924, and gave his last concert performance one year before his death. His voice was reportedly still steady, responsive and in good overall condition during this period, although it had diminished a little in size and his once silken timbre had grown drier in tone.
On the concert platform, Battistini remained trim and princely looking. He had developed heart disease in his latter years, however, and he collapsed during a tour of Central Europe. His last singing engagement occurred in Graz, Austria, on 17 October 1927. He was then aged almost 72. He withdrew to his estate at Collebaccaro di Contigliano, Rieti, dying there from heart failure a few months later—on 7 November 1928. His posthumous reputation remains high among voice connoisseurs and collectors of historical recordings, with a majority of them considering the lion-voiced Titta Ruffo (1877–1953) to be Battistini’s only rival for the title of the greatest Italian baritone singer on disc.

The Voice

With a voice of commanding power, range and technique which were unconventional but remarkably secure, Chaliapin achieved a highly personal balance between the demands of declamation and musical line. Even in his vocal declining years, he was an actor of immense energy and perfect attention to detail, whose presence held all eyes glued to him whenever he was on the stage.
His vocal technique was superb. The voice was even throughout its range, allowing him to tackle selected baritone roles as successfully as his customary bass roles. It was sharply focused, free of vibrato and could be fined down to the merest thread of sound when the music (or rather Chaliapin’s knowledge of music) demanded it. He was one of the first singers who appled psychological technique to operatic acting. The way he used to stand, the way he moved, what he wore and the rhythm of his speech translated to music were nothing short of revolutionary in opera!
Rachmaninov claimed that Chaliapin sang as Tolstoy wrote, which we may observe for example with his interpretation of Mefistofele – his ‘Son lo spirito’ was marked by a demonic whistle and a terrifying interpretation. There was almost a conversational quality in Chaliapin’s deep, low voice combined with dramatic ability.

Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin died in Paris in 1938. The legend had departed but fortunately it is still with us through his recordings, which are gems among opera lovers.

Tancredi is a melodramma eroico (opera seria or ‘heroic’ opera) in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi, based on Voltaire’s play Tancrède (1759). The opera made its first appearance in Venice at the Teatro La Fenice on February 6, 1813, after Il signor Bruschino premiered in late January, giving the composer less than a month to have completed Tancredi. The overture, borrowed from La pietra del paragone, is a popular example of Rossini’s characteristic style, and is a regular part of the concert and recording repertoire.
This opera is considered by Stendhal, Rossini’s earliest biographer, to be Rossini’s greatest masterpiece. The title role of Tancredi is so vocally demanding that casting the part has traditionally proved to be challenging. It requires a true contralto or a mezzo-soprano with a strong lower register who possesses great vocal agility and endurance. The title role encompasses two lengthy arias and four duets.
Though Rossini first composed his opera with a happy ending in mind (as required by the opera seria tradition), he eventually had the poet Luigi Lechi rework the libretto to emulate the original tragic ending by Voltaire. Thus, in the Ferrara ending, Tancredi wins the battle but is mortally wounded. Only then does he learn that Amenaide never betrayed him, and Agirio marries the lovers in time for Tancredi to die in his wife’s arms. In the Venice ending (1816), the dying Solamir professes Amenaide’s innocence, and Tancredi returns home in triumph. It is in this version that the opera is usually performed today.
Tancredi premiered in 1813 at La Fenice in Venice with Adelaide Malanotte in the title role and it was soon mounted at major opera houses throughout Italy, including the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (1814), the Teatro Apollo in Rome (1814), the Teatro Regio di Torino (1814), La Fenice (1815), the Teatro del Fondo in Naples (1816), and the Teatro San Moisè in Venice (1816).
The opera was first performed in England at the King’s Theatre in London on 4 May 1820 with Fanny Corri-Paltoni as Amenaide. Its French premiere was given by the Théâtre-Lyrique Italien at the Salle Louvois in Paris on 23 April 1822 with Giuditta Pasta in the title role. It was performed in Portugal for the first time at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos on 18 September 1822 and was given its La Scala premiere on 8 November 1823 with Brigida Lorenzani as Tancredi. The United States premiere occurred on 31 December 1825 at the Park Theatre in New York City using the revised version by Lechi. The Paris Opéra mounted the work for the first time with Maria Malibran in the title role on 30 March 1829.
After a 1833 revival at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Tancredi was not mounted again until almost 120 years later. The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino revived the work on 17 May 1952 with Giulietta Simionato in the title role, Teresa Stich-Randall as Amenaide, Francesco Albanese as Argirio, Mario Petri as Orbazzano, and Tullio Serafin conducting.
Following the discovery of the long-lost tragic ending and the preparation of the critical edition by Philip Gossett and others at the University of Chicago in 1976, the work was revived 25 years later, at which time mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne performed the title role with the Houston Grand Opera on 13 October 1977. Ms. Horne, who is now strongly associated with the title role, insisted on the tragic Ferrara ending, citing that it is more consistent with the overall tone of the opera. Indeed, most of the recordings of this opera today use the Ferrara conclusion, while some include the Venice finale as an extra track.
Horne’s triumphant performance of Tancredi in Houston soon led to invitations from other opera houses to sing the role, and it is largely through her efforts that the opera enjoyed a surge of revivals during the latter half of the 20th century. She sang the part for performances at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (1977), the San Francisco Opera (1979), the Aix-en-Provence Festival (1981), La Fenice (1981, 1983), and the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1989) among others.
One of the best Tancredi was Lucia Valentini Terrani (in ’80).
While Tancredi is not one of the more frequently mounted operas, it has now become less of a rarity on the opera stage. Contralto Ewa Podleś achieved recognition in the title role, performing it at the Vlaamse Opera (1991), La Scala (1993), the Berlin State Opera (1996), the Canadian Opera Company (2005), the Caramoor International Music Festival (2006), the Teatro Real (2007) and Opera Boston (2009) among others. She also recorded the role on the Naxos label in 1995. Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova has also been praised in the role, singing it at the Salzburg Festival (1992), the Opera Orchestra of New York (1997), and on a 1996 recording with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Munich Radio Orchestra.
Pier Luigi Pizzi staged a production of Tancredi at the Teatro Rossini in Pesaro in 1999, a production which was later transported to the Rossini Opera Festival in 2004. In 2005 it went to Rome and Florence (where it was filmed for DVD with Daniela Barcellona in the title role), and then was presented by the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2011, with Alberto Zedda conducting. Barcellona sang Tancredi again in a new staging of the opera at the Teatro Regio di Torino in November 2009 after reprising the part in February 2009 at the Teatro de la Maestranza. The Theater an der Wien mounted the work for the first time in October 2009 with Vivica Genaux in the title role and René Jacobs conducting. The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées presented the opera in concert in December 2009 with Nora Gubisch as Tancredi.

Adolphe de Leuven, the co-director of the Opéra-Comique most bitterly opposed to the “Carmen” project, resigned early in 1874, removing the main barrier to the work’s production. Bizet finished the score during the summer, and was pleased with the outcome: “I have written a work that is all clarity and vivacity, full of colour and melody”. The renowned mezzo-soprano Célestine Galli-Marié (known professionally as “Galli-Marié”), was engaged to sing the title role. According to Dean she was as delighted by the part as Bizet was by her suitability for it. There were rumours that he and the singer pursued a brief affair; his relations with Geneviève were strained at this time, and they lived apart for several months.
When rehearsals began in October 1874 the orchestra had difficulties with the score, finding some parts unplayable. The chorus likewise declared some of their music impossible to sing, and were dismayed by having to act as individuals, smoking and fighting onstage rather than merely standing in line. Bizet also had to counter further attempts at the Opéra-Comique to modify parts of the action which they deemed improper. Only when the leading singers threatened to withdraw from the production did the management give way. Resolving these issues delayed the first night until 3 March 1875 on which morning, by chance, Bizet’s appointment as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour was announced.
Among leading musical figures at the premiere were Massenet, Saint-Saëns and Gounod. Geneviève, suffering from an abscess in her right eye, was unable to be present. The opera’s first performance extended to four-and-a-half hours; the final act did not begin until after midnight. Afterwards, Massenet and Saint-Saëns were congratulatory, Gounod less so. According to one account he accused Bizet of plagiarism: “Georges has robbed me! Take the Spanish airs and mine out of the score and there remains nothing to Bizet’s credit but the sauce that masks the fish”. Much of the press comment was negative, expressing consternation that the heroine was an amoral seductress rather than a woman of virtue. Galli-Marié’s performance was described by one critic as “the very incarnation of vice”. Others complained of a lack of melody, and made unfavourable comparisons with the traditional Opéra-Comique fare of Auber and Boieldieu. Léon Escudier in L’Art Musical called the music “dull and obscure … the ear grows weary of waiting for the cadence that never comes”. There was, however, praise from the poet Théodore de Banville, who applauded Bizet for presenting a drama with real men and women instead of the usual Opéra-Comique “puppets”. The public’s reaction was lukewarm, and Bizet soon became convinced of its failure: “I foresee a definite and hopeless flop”.

Mozart wrote Mitridate while touring Italy in 1770. The musicologist Daniel E. Freeman has recently demonstrated that it was composed with close reference to the opera “La Nitteti” by Josef Mysliveček.[1] The latter was the opera being prepared for production in Bologna when Mozart met Mysliveček for the first time with his father in March 1770. Mysliveček visited the Mozarts frequently in Bologna during the summer of 1770 while Wolfgang was working on “Mitridate”. Mozart gained expertise in composition from his older friend and also incorporated some of his musical motives into his own operatic setting. The opera was first performed at the Regio Ducal Teatro, Milan, on 26 December 1770 (at the Milan Carnival). It was a success, having been performed twenty-one times despite doubts because of Mozart’s extreme youth — he was 14 at the time. No revival took place until the 20th century. This opera features virtuoso arias for the principal roles, but only two ensemble numbers: the Act II ending duet between Aspasia and Sifare (“Se viver non degg’io”), and the brief quintet that ends the opera, very characteristic of standard baroque opera seria where the opera ends with a short coro or tutti number.

“The Water Music” is a collection of orchestral movements, often considered three suites, composed by Georg Friedrick Händel. It premiered on 17 July 1717 after King George I had requested a concert on the River Thames. The concert was performed by 50 musicians playing on a barge near the royal barge from which the King listened with close friends, including Anne Vaughan, the Duchess of Bolton, the Duchess of Newcastle, Countess of Darlington, the Countess of Godolphin, Madam Kilmarnock, and the Earl of Orkney. The barges, heading for Chelsea or Lambeth and leaving the party after midnight, used the tides of the river. George I was said to have enjoyed the suites so much that he made the exhausted musicians play them three times over the course of the outing.

All the instruments in the Baroque orchestra were included in the composition, except the harpsichord and timpani, which would have been inconvenient to bring onto the barge. The suites’ music reflects this, with strings, for example, providing support usually afforded by the timpani.

The instrumentation varies depending on the movement, but the requirements in a complete performance are a flute, two oboes, one bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, strings, and continuo: this instrumentation is effective in outdoor performance. (Some of the music is also preserved in a contemporary score written for a smaller orchestra: this version is not suitable for outdoor performance, as the sound of stringed instruments does not carry well in the open air).

“Water Music” opens with a French overture and includes minuets, bourrées and hornpipes. It is divided into three suites:

• Suite in F major (HWV 348)
• Suite in D major (HWV 349)
• Suite in G major (HWV 350)

There is evidence for the different arrangement found in Chrysander’s Gesellschaft edition of Handel’s works (in volume 47, published in 1886), where the movements from the “suites” in D and G were mingled and published as one work with HWV 348. This sequence derives from Samuel Arnold’s first edition of the complete score in 1788 and the manuscript copies dating from Handel’s lifetime. Chrysander’s edition also contains an earlier version of the first two movements of HWV 349 in the key of F major composed in 1715 (originally scored for two natural horns, two oboes, bassoon, strings and continuo), where in addition to the horn fanfares and orchestral responses, the original version contained an elaborate concerto-like first violin part.

Lorraine Hunt (Mezzo-Soprano). Born: March 1, 1954 – San Francisco, California, USA. Died: July 3, 2006 – Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.

According to her own words, given in an interview with The Guardian newspaper in 2002, her biggest achievement was to sing the title role in “Esclarmonde”. She considered those performances and recordings her best.

I would bare my head and kneel at his grave”. ( L. v. Beethoven -1824)

Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick Händel through holiday-time renditions of the “Messiah”‘s “Hallelujah” chorus. And many of them know and love that oratorio of Christ’s life and death, as well as a few other greatest hits like the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music, and perhaps “Judas Maccabeus” or one of the other English oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely known in his own time, are the province mainly of specialists in Baroque music, and the events of his life, even though they reflected some of the most important musical issues of the day, have never become as familiar as the careers of Bach or Mozart. Perhaps the single word that best describes his life and music is “cosmopolitan”: he was a German composer, trained in Italy, who spent most of his life in England.

Handel was born in the German city of Halle on February 23, 1685. His father noted but did not nurture his musical talent, and he had to sneak a small keyboard instrument into his attic to practice. As a child he studied music with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, organist at the Liebfrauenkirche, and for a time he seemed destined for a career as a church organist himself. After studying law briefly at the University of Halle, Handel began serving as organist on March 13, 1702, at the Domkirche there. Dissatisfied, he took a post as violinist in the Hamburg opera orchestra in 1703, and his frustration with musically provincial northern Germany was perhaps shown when he fought a duel the following year with the composer Matheson over the accompaniment to one of Matheson’s operas. In 1706 Handel took off for Italy, then the font of operatic innovation, and mastered contemporary trends in Italian serious opera. He returned to Germany to become court composer in Hannover, whose rulers were linked by family ties with the British throne; his patron there, the Elector of Hannover, became King George I of England. English audiences took to his 1711 opera Rinaldo, and several years later Handel jumped at the chance to move to England permanently. He impressed King George early on with the Water Music of 1716, written as entertainment for a royal boat outing.

Through the 1720s Handel composed Italian operatic masterpieces for London stages: “Rinaldo”, “Giulio Cesare”,”Alessandro”, “Ottone”, “Serse (Xerxes)”, and other works often based on classical stories. His popularity was dented, though, by new English-language works of a less formal character, and in the 1730s and 1740s Handel turned to the oratorio, a grand form that attracted England’s new middle-class audiences. Not only Messiah but also Israel in Egypt, Samson, Saul, and many other works established him as a venerated elder of English music. The oratorios displayed to maximum effect Handel’s melodic gift and the sense of timing he brought to big choral numbers. Among the most popular of all the oratorios was “Judas Maccabeus”, composed in 32 days in 1746. Handel presented the oratorio six times during its first season and about 40 times before his death 12 years later, conducting it 30 times himself. In 1737, Handel suffered a stroke, which caused both temporary paralysis in his right arm and some loss of his mental faculties, but he recovered sufficiently to carry on most normal activity. He was urged to write an autobiography, but never did. Blind in old age, he continued to compose. He died in London on April 14, 1759. Beethoven thought Handel the greatest of all his predecessors; he once said, “I would bare my head and kneel at his grave.”

Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt, HWV 17), commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, is an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel in 1724. The libretto was written by Nicola Francesco Haym who used earlier libretto by Giacomo Francesco Bussani set in music by Antonio Sartorio (1676).
It was first performed in London on 20 February 1724. The opera was an immediate success. Handel revived it (with changes) in 1725, 1730, and 1732; it was also performed in Paris, Hamburg, and Brunswick. Like Handel’s other works in the opera seria genre, Giulio Cesare fell into obscurity in the 19th century.
The roles of Cesare and Cleopatra, sung by the castrato Senesino and famous soprano Francesca Cuzzoni respectively, and which encompass eight arias and two recitatives accompagnati each, totally dispose of the vocal capabilities of the singers. Cornelia and Sesto are more static because they are completely taken by their primary emotions, she with pain because of her husband’s death and constantly constrained to defend herself from Achilla and Tolomeo, and he consumed by vengeance for his father’s death.
Cleopatra is a multifaceted character: she uses at first her womanly wiles to seduce Cesare and gain the throne of Egypt, and then becomes totally engaged in the love affair with Cesare. She has great arias of immense dramatic intensity Se pietà di me non senti (II, 8) and Piangerò la sorte mia (III, 3). Sensual character is described magnificently in the aria V’adoro, pupille, in which Cleopatra, in the guise of Lidia, appears to Cesare surrounded by the Muses of Parnassus (II, 2). This number calls for two orchestras: one is an ensemble scene with strings with sordino, oboe, tiorba, harp, bassoons and viola da gamba concertante.

In the 20th century, it was revived (in heavily altered form – reorchestrated and revamped with the male castrato roles transposed down for a baritone, tenor or bass) in Göttingen in 1922 by the Handel enthusiast Oskar Hagen. Hans Knappertsbusch and Karl Böhm both conducted it in Munich in 1923 and its first American performance took place at the Smith College of Music in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1927. The first British revival of a Handel opera was the staging of Giulio Cesare at the Scala Theatre in London in 1930, by the London Festival Opera Company, singing in English. The young Herbert von Karajan conducted a production in Ulm in 1933. It has subsequently proven to be by far the most popular of Handel’s operas, with more than two hundred productions in many countries.

In modern productions, the title role, written for a castrato, is sung by a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or, more frequently in recent years, a countertenor. The roles of Tolomeo and Nireno are normally sung by countertenors. The role of Sesto, written for a soprano, is now usually sung by a mezzo-soprano.

The work is considered by many to be Handel’s finest Italian opera, possibly even the best in the history of opera seria. It is admired for its superb vocal writing, its dramatic impact, and its deft orchestral arrangements.
Giulio Cesare is now regularly performed.

The Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello di Venezia was named after him.

“An die ferne Geliebte”, Opus 98, ist Ludwig van Beethovens einziger Liederzyklus und wird als erster Liederzyklus überhaupt gesehen. Der Fürst Joseph von Lobkowitz gewidmete Zyklus basiert auf 6 Gedichten von Aloys Jeitteles. Der Zyklus knüpft vermutlich an den Brief an die Unsterbliche Geliebte an. Im September 1816 schrieb Beethoven in einem Brief an Cajetan Giannatasio del Rio, dass er fünf Jahre lang innig geliebt habe. Beethoven vollendete den Zyklus im April 1816.

“An die ferne Geliebte” (“To the distant beloved”), opus 98, is a composition by Ludwig van Beethoven in April 1816. It is considered to be the first example of a song cycle by a major composer.
Beethoven’s only song cycle was the precursor of a series of followers, including those of Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Carl Loewe. The setting is for a man’s voice (usually baritone) with pianoforte. The title page of the original edition (S. A. Steiner, Vienna) bore a dedication with permission to Fürst Joseph von Lobkowitz, Duke of Raudnitz, a leading Austrian musical patron, in whose palace the Eroica Symphony was first performed in 1804; Beethoven also dedicated the six string quartets opus 18, the Eroica Symphony opus 55, the Triple Concerto opus 56, the C minor Symphony opus 67, the Pastoral Symphony opus 68, and the String Quartet opus 74 to him.
The text was written by a physician named Alois Isidor Jeitteles, probably at Beethoven’s request. Then aged 22, Jeitteles published several short poems, economic in style, in Viennese magazines or almanacks, particularly “Selam” and “Aglaja”, and was making his name by it. He was an active, selfless young man who later distinguished himself by working tirelessly for his patients during a dreadful cholera epidemic and mortality in Brno. Beethoven had already explored inward feelings of longing in his setting of Matthisson’s “Adelaïde”, but in these poems the distance from the beloved is greater, the longing is more intense and stormier, and is no longer satisfied with merely the sound of her name, but is preoccupied with the clawing pain of separation which colours the whole surrounding landscape. Max Friedlaender regarded the entire composition as autobiographical in meaning, and the subject of the composer’s longing to be none other than the unsterbliche Geliebte, the Immortal Beloved of his letters of July 1812.
The whole sequence is through-composed, so that none of the songs stands alone. The different moods of the six episodes are expressed in different key and time signatures, working from E flat in the first song through G major (and briefly C major) in the second to A-flat major in the third and fourth, and thence back through C to E flat. With their underlying thematic linkage, each of the songs is carried without break into the next: a short bridge passage connects 2 and 3, and the last note of 3 is held through the first three bars of the accompaniment to 4 and proceeds into Diese Wolken almost without a breath. The final strophes of 4 have an accelerando leading directly into the vivace of 5.
Unlike the Schubert–Müller song-cycles, the six songs or episodes of “An die ferne Geliebte” do not form a chronological narrative leading towards a conclusion. Beethoven himself called it “Liederkreis an die ferne Geliebte”, i.e. a circle or ring of song, and it is so written that the theme of the first song reappears as the conclusion of the last, forming a ‘circle’ (Liederkreis) – a ring in the figurative sense of a finger-ring as a love-token – rather than a ‘cycle’ (Liederzyklus) in the sense of a programme or drama. This thematic revolution is also expressed in the emotion and conceit of the words.
He is sitting on a hillside looking at the distant spot where they first met, and, feeling the pain of separation, he decides that he will sing songs to convey the feelings from one loving heart to the other.
He identifies himself and his feelings with the landscape and the misty hilltops, sending his suffering into the valley where the soft winds can calm it, and the inward pain of his love into the forest depths: in these he can always be with her, even though he cannot go to her.
With this thought he bids the clouds and the brook to greet her, and the little birds to sing to her of his complaint, and the west wind to carry her his sighs like the last rays of the sun, and the brook will carry his tears of love to her.
He is enraptured, thinking how the clouds and the birds will see her – let him be borne with them! These breezes will play upon her breast and in her hair – let him share in that delight! And she shall see herself in the brook, and the picture will flow back to him.
In lovely May when nature is at the full, and the swallows are building their nests for love to dwell within at their bridal beds, and everything that winter has separated is again united with its mate, it is only their own love which has no springtime, and all they have are tears.
So he will send her the songs he has written, and she will sing them to the lyre when the red of sunset falls across the blue sea and behind the distant mountain: she will sing what he has sung, artlessly, from the fullness of his heart, out of his longing, and these songs will vanquish what keeps them so far apart, and will join one loving heart to the other.

June Anderson (born December 30, 1952) is a Grammy Award-winning American coloratura soprano. Originally known for bel canto performances of Rossini, Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, she was the first non-Italian ever to win the prestigious Bellini d’Oro prize. Subsequently, she has extended her repertoire to include a wide variety of other roles, including those from the Russian repertoire and works by Richard Strauss. In 2008, Anderson was elevated to “Commandeur” of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government and in 2007 received a “Victoire d’honneur” at the “Victoires de la Musique Classique” in Paris.

Anderson has performed in noted opera houses including La Scala, Covent Garden, La Fenice, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Colón Theater. She has collaborated with conductors Leonard Bernstein, James Levine, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Kent Nagano and Michael Tilson Thomas, and has sung opposite Luciano Pavarotti, Alfredo Kraus, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Carlo Bergonzi, Roberto Alagna, Rockwell Blake, Jerry Hadley and Salvatore Fisichella. Anderson has had an extensive recording career, dating from the 1980s to the present.

Gemma di Vergy was first performed on 26 December 1834 at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan. The leading role was taken by the Italian soprano Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis, Donizetti’s favourite prima donna at the time,[1] for whom he had previously composed Fausta (1832 ), and for whom he was later to compose Roberto Devereux (1837). The opera remained very popular in Italy until at least the 1860s,[1] and productions were also staged in London, Paris, New York, Lisbon, St. Petersburg, Vienna and Barcelona. It was last staged in Empoli in 1901 and then disappeared from the repertoire.[citation needed]

Gemma de Vergy was revived for the soprano Montserrat Caballé in a production at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in December 1975. A number of live recordings exist of the Caballé performances from Naples, Paris and New York.

The first “Norma” performed by Maria Callas was in 1948, Florence, “Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Callas was the most prolific Norma of the postwar period, with 89 stage performances (several of which exist on recording), along with two studio recordings (made in 1954 and 1960).

In 1952, Maria Callas made her London debut at the Royal Opera House in “Norma” with veteran mezzo soprano Ebe Stignani as Adalgisa, a performance which survives on record and also features the young Joan Sutherland in the small role of Clotilde. “Norma” was the speciality act of Maria Callas until 1964.

The great turning point in Callas’s career occurred in Venice in 1949. She was engaged to sing the role of Brünnhilde in “Die Walküre” at the Teatro la Fenice, when Margherita Carosio, who was engaged to sing Elvira in “I puritani” in the same theatre, fell ill. Unable to find a replacement for Carosio, Maestro Serafin told Callas that she would be singing Elvira in six days; when Callas protested that she not only did not know the role, but also had three more Brünnhildes to sing, he told her “I guarantee that you can.” In Michael Scott’s words, “the notion of any one singer embracing music as divergent in its vocal demands as Wagner’s Brünnhilde and Bellini’s Elvira in the same career would have been cause enough for surprise; but to attempt to essay them both in the same season seemed like folie de grandeur”. Before the performance actually took place, one incredulous critic would snort, “We hear that Serafin has agreed to conduct I puritani with a dramatic soprano… When can we expect a new edition of “La traviata” with baritone Gino Bechi’s Violetta?” After the performance, critics would write, “Even the most sceptical had to acknowledge the miracle that Maria Callas accomplished… the flexibility of her limpid, beautifully poised voice, and her splendid high notes. Her interpretation also has a humanity, warmth and expressiveness that one would search for in vain in the fragile, pellucid coldness of other Elviras.” Franco Zeffirelli recalled, “What she did in Venice was really incredible. You need to be familiar with opera to realize the enormity of her achievement. It was as if someone asked Birgit Nilsson, who is famous for her great Wagnerian voice, to substitute overnight for Beverly Sills, who is one of the great coloratura sopranos of our time.”
Scott asserts that “Of all the many roles Callas undertook, it is doubtful if any had a more far-reaching effect.” This initial foray into the bel canto repertoire changed the course of Callas’s career and set her on a path leading to “Lucia di Lammermoor”, “La traviata”, “Armida”, “La sonnambula”, “Il pirata”, “Il turco in Italia”, “Medea” and “Anna Bolena”, and reawakened interest in the long-neglected operas of Cherubini, Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini. In the words of soprano Montserrat Caballé, “She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world, a door that had been closed. Behind it was sleeping not only great music but great idea of interpretation. She has given us the chance, those who follow her, to do things that were hardly possible before her. That I am compared with Callas is something I never dared to dream. It is not right. I am much smaller than Callas.”
As with “I puritani”, Callas also learned and performed Cherubini’s “Medea”, Giordano’s “Andrea Chénier” and Rossini’s “Armida” on a few days’ notice. Throughout her career, Callas displayed her vocal versatility in recitals that pitched dramatic soprano arias alongside coloratura pieces, including in a 1952 RAI recital in which she opened with Lady Macbeth’s “letter scene”, followed by the “Mad Scene” from “Lucia di Lammermoor”, then Abigaile’s treacherous recitative and aria from “Nabucco”, finishing with the “Bell Song” from “Lakmé” capped by a ringing high E in alt (E6).

Although by 1951 Callas had sung at all the major theatres in Italy, she had not yet made her official debut at Italy’s most prestigious opera house, Teatro alla Scala in Milan. According to composer Gian-Carlo Menotti, Callas had substituted for Renata Tebaldi in the role of “Aida” in 1950, and La Scala’s general manager, Antonio Ghiringhelli, had taken an immediate dislike to Callas. Menotti recalls that Ghiringhelli had promised him any singer he wanted for the premiere of The Consul, but when he suggested Callas, Ghiringhelli said that he would never have Callas at La Scala except as a guest artist. However, as Callas’s fame grew, and especially after her great success in “I vespri siciliani” in Florence, Ghiringhelli had to relent: Callas made her official debut at La Scala in Verdi’s “I vespri siciliani” on opening night in December 1951, and this theatre became her artistic home throughout the 1950s. La Scala mounted many new productions specially for Callas by directors such as Herbert von Karajan, Margherita Wallmann, Franco Zeffirelli and, most importantly, Luchino Visconti. Visconti stated later that he began directing opera only because of Callas, and he directed her in lavish new productions of “La vestale”, “La traviata”, “La sonnambula”, “Anna Bolena” and “Iphigénie en Tauride”. Callas was notably instrumental in arranging Franco Corelli’s debut at La Scala in 1954, where he sang Licinio in Spontini’s “La vestale” opposite Callas’s Julia. The two had sung together for the first time the year previously in Rome in a production of Norma. Anthony Tommasini wrote that Corelli had “earned great respect from the fearsomely demanding Callas, who, in Mr. Corelli, finally had someone with whom she could act.” The two collaborated several more times at La Scala, singing opposite each other in productions of “Fedora” (1956), “Il pirata” (1958) and “Poliuto” (1960). Their partnership continued throughout the rest of Callas’s career.

Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (3 November 1801 – 23 September 1835) was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (1830), La sonnambula (1831), Norma (1831), Beatrice di Tenda (1833), and I puritani (1835). Known for his long-flowing melodic lines, for which he was named “the Swan of Catania,” Bellini was the quintessential composer of bel canto opera.

Born in Catania, Sicily, Bellini was a child prodigy from a highly musical family and legend has it he could sing an aria of Valentino Fioravanti at eighteen months. He began studying music theory at two, the piano at three, and by the age of five could apparently play well. Bellini’s first five pieces were composed when he was just six years old. Regardless of the veracity of these claims, it is certain that Bellini grew up in a musical household and that a career as a musician was never in doubt.

Having learned from his grandfather, Bellini left provincial Catania in June 1819 to study at the conservatory in Naples, with a stipend from the municipal government of Catania. By 1822 he was in the class of the director Nicolò Zingarelli, studying the masters of the Neapolitan school and the orchestral works of Haydn and Mozart. It was the custom at the Conservatory to introduce a promising student to the public with a dramatic work: the result was Bellini’s first opera Adelson e Salvini an opera semiseria that was presented at the Conservatory’s theatre. Bellini’s next opera, Bianca e Gernando, met with some success at the Teatro San Carlo, leading to a commission from the impresario Barbaia for an opera at La Scala. Il pirata was a resounding immediate success and began Bellini’s faithful and fruitful collaboration with the librettist and poet Felice Romani, and cemented his friendship with his favored tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, who had sung in Bianca e Gernando.

Bellini’s grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris
Bellini spent the next years, 1827–33 in Milan, where all doors were open to him. Sparking controversy in the press for its new style and its restless harmonic shifts into remote keys, La straniera (1828) was even more successful than Il pirata, and allowed Bellini to support himself solely by his opera commissions. The composer showed the taste for social life and the dandyism that Heinrich Heine emphasized in his literary portrait of Bellini (Florentinische Nächte, 1837). Opening a new theatre in Parma, his Zaira (1829) was a failure at the Teatro Ducale, but Venice welcomed I Capuleti e i Montecchi, which was based on the same Italian source as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

The next five years were triumphant, with major successes with his greatest works, La sonnambula, Norma and I puritani, cut short by Bellini’s premature death just nine months after the premiere of I puritani. Bellini left London for Paris, but never completed the journey back to Milan.

Bellini died in Puteaux, near Paris of acute inflammation of the intestine, and was buried in the cemetery of Père Lachaise, Paris; his remains were removed to the cathedral of Catania in 1876. The Museo Belliniano housed in the Gravina Cruyllas Palace, in Catania, preserves memorabilia and scores.
“Norma” is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after “Norma, ossia L’infanticidio” (“Norma, or The Infanticide”) by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition. “Casta diva” was one of the most familiar arias of the nineteenth century.
In a letter dated September 1, 1831, Bellini wrote to the soprano Giuditta Pasta that “Romani believes [that this subject] will be very effective, and absolutely ideal for your encyclopedic character, because that is the kind of character Norma has”. Indeed, Pasta’s vocal and dramatic range was encyclopedic: that March, she had created the very different Bellini role of Amina, the lyrically vulnerable Swiss village maiden, in “La sonnambula”.
In the 19th century, it was common for composers to interpolate arias of their own into other composers’ operas. Richard Wagner wrote an aria for bass and men’s chorus for an 1837 production of Norma.
The title role is generally considered one of the most difficult in the soprano repertoire. It calls for tremendous vocal control of range, flexibility, and dynamics. It contains a wide range of emotions: conflict of personal and public life, romantic life, maternal love, friendship, jealousy, murderous intent, and resignation. German soprano Lilli Lehmann once famously remarked on how the singing of all three Brünnhildes in Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” in one evening was less stressful than the singing of one Norma. However, her less famous reasoning was that “When you sing Wagner, you are so carried away by the dramatic emotion, the action, and the scene that you do not have to think how to sing the words. That comes of itself. But in Bellini, you must always have a care for beauty of tone and correct emission.”
Throughout the 20th century, many singers have attempted the role of Bellini’s tormented Druid priestess, with varying degrees of success. The following is a listing of some of the most renowned Normas, each of whom has brought her own strengths and weaknesses to the role. In the early 1920s, Rosa Raisa, Claudia Muzio, and Rosa Ponselle were each admired in the role. The most prolific Norma of the postwar period was Maria Callas, with 89 stage performances (several of which exist on recording), along with two studio recordings (made in 1954 and 1960).
In the 1960s, two very different performers started donning the Druidess’s robes: the Australian Dame Joan Sutherland and the Turk Leyla Gencer. Following Sutherland’s 1964 debut in the title role, Pavarotti called her “the greatest female voice of all time”. In the 1970s, four other bel canto specialists debuted their Normas: Radmila Bakočević, Montserrat Caballé, Beverly Sills, and Renata Scotto. Not to be dismissed lightly are Grace Bumbry and Shirley Verrett, the two famous African-American divas who began as mezzo-sopranos and eventually started singing soprano repertoire.

The transparent opening movement, with its main theme built of seven broken-up, individual gestures, gives way to the thicker, more integrated melody of the G minor Larghetto. Throughout the movement, the tutti is consumed with pondering repeated dotted figures while, each time it is given a chance, the harp/organ breaks out with improvisatory musings of a far more flexible nature.

La sconfitta della Sassonia nella Guerra dei Sette Anni avrà pesanti conseguenze sulla carriera e le finanze di Porpora, che, privato d’appoggi e pensione, dovrà, nel 1760, rientrare a Napoli in via definitiva, e, purtroppo, senza più il successo arrisogli fino a meno di un decennio prima. La ripresa de Il trionfo di Camilla, melodramma su libretto di Stampiglia, già rappresentato in città nel 1740, si risolve in un insuccesso. Porpora scomparirà circa sette anni più tardi. Del suo ultimo periodo si ricordano l’Ouverture royale in re maggiore e la Cantata in onore di S. Gennaro, del 1765.

La sensibilità estetica di Porpora è caratterizzata dalla capacità di esprimere in musica un erotismo intenso, ma addolcito e suadente, dalle grandi possibilità di fascinazione. Questa sensibilità è corretta, talvolta, da un certo grado di sentimentalismo e sensualità epidermica, da un edonismo alla ricerca costante del “bel suono”. Questo, ma non solo, emerge, come spesso succede con i compositori sei-settecenteschi, non tanto dai suoi melodrammi, alcuni (ancora troppo pochi) recuperati negli ultimi decenni, sottoforma di registrazioni discografiche, quanto dalle sue cantate, talune davvero preziose, su testi del Metastasio, come ad esempio Il tabacco, del 1735, e dalla musica strumentale: le Sinfonie da camera del 1736 e le succitate Sonate XII di violino e basso.

La produzione di Porpora è copiosa: cinquanta melodrammi, una decina d’oratori, centinaia di cantate, sei messe e circa cinquanta mottetti, VI Sonate à tre, VI Sonate per due violini e due violoncelli, e molto altro. Il valore della sua opera, tuttavia, già nella seconda metà del Settecento, non è più apprezzato. “A Napoli sono ormai conosciute le opere di Christoph Willibald Gluck e di Johann Christian Bach. La politica regia, che vuol fare del S. Carlo un luogo europeo, mira non tanto ad ‘esportare’ musicisti lanciati sulle scene locali ma a rappresentare esempi della cultura musicale in voga, che si forma all’estero, assimilato ormai lo stile italiano” (P. M. Carrer). Nel corso dell’ultimo secolo, seppur con estrema lentezza, studiosi come Rolland, Leinchtenritt, Moser, Schenk e Degrada hanno contribuito molto ad una piena rivalutazione dell’esperienza culturale di Porpora e della sua produzione musicale. Abilissimo inventore di melodie vocali, soprattutto quando il testo suggerisce un’ambientazione lirica e sensuale, Porpora contribuisce in misura decisiva al trionfo dei valori del canto. Quella di Porpora, insomma, riconosciuta o no, rimane musica assolutamente pregevole e sul piano dell’eleganza formale, e su quello della ricchezza delle parti vocali. Fin dagli Anni Venti del Settecento, Porpora accoglie a braccia aperte la nascente poetica arcadica, il suo stile si allinea  “con lo stile del melodramma di Mancini, di Sarro, di Feo: influenzato indubbiamente dalla scelta dei testi”, Porpora supera “gradualmente il più compassato ed edonistico carattere dell’opera eroica tardo-barocca, mostrando una maggiore duttilità di scrittura, una più ricercata sensibilità melodica, una cura del recitativo (che confina spesso con l’arioso) e del declamato drammatico che rimarranno costanti caratteristiche della sua intera produzione vocale” (P. M. Carrer). Una costante, appunto, del suo stile è “l’espertissima trattazione delle parti vocali, sempre tendenti ad esaurirsi nelle voci acute: il privilegio dato al virtuosismo canoro” (P. M. Carrer) è diretta conseguenza dell’essere egli insegnante di ‘belcanto’ e si arricchisce nel corso di decenni di nuove sollecitazioni provenienti e dalla musica strumentale, e da voci che gli offrono la possibilità di esprimersi al meglio, in questa direzione. Ad esempio, in Enea nel Lazio, il ruolo di Enea, affidato al Farinelli, offre un esempio di “sapientissima disposizione espressiva degli elementi del repertorio vocale: scale discendenti e ascendenti ritardano la pronuncia delle consonanti finali delle parole, trilli, gorgheggi, cromatismi a piccoli valori, varie combinazioni delle fioriture scritte producono un’efficace effusione lirica. Nella scrittura vocale Porpora si dimostra insegnante di notevole intelligenza: egli tende a non forzare l’estensione naturale delle voci, ricercando sempre un equilibrio, relativo naturalmente all’eccezionalità dei mezzi a sua disposizione” (P. M. Carrer). Tutto ciò si ritrova anche nelle cantate qui presentate (i cui manoscritti sono conservati presso la biblioteca del Conservatorio di S. Pietro a Majella, Napoli): stretta aderenza della musica al testo poetico, di schietto sapore arcadico, stile recitativo usato in tutte le sue sfumature, dal recitativo secco, al declamato drammatico, al recitativo arioso, il basso continuo che non si limita ad accompagnare, ma è parte contrastante, e momento inscindibile di dialogo. Emerge l’abile scrittura del violoncello (da ricordare che gran parte della produzione strumentale di Porpora, manoscritta o stampata, è destinata proprio al violoncello). La voce è sempre trattata in senso espressivo, la linea vocale è strettamente legata al testo, senza le esasperazioni melismatiche tipiche del melodramma.

Il virtuosismo vocale di Porpora, soprattutto operista, lo ribadiamo, “è da porre in stretto rapporto con le eccezionali capacità dei suoi allievi e d’altri famosi interpreti; la scrittura è una rassegna di schemi di grande difficoltà, nonché d’indicazioni stilistiche. Nei Larghi e negli Andanti, Porpora si attiene alla regola, poi divenuta universale, di mantenere la voce nella zona centrale. La melodia inizia ornata (gruppetti in extenso, trilli, mordenti), procede molto legata, verso la metà della prima sezione acquisisce brevi passaggi vocalizzati, punteggiati, di solito, da molti trilli. La seconda sezione muta tempo e ritmo. Un Lento in tempo ordinario può diventare, ad esempio, un Andante in 3/8. In questa seconda sezione lo stile è sillabico e l’ornamentazione si riduce a qualche acciaccatura e a qualche trillo. Le variazioni del ‘da capo’ sono lasciate al cantante” (R. Celletti). Quanto appena esposto si evidenzia chiaramente anche nelle arie di carattere patetico delle cantate qui presentate. Quanto alle variazioni nei “da capo”, ma non solo lì, in questo lavoro, sono limitate all’introduzione di poche appoggiature e di gruppetti molto stretti. Si è, invece, preferito puntare su cambiamenti nel ritmo e nella durata delle note, o sulla variazione della linea melodica dei passi vocalizzati. “Come segni d’espressione, Porpora usa frequentemente le indicazioni di p e di f. Codifica, inoltre, la ‘messa di voce’ iniziale. Sulla prima nota del Lento Alto Giove del Polifemo (parte di Acis composta per il Farinelli), Porpora annota un segno di corona. Significa che il cantante deve eseguire una ‘messa di voce’ completa e cioè attaccare il suono pianissimo, ampliarlo gradualmente portandolo ad un fortissimo e poi altrettanto gradualmente smorzarlo; subito dopo, e senza riprendere fiato, bisogna eseguire la prima frase” (R. Celletti). L’uso, probabilmente introdotto dagli allievi di Porpora, si applicherà in seguito largamente, anche in mancanza d’indicazioni da parte del compositore. Nelle cantate qui registrate non ci sono indicazioni relative alla “messa di voce”, che, in ogni caso, nel corso del Settecento, assume una grande importanza: è considerata la dimostrazione della morbidezza, della durata di fiato, della potenza del cantante.

“Nei tempi mossi Porpora ricorre a lunghi passaggi vocalizzati in cui le successioni di quartine o di gruppi irregolari sono costellate di trilli oppure interrotte da sbalzi in ascesa, in discesa e da reiterate scalette ascendenti e discendenti (v. le cantate qui registrate Quanto s’inganna, oh quanto, Tu ten vai così fastoso e la prima aria di Alla caccia dell’alme e dei cori. N.d.R.). Abbastanza frequenti le acciaccature semplici e doppie, i mordenti, i gruppetti in extenso” (R. Celletti).

Fondamentale nell’attività di Porpora, e importante nel definire e affermare il suo stile e sancire il suo successo, è una serie di librettisti di rango, tra i quali emerge il Metastasio.

Metastasio, pseudonimo di Pietro Trapassi (Roma, 3.I.1698 – Vienna, 12.IV.1782) risolve in poesia elegante ed intensamente musicale quanto in Apostolo Zeno resta a livello teorico. Metastasio è il genio della semplificazione. In una situazione che deve essere dominata dalla musica, egli riduce al minimo il numero dei personaggi dei suoi libretti (raramente se ne vedono in scena più di due contemporaneamente), rende agile e scattante l’azione, non introduce diversificazioni se non strettamente necessarie, usa poche parole essenziali per i recitativi, evita i giri di frase e, infine, sfoga nelle arie la sensibilità di un arcade, maestro assoluto della sensiblerie languorosa, “sentimentale” che a noi, oggi, pare fosse nel gusto del tempo, e che il poeta stesso sembrerebbe contribuire ad imporre. Accusato, fino a pochi decenni fa, di poca profondità, di scarso sentire, d’incapacità di forti passioni, è tale, in realtà, solo per gli idealisti, fautori del dramma musicale in polemica antimelodrammatica. In realtà, tutti i melodrammi che si avvalgono di libretti del Metastasio, sono caratterizzati da un forte intreccio e un’abile costruzione scenica. Il poeta scrive ventisette libretti per melodrammi, fino al 1740 circa: a parte i già citati libretti degli esordi con Porpora, da ricordare Didone abbandonata (1724), Siroe (1726), Catone in Utica (1727), Semiramide riconosciuta (1729), Artaserse (1730). Nel 1730 l’imperatore Carlo VI lo chiama a Vienna, permettendogli di vivere un decennio di grande creatività e di raggiungere l’apice della fama di poeta. Con l’avvento al trono dell’imperatrice Maria Teresa, Metastasio si dedica prevalentemente alla versificazione di cantate ed oratori. Pochi i melodrammi: l’ultimo sarà il Ruggiero, per Hasse (1771). Come Porpora, Metastasio si spegnerà da sopravvissuto al proprio tempo, emblema di un’epoca così bene rappresentata nella sua aspirazione alla magnificenza e alla “meraviglia”.

Il Farinelli è il maggiore tra i cantanti formati alla scuola di Porpora. Carlo Broschi, o Brioschi, (Andria, 1705 – Bologna, 1782), soprannominato Farinelli o Farinello, sembrerebbe dal nome della famiglia dei suoi protettori, i Farina di Napoli, è avviato alla musica dal padre, Salvatore Brosco, che si ritiene fosse governatore reale, e al tempo stesso compositore e musicista per diletto. Pare che l’evirazione del figlio Carlo non si sia dovuta a fanatismo paterno, quanto ad un problema fisico del ragazzo. Il Farinelli debutta nella cantata del maestro Angelica e Medoro, su libretto del Metastasio. Il poeta scriverà in seguito in una dedica al Farinelli: “Appresero gemelli a sciorre il volo la tua voce in Parnaso e il mio pensiero”. L’amicizia tra Farinelli e Metastasio, molto sentita, produce un famoso epistolario, prezioso per la conoscenza dell’epoca, e naturalmente delle figure del librettista e del cantante. Farinelli raggiunge in poco tempo una notorietà eccezionale. Appena diciassettenne, si ritrova a gareggiare, a Roma, con un famoso suonatore di tromba. L’arte del Farinelli è sorretta da una profonda conoscenza della musica, ciò che gli permette una particolare perizia nell’improvvisazione, e da una voce molto estesa, dal timbro dolce e flautato, ma molto potente. Verso i trent’anni lo stile del cantante assurge a maturità, al punto da assicurargli autentica gloria e la commozione e l’ammirazione stupefatta dell’uditorio e dei colleghi. I rapporti con il Metastasio gli aprono le porte dei teatri viennesi. Seguono i trionfi londinesi. Entrato al servizio della corte di Spagna, oltre ad occuparsi dell’allestimento di spettacoli e di cantare in esclusiva prima per Filippo V, poi per Ferdinando VI, ottiene anche mansioni di consigliere privato delle loro maestà. Quando Carlo III sale al trono iberico, la stella del Farinelli tramonta piuttosto repentinamente. Il cantante, pur fornito dai reali spagnoli di una cospicua pensione, è costretto a rientrare in Italia. Si stabilisce a Parma, poi a Bologna, dal 1761. Finirà i suoi giorni nello stesso anno della scomparsa del Metastasio.

Dunque, “la vocalità italiana tocca, nel Settecento, il massimo splendore, sotto la duplice azione di grandi compositori e librettisti e di grandi cantanti e docenti. Nel periodo che va da Alessandro Scarlatti e Antonio Lotti a Porpora, Händel, Hasse, G. Bononcini, Vinci, melodie più ampie e spiegate di quelle del Seicento – e più varie nei ritmi – determinano negli interpreti un accentuato impulso all’espressività. Ma anche il recitativo, pur rimanendo in posizione subordinata rispetto al pezzo chiuso, assume forme che, agli schemi semplicistici e ripetitivi dello stile denominato ‘secco’, alterna movenze più elaborate ed aperture cantabili, sostenute dalla piena orchestra (nel melodramma. N. d. R.) e a volte ad anticipare o ad integrare la funzione dell’aria e del duetto nella configurazione dei sentimenti” (R. Celletti). Si torna, a questo proposito, sulle vecchie polemiche anti-melodrammatiche che ritengono il melodramma settecentesco “un monotono avvicendarsi di recitativi secchi e di pezzi chiusi. Al contrario, la prima metà del Settecento resta, nell’ambito del melodramma cosiddetto belcantistico (e, ovviamente, anzi maggiormente, sul terreno della cantata. N. d. R.), un periodo a sé stante, e mai più ripetutosi, per l’eccezionale coincidenza fra lo sviluppo della tecnica virtuosistica e le capacità espressive degli esecutori. Si amplia la gamma d’estensione di tutte le voci (ma in particolare delle voci bianche: castrati e donne) e questo si ripercuote anche sull’inventiva degli operisti e sull’arco melodico dei pezzi chiusi. L’ornamentazione e i passaggi vocalizzati scritti dai compositori si svincolano dalle formule un po’ troppo geometriche del Seicento, oppure legate, secondo un uso che risale ai madrigalisti, a un descrittivismo che si rifà meccanicamente al significato letterale della parola messa in musica per far salire o discendere – oppure trillare – la voce. All’opposto, il descrittivismo del Settecento si rifà piuttosto al senso generale della frase e, con Scarlatti, comincia a far coincidere la fiorettatura, l’ornamentazione e il gorgheggio anche con articoli, con congiunzioni, con avverbi e non soltanto con parole poetiche o auliche. Anche questo dà respiro alla melodia, la rende più fluida e aerea e, a seconda dei casi, più elegante, più tenera o più brillante. In definitiva, la scrittura melismatica della prima metà del Settecento sembra portare alle estreme conseguenze il principio barocco della ‘poetica della meraviglia’. Nel senso che la natura non è soltanto riprodotta e imitata nei suoi aspetti più fantastici, ma se possibile emulata e superata. Ma sono anche i progressi della tecnica strumentale a lanciare i compositori e i cantanti verso traguardi sempre più ardui. Vengono escogitati nuovi usi dell’ornamentazione – è il periodo in cui il trillo, principe degli ornamenti settecenteschi è praticato nelle otto diverse forme descritte da Pierfrancesco Tosi nelle Opinioni (1723) – e, nelle arie con strumento concertante, è reso sempre più movimentato e complesso il confronto fra cantante e suonatore. Un confronto, tra l’altro, i cui termini, presumibilmente, variano, nel Settecento, anche per quanto riguarda l’intensità dei suoni. È all’inizio del secolo, infatti, che la scuola vocale italiana, sembra sull’esempio del contraltista Antonio Maria Bernacchi, comincia a prediligere l’emissione che in gergo è detta ‘di petto’ e che si risolve in suoni ampi, intensi, voluminosi. Ora, è molto arduo determinare entro quali limiti fosse allora praticata la fonazione detta ‘di petto’, anche perché è notorio che, con questa emissione, la voce non può salire oltre certe note, e deve quindi mutare di registro e passare all’emissione detta ‘di testa’ (per le voci di castrato e di donna. N d. R.). Presumibilmente, comunque, alcuni castrati del primo Settecento (il Bernacchi, appunto e, dopo di lui, il Farinelli, il Carestini e altri) praticano una fonazione ‘mista’, che consente loro di cantare a voce piena, anche se nel suono concorre, specialmente in alto, il registro ‘di testa’. Nel confronto, il suono dei predecessori è più flebile e sottile o, potremmo dire, più ‘falsettistico’, anche se non è credibile che i cantanti del Seicento si limitassero a suoni esigui e poveri di timbro (come quelli proposti oggi dai falsettisti e dai sedicenti ‘specialisti’: ugole grame, che emettono suoni fissi, ‘aperti’, antimusicali, che nel migliore dei casi rappresentano un clamoroso falso storico. N. d. R.). Vien fatto piuttosto di pensare che, specialmente nel canto di agilità, essi si attenessero a una sonorità relativamente ridotta. In ogni caso, l’emissione più ampia e intensa prodotta dal Bernacchi porta a risultati veramente cospicui” (R. Celletti): nelle arie marziali, in quelle di sdegno, di tempesta, di disperazione, i melismi, ora vigorosi, fanno sì che nasca e si affermi vieppiù l’agilità ‘di bravura’ o ‘di forza’ o ‘di sbalzo’, da eseguirsi a voce piena, e anche in casi diversi da quelli delle arie bellicose, agilità che troverà il suo definitivo assertore e codificatore in Gioacchino Rossini, molto più tardi. Insomma, la nuova sonorità dà risalto espressivo all’accento, alla dizione, al vigore espressivo. “Con questo, però, i grandi cantanti della prima metà del Settecento non perdono affatto la capacità di assottigliare e modulare i suoni. Proprio Bernacchi, e con lui Faustina Bordoni-Hasse, contralto (in realtà, mezzosoprano piuttosto acuto e d’agilità spiccata. N. d. R.), introduce un canto che si basa su una fiorettatura molto fitta, eseguita con leggerezza ed eleganza, e su fulminee ribattiture, veloci serie di trilli e simili (lo stesso stile, che informa anche le cantate di Porpora del presente lavoro discografico. N. d. R.). In questo clima, nel primo Settecento, trionfa la grande aria tripartita con il “da capo” variato e una cadenza per ognuna delle tre sezioni (ciò che, per una strana forma d’allergia ai melismi, oggi, i soliti sedicenti interpreti del canto settecentesco e barocco in genere, tendono a ignorare, quando non a negare tout court, spalleggiati da direttori e maestri, che nulla hanno a che vedere con il Barocco, pur pretendendo d’occuparsene. N. d. R.). Questo tipo di pezzo chiuso per la sua ampiezza di struttura e per le difficoltà espressive e virtuosistiche che presenta, funge da banco di prova per i cantanti ed è al centro dell’opera italiana (e della cantata. N. d. R.) di gran parte del Settecento, di cui costituisce il momento più tipico.

La corda espressiva trova le manifestazioni più esplicite nelle arie in tempo lento, generalmente parche di melismi (quasi tutte le arie delle cantate Ninfe e pastor, T’intendo, sì, mio cor e Siedi, Amarilli mia, oltre alla seconda aria di Alla caccia dell’alme e de’cori. Peraltro, le arie in tempo lento di queste cantate sono spesso arricchite da veloci scalette ascendenti, agilità ‘di grazia’ o ‘di maniera’, gruppi di terzine, brevi vocalizzi, e un buon numero d’appoggiature. N. d. R.). Il genere patetico è familiare ai cantanti della prima metà del Settecento tanto quanto il genere brillante e virtuosistico” (R. Celletti). Il Farinelli, come visto sopra, con tre ottave d’estensione e una tecnica superba, probabilmente il maggior vocalista d’ogni tempo, emerge ad esempio sia nel canto patetico, sia in quello acrobatico, sia in quello grazioso. La scuola di canto italiana non esprime però il proprio meglio solo con il Farinelli, ma, per citare altri grandi nomi, anche con Giovanni Carestini, in grado di rivaleggiare con il Farinelli, con Gioacchino Conti, detto il Giziello, dalla voce estesissima e insuperato nel canto tenero ed elegiaco, per cui Händel compone arie che toccano il do5, Niccolò Grimaldi e Francesco Bernardi, detto il Senesino, il punto di forza dei quali è la vocalità ampia e solenne. Accanto ai castrati, i soprani, assurti in  molti casi a vera grandezza. Francesca Cuzzoni, ad esempio, è, per la sua espressività, la protagonista di molte opere londinesi di Händel, Porpora, Bononcini jr., il primo soprano portato a cantare su tessiture realmente acute, il prototipo del soprano ottocentesco. Sopranisti, contraltisti e contralti “en travesti” ricoprono i ruoli di protagonista maschile dei melodrammi del tempo. Soprani e contralti donna, quelli femminili.

Discorso a parte per le voci maschili.

Premessa: le presenti cantate, destinate in origine a sopranista o contraltista, sono state adattate al registro baritonale, in virtù della prassi della trasposizione, consolidata ai tempi quanto oggi, che investe tutta la musica vocale da camera. Si è spesso affermato, e si afferma, in linea teorica e generale, che le voci di tenore, tenore baritonale, basso, basso baritonale e baritono, sono considerate, nel Seicento e nel Settecento, realistiche, quindi poco o punto adatte alle astrazioni “belcanto”, poco utilizzate, e anche poco gradite da parte del pubblico dell’epoca, per esempio da quello londinese. La realtà dei fatti è più complessa. E’ vero che i registri vocali succitati sono utilizzati, nel Seicento e nel Settecento, in ruoli comici e grotteschi. Ma questo non esaurisce per nulla la gamma d’utilizzo delle voci maschili nella musica vocale dei due secoli. Anzi. Il confronto con la quantità di ruoli e cantate che si compongono nel periodo per le voci di donna e di castrato non regge, è chiaro, ma ritenere le voci maschili confinate al comico e al grottesco sarebbe un errore grossolano.

Per limitarci al periodo aureo del belcantismo, e a poco prima: i ruoli di Eurillo e Armindo, tenore e tenore baritonale, ne Gli equivoci nel sembiante (1679) di Alessandro Scarlatti, sono ruoli pastorali e d’amoroso, patetici ed elegiaci. Lo stesso dicasi del ruolo di Rosanno, tenore, nell’Honestà negli amori (1680). Sempre in Scarlatti: Corrado, Principe di Puglia, nella Griselda (1721), è il confidente della protagonista, e a sua volta protagonista di virtuosismi spericolati e melismi mozzafiato. Oppure, nell’Anacreonte, in cui il tenore, nel ruolo del titolo, incarna la figura di un tiranno. Tenore è anche Riccardo, protagonista, nella parte dell’amoroso libertino destinato a pentirsi, de Il trionfo dell’onore (1718). Per quanto riguarda il basso, Scarlatti gli affida sistematicamente parti serie, spesso con una tessitura baritonale (vedi Anassacro, sempre nell’Anacreonte). Che dire poi delle grandi cantate per basso, più o meno baritonale, con e senza strumenti concertanti?

Agostino Steffani riserva al baritono tre importanti ruoli seri, tra il 1681 e il 1688: Marco Aurelio, nell’opera omonima, Pisone in Alarico, Poliferno nella Niobe. Grandi ruoli tragici, drammatici o amorosi riserva al tenore, più o meno baritonale: ad esempio, Stilicone in Alarico (1687), Giasone ne Le rivali concordi (1692), Enea ne Il Turno (1709). Al basso, Steffani riserva, fin dall’inizio della sua attività qualche ruolo comico, ma molto più spesso ruoli seri, impegnativi e ricchi di melismi e difficoltà tecniche: Antonino Pio nel già citato Marco Aurelio, Clito ne Lo zelo di Leonato (1691), e molti altri. Inoltre, il compositore castellano scrive svariate decine di cantate amorose per basso, basso e soprano, baritono e contralto, tenore e soprano. Colpiscono, in Steffani, l’abilità e l’eleganza con cui voci virtualmente pesanti come, appunto, quelle del tenore baritonale, del baritono e del basso, sono portate ad eseguire arie di genere grazioso e tenero, attraverso l’uso d’un’emissione lieve, in grado di affrontare e sostenere passi melismatici piuttosto ricchi in tessiture anche piuttosto elevate, per l’epoca.

G. Bononcini compone nella sua Griselda (1722) il ruolo di Rambaldo, basso, caratterizzato da arie virtuosistiche, in cui il cantante è chiamato spesso ad eseguire rapide scale ascendenti in successione. Anche Vinci e Hasse utilizzano tenore e basso in parti serie, caratterizzate da melodie incisive, veementi e vigorose, con grandi sbalzi, successioni di trilli brevi, note staccate. Hasse scrive così per Ottavio Albuzzi il ruolo d’Arcano nella sua Semiramide (1744), e quello di Segeste nell’Arminio (versione di Dresda, 1745), per Angelo Amorevoli, il più virtuosistico tenore baritonale della prima metà del Settecento.

Di Porpora ricordiamo la cantata a due voci, archi e basso continuo Calcante ed Achille, per tenore e sopranista, in cui Calcante è portato a cantare in tessitura anche molto acuta e ad affrontare virtuosismi consistenti soprattutto in scalette discendenti ripetute di seguito per molte misure, quindi ad un’accentuata agilità.

Händel, infine, comincia con il destinare ad una voce di basso, probabilmente quella di Antonio Francesco Carli, eccezionale per estensione (dal do1 al la3), alcune delle sue più indicative ed impressionanti cantate italiane. Una per tutte: Nell’africane selve. Al tenore sono destinati i ruoli acuti e brillanti di Osmano nell’Almira (Amburgo, 1705) e di Giuliano nel Rodrigo (Firenze, 1707). Al basso e baritono Giuseppe Maria Boschi, sono riservati ruoli di forza ed aulici che si esprimono, ad esempio, con vocalizzi d’andamento arpeggiato o canto ‘di sbalzo’, intervalli d’ottava o addirittura distanze d’undecima, in ascesa e in discesa. Ciò appartiene già da tempo alla vocalità italiana, a Monteverdi, al Cavalli, a Cesti (che è cantante, oltre che compositore: prima tenore, poi baritono, infine basso, e scrive ed interpreta ruoli e cantate di stile grazioso, ma anche drammatico, di un virtuosismo molto avanzato), a Legrenzi e Cazzati, a Giovanni Maria Bononcini (la sua cantata Valeriano in carcere, per voce basso e basso continuo, è una lunga composizione di virtuosismo equilibrato, ma estremamente impegnativo, e lo stesso dicasi per gran parte delle cantate per basso dell’Op. X), ad Alessandro Stradella (di cui vorremmo citare qui solo la scrittura impossibile, per virtuosismo, della cantata morale per basso baritonale, La saetta). Tutti questi compositori riservano tuttavia alle voci maschili anche una scrittura lieve e melismatica, in frequenti ruoli melodrammatici d’amoroso e in cantate del medesimo argomento. Ciò è ripreso, appunto, da Händel. Boschi è il più tipico basso e baritono händeliano, dall’Agrippina (Venezia, 1709) al Tolomeo (Londra, 1728), sia nelle vesti d’interprete aggressivo e violento, sia di virtuoso. L’altra grande voce maschile händeliana è quella del basso-baritono Antonio Montagnana. Voce robusta, ma flessibile ed agile, capace di consistenti alleggerimenti e di affrontare lo stile grazioso (vedi il ruolo di Varo nell’Ezio, Londra, 1731).

Per il tenore Händel scriverà le grandi parti di Bajazete, nel Tamerlano (1724), e di Berengario nel Lotario (1729), quasi a compensare l’assenza spesso, nelle sue opere, di questo registro vocale. Il ruolo di Bajazete è ricoperto da Francesco Borosini, in pratica un baritono (Fux scrive per lui in chiave di basso). Bajazete è un personaggio insieme epicheggiante e di padre nobile, e per Borosini Händel codifica il canto ‘di sbalzo’ e melismatico arpeggiato che caratterizzerà la vocalità del tenore di forza fino agli inizi dell’Ottocento. Annibale Pio Fabri, il maggior tenore italiano del tempo, è invece Berengario: tessitura acuta, passi virtuosistici con trilli, note staccate, ribattute di gola inserite in passi di canto ‘di sbalzo’, lunghi vocalizzi, in pratica tutte le figurazioni della scuola italiana poste in atto dal Farinelli e dal Carestini. Vale a dire gli schemi della scuola di canto di Porpora. Modelli, dunque, questi, che si applicano anche alle voci maschili più o meno gravi, portate a cantare sia in stile acrobatico di forza (ritenuto dai belcantisti il più arduo), sia in stile grazioso, e sottolineiamo: allo stesso modo delle voci dei castrati e di quelle femminili.

Nel secondo Settecento le voci maschili, in particolare i registri di baritono e basso, saranno trascurate, per essere rivalutate appieno solo da Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart e dalla sua volontà di creare personaggi: in lui i due registri (riassunti in quello di basso) troveranno un’elaborazione di straordinarie ampiezza e complessità, in senso realistico. I tempi in cui i compositori, principalmente attraverso la vocalità, vogliono configurare in astratto un sentimento, sono definitivamente tramontati.

Ilaria Daolio

Giovanni Maria Bononcini

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

Ideazione Produzione e Direzione Artistica Luca Casagrande

Soprano Maria Carla Curìa
Clavicembalo Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Finito di registrare nel luglio 2009 e stampato nel luglio 2010

Bologna, giugno 2010 – La freschezza compositiva di Popora emerge tutta e al meglio nell’ultimo CD prodotto da Centaurus che ne raccoglie sette splendide cantate.

La voce del baritono Luca Casagrande, in forma strepitosa, notevole per caratteristica timbrica personale e inconfondibile, interpreta  con tecnica estremamente evoluta i diversi testi, conferendo a ciascuno la verità del proprio contenuto. Mediante questo approccio “teatrale” alla musica, l’artista riesce senza fatica alcuna a variare nei toni e nei colori, rendendo i difficili passi di agilità reali strumenti espressivi piuttosto che meccanici passaggi virtuositici. Superba l’interpretazione della cantata Quanto s’inganna oh quanto.

Di rimarchevole interesse è anche il libretto che accompagna il CD. Redatto e curato dallo stesso interprete, e produttore,  riporta al suo interno la motivazione delle scelte estetiche e interpretative delle cantate (dettaglio, questo, troppo spesso trascurato all’interno dei materiali di accompagnamento a spettacoli o a dischi), nonché una seria documentazione critica, chiara e precisa, relativa al contesto compositivo delle cantate, con attenzione particolare all’importanza dell’apporto dei cantanti della scuola di Porpora, Farinelli in particolare – nonché dei maggiori artisti vocali del primo Settecento – e del maggior librettista dell’epoca, Metastasio. Troppo spesso la storia della musica celebra i compositori trascurando l’importanza, per gli stessi compositori, degli esecutori e dei librettisti.

Ottimo il violoncello di Marcello Rosa, che in Porpora, come dev’essere, emerge in tutta la sua robusta e al tempo stesso delicata e comprensiva  pienezza. Intonazione praticamente perfetta.

Meno interessante Filippo Emanuele Ravizza, che ha perso molto dello smalto che riusciva, fino a un paio d’anni fa, a dare ai suoi continui cembalististici. Smalto sostituito, purtroppo, da una certa isteria e frettolosità esecutive piuttosto irritanti. Si tratta, comunque, sempre di un artista di notevole livello, qui evidentemente meno in forma rispetto ad altri CD registrati per Centaurus Music.

Bellissima la grafica di Reinaldo Ferro e la fotografia di Immart Studio.

Il CD, infine, è ben registrato da Michele Moretti.

M.C.

Nicola Porpora

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

Ideazione e Produzione Luca Casagrande
Direzione artistica Filippo Emanuele Ravizza • Luca Casagrande

Baritono Luca Casagrande

Violoncello Marcello Rosa
Clavicembalo Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Pubblicato nel maggio 2010

Nel 1989 ha debuttato come interprete di musica sacra nel Messiah di G. F. Händel, nella Johannis Passion e nella Cantata Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (BWV n.° 7) di J. S. Bach, a Milano. Ha poi proseguito fino alla metà degli Anni Novanta come interprete di cantate sacre di J. S. Bach, oratori di G. F. Händel e messe di W.A. Mozart in molte città tedesche e austriache, da Freiburg a Leipzig, da Berlin a Salzburg. Alla musica sacra si è riavvicinato nel 2005 con l’oratorio Theodora (Strasbourg) e nel 2008 con il Belshazzar di G. F. Handel, con lo Stabat Mater di A. Caldara, lo Stabat Mater di G. Rossini (Paris).

Ha esordito in teatro nel 1992, nella prima rappresentazione italiana di Mass di L. Bernstein, con l’Orchestra dei Pomeriggi Musicali e la Jazz Class Orchestra di Milano, dirette dal Maestro Giuseppe Grazioli, al Teatro Smeraldo, nel capoluogo lombardo.

Sono seguite interpretazioni in allestimenti di melodrammi barocchi italiani in Germania, Belgio, Paesi Bassi, Svizzera, Svezia, Spagna, Francia e USA. Le esperienze più rilevanti in questo repertorio: Riccardo ne Il trionfo dell’onore (Bruxelles, 1995), Eupatore nel Mitridate Eupatore, Armindo ne Gli equivoci nel sembiante, e Corrado, Principe di Puglia, in Griselda, di A. Scarlatti (Washington, Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, Seattle e Los Angeles, 2001); Marco Aurelio in Marco Aurelio e Pisone in Alarico di A. Steffani (Antwerpen, 1995/96); Varo in Ezio, Pallante in Agrippina (Halle, 2000), Armindo in Parthenope (Chicago, 2003), Bajazete in Tamerlano (Drottningholm, 2004), Melisso in Alcyna (Paris, Berlin, 2004), Garibaldo in Rodelinda (New York, 2004 /2005), Thoas, in Orest (Berlin, 2006), il Sacerdote della dea Minerva in Theseus (Berlin, 2009), di G. F. Händel; Hydraot, in Armide, di Ch. W. Gluck (Berlin, 2009).

Leggi Tutto

Alessandro Stradella (1639 – 1782) – Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725)

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

Ideazione e Produzione Luca Casagrande

Direzione artistica Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Contralto Loretta Liberato
Clavicembalo Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Pubblicato nel novembre 2009.

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725)

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

Ideazione e Produzione Luca Casagrande

Direzione artistica Lucio Nanni

Baritono Luca Casagrande

Scarlatti Camera Ensemble
Primo Violino Giambattista Pianezzola
Secondo Violino Claudia Monti
Violoncelli Gabriele Garofano – Claudia Poz
Clavicembalo Lucio Nanni

Pubblicato nel settembre 2009.

Gianbattista Cirri (1724 – 1808)

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

Ideazione Claudio Frigerio
Produzione Luca Casagrande

Direzione artistica Mario Lacchini

Violoncelli Claudio Frigerio – Gioele Gusberti

Pubblicato nel maggio 2009.

Cominciamo dalla grafica del CD: un piacere per gli occhi. I dipinti di Giambattista Tiepolo utilizzati in copertina e all’interno del digifile, raffinatissimo, non sono barocchi, appartengono, perlomeno virtualmente, al “ Rococò ”, ma si tratta di opere estremamente complesse e teatrali, mosse e coloratissime, che rimandano allo stile delle cantate di Stradella, stile molto avanzato per l’epoca, e richiamano il soggetto che dà il titolo al CD stesso: l’amore tra Antonio e Cleopatra. Il libretto è ben scritto, asciutto ed essenziale, e il contenuto molto preciso e chiaro, non si perde in chiacchiere inutili, va subito al dunque e di ciò mi complimento sinceramente sia con Casagrande, che ha scritto il primo saggio, sia con Filippo E. Ravizza, che ha curato il saggio sull’analisi delle singole cantate registrate.

Le cantate sono bellissime (musica e testi) e ritengo sempre più che davvero la produzione di questi dischi di straordinari inediti siano un contributo importante alla cultura musicale, e non solo a quella italiana. In tutta serietà, credo che un giorno il corpus delle produzioni discografiche di Luca Casagrande potrebbe essere menzionata  nella storia della discografia e in quella dell’interpretazione sia per la qualità, sia per il coraggio d’infischiarsene delle più trite e viete regole di mercato vigenti.

Per quanto riguarda il canto di Casagrande: le cantate sono difficilissime. Innanzitutto per l’intonazione, che il baritono risolve perfettamente. In nessuna cantata si avverte ombra d’indecisione, i suoni sono precisi e taglienti nonostante gli sbalzi dal registro acutissimo a quello basso. La cantata “ Il Marc’Antonio ” è esemplare in questo senso,  non credo che molti baritoni sarebbero in grado di cantarla risolvendo con la facilità di Casagrande queste escursioni di registro. L’interpretazione non è per nulla caricata.

La cantata “ Il Seneca ” è davvero cantata elegantemente, sarebbe stato molto più facile “ piangere ” (nel gusto alla moda dettato da una famosa gorgheggiatrice scalcagnata di cui non faremo il nome, tanto è immeritatamente conosciuta – e pagata – per i suoi berci gallinacei). Il testo, invece, viene recitato con un’intensità, che restituisce la statura morale del filosofo romano condannato al suicidio da Nerone. Questa intensità emerge proprio in quanto in contrapposizione alla cantata “ L’incendio di Nerone ”, in cui la voce riesce ad articolare in rapidità (anche qui intonazione e dizione perfette) il pensiero di un altro tipo di personaggio, e tocca, in alto, il La3.

La voce di Casagrande è in gran forma e la trovo leggermente scurita.

Spero che questo disco abbia il successo che merita.

La cantata “ Apre l’huomo infelice”, interpretata da Maria Carla Curìa, soprano lirico d’agilità di voce chiara, morbida nei centri e penetrante negli acuti e sopracuti, interprete di grande eleganza e commovente spontaneità di fraseggio, oltre che musicale e tecnicamente ferratissima, è l’ultimo gioiello del CD. Introdotta da un solo di clavicembalo che anticipa Bach, tant’è avanzato – a questo proposito, segnaliamo che Filippo Emanuele Ravizza è un continuista di rara eleganza e superiorità – prevede lunghi passi vocalizzati in tessitura acuta e il raggiungimento di note acutissime. Cantata di argomento morale resa con grande levità.

Ilaria Daolio

Alessandro Stradella (1639 – 1682)

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

Ideazione Produzione e Direzione artistica Luca Casagrande

Baritono Luca Casagrande
Clavicembalo Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Con la partecipazione del soprano Maria Carla Curìa

Registrato nel settembre 2008 e pubblicato nel gennaio 2009.

Testi Luca Casagrande

Musiche e Rielaborazioni Gianpietro Cazzago

Arrangiamenti, Programmazione, Batteria e Basso Giuseppe Cazzago
Tastiere Iker Gastaminsa e Luca Scarpa
Chitarre Gianpietro Cazzago
Sassofono Amedeo Bianchi
Violino Pedro Alfonso
Cori Frank Lucio – Luca Casagrande
Voce e Arrangiamenti vocali Luca Casagrande

In vendita su iTunes Store

Scarica il Digital Booklet – Gli amori silenziosi

S.I.A.E./Peer Music Inc. – USA

Prodotto da Luca Casagrande e Giuseppe Cazzago

Registrato e mixato nei Sound&Clear Studios di Miami – USA tra il novembre 2006 e il luglio 2007 – Tecnico del suono Iker Gastaminsa

Masterizzato negli Studi Nautilus di Milano nel luglio 2007 – Masterizzazione Antonio Baglio

Pubblicato nel giugno 2008

CD Single stampato e pubblicato nel settembre 2008

Alla metà del Cinquecento l’Europa è divisa in due dalla Riforma protestante. Le cause del rapido declino delle posizioni della Chiesa cattolica sono da rintracciarsi nel desiderio umanistico della borghesia e dell’aristocrazia di rompere con la tradizione tout court, anche con quella religiosa, e nella decadenza del prestigio delle due istituzioni universalistiche medievali: il Papato, appunto, e l’Impero. L’affermazione degli Stati nazionali, inoltre, contribuisce a distruggere l’unità politica dell’Europa. Crisi d’istituzioni e valori, dunque, che coinvolge anche la religione. Il clero stesso, a questo proposito, dà esempio di una condotta di vita non più accettabile o condivisibile dai più: principi-vescovi, che dedicano le cure maggiori all’amministrazione dei propri domini, più che all’attività pastorale, alti prelati di nobile casato che antepongono la politica familiare al buon funzionamento della propria diocesi, che si circondano di corti fastose, che rivaleggiano in ostentazione e in eccessi con le corti laiche del tempo, relegando le preoccupazioni religiose all’ultimo posto. Il Papa stesso, già da secoli, si considera prima di tutto un sovrano secolare: guerre, alleanze, intrighi politici ed affari economici, nepotismo lo occupano più della sua funzione di pastore d’anime. Insomma, l’interesse per le cose mondane ha portato i vertici delle gerarchie ecclesiastiche cattoliche a trascurare i fondamentali valori del cattolicesimo stesso. Il clero più basso è disorientato: rozzo, avido e mal preparato, sfrutta l’amministrazione dei sacramenti e le pratiche cultuali per il proprio guadagno materiale. I fedeli s’incamminano di buon passo verso forme di religiosità superstiziosa, che li porta a pensare di poter comprare, commerciare e contrattare l’assoluzione dai peccati, le indulgenze e le grazie. Ovviamente, la riforma luterana si afferma anche per ragioni politiche: i molti principi tedeschi che aderiscono alla Riforma, ad esempio, lo fanno per sottrarsi al potere dell’Impero, molti sovrani di Stati nazionali utilizzano il particolarismo religioso per il rafforzamento di quello politico. La Controriforma è l’insieme delle vere e proprie azioni della Chiesa di Roma per contrastare efficacemente l’affermarsi e il diffondersi del luteranesimo. Con Papa Paolo III s’impone l’esigenza di riformare anche la Curia romana, che resiste tenacemente all’idea di perdere i propri privilegi. Il Memoriale fatto redigere, a questo scopo, da Paolo III, dev’essere approvato da un concilio. Il Concilio di Trento, appunto, che si apre nel 1545 e si chiude nel 1563, che compie realmente una grande mole di lavoro in materia di fede e si occupa anche di questioni disciplinari ed organizzative. Il Concilio tridentino è anche la realizzazione pratica delle aspirazioni alla centralizzazione, al ridimensionamento dei poteri e delle autonomie dei vescovi, che Roma persegue già da tempo. Grande peso ed importanza assume ovviamente la riforma liturgica. Nei fatti, il cattolicesimo segna una ripresa rimarchevole proprio in seguito al Concilio di Trento. Basti qui ricordare la vittoria della cristianità contro i Turchi a Lepanto, nel 1571, che segna una svolta epocale e la riconquista cattolica di territori considerati irrimediabilmente perduti.
Sul piano artistico, quest’epoca e questi fatti segnano la nascita del Barocco.

I prelati del Concilio di Trento incaricano Pierluigi da Palestrina e Annibale Zoilo di rivedere il “ Graduale ” gregoriano per eliminarne barbarismi, impurità e superfluità. La riforma del canto gregoriano non si farà mai, in realtà, ma gli effetti di queste intenzioni sulla musica polifonica sacra sono più che avvertibili: si deve combattere l’ingresso nella liturgia di temi e parole profani e rendere percepibile il testo sacro da parte di tutti. Il Cardinale Pallavicino, nella “ Istoria del Concilio di Trento ” scrive: “ si trattò ancora di bandire affatto da’ sacrificii la musica; ma i più, e massimamente gli spagnuoli, ve la commendarono, si come usata da la chiesa per antichissimi tempi, et acconcio istrumento ad infonder per dolce modo negli animi i sensi della pietà; ove e il tenore del canto e il significato delle parole sia divoto; e quello aiuti e non impedisca l’intendimento di queste ”.

Accanto alla produzione sacra, nel corso del XVI secolo fiorisce il madrigale, polifonico innanzitutto, che esprime la lirica amorosa, le pene e le gioie d’amore, cui la natura collabora con un non trascurabile apporto paesaggistico, “ e la mitologia dà una mano con esempi e precedenti illustri ” (G. Confalonieri). I versi sono eleganti, il periodare classico. Lo scopo di questa nuova concezione della musica e del canto è “l’oggetto più alto dell’arte: dar vita ad una realtà autonoma che trascenda ogni realtà sensibile, ed è raggiunto dal Madrigale cinquecentesco con straordinaria naturalezza, per la strada più breve, per impiego delle più vere energie musicali. In così puro slancio creativo il vero e il falso sono concetti privi di senso. Quando un madrigalista canta di morire, egli realmente piega i suoni alla morte; e se canta di piangere, egli realmente stilla dai suoi suoni le lagrime. Fedeltà impossibili e impossibili tradimenti; tutti i dolci assurdi destinati a vivere nel segreto, qui, nei Madrigali italiani del Cinquecento, si fanno coraggio, e forti della loro verità musicale, s’impongono come cose viventi. ”. Confalonieri traccia implicitamente quelli che saranno, nell’ultimo ventennio del Cinquecento e per tutto il Seicento, i caratteri della monodia accompagnata, sia essa madrigale o aria, e della cantata.

Nel concerto del 19 luglio 2008, a Cles si cercherà di mettere a fuoco lo spirito della musica profana di questo periodo storico, e le conseguenze dei dettami in materia di musica sacra del Concilio tridentino sulla produzione di musica profana. Più in generale, sul clima culturale post-conciliare, che caratterizzerà tutto il XVII secolo. Inoltre, si vuole porre attenzione al delicato momento di passaggio dal madrigale all’aria, e con l’affermarsi dell’aria, alla cantata. Il baritono Luca Casagrande sarà accompagnato al clavicembalo dal Maestro Filippo Emanuele Ravizza e i testi cantati si alterneranno a testi del periodo conciliare, letti dalla voce recitante di Alessandro Haber.

I precetti della Controriforma circa lo sfoltimento del contrappunto, ai fini della piena comprensione del testo cantato, l’interesse del fiorentino Giovanni Bardi, Conte di Vernio, per la cultura e la musica elleniche del periodo classico, e le ricerche acustiche di Vincenzo Galilei portano all’affermarsi del cosiddetto “ recitar cantando” che, perlomeno nei primissimi tempi, si propone di reintrodurre i modi, i ritmi e le cadenze della tragedia greca, il cui canto a voce sola sembra l’ideale per la comunicazione delle emozioni e dei sentimenti. Protagonisti di questo recupero del classico sono principalmente Giulio Caccini (Tivoli, 1550 ca. – Firenze, 1618), compositore, cantante, teorico, dal 1564 musico alla corte di Firenze, e Jacopo Peri (Roma, 1561 – Firenze 1633), cantante e compositore anch’egli, dal 1589, “ principale direttore della musica e dei musici ” alla corte medicea; ma anche Emilio de’ Cavalieri, Laura Guidiccioni e poeti come Ottavio Rinuccini e Gabriello Chiabrera. Merito di Caccini è di aver contribuito a che il recitar cantando si affermi come genere proprio, e d’averlo portato verso soluzioni liriche annunciatrici del “ belcanto ”. Questo non solo con i suoi melodrammi, ma anche, e soprattutto con le “Nuove musiche”, del 1602, e, poi, con le “ Nuove musiche e nuova maniera di scriverle ”, del 1614, che rappresentano un’ulteriore teorizzazione dello stile monodico. La posizione di Caccini è quella di un innovatore. Lo stesso si può dire di Jacopo Peri, che dichiara nell’Introduzione alla sua “Euridice”, del 1601, che il nuovo stile di canto rinnova il felice incontro tra musica e poesia, già proprio della tragedia greca, così com’esso era inteso dagli umanisti della Camerata fiorentina. Caccini e Peri si dedicano alla scrittura di musiche vocali ariose, in cui la linea del canto solo è ben configurata e predominante, esprimendo nel contempo un sostanziale rifiuto per i virtuosismi che non abbiano senso espressivo, che siano, cioè, fini a se stessi. Il “ belcanto ”, con la sua coordinazione tra parole e musica, le sue scorrevoli melodie, le sue armonie sostanzialmente semplici e i suoi ritmi di danza, sarebbe fiorito, già verso il 1630, proprio sulla base delle istanze dei due compositori. Il cantante comincia, dunque, ad accompagnarsi da sé, utilizzando per lo più il liuto, o si unisce a piccoli ensemble, la linea del basso comincia ad essere concepita come appoggio ritmico e tonale della voce. L’interprete espande in accordi l’armonia risultante dalle due parti, quella vocale e quella strumentale. L’elasticità con cui il canto si abbina al basso continuo e un nuovo tipo d’abbellimento vario e libero della battuta, che viene, soprattutto in Caccini, ad inserirsi nel canto recitato per variarlo ed arricchirlo, prende il nome di “ sprezzatura ”. Claudio Monteverdi (Cremona, 1567 – Venezia, 1643), arriva alla monodia attraverso la disintegrazione del madrigale polifonico. In “ Orfeo ”, rappresentato a Mantova a Palazzo Ducale, nel 1607, Monteverdi sperimenta il “ recitar cantando ”. È sempre nel 1607 che Giulio Cesare Monteverdi afferma, a nome e per conto del fratello Claudio, la cosiddetta “ Seconda Pratica ”, “ che considera l’armonia comandata, e non comandante, e per signora del armonia pone l’oratione ”. È di nuovo Monteverdi, poi, a sviluppare l’idea del “ parlar cantando ”.
Nel 1618 è pubblicato il penultimo canzoniere in cui tutte le monodie sono madrigali (autore, Sigismondo d’India), e il primo, in cui tutte le monodie sono arie: gli “ Affetti Amorosi ”, canzoniere che contiene arie di diversi autori, raccolte da Giovanni Stefani, veneziano. L’aria comincerà, da questo momento in poi, ad assumere un’importanza sempre maggiore, diventando gradualmente l’asse portante sia della cantata da camera, sia del melodramma. Essa andrà evolvendosi nella direzione di un distacco sempre più netto dal recitativo, che assumerà i caratteri di momento narrativo, e giungerà a strutturarsi nella forma A B A, assumendo una funzione lirica e differenziandosi in varie categorie, a seconda dei sentimenti espressi nel testo. Dunque, nasce, e presto s’imporrà come terreno di sperimentazione per tutti i più importanti compositori e poeti secenteschi, la cantata, intesa come scena lirica di genere non rappresentativo – anche se la parola “ scena ” testimonia la natura ed il carattere teatrali più che evidenti di molte cantate – per voce con accompagnamento di basso continuo ed eventualmente alcuni strumenti. Giacomo Carissimi, Alessandro Stradella e Alessandro Scarlatti sono considerati i compositori più importanti di cantate. Ma fondamentali nella storia della cantata secentesca sono Antonio Cesti, Giovanni Legrenzi, Maurizio Cazzati, Pietro Ziani, Agostino Steffani, Giovanni Battista Bassani, e molti altri, soprattutto bolognesi e veneziani.
I brani che si potranno ascoltare al concerto sono le arie “ Fere selvaggie ” e “Udite amanti” di G. Caccini, “ Se l’aura spira” di G. Frescobaldi, “ Più lieto il guardo ” e “ Perché se m’odiavi ” di C. Monteverdi, “ Sospiri di foco ” di  P. F. Caletti detto “ Il Cavalli ”,  e le cantate “ O dell’anima mia ” di A. Cesti, “ Nel mar che bagna ” di A. Scarlatti.
“ Fere selvaggio ”, tratta dalle “ Nuove musiche ” di Giulio Caccini, è, in realtà, un madrigale strofico. “ Udite amanti ”, invece, è un’aria, forse l’unica, all’interno delle “ Nuove musiche ” a rispondere al concetto ideale di aria espresso dal compositore: composizione strofica, in tempo binario o ternario, breve, leggera, vivace. “Si deve usare solo la vivezza del canto, che deve essere trasportato dall’aria stessa”. Girolamo Frescobaldi (Ferrara, 1583 – Roma, 1643), allievo di Luzzaschi, precocissimo cantore e musicista, è, già dal 1604, organista a Roma. La musica strumentale e quella vocale di Frescobaldi, nel suo complesso, segnano una svolta in tutta la musica europea, rappresentando una sintesi compiuta tra la ricca tradizione italiana e le nuove tendenze dell’epoca, una serie d’imponenti indicazioni, che saranno poi comprese e realizzate, molto più in là, da Bach. Frescobaldi adotta forme sostanzialmente tradizionali. Tuttavia, la sua inquietudine armonica, la sua capacità di sconvolgere le strutture musicali con arditezze di modernità impressionante, sono un qualcosa di più che una semplice premessa per il futuro della musica. Frecobaldi è, insomma, il tramite tra due civiltà musicali, proponendo già in sé gli sviluppi e il superamento del barocco. L’aria “ Se l’aura spira ” è un indicativo esempio dell’immediatezza caratterizzante il genere popolare dell’epoca. “ Più lieto il guardo ” e “ Perché, se m’odiavi ” rappresentano il contributo di Claudio Monteverdi ad una raccolta d’arie di vari autori, del 1634. “ Queste composizioni presentano articolazioni musicali segnate da facilismi melici e frequenti riprese di microstrutture ritmiche, in perfetto accordo con il tono anacreontico dei testi. Solo ‘ Più lieto il guardo ’ (dotato anche di un ritornello strumentale a tre che ‘ si suona inanci ogni stancia infuori che la ultima ’) oppone ad una prima parte in ritmo ternario continuo e con schemi periodici, un secondo episodio ‘ recitato ’ liberamente su un basso a valori larghi. ‘ Perché, se m’odiavi ’ intona un testo utilizzato da Monteverdi anche in una composizione a tre voci e continuo, che apparirà postuma nel ‘ Libro nono ’, mostrando evidenti affinità con quel precedente monodico. ” (P. Fabbri). Pietro Francesco Caletti Bruni (Crema, 1602 – Venezia, 1676), detto “ il Cavalli ”, per aver adottato il nome del nobile veneziano Federico Cavalli, suo protettore, entra a far parte dell’organico della cappella di S. Marco, giungendo a diventarne primo maestro. L’opera veneziana deve la sua fama europea al compositore, che compone melodrammi-capolavoro, almeno fino al 1660. Non lontano da Monteverdi, da cui ha molto imparato, il Cavalli è, infatti, soprattutto compositore di melodrammi (circa una quarantina). Di lui ci è pervenuta una quindicina d’arie a voce sola e basso continuo, tutte  manoscritte, e alcune di dubbia attribuzione: ” Sospiri di foco ” è una di queste. “ O dell’anima mia ” è una delle cantate di contenuto lirico-amoroso di Antonio Cesti (Arezzo, 1623 – Firenze, 1669), sempre caratterizzate da un alternarsi di declamati drammatici, scolpiti, allo stlie “ grazioso ” delle arie e degli ariosi. “ Nel mar che bagna ”, infine, è una delle rarissime cantate per voce maschile grave (basso o baritono) e basso continuo di A. Scarlatti (Palermo, 1660 – Napoli, 1725). La cantata riprende temi bucolici, tratteggiando le schermaglie amorose di Nice ed Elpino, due pastorelli tratti dalla mitologia classica, sullo sfondo della foce del Sebeto, fiume che sbocca nel golfo di Salerno, tra paesaggi marini e boschivi, e gare di vele. Il clima è “ arcadico ”, e propone un mondo pastorale, appunto, idealizzato, semplice e candido. Questo genere di cantata è l’espressione più matura della cantata secentesca, anche per la definizione della struttura, che vede alternarsi brevi recitativi ad arie con il “ da capo ” variato. Parallelamente, la cantata di tema morale, filosofico, storico e mitologico si sviluppa e si amplia, per conoscere la sua massima espressione nel primo trentennio del Settecento.

Ilaria Daolio

Giovanni Legrenzi (Clusone, 12. VIII. 1626 – Venezia, 27. V. 1690) fu uno dei protagonisti del panorama musicale del Seicento italiano ed europeo, soprattutto per quanto riguarda la musica strumentale, violinistica in particolare, e il melodramma. Come violinista, Legrenzi fu ed è considerato, con Corelli, uno dei maggiori strumentisti del suo tempo, geniale creatore di forme e di stili, che saranno poi retaggio dei suoi allievi, Lotti, Caldara, Gasparini e Gabrielli, per citarne alcuni, e caratterizzeranno la cosiddetta “ scuola veneziana ” fino a Vivaldi. Cresciuto in uno dei principali centri di produzione musicale dell’epoca, la Basilica di S. Maria Maggiore di Bergamo, il compositore di Clusone fu poi alla corte ferrarese di Ippolito Bentivoglio, dove esordì come operista, nel 1662. In seguito, fu a Venezia, dove raggiunse vera gloria con i suoi melodrammi per i teatri di S Salvatore, SS. Giovanni e Paolo e S. Luca. Primo tra tutti “ Eteocle e Polinice ” (1675), che sarebbe stato fonte primaria e modello diretto dei primi lavori teatrali di Steffani, a München. Con “ Il Giustino ” (1683), infine, Legrenzi conobbe fama europea e una fortuna straordinaria, che si sarebbe prolungata per oltre mezzo secolo.

Il genere della cantata non fu molto coltivato da Legrenzi, dal punto di vista della quantità. Ma la produzione cantatistica del compositore fiorì nel periodo musicalmente più fecondo della sua esistenza, gli intensi Anni Settanta dei grandi successi veneziani. Tra il 1676 e il 1678 Legrenzi fece pubblicare due raccolte di cantate destinate a rimanere nella storia del genere come esempi tra i più riusciti ed originali. Complessivamente, del musicista lombardo, furono date alle stampe diciassette raccolte di cantate, nel decennio 1670-1680. A noi sono giunte anche alcune cantate manoscritte, il corpus più rilevante delle quali è costituito da dodici cantate conservate a Berlino. Legrenzi non si discosta, quanto ai temi, dal genere della cantata amorosa, talvolta d’ambiente pastorale e ravvivata dall’uso di uno schema narrativo. La parte strumentale è sempre sobriamente limitata al basso continuo. L’adesione delle cantate di Legrenzi ai tòpoi della cantata secentesca, tuttavia, a ben guardare, è più apparenza che sostanza. Il compositore costruisce davanti a noi, con la sua musica, un ricco mondo d’espressioni, d’affetti, d’atteggiamenti, e si fa notare l’assenza delle convenzioni melodrammatiche: nelle cantate Legrenzi si esprime più liberamente, rispetto a quanto riesca a fare nei suoi melodrammi. Il canto è eloquente ed incisivo e il discorso musicale profondo ed elaborato. Rimandiamo ogni analisi ulteriore al bel saggio di U. Scarpetta sulla cantata legrenziana, pubblicato da Olschki, e veniamo senz’altro al CD in questione e ai suoi interpreti. Appare subito evidente che la “ parte del leone ”, in questo lavoro, è affidata senza esitazioni all’interprete vocale. Il basso continuo di Filippo Emanuele Ravizza è molto asciutto, essenziale, non si concede nulla. Tuttavia, non è assente, è sempre incisivo ed espressivo. Lo stile dell’artista milanese, sempre rigoroso, propenso alla stringatezza e all’adozione di tempi piuttosto stretti, qui, al contrario, incoraggia il canto di Luca Casagrande alla massima ampiezza di fraseggio, al maggior respiro possibile. “ Una delle ragioni per cui in questa registrazione si è scelto di privilegiare apertamente il canto ” afferma Casagrande “ Ë che i testi di queste cantate sono così importanti, la linea vocale talmente varia ed interessante, da esigere una presenza notevole della voce e un basso continuo di puro appoggio. Non solo, anche tempi più larghi di quanto ci si potrebbe aspettare ”. Quest’operazione, che lascia la voce totalmente esposta, non facilita certo le cose, per il cantante, che si trova a dover dare fondo a tutte le sue risorse in fatto di tenuta del suono. Dare prevalenza ad un canto ampio e sonoro, caratterizzato da possenti accenti tragici, ma mai stentoreo e pesante, anzi, sempre trasparente, agile, mosso, di colore rotondo e ben “ coperto ”, omogeneo, duttile e malleabile, per non compromettere e la riuscita delle agilità, sia vocalizzate, sia di sbalzo, e la calma perfezione richiesta dalle frequenti fioriture, e per non spezzare mai le forme ma esclusivamente piegarle, a fini espressivi, potendo contare sull’appoggio di un basso continuo rarefatto – tutto questo assomma ad un grado di difficoltà difficilmente immaginabile. La tecnica e la respirazione e l’emissione dell’interprete sono messe a serissima prova da un’impostazione di questo tipo, che risulta, tra l’altro, anche molto rischiosa. Insomma, una vera e propria sfida, e una potente provocazione. Casagrande, che ha sempre mostrato di saper coniugare sapientemente, nell’affrontare il repertorio cantatistico barocco, il canto espanso e le esigenze del canto melismatico, a volte miniaturizzato e vorticoso, in questo CD dà l’impressione di inspirare una sola volta, all’inizio. Crea, in altre parole, l’illusione, attraverso l’uso intelligente ed esperto del “ rubato ” e la tensione delle pause, che tutte le cantate di questo lavoro siano comprese in un unico, immenso, profondo respiro.

Tutto quanto fin qui esposto vale anche per le quattro splendide cantate di Antonio Cesti (Arezzo, 05. VIII. 1623 – Firenze, 16. X. 1669), inserite nel CD, che proseguono ed approfondiscono il discorso sul compositore aretino, affrontato per la prima volta da Casagrande in una registrazione del 2004. La scrittura di Cesti si rivela più consona alla sensibilità e alla vocalità dell’artista, rispetto a quella di Legrenzi. In questo CD, inoltre, questa consonanza è più evidente rispetto alla registrazione del 2004, grazie al raggiungimento di una maggiore maturità vocale, alla scelta di brani più adatti, e anche alla realizzazione da parte del M.° Ravizza di un basso continuo equilibrato e scevro dei protagonismi cembalistici, che infastidivano vagamente nella precedente registrazione cestiana (in cui Ravizza non compariva).

Il disco si apre con una canzonetta di Legrenzi, “ Il mio core non è con me ”, breve e semplice, ma che già dà l’idea della fluente corposità che impronta tutto il lavoro. Con “ Amore e virtù ”, il secondo brano, una cantata alquanto composita, si è catapultati in medias res. È però in “ Pene, non mi lasciate ” che Casagrande tocca il vertice e poi, di nuovo, e con maggiore intensità in “ Sorgea dal sen di Lete ”, due capolavori, tra le cantate di Legrenzi.

Le quattro cantate di Cesti sono ognuna un capo d’opera, e le interpretazioni di Casagrande e Ravizza meriterebbero un trattatello a sé. Particolarmente commovente “ O dell’anima mia ”, lirica e dolente, mentre impressionante per virtuosismo espressivo “ Per l’ampio mar d’amore ”, cantata tragica che conclude il CD in una lucida stretta.

Questo è uno dei più affascinanti lavori discografici sulla cantata barocca, che ci sia stato dato finora di ascoltare, e per il coraggio sperimentatore di chi l’ha ideato e realizzato, e per il respiro, la dovizia e la qualità dei mezzi vocali ed interpretativi dispiegati da Luca Casagrande, e per l’elegante presenza del basso continuo di Filippo Emanuele Ravizza. Anche le inevitabili imperfezioni, qualche nota non perfettamente a fuoco, qualche dissonanza inaspettata, altro non fanno che confermare il fascino di questa registrazione. Che, stavolta, non è di studio, ma realizzata in ambiente dall’acustica naturalmente privilegiata, che amplia ed ammorbidisce i suoni. L’editing, perciò, non ha richiesto grandi interventi, il che fa gioco alla “ naturalezza ” del risultato finale. Bellissima la grafica del digifile, di Reinaldo Ferro, che rappresenta la famosa scultura “ Apollo e Dafne” del Bernini.

In definitiva, un altro passo in avanti nella conoscenza di un repertorio, quello cantatistico barocco, che si fa poco, in disco e in concerto, non perché “ non tiri ”, come si usa dire, ma perché non si sa fare, e un’ulteriore dimostrazione del fatto che alcuni, pochi, e tra questi, senz’altro, due artisti come Casagrande e Ravizza, ne sanno e ne possono affrontare le difficoltà con indiscutibile competenza e con le idee chiare, facendo musica, arte, di cui tutti possiamo godere, non semplice archeologia a beneficio di pochi tromboni sedicenti “ addetti ai lavori ”.

Ilaria Daolio

Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

TIRATURA LIMITATA

Prodotto da Luca Casagrande

Ideazione e Direzione artistica Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Clavicembalo Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Finito di registrare nel luglio 2006 e pubblicato nel febbraio 2008.

Alessandro Stradella (1639 – 1682)

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

Ideato e Prodotto da Luca Casagrande
Direzione artistica Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Soprano Maria Carla Curìa
Clavicembalo Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Finito di registrare nel marzo 2007 e pubblicato nell’ottobre 2007

Giovanni Legrenzi (1626 – 1690)

Antonio Cesti (1623 – 1669)

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

[podcast]http://www.luca-casagrande.com/wp-content/uploads/LC014-Amore-e-Virtu.mp3[/podcast]

Ideazione e Produzione Luca Casagrande

Direzione Artistica Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Baritono Luca Casagrande

Clavicembalo Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Progetto grafico originale e fotografia Reinaldo Ferro

Finito di registrare nel mese di marzo e stampato nel maggio 2007

Milano, maggio 2007. Della vita di Giovanni Battista Bassani si sa pochissimo, quasi nulla. Non è stata pubblicata, ad oggi, alcuna biografia sistematica, meno che mai romanzata. Si sa che era di origini probabilmente padovane, però non se ne conosce la data di nascita, che fu a lungo a Ferrara come violinista e poi maestro di cappella all’Accademia della Morte, che poi fu alla prestigiosa Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, e che, a Bologna, appunto, pubblicò in pratica tutta la sua produzione musicale, dalla famosa op. I per violino, alle raccolte di cantate, moltissime, tra il 1680 e i primi del Settecento, musica sacra e moltissimi melodrammi. Insomma, si sa per certo che Bassani fu una delle grandi personalità musicali del proprio tempo, ma niente di più, in sostanza. Le sue cantate, in particolare, hanno come carattere distintivo la fluidità, la scorrevolezza, l’apparente naturalezza, frutto emblematico delle istanze dell’epoca arcadico-razionalista, che si proponeva di superare gli eccessi del Barocco.
Luca Casagrande pubblica Serenata, una raccolta di cantate di Bassani, alcune con testi di Snodelli e Laurini, mai registrate e pubblicate in CD in epoca moderna. Questa è l’unica edizione discografica esistente delle cantate di quest’autore. Il che, già di per sé è un merito notevole, considerando che Bassani non fu un Bonporti qualsiasi, insomma, un “minore”. Ricoprì, anzi, le cariche musicali più prestigiose, a Ferrara e a Bologna, per chiudere vita e carriera presso la celeberrima Cappella di S. Maria Maggiore di Bergamo, uno dei nodi cruciali della cultura musicale (e non solo) europea del Seicento e del primo Settecento. Insomma, ai suoi tempi fu realmente famoso, come testimoniano anche molti suoi contemporanei. Il fatto che noi oggi ne sappiamo poco può dipendere dal fatto che molti documenti sul compositore sono andati distrutti, o smarriti. Abbiamo, invece, praticamente quasi tutta la sua opera.
Le cantate del CD sono quasi tutte per basso-baritono, registrate nella tonalità originale, a parte Serenata, che è per tenore (o soprano. Ricordiamo che al Teatro alla Scala, in un rarissimo récital, il grandissimo e prematuramente scomparso soprano americano Arleen Augér, verso, negli Anni Ottanta, ne diede una versione che chi l’ha sentita ha definito “sublime”. Fu la Augér una delle poche ad incentivare l’interpretazione di quest’autore in concerto, e chissà che i suoi discografici non ne avessero in progetto la registrazione), e Là dove un ciel sereno, originariamente per contralto, o contraltista.
La voce di Luca Casagrande qui, camaleonticamente, come suo costume, si adatta alla tessitura centralizzante, tendente al grave, e si fa piena e rotonda, più scura del solito, ma sempre attenta a rendere la scorrevolezza degli Allegri, dei Vivaci, dei Presto e dei Prestissimo, indicati da Bassani stesso nelle edizioni a stampa dell’epoca. In questo senso, i tempi veloci di queste cantate sono resi alla perfezione da Filippo Emanuele Ravizza, Maestro al cembalo, e Marcello Rosa al violoncello. Casagrande mostra una grande capacità di stare al gioco, affrontando con estrema disinvoltura tempi per lui non consueti, e non facili da rendere per qualsiasi voce maschile grave.
Casagrande effettua un’operazione di drammatizzazione delle partiture, innanzi tutto ricorrendo vieppiù ad una puntigliosa intensità nel fraseggio e varietà d’accento nei recitativi. Non un solo passo recitato è qui trascurato, per quanto i recitativi, in Bassani, occupino poco spazio, e questa è una delle caratteristiche del baritono fin dall’inizio della sua carriera, anzi, già negli anni degli studi. In questi recitativi, tuttavia, Casagrande diversifica tra loro le singole frasi quanto mai aveva fatto in precedenza, introduce per ogni frase, per ogni parola, quasi, una sfumatura differente ed appropriata, alternando dolcezze ed asperità sonore, tinte oscure e luminosità a fior di labbro, in totale sprezzo delle convenzioni sul “bel suono”, ma nell’assoluto rispetto delle regole del “belcanto” – che non si riduce, come ormai sappiamo bene, ad un susseguirsi di note correttamente emesse, ma secondo cui il bello, la forma piacevole, il “bel suono”, coincidono con l’espressivo – e così riuscendo, quanto non era riuscito nemmeno nei lavori discografici dedicati a Steffani, Cesti e Marcello, a rendere recitativi ed ariosi estremamente vividi, espressivi, attuali, comprensibili, interessanti, a riscattarli da ogni rischio di noia e a toglierne la polvere di secoli. Sappiamo infatti molto bene, purtroppo, quanto l’uditore contemporaneo sia insofferente ai recitativi, che invece dovrebbero essere ascoltati attentamente quanto le arie, perché saperli cantare davvero bene è di pochissimi. I mezzi che permettono a Casagrande di cantare magistralmente qualsiasi recitativo stanno senza dubbio in un grande istinto per l’accento teatrale, eloquente senza inutili effetti, nell’“intelligenza della parola detta”, come ebbe a scrivere in proposito Paolo Terni, e nella perfetta assimilazione del concetto di “sprezzatura” cioè libertà ritmica e disinvoltura nell’arte di fraseggiare. Oltre ad un gusto senza dubbio superiore. Sappiamo per certo che nessuno dei grandi Maestri che hanno aiutato il baritono ad impadronirsi dell’arte del canto, ha mai dovuto insegnargli come affrontare un recitativo. Casagrande si spinge oltre, introducendo cenni di asprezze sonore anche in molte arie, in particolare in alcuni passi in tessitura grave: qui molte note suonano talmente prosciugate e scabre da suscitare l’impressione del tragico, e sono, comunque, generalmente seguite da risalite verso centri ed acuti di grande pienezza e morbidezza. Tecnicamente questo è lecito quanto interpretativamente: pensiamo, senza andare troppo lontano, alla vocalità di Giuseppe Valdengo, il grande baritono toscaniniano, recentemente ascoltato, perché apparso nelle commemorazioni televisive del Maestro parmense. O, se vogliamo risalire all’inizio del Novecento, pensiamo al grande baritono tedesco Schlusnus, o all’altrettanto grande, e successivo, Gerard Hüsch. Inoltre, notiamo che, quando Casagrande scende a toccare gli estremi gravi nel corso di passi d’agilità veloce, le note suonano pulite, rotonde, splendidamente timbrate e seducenti, di gran classe, mentre quando le raggiunge “di sbalzo”, cioè con franca energia, suonano asciutte, quasi secche, ridotte a puro metallo. Ma anche alcuni attacchi nel medium della voce, nel recitativo di Là dove un ciel sereno, ad esempio, hanno inflessioni metalliche, volute, per aprire il sipario su una scena che di pastorale o bucolico ha solo l’apparenza, per superare la convenzione arcadica dell’amore infelice tra i due pastorelli protagonisti della cantata, e scavare nella profondità di sentimenti che Casagrande pretende, giustamente, profondi e strazianti, non ridotti a sentimentalismi di maniera. Ugualmente, molti passi delle arie di Serenata, di Ti lascio ò cor ingrato, o Son costretto ad adorarvi presentano la caratteristica di passaggi resi drammatici dall’interpretazione ricca di mordente. Il meglio di sé, riuscendo a riunire le pienezze e le morbidezze del canto espanso al senso del dramma, Casagrande lo dà nei passi cadenzati: tutte le cadenze, non poche, introdotte dal Maestro Ravizza, che è anche direttore artistico di questa produzione, nei finali di molte arie, sono rigorosamente “all’italiana”, come scriveva, o meglio prescriveva, Tosi nelle sue “Opinioni de’ cantori antichi e moderni” (1709): non lunghe, di gusto sorvegliato e con il trillo finale. Solo nella sarcastica Il musico svogliato, parodia sprezzante del divo cialtrone, si può ascoltare una cadenza paradossale, che finisce con un comico “Oh! Sì”. Parodia impietosa, questa, dei divi, appunto, del melodramma dell’epoca di Bassani, primedonne e primi uomini capricciosi, esibizionisti e “svogliati”, che ne detenevano il dominio incontrastato. Ma anche parodia del modo di concludere le cadenze legato alla tradizione teatrale italiana fino a tutti gli Anni Cinquanta, anni di divismi ed atletismi canori inutili, quanto dannosi. Nella seconda parte del CD, dopo due bellissime ariette di sapore vagamente händeliano, Casagrande si cimenta in cantate più da basso che da baritono, riuscendo ad ottenere sonorità profonde, cave, ben scure, risonanti ed altamente drammatiche, non aliene da screziature d’acciaio. Il baritono affronta temerariamente ariosi dai vorticosi vocalizzi in tempo velocissimo, tutti in tessitura grave, sui quali ha quasi sempre la meglio, e riesce ad instaurare un’atmosfera molto intima, ma non confidenziale, da pensieri ed emozioni espressi come nel cupo di una stanza, tra pareti di spesso velluto morello. Momenti di canto a mezzavoce gettano improvvisi obliqui fasci di luce su tanta lussureggiante penombra.
Nel senso della drammatizzazione e della varietà si muovono senza indecisioni anche i musicisti: Filippo Emanuele Ravizza, riconosciuto clavicembalista milanese, ex-allievo, Uitvoerend Musicus, ad Amsterdam, di Bob van Asperen, che qui si conferma continuista d’intelligentissima, essenziale musicalità, di raro prestigio, il migliore con cui Casagrande abbia collaborato, e la robusta performance al violoncello di Marcello Rosa., che trae dal suo strumento suoni di notevole pienezza.
Splendida la copertina del digifile, che riproduce l’Allegoria dell’aria di Rosalba Carriera, ecceslsa pittrice veneziana, di poco successiva all’epoca di Bassani.

Notevolmente elegante la grafica di Reinaldo Ferro. Un CD da non perdere.

Ilaria Daolio

Giovanni Battista Bassani (1657 – 1716)

PRIMA REGISTRAZIONE ASSOLUTA

Ideazione e Produzione Luca Casagrande
Direzione Artistica Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

Baritono Luca Casagrande
Violoncello Marcello Rosa
Clavicembalo Filippo Emanuele Ravizza

In vendita su iTunes Store

Progetto grafico originale e Fotografia Reinaldo Ferro

Finito di registrare nel mese di dicembre 2006 e stampato nel mese di gennaio 2007.