PaventaInsano

Paventa Insano
Pacini and Mercadante •Arias and Ensembles
ORR236
Box cover: ‘Hersilia throwing herself between Romulus and Tatius
(The peace between the Romans and Sabines)’, 1645. By Giovanni
Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666). Paris, Musee du Louvre.
akg-images/Erich Lessing
Booklet cover: Isabella Galletti Gianoli
Opposite and CD face: Giovanni Pacini and Saviero Mercadante
–1–
Producer and Artistic Director: Patric Schmid
Managing Director: Stephen Revell
Assistant producer: Jacqui Compton
Assistant conductor: Robin Newton
Répétiteur: Stuart Wild
Vocal coach: Gerald Martin Moore
Italian coach: Maria Cleva
Assistant to the producer: Nigel Lax
Article and translations: Jeremy Commons
Recording Engineer: Chris Braclik
Assistant Engineer: Chris Bowman
Editing: Patric Schmid, Jacqui Compton and Chris Braclik
Recorded at Henry Wood Hall, London
February 2005
–2–
CONTENTS
Paventa Insano: The outpouring of passion in Pacini and Mercadante..............Page 9
Paventa Insano: L’effusion passionnelle chez Pacini et Mercadante...................Page 15
Paventa Insano: Ergüsse der leidenschaft: Pacini und Mercadante....................Page 21
Paventa Insano: L’espressione dei sentimenti nelle opere di
Pacini e Mercadante........................................................................................Page 27
Notes and song texts.......................................................................................Page 32
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PAVENTA INSANO
Duration
8’34
[1]
Giovanni Pacini Il corsaro (Terzetto)
‘Che intesi! è lui che adoro’
Annick Massis, Laura Polverelli, Bruce Ford
[2]
Saverio Mercadante Elena da Feltre (Aria)
‘Parmi che alfin dimentica’
Majella Cullagh
8’36
[3]
Giovanni Pacini Stella di Napoli (Terzetto)
‘Addio!... la tua memoria’
Majella Cullagh, Laura Polverelli, Bruce Ford
6’05
[4]
Saverio Mercadante I Normanni a Parigi (Terzetto)
‘Che tento? che spero?’
Annick Massis, Laura Polverelli, Kenneth Tarver
4’20
[5]
Giovanni Pacini Il contestabile di Chester (Terzetto) 11’51
‘Ah! partir il voto o ciel... Deh rammentate almeno’
Annick Massis, Majella Cullagh, Alan Opie
[6]
Saverio Mercadante Andronico (Duetto)
‘Nel seggio placido’
Majella Cullagh, Laura Polverelli
-4-
2’57
Page
32
52
59
71
83
101
Duration
4’32
Page
108
[7]
Giovanni Pacini Cesare in Egitto (Terzetto)
‘O bel lampo lusinghiero’
Annick Massis, Bruce Ford, Kenneth Tarver
[8]
Saverio Mercadante Leonora (Quartetto)
4’46
‘Tu tremi, indegno’
Bruce Ford, Roland Wood, Alan Opie, Henry Waddington
120
[9]
Giovanni Pacini Allan Cameron (Aria finale)
‘O d’un re martire, alma beata’
Annick Massis, Alan Opie
129
[10] Saverio Mercadante Virginia (Terzetto)
‘Paventa insano gli sdegni miei’
Majella Cullagh, Bruce Ford, Alan Opie
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
London Philharmonic Orchestra
David Parry, conductor
The music for this recording
was prepared for Opera Rara
by Ian Schofield and Chris Moss
–5–
16’49
10’35
144
Giovanni Pacini
Saverio Mercadante
Francesca Festa Maffei
The first Irene
Andronico
PAVENTA INSANO:
THE OUTPOURING OF PASSION IN PACINI AND MERCADANTE
VENTURE BEYOND the four greatest names in the operatic firmament of
early 19th century Italy – delve beyond Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi
– and the next two composers to come to attention will always be
Mercadante and Pacini. And more often than not they will be mentioned
together in the same breath, as if they were colleagues and collaborators –
which, let us hasten to add, they emphatically were not. Why, then, do we so
often link them together? Is there good reason for doing so? Or is this an
arbitrary juxtaposition which, become a platitude, should preferably be
abandoned?
Our own feeling – and indeed the raison d’être behind the present
recording – is that there is very good reason to link their names. They were,
in the first place, very close contemporaries. Saverio Mercadante was born on
17 September 1795, and Giovanni Pacini on 17 February 1796 – a difference
of only five months. Mercadante was born in Altamura, near Bari in Puglia,
and Pacini in Catania, Sicily. Both, therefore, first saw the light of day in the
deep south of Italy, though in Pacini’s case this was a fortuitous accident
rather than any indication of true origin. His father, Luigi Pacini, was a
famous basso buffo who simply happened to be in Catania – on tour – at the
time his wife gave birth. Giovanni was, in fact, born in an inn or hostelry
frequented by itinerant theatrical folk. The real home of the Pacini family lay
in Tuscany, though precisely where has never been established. But
–9–
conveniently he was able to enjoy, as it were, ‘dual nationality’ – he could live
and work in Viareggio, Lucca and Pescia as a Tuscan, but could also, when it
was to his advantage, point to his place of birth and claim to be Sicilian.
Both enjoyed long careers in the theatre and were, in an age when
composers were expected to churn out operas one after another,
conspicuously tenacious and prolific. Pacini composed well over 70 operas
(though not ‘over 100’ as he himself claimed); Mercadante was hardly less
productive, with something like 60 titles to his credit.
Both, too, grew up in the shadow of Rossini – an awkward time for any
young composer, since the Rossinian mould of operatic composition had
become the established norm all over Italy, sweeping the operas of older
composers from the boards and imposing a pattern upon young composers,
to which, if they wished to gain any hearing at all, they had to conform. As
Pacini memorably put it in a celebrated passage in his autobiography, Le mie
memorie artistiche (Florence, 1865): ‘But let me be allowed to observe that as
many as were in those days my contemporaries, all followed the same school,
the same modes of composing, and were in consequence imitators, like me,
of the Greater Star. But, good God! What was one to do if there was no other
way of supporting oneself?’
Yet both composers, though they may have begun as imitators of Rossini,
in mid-career managed to break free and develop recognisable musical
personalities of their own – recognisable styles in which they were able to
–10–
pursue the depiction of the passions in ways that were increasingly their own.
Both, consequently, are constantly mentioned in the history books as
composers who, enriching the harmonic language and the orchestration of
their day, anticipated the innovations and procedures of Verdi.
Even in these days of their maturity, they continued to have much in
common. Both were concerned with concentrated drama: with ways of
heightening the musical expression of stressful emotions and anguished states
of mind. Both are constantly seeking new harmonic effects, while keeping
within a traditional diatonic system. Both are clearly and constantly aware
that a traditional harmonic system allows every slightest departure and
variant to stand out and make a maximum effect, whereas – as 20th century
composers were to discover to their cost – a wholesale abandonment of ‘rules’
means cutting oneself off from the traditional colours that come from the use
of major and minor modes, from the use of individual keys and their
traditional associations, from modulation one to another, and from all
manner of long-honoured harmonic devices (the tierce de Picardie, the
Neapolitan 6th and many more). Licence may result in freedom, but it also
leads to a loss of traditional reference points.
But let us not be led away from Mercadante and Pacini. Both, in addition
to their search for rich and satisfying harmonic effects, break new ground in
orchestration. Again they look for the unusual – the use of new or unusual
instruments, often in unexpected combinations – and combine this quest
with a liking for bravura writing for solo instruments, particularly in
–11–
atmospheric preludes and interludes. Both, too, are steeped in what can only
be described as richly lyrical Italianate melody – melody that ultimately
springs from folksong, but which has been developed, broadened and
intensified through the use of strong sonorous voices – and they both,
Mercadante especially, make use, in the operas of their maturity, of the socalled motivo spiegato, the broadly flowing, rolling and on-going melody
which forms the basis of so many of their ensembles and concertati.
Yet, though there is thus a great deal of common ground or overlap
between them, there are also recognisable different characteristics. John
Black, when mentioning, in his book on the librettist Salvatore (or Salvadore)
Cammarano1, that the text of Orazi e Curiazi was offered initially to Pacini
but was more appropriately set by Mercadante, perceptively put his finger on
these differences. As he wrote there: ‘Orazi e Curiazi was undoubtedly a fine
subject for an opera […] but it suited the slow-moving, statuesque treatment
that Mercadante was to bring to it […] rather than the more quicksilver
treatment Pacini could offer.’ Mercadante is, indeed, the more weighty and
substantial of the two, whereas Pacini has a never-to-be-satiated propensity
to veer towards cabaletta motifs that are striking because they are
rhythmically jerky and unexpected, and towards choruses that are similarly
chirpy and chattery, rhythmically syncopated and brittle.
____________________________________
1
John Black, The Italian Romantic Libretto: A Study of Salvadore Cammarano (Edinburgh, 1984),
p. 101.
–12–
Everything that has been suggested here will, we believe, be amply
illustrated by the wide range of music performed on the present disc. Both
composers conduct us through a gamut of emotions: love, joy, anxiety,
distress, defiance, hatred, perplexity, the emotions that accompany selfsacrifice for others. While the selected items include extracts from two early
operas (Mercadante’s Andronico and Pacini’s Cesare in Egitto), the greater
emphasis is on their ‘middle’ periods (Pacini’s Il contestabile di Chester and Il
corsaro and Mercadante’s I Normanni a Parigi) and later works (Mercadante’s
Elena da Feltre, Leonora and Virginia and Pacini’s Stella di Napoli and Allan
Cameron) – operas which show their characteristics at their most developed
and masterly.
© Jeremy Commons, 2005
–13–
Stuart Wild (Répétiteur), Majella Cullagh
and Patric Schmid (Producer)
PAVENTA INSANO :
L’EFFUSION PASSIONNELLE CHEZ PACINI ET MERCADANTE
OUTRE LES quatre grands noms au firmament de l’opéra italien du début
du XIXe siècle – Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti et Verdi – deux compositeurs ne
manquent jamais de retenir l’attention : Mercadante et Pacini. Ils sont cités
ensemble le plus souvent comme s’il s’agissait de collègues ou de
collaborateurs – ce qui, je m’empresse de le dire, n’est absolument pas le cas.
Alors pourquoi leurs noms se trouvent-ils si souvent associés ? Y a-t-il quelque
bonne raison à cela ? Ou s’agit-il d’un rapprochement arbitraire, devenu un
lieu commun, auquel il serait désormais préférable de renoncer.
Nous sommes d’avis – et c’est la raison d’être du présent enregistrement –
que le rapprochement est tout à fait justifié. D’abord ils sont contemporains
: ils sont nés à cinq mois d’écart seulement – Saverio Mercadante le 17
septembre 1795, Giovanni Pacini le 17 février 1796. Mercadante est né à
Altamura, près de Bari dans les Pouilles, Pacini à Catane en Sicile. L’un et
l’autre virent donc le jour dans le sud profond de l’Italie, bien que pour Pacini
ce fût le résultat d’un simple hasard. Son père, Luigi Pacini, était un célèbre
basso buffo qui se trouvait à Catane – en tournée – au moment où accouchait
sa femme. En fait, Giovanni est né dans une auberge ou une hostellerie
fréquentée par les troupes ambulantes. On sait que les Pacini étaient
originaires de Toscane, sans pouvoir pour autant préciser la localité. Toujours
est-il que Pacini était en mesure de prétendre, pour ainsi dire, à une « double
nationalité » : vivre et travailler à Viareggio, Lucques et Pescia en tant que
–15–
toscan, mais tout aussi bien, en cas de besoin, se dire sicilien en se réclamant
de son lieu de naissance.
Ils firent, l’un et l’autre, une longue carrière et, à une époque où les
compositeurs étaient censés produire un opéra après l’autre, se montrèrent
remarquablement tenaces et prolixes. Pacini composa plus de soixante-dix
opéras (et non pas la « bonne centaine » qu’il s’attribue lui-même) ; quant à
Mercadante, avec près de soixante titres à son actif, il ne fut guère moins
productif.
Ils grandirent tous deux également dans l’ombre de Rossini. C’était une
époque difficile pour les jeunes compositeurs, car le modèle rossinien
dominait dans toute l’Italie : Rossini avait évincé de la scène lyrique les
œuvres de ses prédécesseurs, imposant ainsi aux jeunes compositeurs un
moule auquel ils devaient se conformer s’ils voulaient faire entendre leur voix.
Comme le dit si bien Pacini dans un célèbre passage de son autobiographie,
Le mie memorie artistiche (Florence, 1865): « Tous mes contemporains
suivaient la même école, la même manière ; aussi étaient-ils comme moi des
imitateurs de la grande étoile de l’époque. Mais, Grand Dieu, que faire quand
on n’a nul autre moyen de subvenir à ses besoins ? »
Tout en ayant commencé par imiter Rossini, Mercadante et Pacini
parvinrent néanmoins, au milieu de leur carrière, à se libérer de ce modèle et
à développer leur propre personnalité musicale – un style individuel,
reconnaissable en tant que tel, permettant à chacun de poursuivre sa
–16–
description des passions humaines avec toujours plus d’originalité. C’est la
raison pour laquelle ils sont présentés ensemble dans les livres d’histoire de la
musique comme des compositeurs qui enrichirent l’idiome harmonique et
l’orchestration de leur époque, annonçant ainsi les innovations et les
procédures of Verdi.
Parvenus à la maturité, ils n’en conservèrent pas moins certains traits
communs. Soucieux d’accroître l’intensité dramatique, ils cherchèrent les
moyens de rehausser l’expression musicale de la tension affective et de
l’angoisse. Ils étaient également en quête de nouveaux effets harmoniques,
sans pour autant remettre en question le système diatonique traditionnel.
Manifestement, ils ne perdirent jamais de vue le fait que ce type de système
harmonique permet de faire ressortir le moindre écart, la moindre variation,
et d’en tirer le meilleur effet, alors que l’abandon total des « règles » établies
– ainsi que l’apprendraient à leurs propres dépens les compositeurs du XXe
siècle – amène à se priver du contraste entre les modes majeur et mineur, de
leur utilisation individuelle et des associations conventionnelles qui en
résultent, du passage de l’un à l’autre, et de toutes sortes d’intervalles depuis
longtemps consacrés par l’usage (tierce de Picardie, sixte napolitaine, etc.). La
licence peut être source de liberté, mais elle conduit à la perte des points de
repère traditionnels.
Mais revenons à Mercadante et Pacini. Outre la recherche d’effets
harmoniques riches et satisfaisants, ils innovèrent en matière d’orchestration.
Ils tentèrent à nouveau de créer la surprise par le recours à des instruments
–17–
nouveaux ou inhabituels, souvent combinés de manière originale, recherche
de l’inattendu s’alliant chez eux à un amour de l’écriture virtuose pour un
instrument, dont témoignent notamment préludes et interludes évocateurs.
Ils sont également tous deux profondément attachés à ce qu’on pourrait
appeler la « mélodie à l’italienne » – une mélodie intensément lyrique, issue
en fin de compte de la tradition folklorique, mais développée, élargie et
intensifiée par le recours à des voix puissantes et sonores – ; et dans les opéras
de leur maturité ils utilisent l’un et l’autre, mais surtout Mercadante, ce qu’on
a coutume d’appeler le motivo spiegato, mélodie ample, fluide et entraînante
qui forme la base de tant de leurs ensembles et concertati.
Malgré ces nombreux points communs et recoupements possibles, il existe
aussi toutefois des différences marquées et reconnaissables entre les deux
compositeurs. Dans le livre qu’il consacre au librettiste Salvatore (or
Salvadore) Cammarano1, John Black met finement le doigt sur ce qui les
différencie lorsqu’il constate que le texte des Orazi e Curiazi, proposé dans un
premier temps à Pacini, bénéficia avec Mercadante d’un traitement musical
plus approprié. « Les Oraces et les Curiaces, dit-il, est incontestablement un
beau sujet d’opéra […] mais qui convenait mieux à la lenteur et à la
pondération d’un Mercadante […] qu’à la vivacité d’un Pacini. » Le style de
Mercadante a, en effet, plus de poids, plus de substance, tandis que Pacini est
irrémédiablement porté vers la cabaletta au rythme saccadé et riche en
__________________________________
1
John Black, The Italian Romantic Libretto: A Study of Salvadore Cammarano (Édimbourg,
1984), p. 101.
–18–
surprises, et manifeste une forte prédilection pour des chœurs joyeux et
bavards au rythme syncopé et instable.
L’ensemble de ces caractéristiques nous paraît amplement illustré dans le
présent florilège. On y découvrira en compagnie de Mercadante et de Pacini
une riche gamme d’émotions : amour, joie, angoisse, douleur, défi, haine,
doute, et tous ces sentiments qui accompagnent le sacrifice de soi au bénéfice
d’autrui. S’il comporte des extraits de deux opéras de jeunesse (Andronico de
Mercadante et Cesare in Egitto de Pacini), ce disque met surtout l’accent sur
les œuvres de la maturité (Il contestabile di Chester et Il corsaro de Pacini ; I
Normanni a Parigi de Mercadante) et les opéras plus tardifs (Elena da Feltre,
Leonora et Virginia de Mercadante ; Stella di Napoli et Allan Cameron de
Pacini), autant de pages qui permettent d’apprécier le talent de ces deux
compositeurs au sommet de leur développement et de leur art.
© Jeremy Commons, 2005
–19–
Robin Newton
(assistant conductor)
PAVENTA INSANO
ERGÜSSE DER LEIDENSCHAFT: PACINI UND MERCADANTE
WER ÜBER DEN erlauchten Kreis der vier größten Namen in der
italienischen Oper des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts hinausblickt – also über
Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti und Verdi hinaus –, begegnet unweigerlich den
Komponisten Mercadante und Pacini. Und praktisch immer werden diesen
zwei Namen in einem Atemzug genannt, als seien die beiden Kollegen
gewesen, hätten gar zusammen gearbeitet – was sie, woran hier
nachdrücklich erinnert werden soll, keineswegs waren noch taten. Warum
also stellen wir eine derart enge Beziehung zwischen ihnen her? Gibt es einen
Grund dafür? Oder ist es vielleicht eine willkürliche Paarung, die zum
Klischee geworden ist und von dem wir uns schleunigst trennen sollten?
Unserer Meinung nach – und die bildet den Ausgangspunkt der
vorliegenden Aufnahme – gibt es triftige Gründe, eine Verbindung zwischen
diesen beiden Komponisten herzustellen. Zum Einen waren sie praktisch
gleich alt: Saverio Mercadante wurde am 17. September 1795 geboren,
Giovanni Pacini gerade fünf Monate später, nämlich am 17. Februar 1796.
Mercadante kam in Altamura zur Welt, in der Nähe von Bari in Puglia,
Pacini im sizilianischen Catania. Beide stammten also aus dem tiefen Süden
Italiens, obwohl es bei Pacini lediglich ein glücklicher Zufall war und kein
Verweis auf seine eigentliche Herkunft. Sein Vater Luigi Pacini war ein
berühmter basso buffo, der zum Zeitpunkt der Geburt seines Sohnes mit
seiner Frau zufällig auf Konzertreise in Catania weilte; so kam Giovanni in
–21–
einem Gasthof zur Welt, in dem sich umherziehende Theaterleute gerne
einquartierten. Die eigentliche Heimat der Pacinis lag irgendwo in der
Toskana, der genaue Ort entzieht sich allerdings unserer Kenntnis. Doch
dieser glückliche Umstand ermöglichte Pacini, sich als Komponist mit zwei
„Staatsbürgerschaften“ zu verstehen: In Viareggio, Lucca und Pescia konnte
er als Toskaner leben und arbeiten, bei Bedarf verwies er aber auch auf seinen
Geburtsort und gab sich als Sizilianer aus.
Beide Komponisten erfreuten sich einer langen Laufbahn am Theater und
waren zu einer Zeit, in der Komponisten eine Oper nach der anderen zu
produzieren hatten, außergewöhnlich zuverlässig und schaffensfreudig.
Pacini komponierte gut siebzig Opern (allerdings nicht „über hundert“, wie
er selbst behauptete), und Mercadante war mit seinen rund sechzig
Bühnenwerken kaum minder produktiv.
Zudem wuchsen beide im Schatten Rossinis auf, dessen Formel der
Opernkomposition in ganz Italien zur Norm erhoben worden war. Die
Opern älterer Komponisten waren von den Spielplänen gestrichen, jüngere
Komponisten mussten, um überhaupt Gehör zu finden, sich diesem Muster
anpassen: eine eher hemmende als ermutigende Herausforderung. So schrieb
Pacini in seiner Autobiografie Le mie memorie artistiche (Florenz, 1865) die
denkwürdigen Zeilen: „Doch möchte ich anmerken dürfen, dass die vielen
meiner Zeitgenossen alle derselben Schule folgten, alle derselben Methodik,
womit sie, wie ich, dem großen Stern nacheiferten – aber guter Gott! Was
sollte man tun, wenn man sonst keine Möglichkeit hatte, sich über Wasser
zu halten?“
–22–
Auch wenn diese beiden Komponisten anfangs in die Fußstapfen Rossinis
traten, befreiten sie sich in der Mitte ihrer Laufbahn von dessen Einfluss und
entwickelten sich zu eigenständigen Musikern mit einem unverkennbaren
Stil, in dem sie Leidenschaften auf eine zunehmend individuelle Art zum
Ausdruck brachten. Somit werden sie in den Geschichtsbüchern mit Fug und
Recht als Komponisten genannt, die die harmonische Sprache und die
Orchestrierung der damaligen Zeit bereicherten und bereits die Neuerungen
und Methoden Verdis vorwegnahmen.
Selbst in ihrer Reifezeit hatten sie noch zahlreiche Gemeinsamkeiten.
Beiden ging es um die Konzentration des Dramatischen, um Möglichkeiten,
den musikalischen Ausdruck emotional ergreifender Situationen und eines
gequälten Geisteszustands zu steigern. Beide suchten ständig nach neuen
harmonischen Effekten, ohne den Rahmen des herkömmlichen diatonischen
Systems zu sprengen. Beiden war deutlich bewusst, dass in diesem tradierten
System die mindeste Abweichung, die kleinste Variante ins Auge sticht und
dadurch großes Gewicht erhält, während die Loslösung von allen „Regeln“
bedeutet, dass man auf die Klangfarben verzichtet, die sich eben durch die
Verwendung von Dur und Moll ergeben, durch den Einsatz
unterschiedlicher Tonarten und ihrer herkömmlichen Assoziationen,
Modulationen und die zahlreichen harmonischen Möglichkeiten (etwa die
picardische Terz, der neapolitanische Sextakkord und viele andere mehr).
Was dies letztlich bedeutet, mussten Komponisten des 20. Jahrhunderts zu
ihrem Schaden feststellen. Künstlerische Freiheit ist zwar zweifellos eine
Freiheit, nimmt dem Komponisten aber auch jeden traditionellen
Bezugspunkt.
–23–
Doch wollen wir nicht von Mercadante und Pacini abschweifen. Beide
suchten nicht nur beständig nach üppigen, ansprechenden
Harmonieeffekten, sie waren auch bahnbrechend hinsichtlich der
Orchestrierung. Wieder ging es ihnen um das Ausgefallene – ungewöhnliche
oder neue Instrumente, die sie vielfach auf verblüffende Weise paarten –, und
damit ging eine Vorliebe für Bravourpassagen in den Soloinstrumenten
einher, insbesondere in atmosphärischen Vor- oder Zwischenspielen. Zudem
bedienen sich beide einer Melodiesprache, die man nur als zutiefst lyrisch
und zutiefst italienisch bezeichnen kann – und einer Melodiesprache, die
letztlich auf das Volkslied zurückgeht, doch durch den Einsatz kräftiger,
tragender Stimmen weiterentwickelt und ausgebaut wurde und damit an
Ausdruckskraft gewann. Und sie beide, Mercadante wohl noch mehr als
Pacini, setzten in den Opern ihrer Reifezeit das so genannte motivo spiegato
ein, die breit fließende, strömende Melodie, die die Grundlage vieler ihrer
Ensembles und concertati bildet.
Doch trotz dieser vieler Gemeinsamkeiten und Ähnlichkeiten gibt es
unverkennbar auch Unterschiede. In seinem Buch über den Librettisten
Salvatore (oder Salvadore) Cammarano1 schrieb John Black, dass der Text
von Orazi e Curiazi ursprünglich Pacini angeboten, doch dann kongenial
von Mercadante vertont wurde, und verdeutlichte dann die Unterschiede
zwischen den beiden: „Orazi e Curiazi war zweifellos ein großartiger
_________________________________
1
John Black, The Italian Romantic Libretto: A Study of Salvadore Cammarano
(Edinburgh, 1984), S. 101
–24–
Opernstoff […], aber er eignete sich eher für die behäbige, monumentale
Musik, mit der Mercadante ihn zu Leben erwecken konnte […], als für die
spritzigere Musik, die einen Pacini auszeichnete.“ Mercadante ist eindeutig
der gewichtigere der beiden Komponisten, während Pacini eine unstillbare
Vorliebe für Cabaletta-Motive hatte, die durch ihre rhythmische
Sprunghaftigkeit und ihr Überraschungsmoment bestechen, und für Chöre,
die ähnlich zwitschern und plappern, ähnlich rhythmisch synkopiert und
unbeständig sind.
Alle Aspekte, die hier angesprochen wurden, sind zumindest unserer
Ansicht nach in den sehr unterschiedlichen Beispielen der vorliegenden
Einspielung deutlich zu hören. Beide Komponisten warten mit einer breiten
Gefühlspalette auf: Liebe, Freude, Angst, Kummer, Trotz, Hass,
Verwunderung, die Gefühle, die mit der Selbstaufopferung für andere
einhergehen. Zwar sind auch Auszüge aus zwei frühen Opern enthalten
(Mercadantes Andronico und Pacinis Cesare in Egitto), doch es überwiegen
Werke der „mittleren“ Phase (Pacinis Il contestabile di Chester und Il corsaro
sowie Mercadantes I Normanni a Parigi) und der späteren Zeit (Mercadantes
Elena da Feltre, Leonora und Virginia und Pacinis Stella di Napoli und Allan
Cameron) – Opern, die diese Eigenschaften in all ihrer Ausgereiftheit und
Meisterschaft vermitteln.
© Jeremy Commons, 2005
–25–
David Parry (conductor), Maria Cleva (Italian coach)
and Gerald Martin Moore (vocal coach)
PAVENTA INSANO:
L’ESPRESSIONE DEI SENTIMENTI NELLE OPERE DI PACINI
E MERCADANTE
QUANDO SI approfondisce, superando i quattro più grandi nomi nel
firmamento operistico italiano del primo Ottocento – Rossini, Bellini,
Donizetti e Verdi – i due compositori che si impongono in maniera quasi
obbligata sono sempre Mercadante e Pacini. Il più delle volte i loro nomi
vengono citati contemporaneamente, come quelli di due colleghi e
collaboratori – ma questo, ci affrettiamo ad aggiungere, non è affatto vero.
Allora, come si spiega questo frequente accostamento? Nasce da una
motivazione valida o si tratta di una giustapposizione arbitraria, ormai
divenuta un luogo comune, che sarebbe meglio abbandonare?
A nostro avviso – anzi, questa è la motivazione principale della presente
registrazione – la ragione esiste, ed è ottima. Per cominciare, i due musicisti
furono contemporanei. Saverio Mercadante nacque il 17 settembre 1795, e
Giovanni Pacini il 17 febbraio 1796, cioè appena cinque mesi dopo.
Mercadante era nato in Puglia, ad Altamura, vicino Bari, mentre Pacini era
siciliano, di Catania. Entrambi, pertanto, videro la luce nel profondo sud
dell’Italia, anche se nel caso di Pacini questo fu in realtà un fatto fortuito. Suo
padre, Luigi Pacini, un famoso basso buffo, si trovava per caso a Catania, in
tournée, all’epoca in cui sua moglie diede alla luce il figlio. Giovanni infatti
nacque in una locanda o albergo frequentato dagli attori itineranti. La vera
casa di Pacini si trovava in Toscana, anche se non è mai stato stabilito con
–27–
precisione dove. Ma in questo modo il compositore ebbe la possibilità di
avere, per così dire, una comoda “doppia cittadinanza”: poteva abitare e
lavorare a Viareggio, Lucca e Pescia come ogni toscano, ma poteva anche, se
la cosa tornava a suo vantaggio, sostenere di essere siciliano in base al proprio
luogo di nascita.
Entrambi i musicisti ebbero una lunga carriera teatrale e, in un’epoca in cui
dai compositori si pretendeva che sfornassero un’opera dopo l’altra, furono
notevolmente tenaci e prolifici. Pacini compose ben più di settanta opere (ma
non “più di cento” come aveva dichiarato); Mercadante non fu meno
produttivo ed ebbe al suo attivo qualcosa come una sessantina di titoli.
Entrambi, inoltre, crebbero all’ombra di Rossini – fu un periodo difficile
per ogni giovane compositore, dal momento che lo stampo rossiniano della
composizione operistica era diventato la norma stabilita in tutta Italia, aveva
fatto piazza pulita delle opere teatrali degli autori precedenti e imposto ai
giovani compositori uno schema obbligatorio a cui adeguarsi, se desideravano
che i loro lavori fossero uditi. In una famosa e memorabile pagina della sua
autobiografia, Le mie memorie artistiche (Firenze, 1865), Pacini disse:
“Quanti in allora erano miei coetanei, tutti seguirono la stessa scuola, la stessa
maniera, per conseguenza erano imitatori, al par di me, dell’Astro maggiore”.
D’altro canto, questo sembrava l’unico espediente per sbarcare il lunario.
Eppure, nonostante avessero iniziato imitando Rossini, a metà della loro
carriera entrambi i musicisti riuscirono a emanciparsi e sviluppare identità
–28–
musicali originali e stili riconoscibili, attraverso cui riuscirono a cercare di
illustrare le passioni in maniera sempre più originale. Entrambi, di
conseguenza, sono costantemente citati nei libri di storia tra i compositori
che, arricchendo il linguaggio armonico e l’orchestrazione del loro tempo,
preannunciano le innovazioni e procedure di Verdi.
Persino nel periodo della loro maturità sono evidenti molti aspetti comuni.
Una delle preoccupazioni condivise da entrambi fu quella di concentrare il
dramma, trovando il modo di esaltare in musica l’espressione degli stati
d’animo di tensione e d’angoscia. Entrambi cercano costantemente nuovi
effetti armonici, sempre circoscritti nel tradizionale ambito diatonico.
Entrambi sono chiaramente e costantemente consapevoli del fatto che il
sistema armonico tradizionale permette a ogni minima deviazione e
variazione di spiccare e ottenere il migliore effetto mentre, come avrebbero
scoperto i compositori del Ventesimo secolo a proprie spese, l’abbandono
totale delle “regole” significa tagliarsi fuori dai tradizionali colori legati all’uso
delle tradizionali tonalità maggiori e minori, alle singole chiavi con le loro
classiche associazioni, alla modulazione che consente di passare da una chiave
all’altra e a tutti gli espedienti armonici del passato (la terza piccarda, la sesta
napoletana e molti altri). La licenza può creare libertà, ma conduce anche a
una perdita dei tradizionali punti di riferimento.
Non divaghiamo. Oltre alla loro ricerca di effetti armonici ricchi e
soddisfacenti, Mercadante e Pacini, aprono nuovi orizzonti
nell’orchestrazione. Anche qui la loro è la ricerca del diverso – l’uso di
–29–
strumenti nuovi o inconsueti, spesso in accostamenti inattesi – che in questo
caso si sposa con il piacere della scrittura virtuosistica per gli strumenti solisti,
in particolare nei preludi e negli interludi d’atmosfera. Entrambi, poi, sono
immersi in ciò che si può definire solo come una melodia italiana riccamente
lirica – una melodia che nasce in ultima analisi dai brani popolari, ma che è
stata sviluppata, ampliata e intensificata attraverso l’uso di voci forti e sonore
– ed entrambi, Mercadante soprattutto, utilizzano nelle opere della loro
maturità, il cosiddetto motivo spiegato, una ricca melodia di ampio respiro che
forma la base di tanti concertati.
Eppure, nonostante le basi comuni o le sovrapposizioni tra i due
compositori, esistono anche caratteristiche diverse e riconoscibili. Nel suo
libro sul librettista Salvatore (o Salvadore) Cammarano1, ricordando che il
testo degli Orazi e Curiazi era stato offerto inizialmente a Pacini ma era stato
musicato in maniera più appropriata da Mercadante, John Black mette
acutamente in evidenza queste differenze. “Quello degli Orazi e Curiazi era
indubbiamente un bel soggetto per un’opera […] ma era più adatto al lento
e statuario trattamento che Mercadante gli avrebbe dato […] piuttosto che a
quello più mercuriale che poteva offrire Pacini”. Infatti Mercadante è il più
solido e sostanziale dei due, mentre Pacini è sempre, insaziabilmente
propenso a virare verso cabalette suggestive perché ritmicamente convulse e
impreviste e verso cori analogamente allegri e irregolari, dal ritmo sincopato
e fragile.
_______________________________
1
John Black, The Italian Romantic Libretto: A Study of Salvadore Cammarano (Edinburgh,
1984), p. 101.
–30–
Tutto quanto è stato suggerito in questa sede sarà, ne siamo convinti,
ampiamente illustrato nell’ampio ventaglio aperto dalla musica eseguita nel
presente disco. Entrambi i compositori ci accompagnano attraverso un’intera
gamma di emozioni: amore, gioia, ansia, dolore, ribellione, odio, perplessità,
le emozioni che accompagnano il sacrificio di sé per gli altri. Mentre i brani
scelti comprendono estratti di due opere giovanili (Andronico di Mercadante
e Cesare in Egitto di Pacini), l’accento si colloca sui periodi “medi” (Il
contestabile di Chester e Il corsaro di Pacini e I Normanni a Parigi di
Mercadante) e sulle opere successive (Elena da Feltre, Leonora e Virginia di
Mercadante e Stella di Napoli e Allan Cameron di Pacini), che evidenziano le
caratteristiche di entrambi nel momento culminante dello sviluppo del loro
genio musicale.
© Jeremy Commons, 2005
–31–
Lines of text in the following items which are placed within double
quotation marks (“…..”) formed part of the libretti as originally written,
but were not set by the composers.
[1]
GIOVANNI PACINI
IL CORSARO
Melo-dramma romantico in three acts
Libretto by Jacopo Ferretti
First performance: 15 January 1831
Teatro Apollo, Rome
Corrado, leader of the corsairs….……………..........................Rosa Mariani
Medora, his slave................................................................Carolina Carobbi
Giovanni, a corsair.....................................................................Alberto Torri
Gonsalvo, a corsair........................................................Alessandro Giacchini
Seid, Pasha...............................................................................Pietro Gentili
Gulnara, his favourite............................................................Marietta Albini
Zoè, the slave of Corrado and the friend of Medora.........Giuseppina Mariani
Terzetto: ‘Che intesi! è lui che adoro’
Gulnara.....Annick Massis
Corrado.....Laura Polverelli
Seid.....Bruce Ford
–32–
SURELY, I CAN hear some readers exclaiming, you have made a mistake! Il
corsaro is an opera by Verdi! True – or true at least this latter part of the
objection. But 17 years before Verdi produced his opera in Trieste, Pacini had
composed an opera on the same subject for Rome. Not that the libretto he
set, by Jacopo Ferretti, was as true to Byron’s poem, The Corsair, as Francesco
Maria Piave’s for Verdi. It may begin in the same way, but very soon it
significantly diverges from the original story.2
Corrado is the typical Byronic hero: a man of originally noble aspirations,
who is now plunged in a brooding world-weary melancholy since, as the head
of a band of corsairs, he has allowed himself to become steeped in crime. He
conducts his operations from an island in the Aegean, where among his slaves
is the woman he passionately adores, the beautiful Medora.
His arch-enemy is the Pasha Seid, the fierce ruler of nearby Turkish
territories. Warned of an imminent Turkish attack, Corrado takes leave of
Medora and, with a select number of his followers, sails against Seid. He
disguises himself as a slave, and manages to introduce himself to Seid in the
guise of an unfortunate who has escaped the corsairs’ clutches. His pirates
___________________________________
2
This opera was made the subject of a study, ‘La musica teatrale a Roma cento anni fa (“Il
corsaro” di Pacini)’ by the Roman musicologist Alberto Cametti, published in the Annuario della
R. Accademia di S. Cecilia 1930-1931. I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Cametti’s
researches.
–33–
follow him, invading the palace and setting fire to the harem. Seid, taken by
surprise, is forced to flee, while Corrado saves the life of the favourite
concubine, Gulnara. But the pirate victory is short-lived: Seid returns with
superior forces, and takes his opponents prisoner.
Up to this point – the end of Act I – Ferretti’s libretto closely follows
Byron’s poem. In Act II, however, the ways part. First, Byron. Gulnara, who
loathes the Pascià and has fallen deeply in love with Corrado, pleads for the
latter’s life, but succeeds only in arousing Seid’s suspicions. In desperation she
visits Corrado in prison and releases him. She urges him to seek revenge by
creeping up on Seid and stabbing him, and, when the corsair refuses, does
the deed herself. She and Corrado seek safety in flight.
Corrado is at first filled with revulsion for Gulnara’s deed, but is reconciled
with her when he sees her unhappiness. He is, however, unable to banish
Medora from his thoughts, and, deserting Gulnara, returns to his island
stronghold. But it is only to discover that Medora, believing herself
abandoned, has died of grief. Giving way to desperation, Corrado retreats to
the rocky heights of the island like a madman, and is seen no more.
Ferretti, once embarked upon his ‘melo-dramma romantico’, clearly found
Byron’s plot too simplistic, and in Act II allowed his imagination to run riot.
Medora, in this operatic version, hears of Corrado’s peril, disguises herself as
–34–
Marietta Albini
The first
Gulnara
Il Corsaro
a Turkish soldier and leads the corsairs who have remained on the island in
an expedition to rescue him. Corrado – following Gulnara’s unsuccessful
attempt to plead with Seid on his behalf – is offered perpetual imprisonment
instead of death if he will reveal where he has concealed his pirate spoils. He
refuses, and is condemned to a long and painful death. This is altogether too
much for Medora, who in her disguise has managed to infiltrate the Turkish
court. Impetuously – and, one would have thought, quite pointlessly and
uselessly – she reveals her identity. A susceptible Seid promptly falls in love
with her. Without doing Corrado any good, therefore, she ends up
accomplishing nothing but her own imprisonment in the Turkish harem.
Gulnara secures Corrado’s release. He and his followers storm the palace,
intent upon Medora’s rescue, but Giovanni, the first to enter the harem, is
forced to report that Seid, rather than lose his prisoner, has slain her – only
to fall victim himself to Giovanni’s avenging sword. Corrado, in despair, tries
to commit suicide, but is prevented by Gulnara. Convinced of her love, and
disgusted with his life of violence, he relinquishes his leadership of the
corsairs, and he and Gulnara sail away together. The opera ends as the
corsairs prepare to destroy the Turkish stronghold once and for all with a
wholesale slaughter.
Unlike most of the other operas featured on this disc, Il corsaro was not a
great success at its first performance. The occasion was indeed prestigious:
–36–
the Teatro Apollo had been sumptuously restored, and this was the opening
spectacle, attended by the elite of Rome, together with Pacini’s mistress,
Giulia Samoyloff. The public, admitted to the auditorium at about 5pm,
expected the performance to start at 7.30pm, but it did not in fact get under
way until 9pm, by which time everyone had grown distinctly restive.
Applause greeted the appearance of the Principe Torlonia, the owner of the
theatre and responsible for the restoration, and that of Pacini as he took his
place in the orchestra. But these, it is recorded, were the only instances of
applause in the entire evening. The ill-humour of the audience
communicated itself to the performers, with the result that even the most
sure-fire items in the score failed to make their mark.
Pacini himself, in Le mie memorie artistiche, records that even at 9pm the
machinists had yet to mount two scenes which the scene-painter had only
just completed, and adds that the opera did not end until 2am. He admits
that on that first evening ‘I could not boast of a clamorous success’, but adds
that at subsequent performances he was able to compensate for such
initial misfortune. His final assertion is that the opera – eventually – proved
a ‘triumph’.
A 22-year-old Felix Mendelssohn, who was present at the first
performance, was both more generous and more severe in his account of the
evening. He, too, acknowledges that the Principe Torlonia and Pacini were
–37–
Rosa Mariani
The first
Corrado
Il Corsaro
greeted warmly, and he also adds that Rosa Mariani was applauded after her
cavatina. But he then goes on: ‘Then came many other pieces, and the
performance became irksome. The public found it tiresome, too, and when
[the performers] attacked Pacini’s big [first] finale, the platea rose to its feet
and began to converse in loud tones, laughing and turning its back on the
stage. Mme Samoilow [sic] fainted in her box and had to be carried out.
Pacini fled from his pianoforte, and the curtain came down at the end of the
Act in the midst of a great hubbub. Then came the gran ballo Barbe-bleu, and
then the last act of the opera. But by now the public had the bit between its
teeth: they hissed the entire ballet and accompanied the second act of the
opera in the same way with whistles and laughter. At the end they called for
Torlonia, who did not, however, appear.’ Intolerant of most of the music he
heard in Italy, Mendelssohn condemned the score as ‘miserably beneath any
criticism’.
If there is unanimous agreement both in these accounts and in the press
reviews that the first evening was a disaster, there is also considerable
agreement that the opera vindicated itself at subsequent performances.
Jacopo Ferretti, who found himself obliged to review his own work in the
Museo drammatico italiano e straniero, a volume of plays that published
theatrical reviews as an appendix, noted that ‘the music was truly written for
the occasion, since it contained no reminiscences. Taste and philosophy
guided the pen of Pacini in orchestrating it; but his melodies came all from
the heart.’
–39–
Annick Massis
The present terzetto comes in Act I when Corrado, in his disguise as a
slave, passes himself off to Seid as a victim of the corsairs. As they swear to
wreak vengeance together, Gulnara, who is also on stage, recognises Corrado
as the corsair she once saw and fell in love with.
GULNARA
(What have I heard! It is he whom I
adore.)
CORRADO
All’alba?
At dawn?
SEID
All’alba.
At dawn.
GULNARA
(Oh! affanno!)
(O torment!)
SEID
Quei vili, il lor tiranno...
Those wretches and their tyrant...
GULNARA & CORRADO
(Tiranno?)
(Tyrant?)
SEID
... io sperderò.
... I shall destroy.
Il mio rivale odiato
But I do not wish that my hated rival
Non bramo in guerra estinto.
Should perish in the fray.
GULNARA
Non infierir sul vinto.
Do not be merciless towards a
conquered man.
(Che intesi! è lui che adoro.)
–41–
Bruce Ford
SEID
I shall see him brought to tears.
Amid jeers, and in chains,
He will fall, struck down by my blows.
CORRADO
(Superbo! Iniquo! Trema.)
(Proud man! Villain! Tremble.)
GULNARA
Ah! E d’un Corsaro al pianto
Ah! I shall weep for pity
Pietosa io piangerò.
At a Corsair’s tears.
CORRADO
“Non piangerà; che il pianto
“He will not weep; for Nature
“Natura a lui negò.”
“Denied him [the use of ] tears.”
SEID
to Corrado
Meco a pugnar t’invito.
I invite you to do battle at my side.
Verrai?
Will you come?
CORRADO
Verrò.
I shall come.
SEID
Vendetta.
Revenge.
CORRADO & SEID
Alba a spuntar t’affretta,
Hasten, dawn, to break:
A trionfar men vò.
I shall go to triumph.
GULNARA
going between them
Le stragi risparmiate
Let these tears move you
Per questo pianto.
To spare your slaughter.
Piangere lo vedrò.
Fra scherni, e fra catene
Cadrà dai colpi infranto.
–43–
CORRADO & SEID
No!
No!
GULNARA
Il pianto mio mirate,
Behold my grief,
Pietà crudeli.
Have pity, cruel men.
CORRADO & SEID
No!
No!
GULNARA
Per questo pianto
Have pity, cruel men,
Pietà crudeli;
For these tears of mine;
O di dolore, oh Dio! morrò.
Or – O God! – I shall die of grief.
Ah! e d’un Corsaro al pianto
Ah! I shall weep for pity
Pietosa io piangerò.
At a Corsair’s tears.
Per me fin dalla cuna
For me, right from my cradle,
Mi ragionava il so;
You spoke for me, Fortune;
Non mi tradir fortuna,
Do not abandon me now,
O di dolor morrò.
Or I shall die of grief.
CORRADO & SEID
Non mi tradir fortuna,
Do not betray me, Fortune,
E vincitor sarò;
And I shall be the victor;
Alba a spuntar t’affretta,
Hasten, dawn, to break:
A trionfar men vò.
I shall go to triumph.
Non mi tradir fortuna,
Do not betray me, Fortune,
E vincitor sarò,
And I shall be the victor,
Io trionfar saprò.
I shall succeed in triumphing.
(The sound of a Turkish band is heard, playing dances in the adjoining salons.)
–44–
Ma qual suon d’intorno eccheggia?
Suon presago di mia gloria;
La vicina mia vittoria
Io comincio a festeggiar.
(Sogni forse!)
(Orribil festa!)
Ma per me fia suon più caro
Il lamento del Corsaro
E il suo lungo palpitar.
In campo già parmi
Sfidare il periglio –
Fra l’ire, fra l’armi
Pugnare e svenar.
Perchè così lenti
Scorrete, o momenti?
Volate, volate,
E’ morte il tardar.
Il crudo già parmi
Di sangue vermiglio
CORRADO
But what sound is this that echoes
around?
SEID
A sound that foretells my glory;
I am beginning to celebrate
My approaching victory.
CORRADO
(Empty dreams, perhaps!)
GULNARA
(Horrible celebration!)
SEID
But for me an even dearer sound will be
The Corsair’s lament
And his protracted quaking.
CORRADO & SEID
Upon the field of battle I already
Seem to brave danger –
To fight and slay
Amid fury and arms.
O moments, why do you
Pass so sluggishly?
Fly, fly,
’Tis death to delay.
GULNARA
The savage tyrant already seems to me
Amid fury and arms
–45–
Laura Polverelli
Fra l’ire, fra l’armi
Contento esultar.
Sull’ale de’ venti
Pietosi o lamenti,
Volate, volate,
Corrado a salvar.
Caro suono.
(Orribil festa!)
(Sogni forse!)
Suon di gloria.
Orror mi desta.
(Trema iniquo.)
Già sento, già parmi
Fra l’ire, fra l’armi
Gl’iniqui insultar.
Sorride al lamento
Insulta chi langue
Lo vedo esultar.
To gloat with satisfaction
At [the sight of ] crimson blood.
Upon the wings of winds
That are either compassionate or
lamenting,
Fly, fly,
To save Corrado.
SEID
Welcome sound.
GULNARA
(Horrible festivity!)
CORRADO
(Empty dreams, perhaps!)
SEID
The call of glory.
GULNARA
It fills me with horror.
CORRADO
(Tremble, villain.)
SEID
Already I feel, already it seems
That amid passion and arms
I subject the wretches to my insults.
GULNARA
He curls his lip at those who lament,
He offers his insults to those who
languish,
I see him exulting.
–47–
Morire già parmi
Di lungo tormento.
Ah! venga il momento
Che scorri quel sangue,
E pallido, esangue
Lo vegga spirar.
Il crudo già parmi
etc.
In campo già parmi
etc.
CORRADO
Already I seem to see him dying
In protracted torment.
Ah! let the moment come
That that blood is set running,
And I see him expiring,
Pale and bloodless.
GULNARA
The savage tyrant already seems to me
etc.
CORRADO & SEID
Upon the field of battle I already seem
etc.
For an opera dating from as late as this in Pacini’s earlier period, we must
admit that Il corsaro contains at least one unexpectedly retrospective feature.
1831 seems a disconcertingly late date to find a pirate-hero scored for a
mezzo-soprano in breeches rather than for a tenor, and an anti-hero – Seid –
for a tenor rather than for a bass. With a hero acted by a woman, and his
lady-love spending at least part of the opera disguised as a man, travestimento
in this opera would seem to have got a little out of hand! In Pacini’s defence,
let us suggest that his allocation of voices would almost certainly have been
dictated by the company engaged at the Teatro Apollo, not by his own
personal preferences and inclinations.
–48–
As with other Pacini pieces heard on this disc, our appreciation of the
music will depend at least in part upon our recognition of the ideas and
solutions that as composer he has brought to the various challenges posed by
the construction of such an item. At first glance it may seem a conventionalenough terzetto: an introductory andante mosso very soon leads into a central
section (‘E d’un Corsaro al pianto’: still andante mosso but rallentando un
poco). The sound of the off-stage band then triggers off a tempo di mezzo
which in turn leads into a final allegro con brio (‘In campo già parmi’: allegro
con brio but un poco meno mosso). But it is what happens within the major
movements that we should be aware of.
The central section is very much a suave and flowing solo for Gulnara, her
melody generally doubled in the orchestra, with the other two characters
restricted to pertichini or contributory phrases. We may also note a very
lovely and unexpected change of key at ‘Le stragi risparmiate’; and – a feature
that is even more unusual – an ending to the movement that is not a perfect
cadence in its own key (A flat major), but a modulation into that of the
following tempo di mezzo (C major). The final movement is perhaps even
more remarkable – even more disconcerting. It takes the form of a canon, a
form more generally reserved for slow-movement ensembles, the voices
entering in the sequence Seid, Corrado and Gulnara, then joining together
before a final coda. But the most bewildering feature of all is the melody itself
– deliciously and irresistibly bouncy and attractive – the very stuff of opera
–49–
buffa rather than of melo-dramma romantico. The day of serious melodrama
is not entirely lost – each entry has the saving grace of an effective rallentando
passage in the middle – but it is as if, in this tale of internecine conflict
between pirates and Turks in a war-ravaged Aegean, Pacini is suddenly
thumbing the nose at serious opera and mischievously taking off into the
world of French opéra-comique: the toy-soldier world of La fille du régiment.
Should we protest? Let us enjoy his lèse-majesté with him, and leave the
heavy-handed criticism to Felix Mendelssohn!
–50–
Majella Cullagh
[2]
SAVERIO MERCADANTE
ELENA DA FELTRE
Dramma tragico in three acts
Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano
First performance: 1 January 1839
Teatro San Carlo, Naples
Boemondo, the representative of Eccelino III.............................Teofilo Rossi
Imberga, his daughter.........................................................Emilia Gandaglia
Elena, a young widow........................................Giuseppina Ronzi De Begnis
Sigifredo, her father..................................................................Pietro Gianni
Guido...................................................................................Paolo Barroilhet
Ubaldo................................................................................Adolphe Nourrit
Gualtiero.........................................................................Giuseppe Benedetti
Aria: ‘Parmi che alfin dimentica’
Elena.....Majella Cullagh
Geoffrey Mitchell Chorus
THE PRESENT item, the autograph of which is in the collection of Opera
Rara, was composed as an alternative to Elena’s Act I cavatina, ‘Ah! sì, del
tenero amor mio’, but its history beyond this point is slender and uncertain.
–52–
It is believed to have been composed for Luigia Boccabadati, who sang the
part of Elena, apparently sharing it with Giuseppina Ronzi De Begnis, in a
production in Vicenza at the end of July 1839. The date of this production,
only seven months after the premiere in Naples, at a time when the opera
would have been fresh in Mercadante’s mind, would make it appear a most
probable occasion for the composition of this extra aria.
But its history does not end there. In the carnival of 1840, the mezzosoprano Luigia Abbadia – a high mezzo who could also perform music
written for sopranos – was cast as Cuniza in a production of Verdi’s Oberto
conte di San Bonifacio in Turin. The original interpreter of this mezzosoprano role had been a comparatively inexperienced English singer, Mary
Shaw, who, in view of her limited abilities, had been granted no cavatina. A
singer of the calibre of Luigia Abbadia, on the other hand, could not be
expected to brook such an embargo. She insisted on making her appearance
with a suitable aria, and ‘Parmi che alfin dimentica’, even though the work of
another composer, was adapted and introduced for the purpose.
Elena da Feltre is an opera in which the unfortunate heroine ‘is betrayed,
duped and double-crossed by all around her’3. We are in the year 1250.
Feltre, a small Guelph town in the north of Italy, has been taken over by the
_______________________________
3
Tom Kaufman in the booklet accompanying the Marco Polo recording of the 1997 Wexford
Festival production of the opera.
–53–
Ghibellines under Ezzelino da Romano and his representative or lieutenant
Boemondo. Boemondo has a daughter, Imberga, whom he is anxious to
marry to Guido, one of the leading citizens of Feltre. Unfortunately Guido
finds Imberga thoroughly antipathetic, since he is already in love with Elena
degli Uberti, the ‘Elena da Feltre’ of the title. What he does not know is that
Elena has two suitors, the other being his best friend, Ubaldo. Ubaldo is at
first similarly unaware that he has a rival in Guido, but when he discovers the
truth, and realises that Elena prefers his friend, his intentions turn sinister
and he determines to abduct her. There is, therefore, fertile ground for
betrayal and all the dark passions of Italian romantic opera, especially when
we discover that Elena’s father, Sigifredo, is a fugitive vindictively pursued by
Ezzelino and Boemondo.
The opera may open in hope and optimism, with Elena believing that her
father has eluded his persecutors and that she herself is about to marry her
beloved Guido, but all rapidly takes a turn for the worse. Elena and Sigifredo
are no sooner reunited than Ubaldo, coming to carry out the planned
abduction, discovers and arrests Sigifredo. In a desperate attempt to save her
father, Elena sacrifices her own happiness by succumbing to Ubaldo’s
blackmail and agreeing to marry him – so leaving Guido, on the rebound,
free and now willing, in a mood of masochistic revenge, to wed Imberga. An
exultant Ubaldo, believing that Elena is at last his, goes to free Sigifredo, only
to discover that Ezzelino and Boemondo have already put him to death.
–54–
When Elena discovers that her sacrifice has been for nothing, it is already too
late for her to recover the situation – the music celebrating the marriage of
Guido and Imberga is already to be heard. Deprived of both father and lover,
she collapses and expires from grief, leaving Ubaldo to rue his treachery and
its disastrous consequences.
Elena’s cavatina occurs near the beginning of the opera, in the second scene
of Act I:
ELENA
Del tremendo Ezzelin, di Boemondo
My father has escaped the wrath
Qui suo ministro, né di lui men crudo,
Of terrible Ezzelino, and of Boemondo,
All’ire il padre s’involò!... Belluno
His no less cruel minister here!...
Belluno
Ricovera e difesa entro sue mura
Guarantees him in his flight
Al fuggente assecura.
Shelter and protection within its walls.
Lieta son io, più lieta
I am joyful, and more joyful still
Il sol cadente mi vedrà domani!
The setting sun will see me tomorrow!
Voti che amor formò, che benedisse
Vows that have been shaped by love,
Il consenso paterno,
And which my father’s consent has
blessed,
Benedirà domani anche l’Eterno!
Will be blessed tomorrow by God, too!
Parmi che alfin dimentica
L’alma de’ suoi martir,
It seems to me that at last my soul,
Forgetful of its sufferings,
–55–
Riveda un sol più limpido,
Aura più dolce spiri,
E tutto senta il giubilo
A noi promesso in Ciel.
T’affretta o giorno e stringere
Io possa il mio fedel.
May see a gentler sun –
May breathe a milder air –
And may feel all the joy
That is promised to us in Heaven.
Hasten the coming day, that I may
Embrace my constant lover!
Guido, ah, vieni!
Vieni, t’affretta!
Guido, ah, come!
Come, make haste!
Da tanta gioia assorta,
It seems that my heart, rapt by so much
joy,
Escapes my control:
It flies in ecstasy
Into the bosom of love.
Ah! there where every blessing,
Every hope invites it,
Guido holds my life in his hands,
And a life of love it will be.
Guido, hasten,
Ah! come to me –
It seems that my heart, rapt by so much
joy,
etc.
Par che mi fugga il core:
Ei vola nel trasporto
In seno dell’amor.
Ah! dove ogni ben l’invita,
Dove ogni speme,
Egli ha seco la mia vita,
Vita d’amor sarà.
Guido t’affretta
Deh! a me vieni.
Da tanta gioia assorta,
etc.
–56–
One of the most striking surprises of this item comes right at the very
beginning, for the opulently beautiful orchestral phrase that opens it will
already be familiar to listeners to Opera Rara recordings: it is taken over – and
developed at greater length – from the score of Emma d’Antiochia (Venice,
1834), where it introduced the Act I cavatina of the tenor Ruggiero4.
A short recitative (including an arioso of only two bars’ duration) leads into
a suavely elegant cavatina, after which a brief tempo di mezzo ushers in a
sparkling and eagerly happy cabaletta. One unexpected feature is that the
attractive orchestral introduction to this cabaletta – the introductory ritornello
– does not announce the melody of the cabaletta itself, but is recognisably
distinct. It is as if the ritornello from one cabaletta has been used to introduce
another, adding to one’s suspicion, planted from the beginning by the re-use
of the orchestral melody from Emma d’Antiochia, that this item may be a
patchwork – a very effective patchwork – of elements drawn from several
sources.
___________________________________
4
We recommend the listener to listen to track 13 of the first disc of Emma d’Antiochia (ORC26)
–57–
Eugenia Tadolini
The first
Stella
Stella di Napoli
[3]
GIOVANNI PACINI
STELLA DI NAPOLI
Dramma lirico in three parts
Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano
First performance: 11 December 1845
Teatro San Carlo, Naples
Gianni da Capua.......................................................................Filippo Coletti
Stella, his daughter.................................................................Eugenia Tadolini
Olimpia D’Acri..........................................................................Eloisa Buccini
Il Generale d’Aubigni....................................................................Marco Arati
Armando, his nephew..........................................................Gaetano Fraschini
Marta..........................................................................................Anna Salvetti
Alberto..............................................................................Giuseppe Benedetti
Clodoveo.....................................................................................Teofilo Rossi
Terzetto: ‘Addio!... la tua memoria’
Stella.....Majella Cullagh
Olimpia.....Laura Polverelli
Armando.....Bruce Ford
–59–
STELLA DI NAPOLI was one of a number of operas from Pacini’s later
career which enjoyed initial success only to drop out of the repertoire. Tom
Kaufman5 lists 13 productions subsequent to the premiere, two of them
abroad, one in Greece (Corfu) and one in Malta. The last took place in
Bergamo in 1860.
We know that the opera was written in haste, for as late as 5 September
1845 Pacini was in correspondence with his librettist Cammarano, expecting
to set Orazi e Curiazi for performance early in December, even though his
creative imagination had not been awakened by the subject. At this date
Cammarano offered to substitute Stella di Napoli, a story for which the
composer had already expressed a preference, and it seems that the offer was
no sooner made than accepted. On 25 September the impresario of the
Teatro San Carlo wrote to the Superintendent of Theatres seeking permission
for the change… on 6 November the libretto was ready for submission to the
censors… and the opera was actually composed, copied, rehearsed and ready
for performance on 11 December. Orazi e Curiazi, meanwhile, passed to
Mercadante, who achieved one of his most momentous successes with it
when it was produced on 10 November 1846. John Black’s perceptive
comment, in The Italian Romantic Libretto: A Study of Salvadore Cammarano
(1984), is worthy of note: ‘Orazi e Curiazi was undoubtedly a fine subject for
__________________________________
5
Verdi and his Major Contemporaries: A Selected Chronology of Performances with Casts (New York
& London, 1990), pp. 142-143.
–60–
an opera, and it had often been used before, but it suited the slow-moving,
statuesque treatment that Mercadante was to bring to it […] rather than the
more quicksilver treatment Pacini could offer.’
Its hasty composition notwithstanding, Stella di Napoli met with very real
success in its initial season. If Vincenzo Torelli, owner and editor of the
Neapolitan journal L’Omnibus, was a little hesitant to pass definitive
judgement after the first performance, and found some few items unworthy
of the remainder, his approval – indeed his enthusiasm – found full
expression after the second and third performances: ‘We are now, without
fail, in a position formally to say that this Stella will take its place among the
first musical compositions of the age. Nothing is ugly; and that little which
was mediocre (which we have already announced) has been excised or
corrected: much is beautiful, and even more sublime. And for all that the
demands of the day are great, […] it is impossible that [this opera] should
not reap the reward of its merit: that is to say, prompt and general celebrity.’
Like Mercadante’s I Normanni a Parigi, discussed elsewhere in this booklet,
Stella di Napoli poses the listener with the problem of having to assimilate a
copious pre-action before ever the action presented on the stage can begin to
make sense. Indeed John Black describes it as ‘one of Cammarano’s most
confused and confusing texts’, and points out that, whereas the librettist on
all other occasions ensured that his libretti should be eminently
–61–
Gaetano Fraschini
The first
Armando
Stella di Napoli
comprehensible as the action unfolds before us upon the stage, here for the
only time in his career he felt obliged to preface his published text with a long
argomento outlining the background to the plot.
We are in Reggio Calabria in the year 1495, at a time when the kingdom
of Naples was a bone of contention between Aragon and France. A successful
invasion on the part of Charles VIII of France has forced the legitimate king,
Ferrante II of Aragon, to seek asylum in Sicily, leaving his barons fugitive and
in disarray. One of the most faithful, Gianni da Capua, has disguised himself
in humble clothing, and, to infiltrate the French ranks, has enlisted in the
Swiss guards who form part of the garrison in Reggio Calabria commanded
by Generale d’Aubigny (d’Aubigni in the opera), one of Charles VIII’s
generals. Meanwhile his daughter Stella, also a fugitive, has assumed peasant
attire and lives in obscurity in the countryside outside Reggio. To her
misfortune, she catches the eye of a young French nobleman who comes
hunting in the district. They fall in love – without, it seems, his revealing his
identity to her, or she hers to him – and without his having any intention of
fulfilling his promises to her. He is, as we eventually learn, Armando, the
nephew of Generale d’Aubigni, and he soon disappears, returning to his true
love, Olimpia d’Acri, a member of the court of Ferrante. The imminent
marriage of Armando and Olimpia, crossing over political divisions, is –
presumably – regarded as a way of healing the divisions in the kingdom.
Stella is left hoping for his promised return, but increasingly distressed at his
failure to reappear.
–63–
In addition to these events, we must also be aware that Gianni da Capua
has been holding meetings of Ferrante’s secret adherents, who have made
themselves part of a league or coalition against Charles VIII’s continuing
presence in Naples. These meetings take place in the house of a gypsy, Marta,
who meagrely supports herself by telling fortunes – an occupation severely
condemned by the government of the time.
The action of the opera opens at just such a meeting, to which Gianni
brings news that Charles, learning of the strength of the league organised
against him, has been obliged to return to France. Before dispersing, all the
conspirators swear their allegiance to Ferrante. No sooner have they gone
than Stella appears, come to discover through Marta’s necromantic arts the
whereabouts of her erstwhile lover. In the midst of the consultation that
follows, the house is invaded by French soldiers and both women
apprehended.
Gianni, though unaware of his daughter’s peril, hears of Marta’s arrest, and
uses his influence within the French ranks to engage Olimpia to urge her
fiancé to secure her release. Olimpia obliges, and Armando visits the prison,
giving both women the opportunity to escape the pyre to which they have
been condemned. But before Stella can be convinced to take advantage of the
flight offered her, Armando has to lie to her, telling her that he still loves her
and has no other attachment. When in Part II, therefore, she actually sees
–64–
him on his way to his marriage with Olimpia, she intervenes to try to stop
the ceremony. Rearrested, she is about to be dragged back to prison – and
death – when Gianni steps forward to defend her. The only result of his
gesture, however, is that his true identity is revealed. Both father and
daughter are about to be incarcerated when a clash of arms announces the
approach of Ferrante’s forces, and the act closes in typical operatic confusion.
In Part III the tables have been turned, and it is now Armando’s turn to
languish in prison. In a gesture of supreme generosity and self-sacrifice,
Stella, who, we are asked to believe, is dying of grief, brings Olimpia to the
prison, and sets the lovers free, directing them to a vessel she has engaged to
carry them to safety. As they are seen sailing away in the distance, Stella dies
in her father’s arms.
Disconcertingly enough, one of the items which Vincenzo Torelli, after the
first performance, singled out in L’Omnibus for particular condemnation
rather than commendation, was the very terzetto which we have recorded
here. Indeed it is with some relish that we pose the listener with a challenge
to listen and exercise his or her own judgement. After declaring ‘somewhat
long the terzetto when Stella, accompanied by Olimpia, goes to liberate
Armando’, Torelli continued: ‘And in truth – may the admired composer
forgive us – this was not the moment for an extremely broad and endless
largo, and for beautiful and generously distributed harmonies. The passions
–65–
of the three characters required force, warmth and a spontaneous and
impassioned motif. This piece proved “the poison” of the opera, and may
God will it that Pacini’s guardian angel speak to him, [urging him to] cut or
amend this great evil.’ It is only fair to add that in his second notice,
published after the second and third performances, Torelli was quick to
acknowledge that Pacini, while removing several other offending passages
from the score, had shortened this terzetto. Although we have not been able
to compare the published score with the original manuscript, we suspect that
it is in this abbreviated form that we present it here.
Stella, soon to die, has brought Olimpia, disguised as a man-at-arms, to
Armando’s prison, with the intention that the two lovers should escape
together.
The military prison in the Castle of Reggio.
Stella approaches the man-at-arms, and raises his visor.
OLIMPIA
Armando!
ARMANDO
Armando!...
Dessa!... Olimpia!
Ah! tu non sei mortale!
Olimpia!... You!
falling at Stella’s feet
Ah! you are not of mortal clay!
–66–
OLIMPIA
Ah! for me this noble soul
Has been no rival, but a sister!
STELLA
raising Armando
Fuggite omai...
Now fly...
OLIMPIA
Sì... vadasi...
Yes... let us be gone...
ARMANDO
to Stella
Oh! come tremi!
Oh! how you are trembling!
STELLA
Tremo?...
Trembling?....
E’ ver: di qualche ostacolo
Yes, it is true: I am afraid of some
obstacle
Al fuggir vostro io temo!...
To your flight!...
Pur... l’ora è queta... oscuro
Yet... the hour is quiet... a dark veil
Covre la notte un vel...
Of cloud obscures the night...
(Armando appears hesitant.)
Or va… Te ne scongiuro...
Now go... I beseech you...
Per lei! per lei! ten va.
For her! for her! go.
OLIMPIA
Ah! per me quest’alma nobile
Ah! for me this noble soul
Fu suora, e non rivale!
Has been no rival, but a sister!
Ah! per me quest’alma nobile
Fu suora, e non rivale!
–67–
Ma tu non sei mortale!
Spirto tu sei del ciel!
Va... fuggi!
Spirto tu sei del Ciel!
ARMANDO
But you are not of mortal clay!
You are an angel from heaven!
STELLA
Go... fly!
OLIMPIA & ARMANDO
You are an angel from Heaven!
(Stella pushes Olimpia and Armando towards the exit, where the guard is waiting for
them. They fall at her feet and embrace her knees.)
OLIMPIA & ARMANDO
Farewell!... I shall keep your memory
In my soul for ever!...
STELLA
Addio!... Per voi sorridano
Farewell!... May days of peace and love
Giorni di pace e amore!...
Smile upon you!..
OLIMPIA
O Stella, queste lagrime
O Stella, these tears
Linguaggio son del cor!...
Spring like words from my heart!...
ARMANDO
Addio!... L’error dimentica,
Farewell!... Forget my error,
Il mio funesto errore!...
My disastrous error!...
Sol rammentarlo e piangere
This wicked heart of mine
Deve quest’empio cor!
Alone must remember it and bewail it!
Addio!... La tua memoria
Avrò nell’alma ognor!...
–68–
Majella Cullagh
(Ah, non credè sì barbaro
Questo momento il cor!...)
Ah, per voi risplendano
Giorni d’amor!
Addio!
STELLA
(Ah, my heart did not credit
That this moment would be so cruel!...)
Ah, may days of love
Shine upon you!
ALL THREE
Farewell!
(Olimpia and Armando, followed by the guard, escape by the secret door; Stella collapses
upon a stool.)
The most fascinating aspect of this terzetto is the manner in which Pacini
has constructed it. Composing in 1845, he has moved far away from the
older convention of introducing successive voices in canon, and is clearly
looking for new constructional ideas, new ways of bringing his voices
together, and new effects in the manner in which he accompanies them. The
introductory allegro agitato need not detain us long: it conveys all the heartin-mouth excitement of the situation, relaxing its onward movement only
momentarily when Stella refers to the tranquillity and darkness of the night.
It is the succeeding larghetto which is the remarkable section here. It is, in the
first place, constructed over an obbligato line for clarinet which we can
describe only as extreme bravura writing. But this is not the only element of
floridity. Stella’s line is also richly decorated, so that soprano voice and
clarinet appear to be weaving intricate webs of embroidery together, while
–70–
the other two voices join in simpler, more homophonic phrases. Only
halfway through does the introduction of a harp, supplying a more regularly
flowing Alberti accompaniment, allow the voices, particularly the tenor, to
lead us into more generous spiegato writing.
[4]
SAVERIO MERCADANTE
I NORMANNI A PARIGI
Tragedia lirica in four acts
Libretto by Felice Romani
First performance: 7[?] February 1832
Teatro Regio, Turin
Odone, Count of Paris.............................................Giovanni Battista Verger
Berta, the widow of Carlomano, King of France........................Adelaide Tosi
Osvino, a young French knight…….........…..….....Amalia Brambilla-Verger
Ordamante (Roberto di Poitiers), condottiere of
the Normans besieging Paris..................................……Orazio6 Cartagenova
Tebaldo, a French prince………..………........………..Giuseppe Visanetti
Ebbone, a French knight................................................Vincenzo Lucantoni
___________________________________
6
The first libretto mistakenly gives his name as Giovanni
–71–
Giovanni
Batista Verger
The first Odone
I Normanni a Parigi
Terzetto: ‘Che tento? che spero?’
Berta.....Annick Massis
Osvino.....Laura Polverelli
Odone.....Kenneth Tarver
ALTHOUGH ALL authorities give 7 February 1832 as the date of the
premiere of this work, we feel bound to query this, for it had already been
reviewed in the Gazzetta Piemontese on Saturday 4 February. Unfortunately
the review does not give any date for the first performance.
The libretto was the work of Felice Romani, who seems to have been
immersed at this time in plays dealing with early mediaeval French history,
since its production preceded by six weeks the premiere of a very similar
work, Donizetti’s Ugo conte di Parigi (La Scala, Milan, 13 March 1832), of
which he had also written the words. Both works are chivalric in tone, and
both have extremely involved plots. That of I Normanni a Parigi is further
complicated by an enormous pre-action, which runs somewhat as follows:
Berta, the daughter of Egmonte, Count of Tours, was, years ago in her
youth, betrothed to Carlomano (Charlemagne), the King of France. Before
any wedding could take place, however, she secretly married a French knight,
Roberto di Poitiers, and bore him a son, Osvino, whom she brought up so
hidden away from the world that even he has remained ignorant of his true
–73–
Amalia
Brambilla Verger
The first Osvino
I Normanni a Parigi
identity. These events could not, however, be concealed from her father, the
Count of Tours, who in his wrath contrived to have Roberto assassinated and
Osvino kidnapped; concurrently he also set about forcing Berta to go
through with her marriage to Charlemagne. He offered to restore Osvino to
her, but only provided she swore never to reveal to him the secret of his birth
(an oath she breaks only at the very end of the opera). Given to believe that
Roberto was no longer alive, she eventually capitulated and became Queen
of France.
Roberto, however, had escaped the daggers of his would-be assassins, and,
hearing of Berta’s marriage and believing her as guilty as her father of
betraying him, he took refuge with the Normans, at that time the terror of
Europe. Making himself their chief and assuming the name of Ordamante,
he turned traitor to France and laid siege to Paris.
Carlomano, meanwhile, has died, leaving Berta and an infant son by the
name of Terigi under the protection of Odone, Count of Paris. Odone is an
honest man, and with his two friends, Osvino, by this time grown to
manhood and widely respected as a valiant warrior, and Ebbone, a rather
more elderly French knight, is striving to preserve and guide the kingdom.
But the situation within Paris is anything but a happy one, since a minor
princeling, Tebaldo, ambitious to make himself king, is plotting to make his
way to the throne by murdering Terigi, Odone and all the Queen’s closest
–75–
adherents. Ordamante-Roberto, it should be added, has at some point
managed to penetrate the city in disguise, and has discovered that Osvino is
his son. And Berta has also become aware that Roberto is still alive…
All this action, we must emphasise, has transpired before the curtain ever
rises, and our account, already long enough, would stretch to several more
pages if we were to detail all the action of the four acts. Suffice it to say that
in the end the Normans are routed and Paris relieved. Not, however, before
the traitor Tebaldo has succeeded in murdering Terigi and, in the final battle,
treacherously and mortally wounding Osvino. Osvino has discovered, much
earlier, that Ordamante is his father, but it is only as he dies that he learns
that Berta is his mother. At the final curtain Berta is left to lament his
untimely death, and Ordamante-Roberto to expiate his desertion of France
in a life of exile and penance.
The terzetto which is recorded here forms part of the Finale of Act III, and
comes at a point when Tebaldo has accused Osvino of dereliction of duty,
since, appointed to guard the palace and the infant Terigi, his attention had
been distracted by a meeting with Ordamante, and in that very moment the
murder of Terigi had taken place. Berta suddenly appears in the midst of the
Council of Knights and does her best to defend him, suggesting (in a passage
which comes after the present extract) that his guilt may be more apparent
than real. When this plea fails, she is about to deal her final card and reveal
–76–
Annick Massis
that he is her son – but before she can do so, news is brought that Paris is
filled with Norman troops. The immediate situation is promptly forgotten as
all race to do battle with the invaders.
The really intriguing thing about this terzetto is that in the libretto the
lines are given only to Berta – and, we may add, make sense only upon her
lips, not upon those of Osvino and Odone, who are in no position to be able
to reveal the ‘orrendo mistero’ which is referred to. It was Mercadante,
apparently, who decided to let his musical interests take precedence over
convincing and naturalistic drama by turning what should have been a solo
passage for Berta into an ensemble for three characters:
BERTA
clutching – in the greatest agitation – the sentence which Tebaldo has handed her
Che tento? che spero?
What am I attempting? what hoping?
Che penso? che faccio?
What thinking? what doing?
L’orrendo mistero
Should I reveal the frightful mystery
Paleso, o lo taccio?
Or should I suppress all mention of it?
Pietade, dolore,
Compassion, grief,
Rimorso, rossore
Remorse and shame
A gara mi straziano,
Contend in tearing me apart
Mi fanno morir.
And making me [feel I could] die.
[The same words, less appropriately, are repeated by Osvino and Odone.]
–78–
Laura Polverelli
This terzetto was one of a number of pieces which came in for particular
praise in the review published in the Gazzetta Piemontese on 4 February
1832, but in this instance praise which eschewed all attempt at specifics,
describing it, with unintentionally comic tautology, as ‘music of which it is
no more easy to admire the beauties than it is to enumerate them’.
The same review commended Felice Romani, among other things, for ‘the
passions which he has forcefully and truthfully expressed, … for the elevation
of his thoughts, [and] for his dramatic style…’ But it was Mercadante who
received the greatest praise – praise even at the expense of Rossini:
Coming to the merit of the musical composition, its style is purged
and sublime, [and] its ideas expounded at length. Excellent [is] the
way the music is conducted; the musical inspirations [are] now grave,
now tender and now strong, every one of them carrying the imprint
of the sense of the words, and of the character of the action. In all this
Mercadante shares his reputation for excellence with the best among
the modern composers; but he excels all, not excepting even the
Pesarese, in his instrumentation. Both of them have recognised the
importance of this, [and] both bring studied work to it, but with this
difference: that Rossini with his crescendi, his forti and his fortissimi
wins himself a glory which lasts as long as the noisy uproar which
results, and which shows no mercy for the singers; while Mercadante
–80–
Kenneth Tarver
with his smorzandi, his piani and his pianissimi aims at more lasting
praise: that of allowing the voices of the performers to shine without
extraordinary forcing, and of leaving in the ears and even more in the
hearts of the listeners a suave, not ephemeral, and most pleasing
memory, [first] of the wisely calculated force of the passages for full
orchestra, and [second] of the sound combinations [armonia] that are
to be found in every piece on account of the great mastery and wise
economy with which he uses now these and now those instruments.
In listening to this terzetto, we must bear in mind that it is but a single
movement extracted from a much longer multi-movement finale. The
opening orchestral passage, in particular, was designed not as an introductory
ritornello but as a transitional progression of chords from what has gone
before. In form, the item is simple: a canon in which the voices enter in the
order Berta, Osvino and Odone, and then join in a coda. And such a form is
eminently suited to the dramatic situation, for we are in a moment of
complete stasis: the action is suspended; the clock is stopped; as in turn each
of the characters looks into his or her innermost thoughts and gives
expression to the doubts, hesitations and perplexities to be found there. The
simplicity of form is, fortunately, matched by beauty of music, for each voice
enters to a gently falling and ravishing chromatic line inspired by the closest
attention to both the sound and the sense of the words. The score is liberally
–82–
peppered with ‘pp’ markings; indeed, only for a single phrase towards the end
of the coda are they allowed to rise to a momentary forte.
[5]
GIOVANNI PACINI
IL CONTESTABILE DI CHESTER, ovvero I FIDANZATI
Melo-dramma romantico in three parts
Libretto by Domenico Gilardoni
First performance: 23 November 1829
Teatro San Carlo, Naples
Ugo di Lacy.............................................................................Luigi Lablache
Damiano di Lacy.......................................................................Adelaide Tosi
Evelina Berengaria............................................................Luigia Boccabadati
Armando.........................................................................Giovanni Arrigotti7
Adele.......................................................................................Virginia Eden
Venoino..........................................................................Gennaro Ambrosini
Rodolfo..............................................................................Gaetano Chizzola
Terzetto: ‘Ah! partir il voto o ciel... Deh rammentate almeno’
Ugo di Lacy.....Alan Opie
Damiano di Lacy.....Majella Cullagh
Evelina.....Annick Massis
___________________________________
7
Or perhaps Gaetano Arrigotti. Both names are found.
–83–
Luigia Boccabadati
The first
Evelina Berengaria
Il contestabile
di Chester
PACINI’S CAREER was well under way by the time he came to write
Il contestabile di Chester in Naples in 1829. It was intended for a gala
celebration of the name day on 19 November of Queen Maria Isabella, the
generously proportioned Spanish second wife of Francesco I, but when the
time came nearly every member of the cast was afflicted with a cold, and
Adelaide Tosi was voiceless. Although her colleagues could have struggled
through, it was decided, in view of the seriousness of her indisposition, to
postpone the premiere. Queen Maria Isabella’s name day was celebrated,
instead, with a performance of Rossini’s La donna del lago.
Such a change of plan militated, in fact, to Pacini’s advantage. Had the new
opera been performed as intended, court etiquette would have dictated a
subdued reception, for no one was permitted to applaud at royal galas unless
the King himself gave the signal. Performed as it was, four nights later, it was
subject to no such restrictions, and was received with tumultuous applause.
No fewer than six items became established favourites, including the present
terzetto, and a duettino, ‘Là sotto il salice’, which Opera Rara has already
featured in A Hundred Years of Italian Opera, 1820-1830 (ORCH 104).
Not, it must be admitted, that the original reviews were free from
criticisms and reservations. The vocal distribution, in particular, struck the
critics as bordering on the eccentric. There was, in the first place, no role for
a principal tenor: Giovanni (or Gaetano) Arrigotti, the one tenor in the cast,
–85–
sang only the comprimario role of Armando, an elderly confidant of the
heroine Evelina. It may have been common enough practice, too, to put a
musico (a mezzo-soprano or contralto in a breeches role) into an opera, but a
soprano? And, what was more, Adelaide Tosi, one of the most celebrated
sopranos of the time? But perhaps Pacini knew very well what he was doing,
for he was taking advantage of a much-publicised rivalry of the day – between
Adelaide Tosi and Luigia Boccabadati – by casting them together in the same
opera, and bringing them together as a pair of young lovers whose voices
would blend in music of sometimes melancholy and ravishing tenderness.
Singing with them, moreover, he had a performer who was a tower of strength
in any opera in which he accepted a part: the celebrated bass, Luigi Lablache.
There is no denying that the vocal distribution – two sopranos and a bass –
was unusual, but it was one that assured the composer of three performers of
exceptional merit – three performers who could be guaranteed to draw the
public’s attention and enthusiastic applause.
The text he was setting was also of great interest, for Domenico Gilardoni
had based his libretto upon The Betrothed, a novel by Sir Walter Scott, one of
the most widely read and popular literary figures of the age – ‘the Ariosto of
the North’, as Gilardoni dubbed him in a prefatory note. Since it was,
moreover, a plot which took place in early medieval days in the borderlands
between England and Wales, a time and a region remote from Italian
experience and therefore redolent with connotations of atmosphere and mood,
–86–
it enabled him to prompt his composer to frequent touches of romantic
colouring…
The action begins in the year 1187. Raimondo Berengaria, a Norman
baron entrusted with keeping the peace in the war-torn Welsh marches, has
been killed in a skirmish, leaving his young daughter, Evelina, besieged by
Welsh clansmen in her Castle of the Mountain.
Part I (‘The Departure of the Constable’) shows the unexpected arrival
within the castle of Damiano di Lacy, a young knight who, under cover of
darkness, has slipped through the Welsh ranks to reassure the garrison that
help is on its way. His father, Ugo di Lacy, the Constable of Chester, is
leading his troops to relieve the castle. Damiano and Evelina are in love, but
when Ugo makes his appearance, having routed the Welsh and put them to
flight, he informs Evelina that it was her father’s dying wish that she should
marry him – Ugo – since he was her father’s closest friend and ally. Evelina is
dismayed, but feels unable to disobey the dying wishes of a parent. But in the
very moment that the marriage is about to take place, word comes from the
King, calling upon Ugo to depart forthwith for the Holy Lands in accordance
with a vow he had taken to participate in the Crusades. A disappointed Ugo
exacts a solemn promise from Evelina that she will remain faithful to him and
await his return, then entrusts her to the care of Damiano.
–87–
In Part II (‘The Absence of the Constable’), we see Evelina’s sufferings in
the time that Ugo is away. In the course of a hunting expedition, she is seized
by the Welsh – but rescued by Damiano. Inevitably they find themselves
confessing their love for each other, yet declaring that, in this life at least, they
must be true to their commitments to their respective parents and remain
apart.
Part III (‘The Return of the Constable’) sees the resolution of the situation.
Ugo, after suffering many disasters in the Holy Lands, returns in the garb of
a hermit. He has heard reports of his betrayal by Evelina and Damiano, but
is soon convinced by his son’s frank avowal of the truth. He summons Evelina
to accompany him to church, which she tremblingly does, believing that this
is the moment in which she must fulfil her vow to marry him. But age
generously bows before youth: Ugo places her hand in that of Damiano, and
gives them his blessing.
The terzetto which is recorded here occurs at the end of Part I, and marks
Ugo’s leave-taking as he prepares to leave for the Crusades. It begins with his
surprise and dismay as he opens a scroll he has received from the King, and
reads that he is ordered to leave forthwith:
–88–
Patric Schmid, David Parry
and Alan Opie
UGO
emphatically, after he has read the parchment he has received from the King
(Ah!... Partir!... Il voto!... Oh Ciel!...)
(Ah!... To leave!... My vow!... Oh
Heavens!...)
DAMIANO
(Si rattrista!)
(He is overcome by sadness!)
UGO
looking at Evelina and Damiano
(Oh pena ria!)
(Oh cruel suffering!)
EVELINA
Deh Signor...
Ah! my Lord...
DAMIANO
Padre, che fia?...
Father, what is it?...
UGO
Ah! vi deggio abbandonar!
Ah! I must leave you!
EVELINA & DAMIANO
together
E mi puoi così lasciar?
And can you quit me thus?
UGO
Ver la terra del deserto,
A holy vow, that I made
Peregrin guerrier devoto,
Upon the altar, summons me,
Mi richiama un santo voto
A devoted pilgrim-warrior,
Profferito su l’altar!
To the land of the desert.
EVELINA
E potrai?
And can you [so easily tear yourself
away]?
–90–
UGO
Partir degg’io...
I must go...
to his squire, Rodolfo
Tutto olà si appresti al campo.
Let all be made ready in the camp.
(Rodolfo leaves.)
DAMIANO
And you wish?...
UGO
turning with affection towards Evelina
Promisi a Dio!...
I made a promise to God!...
EVELINA
E potrai?...
And can you...?
UGO
Partir degg’io…
I must go…
Ma di fede un giuramento,
But before I go, give me
Pria ch’io parta a me concedi...
Your oath of fidelity...
EVELINA
Ah!... Tu il vuoi?...
Ah!... You wish it?...
UGO
extending his right hand to her
“Sì.”
“Yes.”
EVELINA
trembling
Ebben... Tel giuro!
Well then... I swear it!
(Ugo embraces her passionately)
E vorrai?...
–91–
DAMIANO
(Unhappy me!)
UGO
Oh caro pegno!
Oh, dear promise!
DAMIANO & EVELINA
(Oh barriera al mio sperar!)
(Oh! barrier to all my hopes!)
UGO
(E la deggio abbandonar!)
(And I must abandon her!)
(Me infelice!)
Damian, l’affido a te...
Difendila per me...
Ei teco ognor sarà...
Di me ti parlerà...
Oh Ciel! L’affidi a me!
Con lei lontan da te!...
(Con me ella sarà!...
E il cor resisterà!...)
Oh Ciel!... che fia di me!...
Ah no... qui ferma il pie’!...
(Con me restar dovrà...
E il cor resisterà?...
Di me che ne avverrà!)
Damiano, I entrust her to you...
Defend her for me...
to Evelina
He will always be with you...
He will speak to you of me...
DAMIANO
Oh Heavens! You entrust her to me!
To be with her, far removed from you!
(She will be with me!...
Will my heart remain firm?...)
EVELINA
O Heavens!... what will be my fate?...
to Ugo
Ah no... stay your steps here!...
(Damiano is to remain with me...
Will my heart remain firm?...
What will become of me!)
–92–
Annick Massis and Alan Opie
UGO
Yet... yet...
Ah, at least remember
When this hour comes [into your
thoughts]
Che vi stringeva al seno,
That I pressed you to my heart,
Piangendo di dolor!
Weeping for grief!
DAMIANO
(Lungi dal padre mio,
(Far from my father,
In sì tremendo stato,
In such a fearful position,
Tempra, gran Dio, nel seno
Great God, assuage in my breast
L’affanno del mio cor!)
The anguish of my heart!)
EVELINA
(Priva del padre mio,
(Deprived of my father,
In sì tremendo stato,
In such a fearful position,
Tempra, gran Dio,
Great God, assuage
L’affanno del mio cor!)
The anguish of my heart!)
UGO
Damian, l’affido a te...
Damiano, I entrust her to you...
EVELINA
Con lui!
I’ll be left with him!
DAMIANO
Con lei! (to Ugo) Lontan di te!
With her! (to Ugo) Far from you!
UGO
to Evelina
Di me ti parlerà.
He will speak to you of me.
Ma!... ma!...
Deh, rammentate almeno
Quando verran quest’ore,
–94–
EVELINA & DAMIANO
Ah no! stay your steps here!...
What will become of me!
UGO
Ei teco ognor serà...
He will always be with you...
Di me ti parlerà.
He will speak to you of me.
Non più. Si vada…
No more. I must go...
DAMIANO
Ah padre…
Ah father...
EVELINA
Parti?...
You are leaving?...
UGO
E m’arrestate ancor?...
And do you still stop me?
Ah no! qui ferma il piè!...
Di me che ne avverrà!
(At this point, warlike trumpets are heard. The rear flaps of the Constable’s tent are
raised, giving a view of the plain beneath the Castle of the Mountain. It is entirely filled
with people, with the armed forces of the Lacy and the Berengaria families, and with
Crusaders who sing the following:)
Di Croce lo stendardo
L’Anglo-Normanna gente,
Vittrice in Orïente
All’aura spiegherà.
E di sue glorie in segno,
Al cittadin cristiano,
CHORUS
The Anglo-Norman host,
Victorious in the East,
Will unfurl in the breeze
The standard of the Cross.
And as a sign of its glories,
Returning, it will display
–95–
La palma del Giordano
Tornando mostrerà.
The palm of Jordan
To the Christian world.
UGO
to Evelina
Stringimi al sen,
Hold me to your breast,
M’abbraccia.
Embrace me.
EVELINA
Signore…
My Lord…
DAMIANO
Ah! Padre mio!
Ah! Father!
UGO
Dover mi chiama e onor.
Love and honour call me.
EVELINA & DAMIANO
Immenso è il mio martor.
My suffering is immense.
UGO
L’amor di voi, d’Iddio,
The love for you and for God
Che infiamma questo petto,
That sets this breast of mine on fire
Fia guida al braccio mio
Will act as guide to my arm
Sostegno al mio valor!...
And support for my valour!...
to Damiano
Ma poi se cado esanime,
But then, if I fall lifeless,
Se i fidi miei son vinti,
If my trusty men are defeated,
Allor che il bronzo funebre
When the funeral bell
Rammenta all’uom gli estinti,
Recalls the dead to the living,
Pietosa qualche lagrima
Do you shed some tear
Per me tu spargi ancor!...
Of pity for me!...
–96–
Majella Cullagh and Annick Massis
Tu vola ov’è il mio cenere;
Vendica il genitor!
Ch’io sparga qualche lagrima?...
Ch’io vendichi il tuo cenere?...
Ah come mai può reggere
A tanto affanno il cor!
Tu spento non cadrai...
La patria rivedrai...
Ma di te privo, ah credilo,
M’ucciderà il dolor!...
E sol per mia memoria,
Verrai su l’urna gelida,
Pietoso a darmi un fior!
Oh giorno di dolor!
Di Croce lo stendardo
etc.
Hasten to where my ashes lie;
Revenge your father!
EVELINA
You would have me weep for you?...
DAMIANO
You would have me revenge your
ashes?...
TOGETHER
Ah! however can my heart
Bear up against such anguish!
EVELINA
But you will not be killed...
DAMIANO
You will see your homeland once
more...
TOGETHER
But, deprived of you – ah! believe it –
My grief will kill me!...
And simply in memory of me
You will come to my cold urn
To give me a flower in compassion!
ALL
O day of grief!
CHORUS
The Anglo-Norman host,
etc.
–98–
All’armi!
Signore…
UGO
To arms!
EVELINA
My Lord…
DAMIANO
Ah! Padre mio!
Ah! Father!
EVELINA & DAMIANO
Di me che mai sarà!
Whatever will become of me!
UGO
Sì, il mio fulmin cadrà!
Yes, my thunderbolt shall fall!
Sì, l’amor di voi, d’Iddio
Yes, the love for you and for God
etc.
etc.
to Evelina
M’abbraccia.
Embrace me.
mounting his horse
Io parto.
I am going.
(The army begins to leave.)
Oh giorno di dolor!
Ti chiama onor, dover.
ALL THREE
Addio!
Farewell!
O day of grief!
WOMEN OF CHORUS
to Ugo
Honour and duty summon you.
–99–
MEN OF CHORUS
Ci guidi il tuo valor.
Let your valour be our guide.
(The Constable departs at the head of the Crusaders. Evelina retires into the Castle.
Damiano’s gaze follows her.)
As already mentioned, this terzetto was one of half-a-dozen items which
caught the public imagination and came in for regular and sustained applause.
The critics were, however, quick to note its somewhat unusual form. Far from
being an ensemble in which all three voices enjoy equal prominence and equal
participation in the melody, the lion’s share of the limelight goes to Ugo. The
dramatic situation necessarily means that it is he who controls and precipitates
the action, with Evelina and Damiano joining in, as it were, by reaction.
Typical of Pacini is the energy and excitement of the writing, with maximum
emotion being milked from each successive phrase of the text. This ‘hectic’
quality makes itself particularly felt at the point where we expect a slow, lyrical
movement, but Pacini instead gives us an allegro agitato (‘Damian, l’affido a
te’), holding back his andantino cantabile (‘Deh, rammentate almeno’) and
making the terzetto in consequence a four-movement item. The hectic quality
is also used to good effect to convey the panic and fear of Evelina and
Damiano at the prospect of being left in a situation where they will be thrown
together but must not for a moment let their feelings for each other get the
better of them. They cling to Ugo not only because they regret his departure,
but equally because it exposes them to a temptation they feel they may not be
able to withstand.
–100–
Typical, too, is the introduction of an off-stage military band to accompany
the arrival of the chorus and to provide a noisily energetic postlude to the twoverse cabaletta and bring the act to a close.
[6]
SAVERIO MERCADANTE
ANDRONICO
Melo-dramma tragico in two acts
Libretto by ‘D.T.P.A.’ (Dalmiro Tindario Poeta Arcadico,
the ‘Arcadian’ name of Conte Giovanni Kreglianovich Albinoni)
First performance: 26 December 1821
Teatro La Fenice, Venice
Calojanni Paleologo, Emperor of the East………......……..Gaetano Crivelli
Irene di Trabisonda, wife of the Emperor…….…...…...Francesca Festa Maffei
Andronico, son of the Emperor..................................Giovanni Battista Velluti
Leone, Minister of State and General........................................Rafaele Benetti
Eudossa, a princess, maid of honour to the Empress....…....Marietta Bramati
Marziano, spokesman of the Bulgarians……...………....Alessandro Mombelli
Duetto: ‘Nel seggio placido’
Irene.....Majella Cullagh
Andronico.....Laura Polverelli
–101–
Giovanni
Battista Velluti
The first
Andronico
Andronico
ANDRONICO IS ONE of Mercadante’s earlier operas, dating from 1821,
and particularly remarkable since it was composed for Giovanni Battista
Velluti, the last of the great castrati, ‘that god of song who cannot open his
mouth without delighting’ (Gazzetta Privilegiata di Venezia). Despite his
presence, it did not meet with any great enthusiasm at its premiere, but it
contained two duets, both for Irene and Andronico, which became for many
years celebrated concert items. One of them, ‘Vanne se alberghi in petto’ has
already appeared on Bravura Diva (Opera Rara, ORR231), interpreted by
Majella Cullagh and Jennifer Larmore. The other is the duet recorded here.
We cannot do better than repeat much of what appeared in the booklet
accompanying Bravura Diva:
Despite the unfamiliarity of the names of the characters, this opera tells a
story that is known to most of us, for it is the same as that of Verdi’s Don
Carlos. Calojanni Paleologo is the equivalent of Philip II of Spain; Irene di
Trabisonda of Elisabeth de Valois; Andronico of Don Carlos; and Eudossa of
the Princess Eboli.
How has this come about? As the librettist, Kreglianovich, tells us in his
introductory note, in 1672 the French author the Abbé de Saint-Réal
published an historical novella entitled Don Carlos, which met with great
favour and was widely read. Its popularity led the dramatist Jean-Galbert de
–103–
Campistron in 1685 to base a tragedy upon it, but, induced by ‘invincible
reasons’, he altered the setting to the later years of the Eastern Roman Empire
– and gave his play the name of Andronic. Almost a century later the same
source, that is to say Saint-Réal’s novella, gave rise to three further tragedies:
Alfieri’s Filippo, Pepoli’s Isabella e Carlo and Schiller’s Don Carlos.
Notwithstanding differences of treatment, all told very much the same story.
Kreglianovich does not tell us why he chose to follow Campistron rather than
one of the more recent authors, but it is possible that he did so to avoid
incurring difficulties with the censorship of the day. He was, of course, still
writing in an age that was hyper-sensitive to the manner in which crowned
heads, especially those of comparatively recent memory, were treated upon
the public stage.
An impetuous and idealistic young Andronico – for those who are not
familiar with the plot of Verdi’s opera – has, before ever the opera opens, been
engaged to Irene di Trabisonda, only to have her seized from him by his own
father, the Emperor Calojanni Paleologo, who makes her his Empress.
Andronico wishes to champion the downtrodden Bulgarians, and asks his
father if he may be their governor. He chooses to make this request, however,
at the very moment when Calojanni is about to confer the position upon his
minister and confidant, the treacherous and ambitious Leone. As a result the
plea is sarcastically rejected, and in despair Andronico draws his sword with
the intention of killing himself. Calojanni, misinterpreting the gesture,
–104–
Laura Polverelli
believes that it is an act of treason directed against himself, and has him
arrested. In the second act Eudossa, a princess attached to the Empress’s suite,
steals letters which had been written by Andronico to Irene at the time they
were engaged. She has them secretly delivered to the Emperor, who in his
jealousy has Andronico condemned to death. A popular uprising temporarily
sets him free, but Irene, deceived by Leone into unwittingly inveigling him
into a trap, sends him her ring with the request that he visit her. They are
surprised by the Emperor, and the opera ends as Andronico is dragged away
to execution and Irene collapses in a faint.
The present duet occurs at the penultimate moment of the opera – at the
ill-fated final meeting of the two lovers. Fate hangs heavily over them, for
both realise that no happiness awaits them in this world. But in timehonoured operatic style, rather than separate hastily and so live to fight
another day, they linger to indulge their vision of a happier life in the world
to come – and are caught red-handed by a malignant and vengeful Calojanni
Paleologo.
Nel seggio placido
Dell’ombre amanti,
Avran pur termine
Angosce e pianti;
IRENE & ANDRONICO
In the peaceful realm
Where shades of lovers dwell,
Sufferings and tears
Will come to an end;
–106–
E le nostre anime
Rapite in estasi
Liete gioiscano
D’un puro ardor.
And may our souls,
Rapt in ecstasy,
Blissfully enjoy
A pure passion.
At the opera’s first less-than-happy hearing, parts of Act I were well
received, parts not; but by the time Act II was reached, the scales had been
tipped against any further success by a ‘heroic ballet’, Romolo ed Ersilia
which, performed between the acts, had produced an ‘indescribable
boredom, a boredom which, amounting almost to desperation, could be
dissipated only little by little’ (Gazzetta Privilegiata di Venezia). Only by
reference to this boredom and exasperation can we explain why the critic,
though he mentioned in this act Francesca Festa Maffei’s rondò, a chorus and
‘a magnificent quartet’, passed over the present item in absolute silence.
Tinged with melancholy, it is a vision on the part of both characters of a
happiness that they have been unable to find in this life but which they hope
may still await them in the world hereafter. Musically, it is an exercise in
thirds and sixths in which the two singers must consciously tune their voices,
one to the other, so that they blend together as mellifluously as possible.
Sometimes the voices sing together, homophonically, sometimes one follows
the other. But, throughout, the impression must be one of a complete and
utter identification of one with the other.
–107–
[7]
GIOVANNI PACINI
CESARE IN EGITTO
Melo-dramma eroico in two acts
Libretto by Jacopo Ferretti
First performance: 26 December 1821
Teatro Argentina, Rome
Cajo Giulio Cesare, Roman dictator...............................Domenico Donzelli
Tolomeo Dionisio, King of Egypt.........................................Amerigo Sbigoli
Cleopatra, Tolomeo’s sister.....................................................Ester Mombelli
Idalide, her confidante...........................................................Gaetana Corini
Achilla, supreme general of the Egyptian soldiers, in love with Cleopatra…
.......Alberto Torre
Apollodoro, a grandee of the kingdom of Egypt, and Cleopatra’s tutor….
…..Gaetano Rambaldi
Terzetto: ‘O bel lampo lusinghiero’
Cleopatra.....Annick Massis
Giulio Cesare.....Bruce Ford
Tolomeo.....Kenneth Tarver
CESARE IN EGITTO occupies a place of some importance in the canon of
Pacini’s works. Of comparatively early date, it post-dated a large number of
–108–
Ester Mombelli
The first Cleopatra
Cesare in Egitto
youthful farse, but came fairly early in the great list of more ambitious opere
serie that were to occupy him for the rest of his long career. It had, moreover,
a momentous and fraught inaugural season, since it was accidentally
responsible for causing the death of one of its principal interpreters, the tenor
Amerigo Sbigoli. In the second act there is a quintet, in which a particular
phrase, launched by Domenico Donzelli as Giulio Cesare, earned the singer
spontaneous and warm applause. Sbigoli, in the role of Tolomeo, was
apparently required to repeat the phrase. He sought to evoke the same
response, but in one of the performances that followed the premiere so overstrained himself that he burst a blood-vessel in his throat. A doomed man
from this moment, he was carried home to bed, where he seems to have
lingered on for several weeks before dying in the first half of February and
leaving, as Pacini tells us in Le mie memorie artistiche (Florence, 1865) ‘a wife
and a son in the midst of desolation’.
What promised to be a highly successful inaugural season, therefore, came
– at least for this opera – to a sudden and disastrous end, with the result that
Donizetti, who was preparing the next new opera, Zoraida di Granata,
premiered on 28 January 1822, found himself obliged to jettison all the
music he had written for Sbigoli, and to recast and reduce his role as a part
for a comprimaria mezzo-soprano.
–110–
The libretto of Cesare in Egitto was written by the principal Roman
librettist at this time, Jacopo (or Giacomo) Ferretti. As he freely admits in his
preface, it was not the first time, even in recent years, that the subject had
been presented upon the Roman stage. He specifically mentions an opera by
Giacomo Tritto, written to a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt and given at the
Teatro Aliberti on 8 January 1805, but goes on to point out that his own
treatment is rather different, since he had received instructions to base it on
a ballet of the same title, a work by the choreographer Gaetano Gioja which
had delighted the Romans when it had been given at the Teatro Argentina in
the carnival of 1808-1809. The task, it seems, had not proved an easy one,
since, claiming that the different demands of a melodramma and a ballet had
at times inevitably forced him to depart from the ‘sublime ideas’ of the
choreographer, he unexpectedly goes on:
My friends! Writing the words of a Melo-Dramma in the midst of
half a million hampering commitments is a tragic affair, more so than
you can dream; and it is a great achievement if one [manages to]
preserve common sense (which one should preserve unextinguished
like the fire of Vesta); but often and often again it is obscured by a
palpable smoke.
When duly performed as the opening spectacle of the carnival season of
1821-1822, the opera was accorded a sufficiently favourable reception. The
–111–
critic of the Notizie del Giorno did not scruple, however, to voice his opinion
that the music was a little too cheerful for an opera seria and was of little
originality, though calculated to have general appeal. He was, he added,
inclined to attribute the success of the work very much to the ensemble of
the voices, to the valour of the orchestra, and to the ‘generosity’ of the
libretto.
The action of the opera takes place in Alexandria, and opens as Tolomeo
and his court await the arrival of Cesare’s approaching fleet. All are anxious,
since Achilla, the commander of the Egyptian forces, has slain Cesare’s rival,
Pompeo, and no one is certain how the Roman dictator will react. Achilla,
who has Tolomeo’s ear, leads one faction, which hopes that the elimination
of a rival will prove welcome; but there is also an opposing faction, led by
Apollodoro, Cleopatra’s elderly tutor, which believes that Cesare will be
appalled and offended by the murder. Apollodoro, who supports Cleopatra’s
claims to the throne, and despises Tolomeo’s two-faced and treacherous
behaviour, has in fact sent word secretly to Cleopatra in Syria, where she
languishes in exile, urging her immediate return.
Cesare, as Apollodoro foresaw, condemns Achilla’s actions. He orders his
immediate arrest, but then, unwilling to see his arrival marred by bloodshed,
unwisely relents and consents to his release. Far from showing any gratitude,
Achilla promptly plots with Tolomeo to murder Cesare. They exchange
–112–
mantles – Achilla counting on gaining access to Cesare’s private quarters if he
wears the regal cloak. Cesare, however, is on the alert, and foils the attempt
on his life. Achilla, escaping, leaves the mantle behind, with the result that it
is Tolomeo who is apprehended and loaded with chains. Cleopatra,
meanwhile, has responded to Apollodoro’s urging, and returned to Egypt.
No sooner do she and Cesare clap eyes upon each other than they fall deeply
in love, each immediately under the spell of the other.
All this transpires in Act I. In Act II, which is of less concern to us here,
Achilla succeeds in corrupting some of the Roman soldiers, and together they
release Tolomeo and embark upon still further plots. As Cesare leads
Cleopatra to her coronation, there is a sudden commotion. The two sides
engage in open warfare, and Cesare, pressed to an extremity, escapes by
throwing himself into the sea. It is assumed that he is drowned, but he
survives to lead his troops to victory and to release Cleopatra from the
subterranean dungeon to which Tolomeo has consigned her. Summoned
away to serve Rome elsewhere, he takes leave of Cleopatra, promising that
one day he will return. The final fate of Tolomeo and Achilla we never learn:
as Cesare replies to Cleopatra’s enquiry: ‘Hush: ask about them no more.’
Pacini, in his own account of the opera in Le mie memorie artistiche, lists
the items which became most popular, and speaks of following his customary
system of using simple melody, variety in the cabalettas, and facile
–113–
orchestration. His most detailed and analytical comment, however, is
reserved for the terzetto we have recorded here (which he had already listed
among the most applauded items):
In the terzetto of the first act I imagined a largo of a form not then
practised, so ordering it that the motif was proposed by the soprano
and then repeated in the manner of a canon an octave lower by the
two tenors (one after the other), the soprano elegantly executing
variations over the top. It produced a great effect.
The ‘not-then-practised’ element lies in allowing the soprano florid
variations over the top of the entries of each of the two tenors: normally one
would have expected each successive singer to have enjoyed an entry
interrupted only by a phrase here and there interjected by the others. And
one has only to listen to the music to appreciate the accuracy of Pacini’s
description. Following the soprano’s initial enunciation of the motif, she has
three variations. The first introduces a series of semiquaver and demisemiquaver clusters; the second replaces these clusters with downward (and
later upward) chromatic demi-semiquaver runs; while the third, altogether
more elaborate, moves into triplets – demi-semiquaver triplets where
previously there was no decoration, and semi-demi-semiquaver triplets to
replace the previous note-clusters. It is, therefore, an essay in progressively
elaborate and difficult divisions. I remember once giving a comparable
–114–
passage from a Vaccaj opera to a young soprano with a beautifully clear voice
but comparatively little experience and even less ability to count. At about
the third rehearsal she simply broke down in tears, declaring that she had
never been asked to sing anything so cruelly demanding in her life…
An examination of this music also tells us much about the talent and
technique of the prima donna who created it, Ester Mombelli. Born in 1794,
she was the daughter of a celebrated tenor, Domenico Mombelli. She would
seem to have made her debut in Lisbon in 1806 in the company of her father
and her elder sister, Anna (or Marianna). In 1812 the Mombelli family
created Rossini’s Demetrio e Polibio, and thereafter, although Ester was to
create operas for Vaccaj (Il lupo d’Ostenda, Venice, 1818), for Donizetti
(Zoraide di Granata and L’ajo nell’imbarazzo, Rome, 1824) and for others, she
was to make the Rossinian repertory the mainstay of her career. Although
ideally suited to music which required precise division-work of the kind of
which we have been speaking, she was also said to have been able to ‘ravish
with the sweetness of her singing and her expression of sentiment’ (Notizie
del giorno, Rome, 12 February 1824).
Domenico Donzelli, born in 1790, was one of a number of fine tenors at
this time who came from Bergamo. One of the most highly regarded
performers of his day, he created Torvaldo e Dorliska (Rome, 1815) and Il
viaggio a Reims (Paris, 1825) for Rossini; Zoraida di Granata (Rome, 1822),
–115–
Annick Massis
Ugo conte di Parigi (Milan, 1832) and Maria Padilla (Milan, 1841) for
Donizetti; Norma (Milan, 1831) for Bellini; and Marco Visconti (Turin,
1838) for Vaccaj. He was widely sought after for the generosity of his singing,
the exactness of his phrasing, and the beauty of his dark-toned voice.
Though younger and rather less experienced, Amerigo Sbigoli had already
created an opera for Pacini, La gioventù d’Enrico V (Rome, 1820), and one
for Mercadante, Il geloso ravveduto (Rome, 1820). His career had, in addition
to Rome, taken him to Bologna, Florence, Parma, Lucca and Siena.
Everything suggests that, had not disastrous mishap intervened, his career,
too, would have carried him to considerable heights.
The terzetto occurs about halfway through Act I, at the point where Cesare
and Cleopatra first set eyes on each other and fall in love. Tolomeo, unaware
of Cleopatra’s return, is taken by surprise as he enters to speak to Cesare.
O bel lampo lusinghiero
Non tradirmi in tale istante;
Io già leggo in quel sembiante
Che d’amor si respirerà.
Io già leggo su quel sembiante
Che d’amor delirerà.
CLEOPATRA
O fair and flattering flash of
recognition,
Do not betray me at such a moment;
Already I read in his face
That we will breathe again with love.
Already I read upon that face
That he will be delirious with love.
–117–
Kenneth Tarver
and Bruce Ford
Perderà per me la calma,
Pace, calma e libertà.
For me he will lose his composure,
His peace, his calm and his liberty.
CESARE
O bel lampo lusinghiero
O fair and flattering flash of
recognition,
Non tradirmi in tale istante;
Do not betray me in such a moment;
S’ella ha il core come il sembiante,
If her heart is like her face,
No, crudele non sarà.
No, she will not prove cruel.
Già per lei perduta ho l’alma,
Already I have lost my soul to her:
Pace e calma, e libertà.
My peace, my calm and my liberty.
TOLOMEO
O fortuna mensognera,
O fickle fortune,
M’abbandoni in tale istante?
Do you abandon me in such a moment?
Io conosco quel sembiante,
I know that face,
So che a me sì fatal sarà.
I know that it will prove so fatal for me.
S’involò da me la calma,
It has stolen my peace of mind from me,
L’alma mia fremendo stà.
My soul is left shaking.
–119–
[8]
SAVERIO MERCADANTE
LEONORA
Melo-dramma semiserio in four acts
Libretto by Marco D’Arienzo
First performance: 5 December 1844
Teatro Nuovo, Naples
Il Barone di Lutzow.............................................................Antonio Avignone
Guglielmo, his son.........................................................Domenico Laboccetta
Strelitz, an old soldier in the Baron’s service...............................Gennaro Luzio
Giorgio Burger, a doctor………………………………...................Luigi Vita
Geltrude, his wife…….………………………........……....Adelaide De Rosa
Leonora, their daughter……………….………....…….....Adelaide Rebussini
Oscar Müller……………………………….……………......Emanuele Testa
Quartetto: ‘Tu tremi, indegno’
Barone.....Alan Opie
Giorgio.....Roland Wood
Guglielmo.....Bruce Ford
Strelitz.....Henry Waddington
ONE OF Mercadante’s later works which enjoyed a very valid success in its
day – but which subsequent generations have allowed to languish in total
neglect – was Leonora, first presented at the end of 1844. It is, a little unusually
–120–
for this date, since the vogue for the form had all but passed, an opera
semiseria, with a plot that sets one thinking at one moment of Bellini’s
I puritani, and at another of Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix. It was also
unusual in that it was first performed at Naples’ Teatro Nuovo, a small
theatre that was generally reserved for intimate comic opera. Leonora was
certainly not a ‘grand’ heroic opera, but the Teatro Nuovo must nevertheless
have stretched its resources to present it. It is, finally, unexpected to find
Mercadante writing for such a small theatre so late in his career, but, as a
review that Vincenzo Torelli published in L’Omnibus noted, he brought to it
the same scrupulous care that he would have done had it been composed for
one of the first theatres in the world.
Set in Prussia in the 18th century, during the reign of Frederick the Great,
the opera tells an initially thwarted but eventually happy love story. The
Baron of Lutzow has a son, Guglielmo, who loves his childhood companion,
Leonora, the daughter of Giorgio Burger, the resident doctor on the Baron’s
estate. The Baron opposes the match, however, and grossly insults Burger by
pointing out their social inequality. He sends Guglielmo to the wars, while
Burger and his wife try to coerce Leonora into a marriage with a young man
by the name of Oscar Müller. Leonora, confessing to Oscar that she loves
another, successfully appeals to his sense of generosity with the result that he
publicly declares that he cannot marry her. His gesture is, however, rapidly
overtaken by fresh developments, for Strelitz, an old soldier who has led the
–121–
Roland Wood
Henry Waddington
Baron’s tenants to battle, returns to announce that Guglielmo has been killed.
The effect of the news is twofold: the Baron, too late, relents of his severity,
while Leonora, distracted by grief, goes out of her mind. But Guglielmo is
not, in fact, dead. He reappears – Leonora recovers her sanity – and the opera
ends as she and Guglielmo prepare to wed.
The comic element in this plot comes, we should add, from a single
character: Strelitz, the bluff and sabre-rattling old soldier. Originally
interpreted by the famous Neapolitan buffo bass, Gennaro Luzio, he sang in
the original production (though not in the published score) in dialect,
whereas the other members of the cast sang standard Italian.
In its review, L’Omnibus drew attention to those items that met with
particular acclaim, and the very first it mentions is the all-male quartet which
is recorded here, the largo of the finale of the first act, described as ‘most
beautiful, and of sublime effect’. Giorgio Burger has confided to the Barone
that his daughter Leonora is deeply in love with Guglielmo, but any hopes
he may have had that the Barone would be sympathetic to the match have
been dashed by the latter’s class-conscious indignation. Guglielmo, arriving
on the scene, confirms his devotion to Leonora, but only to have his father
present him with a pistol and a challenge that he should first shoot him – his
own father – before going through with such a marriage.
–123–
BARONE
to Guglielmo
Tu tremi, indegno!... tu impallidisci!
You tremble, unworthy fellow!... You
grow pale!
Fa core, prostrami al suolo esangue;
Take courage, stretch me dead on the
ground;
Il parricidio ormai compisci:
Now carry out the murder of your
father:
Solleva il braccio... eccoti il cor.
Raise your arm... here is my heart.
“Poi colla mano che gronda sangue
“Then with a hand that is dripping
blood
“Intreccia il serto sacro all’amor!”
“Weave the garland that is sacred to
love!”
GUGLIELMO
in supplication to his father
Taci, ah taci… Qui nel mio petto
Hush, ah speak not so... My innocent
affection
Spontaneo nacque sì puro affetto;
Sprang up spontaneously in my breast;
Immenso crebbe, ma puro e santo
It grew to prodigious size, but pure and
holy,
Come la prece di vergin cor.
Like the prayer of a virgin heart.
Esso m’è speme, m’è vita, incanto;
It is my hope, my life, my enchantment;
Il cielo istesso mi schiude amor!
Love opens up heaven itself before me!
–124–
GIORGIO
in an aside
Ah! sciagurati, di qual periglio
Ah! wretched men, how much danger
there is
V’è quell’orgoglio, quell’ansia avara!...
In that pride, in that money-grasping
anxiety!...
L’amor di padre, l’amor di figlio
A father’s love, a son’s love...
Tutto soffoca vano splendor!...
Vain ostentation suffocates it all!...
Oh! l’aura a culla di quanto è amara!
Oh! how the lot [of the rich] is bitter
from the cradle,
Oh come i miseri han lieto il cor!
Oh, [by contrast] how joyful the hearts
of the poor!
STRELITZ
to Giorgio, under his breath
Hai visto, hai visto, qual precipizio!
Have you seen the precipice [you’ve
opened up]?
Sei tu, vecchiaccio, senza giudizio.
You’re the one, ugly old man, who lacks
judgement.
Che mai credevi?... che mai temevi!...
What were you thinking of?... whatever
did you fear?...
Chi grande nasce sente l’onor.
He who is born in high places is
sensitive where honour’s concerned.
Ora che entrambi sono nemici,
Now that you’ve set father and son at
odds,
Via, su, che dici?... non hai rossor?
What have you to say?... Are you not
ashamed of yourself?
–125–
We must stress that the extract presented here is only one section of a larger
item: the largo or concertato from a full-scale first finale. The succession of
chords that introduces the extract are, in fact, the transition from an earlier
movement that culminated in Guglielmo’s distress as the Barone ordered him
to shoot him, his own father.
In setting this quartet, Mercadante was faced with a challenge: how to keep
his voices audibly separate and distinct when he was writing for a tenor
(Guglielmo), a baritone (the Barone) and two basses (Giorgio Burger and
Strelitz). His solution is masterly. The Barone begins with an extended
passage which is at the same time both melodic and declamatory: a melody
which is heavily accented to convey maximum meaning, in this instance the
Barone’s haughty and indignant scorn and anger. Guglielmo, when he enters,
is given lines that are more legato and sustained, seeringly expressive of his
anguish and despair. Meanwhile Giorgio and Strelitz have entered
underneath, Giorgio singing sustained lines which for the most part provide
the harmonic basis of the item, while Strelitz, in time-honoured buffo style,
punctuates the onward flow with lines of patter.
The extraordinary success enjoyed by this opera may be measured by the
fact that it enjoyed a stage history even more extensive – in fact a great deal
more extensive – than that of many other operas which have long since
enjoyed modern-day revival and rediscovery. In Italy alone it was mounted in
–126–
nearly 40 cities, holding the stage with tenacity into the 1860s and last seen
in 1876. Abroad, it was seen in Lisbon (1846 and 1847), Corfu (1846 and
1853), Berlin (1847), Madrid (1847 and 1848), Barcelona (1847, 1851 and
1855), Copenhagen (1848), Oporto (1851), Odessa (1851 and 1854), Rio
de Janeiro (1853), Buenos Aires (1855), Ajaccio (1858), Constantinople
(1859) and Paris (1866). In 1859 a shortened version, in one act, was
produced in Ferrara under the title I cacciatori delle Alpe (‘The Huntsmen of
the Alps’). The setting was altered to the countryside near Turin, and, in
keeping with the political temper of the times, all the patriotic and military
references to the Prussia of the original were modified to refer to Italy.
–127–
Annick Massis
[9]
GIOVANNI PACINI
ALLAN CAMERON
Melo-dramma in three acts
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
First performance: 28 March 1848
Teatro La Fenice, Venice
Carlo II, King of Scotland……………………….....……..Domenico Conti
Allano or Allan Cameron, chief of the Cameron clan....……....Felice Varesi
Editta, his daughter…………………………..........Annetta De La Grange
Evano, her brother…………………………….....…….........Angelo Zuliani
Malvina, Editta’s confidante…………….……........Maria Zambelli De Rosa
Gionata, a general of the Parliamentary forces.....................Eugenio Monzani
Aria finale: ‘O d’un re martire, alma beata’
Editta.....Annick Massis
Allano.....Alan Opie
Chorus of Puritans and Chorus of Cameronian supporters.....
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
BRITISH HISTORY and geography, as anyone knows who has ever looked
at Donizetti’s Emilia di Liverpool or Bellini’s I puritani, have on occasion
received rough treatment at the hands of Italian librettists. Towns and cities
–129–
have been apt to shift their location; flat landscapes have become alpine; ‘The
Puritans of Scotland’ have been said to inhabit the environs of Plymouth.
The present opera is no exception: the Highland Camerons sally forth from
Lochiel Castle to engage in the Battle of Worcester. But, more mystifying still
is a question which we are – so far – unable to answer: who was Allan
Cameron? In the opera he is the chieftain of Clan Cameron, and Charles
Stuart’s chief supporter at the Battle of Worcester. But consultation of books
of reference has failed to come up with an exact historical counterpart. The
most likely candidate would seem to be Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel (16291719) who in about the year 1647, succeeded his grandfather as the
Cameron chieftain. The brief notices we have found of him mention that,
after the execution of Charles I, he sought to play his part in raising an army
on behalf of Charles II, but add that the dilatoriness of his followers delayed
him so much that, when on his way to join the King’s forces at Stirling, he
was intercepted by Cromwell and forced to turn back. Consequently he does
not seem to have had any involvement in the Battle of Worcester (1651),
though he was associated with the Earl of Glencairn in a rising on Charles’s
behalf in 1653. And that, in terms of ‘operatic’ history, is probably near
enough. The alteration of his first name from Ewen to Allan is probably best
explained by the fact that he did historically have a brother called Allan, and
by the suggestion that the librettist, Francesco Maria Piave, may well have
found Allan more euphonious, and thus more suitable for setting to music,
than Ewen.
–130–
Pacini wrote this opera for production at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in
1848, but it proved an unfortunate time to be mounting a new work: 1848
was ‘the year of revolutions’, and with much of Italy in political turmoil, no
one had any time or thought to spend on the theatre. Allan Cameron was
duly performed, but attracted no notice in the press, and sank after only one
or two performances. Pacini’s account in Le mie memorie artistiche shows that
even in terms of his own priorities the opera was swept aside and became
almost a secondary consideration. The account is too long to quote here in
full, but even a shortened version will indicate how he, like all others, found
himself suddenly involved in the political situation:
The year 1848 was a memorable time! I was already in Venice,
intent upon my new composition, entitled Allan Cameron, when the
famous ‘five days of Milan’ took place. The Venetian populace was in
the greatest agitation, [buffeted] between hope and fear. Small
skirmishes took place between the populace and the Austrian soldiers.
One man was thrown into the canal, another wounded! All of a
sudden the Governor proclaimed the Constitution. The mob raced to
free Manin and Tommasèo from prison and carry them in triumph to
the Piazza S. Marco. I was staying at the inn of the Regina
d’Inghilterra, run by my very dear friends the Benvenuti brothers.
One of them, Francesco, said to me: “Come now, you must assume
the task of forming the battalion for the quarter of S. Marco.”
–131–
Knowing a little of military art (since among my other honorific
occupations I can still count that of being a major in the Urban
Guard of Viareggio), I had a little table set up in the courtyard of the
inn, and had prepared what I needed to enroll all the volunteers who
came running in great numbers. I set up the companies, and then
occupied myself with their instruction: but, without arms – either
firearms or side-arms – what was to be done? In the arsenal there were
only the halberds of the old republic, and broadswords. Well and
good! I set the battalion in order as best I could. [….] After a few
hours’ sleep, my usual familiar friends informed me that on the
following evening the theatre was to reopen with my new opera,
which had been rehearsed but not performed on account of these
events, and that I had also to compose La ronda della Guardia Civica
(‘The round of the Civic Guard’), which that same evening would be
performed between one and another of the acts of the opera. My very
dear friend Federigo Schmit wrote the verses and I set them to music.
No sooner said than done: everything was in order. The following
day, therefore, there was a great celebration in the theatre, attended
publicly by the Governor wearing the tricolour band on his arm. The
opera that night was excessively applauded, but certainly no one took
in a note of it, since cheers in honour of Italy intervened at every
phrase, at every movement and at the end of every piece. Then the
Ronda della Guardia Civica was sung, and had to be repeated three
–132–
times over. I, too, sang with the chorus, and the famous De-Lagrange,
the tenor Mirate and the excellent Varesi were the companions of my
triumph. But after the calm comes the storm […] On the morrow
goodbye Constitution! The Republic was proclaimed: and, to tell the
truth, I thought it best to pack my bag and return home to my
family…
The reception accorded any opera at its first hearing was of enormous
importance in Italy at this time – many a work had its fortunes made or
destroyed, not by its own intrinsic merits but by (as here) the circumstances
under which it was created, or perhaps by the nerves of the performers on the
first night, or by the mood and whim of a first-night audience. An earnest
attempt was made to vindicate Allan Cameron three years later, and on this
occasion it met with a valid success. But it would also be true to say that it
never really recovered from the unfortunate timing of its premiere in 1848.
The attempt to vindicate it also took place in Venice, again at the Teatro
La Fenice. It was given on 11 January 1851, with Felice Varesi once more in
the part of Allano, and now with Teresa Brambilla (Verdi’s first Gilda in
Rigoletto) as Editta and Raffaele Mirate as Carlo. It is also interesting to note
that the text of the opera was clearly expanded, since, originally in three acts,
it was now in four, and a short report from Venice which appeared in the
Neapolitan journal L’Omnibus specifically mentions a terzetto in Act IV
–133–
which certainly did not form part of the original. This brief report is of
sufficient interest to justify our quoting it in full:
This Allan Cameron (the name in truth is neither very poetic nor
harmonious) was produced for the first time in March 1848; but at
that time one had other things in one’s head besides going to the
theatre, and the opera went unheard except by some unshakable
subscribers, and after one or two evenings was taken off. Now they
have recalled it to life, and they did well to do so. Pacini’s opera has
parts that are most beautiful, and first and foremost an exquisite,
varied and lively orchestration; magnificent choruses; and among
other items a little polacca, if I’m not mistaken, sung by the prima
donna, seconded most ingeniously by the instruments, and two
elegant arias for the tenor, sung with that sweet expression which we
all associate with Mirate. To these pieces must be added, for their
great craftsmanship of composition and their effect, the finale of the
second act, as well as, for sprightliness of motifs, a duet between the
prima donna and the tenor in the third, a terzetto between them and
the bass, Varesi, in the fourth, and lastly the most attractive rondò
which closes the score, and which la Brambilla sings with unequalled
grace and mastery. As we have noted on another occasion, Brambilla
cannot boast great power, but her qualities are grace, elegance, and
purity of technique, on which account her reputation goes ahead, and
–134–
attracts the greatest attention. Varesi also sang in a most praiseworthy
manner, but he does not have the most prominent part.
Despite this successful relaunching, Tom Kaufman’s exhaustive researches
have come up with only two other productions – Modena (1851) and Verona
(1854) – both with Fanny Salvini-Donatelli (the prima donna who sang at
the unfortunate premiere of Verdi’s La traviata) as Editta. A perfunctory stage
history perhaps, but in these days when we have reassessed and come to
admire such once-maligned Pacini operas as Maria regina d’Inghilterra and
Carlo di Borgogna, Allan Cameron could well be another eminently deserving
of re-examination.
The libretto of the opera was written by Francesco Maria Piave, and, as we
should expect from such an accomplished craftsman, it is clear, concise and
told in simple and effective Italian. Some days before the Battle of Worcester,
the Highland Camerons gather before the castle of Lochiel in response to a
call from their chieftain, Allano or Allan – he is referred to by both forms of
the name – and swear to devote themselves to the cause of the young king,
Carlo (Charles II). Editta (Edith) and her maidens have been embroidering
a banner with Carlo’s crest, and Allano realises that his daughter, though only
too well aware of the discrepancy between her rank and Carlo’s, has fallen
deeply in love with him. Carlo himself appears, at first incognito, under the
name of Ferlane; but when Evano (Evan), Allano’s son, announces that a
group of Cromwellian soldiers has entered the castle, Editta informs the
–135–
Camerons of Carlo’s true identity. Gionata (Jonathan), one of the
Cromwellian generals, demands the surrender of a fugitive he knows is
concealed in the castle – a demand which is naturally refused – and the
midway finale is reached with a confrontation between the two sides as they
prepare to do battle.
Act III takes place several days after the Battle of Worcester. The Scots have
been defeated, and Allano taken prisoner. Carlo arrives on the seashore,
followed closely by Editta, who urges him to seek safety in immediate flight.
As their pursuers are heard approaching, a group of fishermen ferry Carlo to
safety aboard a vessel which is waiting offshore. The penultimate scene shows
us Allano and his followers in chains, prisoners in a ruined abbey. Allano
blames himself for leading his followers to their fate, but when Gionata offers
them pardon if they will renounce their allegiance to Carlo, all indignantly
refuse.
The last scene takes place in the cloister of this same ruined abbey, where
we discover that Editta has also been taken prisoner. Since this scene is
recorded here in full, rather than recount the action we print the text:
The open cloister of an old half-ruined abbey. Through the arcades there is a view
of the countryside beyond. On the right-hand side (looking from the auditorium) is
a door leading to a ground-floor hall; on the left the entrance to the abbey-church.
It is dawn.
–136–
CHORUS OF PURITANS
from within the church
FIRST PART OF THE CHORUS
Gedeone guerrier del Signore
Gideon, the warrior of the Lord,
La sua spada tremenda impugnò;
Took his mighty sword in his hand;
SECOND PART OF THE CHORUS
Del Leone di Giuda il valore
The bravery of the Lion of Judah
Di Filiste la turba fugò.
Put the horde of Philistines to flight.
THE WHOLE CHORUS
Di Cromvello i nemici cadranno,
The enemies of Cromwell will fall
Come foglie che il gelo colpì.
Like leaves that have been struck by
frost.
Pietà indarno, mercè chiederanno,
In vain will they plead for pity, for
mercy,
Ora sorge l’estremo lor dì.
Now the last day of their lives is
dawning.
(Allano meanwhile crosses through the cloister, dragged with his companions to death.
Editta is conducted by Puritan soldiers to the same fate, but, arrived in the centre of the
stage,is held back.)
EDITTA
Sia lode a te, gran Dio, salvato ho il re!
Praise be to thee, O God, I have saved
the king!
Che cale a me, se spenta
What matters it to me if this life of mine
Anzi tempo cadrà questa mia vita?
Be spent before its time?
Meco morrà pur anco il padre mio;
My father, too, is to die with me;
Libere alfin nostr’alme,
Freed at last, our souls,
–137–
Eterne nel Signore,
Di Carlo s’uniran al genitore.
Will live forever in the Lord,
Will be united with Carlo’s father.
(She kneels.)
O d’un re martire, – alma beata,
Queste ad accogliere – scendi placata,
Al trono guidale – del Re dei re.
O blessed soul of a martyred king,
Descend appeased to receive our souls,
Conduct them to the throne of the King
of kings.
Da questo libere – terreno frale,
Freed from this earthly human frame,
Al puro ascendano – gaudio immortale,
May they ascend to pure immortal bliss,
L’eterno godano – premio con te.
May they enjoy their everlasting reward
with you.
(A confused noise is heard, at first in the distance, and a clash of arms which, mixed
with confused shouts, gradually approaches.)
CHORUS
Morte agli empi!... all’armi!... morte!...
Death to the wicked!... To arms!...
Death!...
Viva Allano!... viva il forte!...
May Allano live!... Let the brave man
live!...
EDITTA
Quali grida!... il genitore!...
What shouts are these?... My father!...
CHORUS
Viva Allano!...
Let Allano live!...
EDITTA
running to observe
Che mai fia!
Whatever can it be?
Padre, padre!
Father, father!
–138–
Annetta de la Grange
The first Editta
Allan Cameron
(Allano and Evano enter, followed by mountaineers, women and fishermen, armed with
pruning hooks, scythes and fishing spears, who put Editta’s guards to flight. Meanwhile
the sun has risen.)
ALLANO
embracing Editta
Figlia mia!
Questi prodi m’han salvato.
Sentì il ciel di noi pietà.
Or del re seguite il fato,
Finchè il ciel si placherà.
Ah! del core il voto ardente
Inalziamo al Dio supremo;
Egli è grande, egli è clemente,
Non invan pregato avremo.
Alla Scozia, a’ figli suoi
Renda il padre, renda il re.
Egli è grande, egli clemente,
Premierà la fé.
Ah! del core, del core al voto
Renda il padre, renda il re.
Ah! di Scozia, tu che il puoi,
My daughter!
These brave heroes have saved me.
Heaven has taken pity upon us.
CHORUS
Now follow the fortunes of the king
Until such time as Heaven shall be
placated.
EDITTA
Ah! let us raise the ardent prayers
Of our hearts to Almighty God;
He is great, he is merciful,
We shall not have prayed in vain.
May He restore our father, our king
To Scotland and his children.
He is great, he is merciful,
He will reward our faith.
Ah! may he restore our father, our king
To the prayers of our hearts.
ALL
Oh God! Thou who canst bring all
things to pass,
–140–
Rendi, o Nume, il padre, il re.
Ah! del core il voto ardente
etc.
Give us back the father, the king of
Scotland.
EDITTA
Ah! let us raise the ardent prayers
etc.
ALL
Ciel! deh rendi a noi il padre,
Heaven! ah, restore to us our father,
Il padre, il re.
Our father, the king.
(All hasten to secure the flight of the Camerons.)
Pacini is a composer who never ceases to surprise. The scene opens with a
great sonorous chorus, ‘Gedeone guerrier del Signore’, an excellent example of
what was very much a feature of the age. We may compare ‘Vedeste, vedemmo’
from Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, or ‘Va pensiero’ from Verdi’s Nabucco. In 12/8
time, giving an insistent triplet rhythm pulsating in the bass, and featuring a
solo trumpet obbligato, it begins in unison for the men, but flowers into fourpart harmony with the entry of the women.
A melodic recitative then leads into Editta’s aria, ‘O d’un re martire’. Right
from the opening ritornello, with its beautifully moulded melody and rising
chromatic bass, this is music that commands our attention. Ostensibly the
time-signature is 3/4, but once we are past the opening lines it becomes clear
that Pacini is thinking rather in terms of 9/8, aiming for extended lines of
flowing triplets, and so establishing a link in feeling if not in actual melody
with the preceding chorus. It is, even more remarkably, an aria of unexpected
–141–
length, sometimes repeating its spun-out lines but more often moving
forwards to new ideas and new, pleasingly rounded phrases. In the
introduction to this recording we referred to Mercadante as ‘the more
weighty and substantial’ of the two composers, but this present aria shows
that Pacini is a composer who can never be taken for granted. In a recording
that is full of riches, this is, we believe, unquestionably the jewel in the
crown.
Allan Cameron dates, we should also point out, from well on in the years
of Pacini’s maturity, at a time when he frequently tried to give each of his
works a recognisable harmonic or melodic colouring of its own. One would
need to hear a complete performance of the opera to know if that is so here,
but it is worth noting the way in which ‘Gedeone guerrier del Signore’
establishes a ‘context’ for everything that follows. In this tale of Charles II
and his Cromwellian opponents, there is nothing recognisably Cromwellian
or Puritan about this music. But it does have a strongly religious flavour
which is certainly an Italian’s conception of what the fervour of Puritan zeal
must have been like. It could well be our ‘key’ to the overall colouring of the
opera.
But Pacini was an uneven composer, ever unpredictable. The tempo di
mezzo which immediately follows this first slow section of Editta’s aria may
begin acceptably, but the entry of the military band, heralding the
–142–
appearance of Allano, brings us music of a type which, 40 years ago when so
many of us were discovering Italian opera of this period, would have brought
down coals of critical wrath upon the composer’s head. Fortunately we are
nowadays able to recognise and tolerate such ‘lapses’ as part and parcel of the
style of his age. They are typical of the ‘trumpery’ music written for military
band at the time.
The final section of the scene, Editta’s two-verse cabaletta, is an excellent
example of the type of music which, at a much earlier stage of his career, had
won Pacini the soubriquet of maestro delle cabalette. Depending essentially
upon the discovery of an opening phrase which is rhythmically and
melodically arresting, it is an unashamed bravura display-piece for the singer,
becoming ever more demanding and ever more brilliant as it proceeds.
–143–
[10]
SAVERIO MERCADANTE
VIRGINIA
Tragedia lirica in three acts
Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano
First performance: 7 April 1866
Teatro San Carlo, Naples
Virginio...........................................................................Francesco Pandolfini
Virginia, his daughter...........................................Marcellina Lotti Della Santa
Appio.......................................................................................Raffaele Mirate
Icilio.........................................................................................Giorgio Stigelli
Marco...........................................................................................Marco Arati
Tullia.....................................................................................Adelaide Morelli
Valerio...................................................................................Michele Memmi
Terzetto: ‘Paventa insano gli sdegni miei’
Virginia.....Majella Cullagh
Appio.....Bruce Ford
Icilio.....Alan Opie
OF ALL THE many stories which classical Roman history has offered operatic
librettists, one of the strongest is that of Appius and Virginia, and it is not
surprising that several 19th-century composers set it – notably Alessandro
–144–
Marcellina Lotti Della Santa
The first Virginia
Virginia
Nini (Genoa, 1843), Nicola Vaccaj (Rome, 1845), Enrico Petrella (Naples,
1861) and Mercadante (Naples, 1866). But it was not a subject which met
with ready acceptance by the political authorities of the day. An illustration
of the corruption that all too often results from power, it particularly
offended the censors in Naples in the 1840s and 1850s, when their
regulations were at their most stringent. Nini’s opera played elsewhere in
Italy, but never in Naples. Vaccaj, when his version scored a very real success
in Rome, deliberately travelled to Naples in the hope of getting it staged there
– but without success (‘on account of the terrible censorship which begins by
excluding the subject’8). Enrico Petrella took advantage of the overthrow of
the Bourbon regime to compose his Virginia in 1860 and secure a staging in
1861. And in doing so he actually forestalled and still further delayed the
production of Mercadante’s opera, which had been composed as early as
1849, but which, forbidden by the censors in 1851, was still unheard. A
subject which had occupied Mercadante’s thoughts for many years, since he
is known to have suggested it to the directors of the Teatro La Fenice in
Venice as early as December 1839, it had to wait until 1866 before it was
finally staged. It was the last of the composer’s operas to see the footlights –
though not the last actually composed.
____________________________________
8
A letter of 1 March 1845, written in Naples and addressed to his wife in Pesaro, preserved in
the Biblioteca Comunale ‘Filelfica’ of Tolentino.
–146–
A brief glance at the story will reveal the reasons for this aversion on the
part of the authorities. Appius Claudius in 451 BC was a member of the
Decemviri – the ‘Ten Men’ – the group of patricians who at that time ruled
Rome. Marriage between a patrician and a plebeian was forbidden, but he fell
in love with Virginia, a plebeian, and determined to have her by foul means
if not by fair. She was already engaged to a tribune, Icilius, and thus
predictably rejected Appius’s advances, only to find him, in collaboration
with a colleague and partner-in-crime, Marcus, putting forward a false claim
that she was not the true daughter of her father, Virginius, but had been born
of one of Marcus’s slaves, and had been bought as a child by Virginius’s wife
when her own child died. It was decreed, therefore, that she should be
returned to Marcus’s ‘protection’ and jurisdiction – and thus, of course,
delivered over to Appius. But Virginius, in saying farewell to her, drew a
dagger and slew her rather than see her dishonoured. The resulting scandal
resulted in the fall of Appius, and the abolition of the Decemviri.
The story, drawn in the first instance from Alfieri’s tragedy of 1777-8 of
the same name and ultimately from Livy, lent itself to operatic treatment,
since it fell naturally and easily into three acts, each of them containing
strong dramatic situations. The first expository act ends with a confrontation
between Virginia, Icilio and Appio (to give them their Italianised names).
The second culminates in Appio’s interruption of the marriage of Virginia
and Icilio. And the third ends with Virginio’s slaying of his daughter.
When eventually staged, Virginia was interpreted by a strong cast, headed
by Marcellina Lotti Della Santa (who had been Verdi’s first Mina in Aroldo,
–147–
Raffaele Mirate
The first Appio
Virginia
and who was to be the first Gabriella di Vergy when that Donizetti opera was
given its posthumous premiere in Naples in 1869), and by Raffaele Mirate
(who had been the Duke of Mantua in the first performance of Verdi’s
Rigoletto in 1851). Mercadante, by this time totally blind, sat in a box with a
few friends, and heard himself accorded an unprecedented ovation. As
Vincenzo Torelli, the proprietor and critic of the Neapolitan journal
L’Omnibus later recalled, he wept for joy yet was modest in his glory. Torelli’s
account continues: ‘That evening I, too, was in the theatre, and the emotion
of my heart knew no limits; I felt it would burst for joy at seeing such festivity
and enthusiasm; that venerable head of snow-white hair, that broad brow, the
seat of his genius, those eyes that were sightless yet divine in their silent
majesty, those tears that streamed down his pale cheeks, that uncertain
extending of his arms towards the delirious public – [they were sights] that
will never leave my memory.’
The terzetto recorded here is the confrontation of Virginia, Icilio and
Appio at the end of Act I. Appio comes as an intruder into Virginio’s house,
intent upon persuading Virginia to surrender herself to him. But at this
moment Icilio enters, and Appio realises, to his anger, that he has a rival.
Come!... Il ver discerno?
Tu!
APPIO
How’s this!... Do I perceive the truth?
You!
–149–
Majella Cullagh
Bruce Ford
VIRGINIA
(Chi m’aita?...)
(Who will help me?...)
APPIO
Ho in sen l’averno!...
I have all Hell in my heart!...
ICILIO
Fear my anger, madman:
My revenge knows no restraint...
APPIO
Paventa iniquo gli sdegni miei:
Fear my anger, evil man:
A mia vendetta freno non v’è...
My revenge knows no restraint...
VIRGINIA
(Ah! pari a questo crudel tormento
(Ah! no mortal has been able to
experience
Nessun mortale provar potè!)
Cruel torment the like of this!)
ICILIO & APPIO
Pria che tu ardissi amar costei,
Before you dared to love her,
“Pria che un rivale scovrire in me,”
“Before you discovered a rival in me,”
Tutti nemici aver gli Dei
Oh, how much better had it been for
you
Oh, quanto meglio era per te!
To have made all the Gods your
enemies!
VIRGINIA
(Un Dio commosso al mio spavento
(May a God, moved by my terror,
A lui soccorra, soccorra a me
Succour him and succour me –
Paventa insano gli sdegni miei:
A mia vendetta freno non v’è...
–151–
Se la pietade un vuoto accento
Siccome in terra in ciel non è.)
If pity is not as meaningless a word
In heaven as it is on earth.)
APPIO
Dell’odio antico quest’alma or prova
This soul of mine now feels a hatred
Odio ben altro!...
Very different from the hatred of old!...
VIRGINIA
(Il cor mi trema!)
(My heart trembles!)
APPIO
Pur che tu l’ami quasi a me giova...
If you love her, it almost promotes my
purpose...
Mi fia rapirtela la gioia suprema!...
It will be my supreme joy to tear her
from you!...
VIRGINIA
bridling with indignation
Appio...
Appio...
ICILIO
Vaneggia!
You’re raving!
APPIO
E chi! chi mai
And who! who ever could
La sottrarrebbe al mio poter?
Rescue her from my power?
VIRGINIA
I Numi...
The Gods...
APPIO
Stolta!... sul Tebro omai
Simple fool!... by now there is
Nume non havvi che il mio poter.
No God over Tiber except my power.
–152–
Nume non havvi che il tuo poter?
Calcando il mio cadavere
Giunger puoi solo ad essa...
Per via di sangue il vizio
Alla virtù s’appressa.
Ma fin che il giorno io miro,
Ma fin che un’aura io spiro,
A Roma ed a Virginia
Un Dio rimane ancor!
Non cangi, temerario,
Con vani accenti il fato...
Trema... già sei colpevole
D’amarla, o sciagurato!
Su voi, su Roma intera
La mia possanza impera...
Vedrem fra Icilio ed Appio
Qual sarà Dio miglior.
Il detto mio rammenta:
Tu non mi avrai che spenta –
Il sangue di Virginio
ICILIO
There’s no God except your power?
Only by trampling over my corpse
Can you approach her...
Vice makes its way towards virtue
Along a road of blood.
But for as long as I behold the day,
But for as long as I draw breath,
A God still remains
For Rome and for Virginia!
APPIO
You do not, rash man, alter
Fate with empty words...
Tremble... you are already guilty
Of loving her, you wretch!
My might rules over you,
Over all Rome...
Between Icilio and Appio, we shall see
Which may prove the greater God.
VIRGINIA
to Appio
Imprint my word in your memory:
You must kill me before you’ll have
me –
The blood of Virginio
–153–
Ribolle in questo cor!
Va... se non me, Decemviro,
Rispetta i miei Penati:
Esci, dai lari involati
Che troppo hai profanati!...
Boils over in my heart!
Go... if you respect not me, Decemviro,
Respect my household Gods:
Begone, fly from these precincts
Which you have too flagrantly
profaned!...
VIRGINIA & ICILIO
Esci!
Depart!
APPIO
Trema!
Tremble!
VIRGINIA & ICILIO
Vanne!
Begone!
ALL THREE
Trema!
Tremble!
(Appio leaves.)
Undoubtedly the most ‘advanced’, the most impassioned and the most
Verdian music to be heard on this disc, this terzetto represents Mercadante at
the pinnacle of his powers. It takes the form of a confrontation between the
two tenors, with the soprano watching – and commenting – in distraught
despair. A brief introductory passage, pregnant with the drama to come, leads
into the andante movement, ‘Paventa insano gli sdegni miei’. Rhythmic
urgency, generous melody based on heightened declamation, sudden
alternation of forte and pianissimo – this movement is a text-book illustration
–154–
David Parry
of so many of the dramatic devices and resources of the day. It brings us, too
(at ‘Pria che tu ardissi amar costei’) the best example offered on this disc of
Mercadante’s command of the motivo spiegato – that sonorously ample variety
of melody that unfurls, and goes on unfurling, as we listen. And then, as it
draws towards its close, it derives its crowning distinction from a series of
emotionally affecting modulations.
But the interest does not end here. A tempo di mezzo brings us to an allegro
mosso cabaletta, ‘Calcando il mio cadavere’. ‘Vigorous’ is a scarcely adequate
term to describe the excitement generated here. Appropriately Icilio and
Appio, the two rivals, sing the same music one after the other, each throwing
out his challenges as he does so, but a distraught Virginia, when it comes her
turn to enter, carries the movement away with a twice-enunciated variant of
her own before all three voices join in a final peroration. The music pulses with
energy and emotion: one feels the hearts of all three participants pounding
with anger, indignation, defiance and thwarted passion.
It is not for nothing that we have taken from this terzetto the title we have
given to this entire recital of the music of Pacini and Mercadante.
© Jeremy Commons
–156–