Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
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Ospedale della Pietà in Venice Opernhaus Prag Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) Complete Opera – Antonio Vivaldi – Complete Opera – Index - Complete Operas by Antonio Vivaldi Page Preface 3 Cantatas 1 RV687 Wedding Cantata 'Gloria e Imeneo' (Wedding cantata) 4 2 RV690 Serenata a 3 'Mio cor, povero cor' (My poor heart) 5 3 RV693 Serenata a 3 'La senna festegiante' 6 Operas 1 RV697 Argippo 7 2 RV699 Armida al campo d'Egitto 8 3 RV700 Arsilda, Regina di Ponto 9 4 RV702 Atenaide 10 5 RV703 Bajazet - Il Tamerlano 11 6 RV705 Catone in Utica 12 7 RV709 Dorilla in Tempe 13 8 RV710 Ercole sul Termodonte 14 9 RV711 Farnace 15 10 RV714 La fida ninfa 16 11 RV717 Il Giustino 17 12 RV718 Griselda 18 13 RV719 L'incoronazione di Dario 19 14 RV723 Motezuma 20 15 RV725 L'Olimpiade 21 16 RV726 L'oracolo in Messenia 22 17 RV727 Orlando finto pazzo 23 18 RV728 Orlando furioso 24 19 RV729 Ottone in Villa 25 20 RV731 Rosmira Fedele 26 21 RV734 La Silvia (incomplete) 27 22 RV736 Il Teuzzone 27 23 RV738 Tito Manlio 29 24 RV739 La verita in cimento 30 25 RV740 Il Tigrane (Fragment) 31 2 – Antonio Vivaldi – Complete Opera – Preface In 17th century Italy is quite affected by the opera fever. The genus just newly created is celebrated everywhere. Not quite. For in Romee were allowed operas for decades heard exclusively in a closed society. The Papal State, who wanted to seem virtuous achieved at least outwardly like all these stories about love, lust, passions and all the ancient heroes and gods was morally rather questionable. And that women sing, was totally unthinkable at that time in Romee. "The Church's decadence", so at the time scoffed a Frenchman, "leaves the theater in women's roles only pretty young lads occur found for the diabolical tinker the secret of how to get their high-pitched voices. As a girl dressed, with her hips, the wide butt, the female breast, the round and plump neck can actually hold for girls. "But the male hero was usually sung by castrati; for tenors and basses rarely significant roles were written. This caused confusion in later centuries, because with the end of the grisly castration of course the sopranos and altos disappeared fRome the stage; the heroic roles were now sung by women, which sometimes seems pretty weird, or transposed for "real" men's voices, which also brings some problems. Vivaldi's pieces are among the most famous works of the "Baroque music". The composer and grandiose violinist has impressed with his works an audience of millions across generations. There is still a prejudice in many heads that the prolific Venetian baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi was only moderately talented, whose only brilliant composition is "The Four Seasons". Yet he was one of the most charismatic artistic personalities of the 18th century and a brilliant musical dramatist who left a hitherto largely undiscovered treasure trove of operas. Vivaldi wrote ravishingly virtuoso arias, worked effectively with contrasting orchestration and, moreover, had a metropolitan Venetian sense of irony and subliminal social criticism. In his opera La verità in cimento,which has scarcely ever been performed on stage, all these qualities come into their own. Vivaldi claimed to have composed 94 operas, but fewer than 49 titles have been identified. In the autograph scores 22 works have survived, of which 16 are fully in Vivaldi's own handwriting. Most of them are now kept in the National Library of Turin, where a total of about 450 music manuscripts by Vivaldi works are almost all musical genres. All of Vivaldi's operatic works are described as dramma per musica, roughly equivalent to opera seria. Stylistically it is in Vivaldi's operas to baroque operas number of Italian style, ie with largely clear separation of recitative and da capo aria. The instrumentation ranges in Vivaldi's operas fRome simple string ensemble with continuo to be extensive with brass (flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets, horns, tRomebones) and timpani enriched ensembles. The continuo is today based on historical models usually richly decorated with cello, harpsichord, lute, baroque guitar, theorbo, harp, etc., where appropriate, with violone (double bass) or bassoon. In an opera by Vivaldi, there is also a dulcimer. Often the solo violin is used (Vivaldi himself was a violinist and directed the performances of his instrument.) In pasticcio opera, a libretto is set using existing musical numbers - sometimes all by one composer, and sometimes by several - creating a new work while exploiting proven materials. Pasticcios was commonly used in Baroque music, to integrate already successful music again. Several Baroque ensembles have started in the last few years trying to reconstruct the in many archives of opera houses sighted fragments of Vivaldi's operas and perform it. Since this work has only just begun, yet more operas by Vivaldi will certainly reconstructed and performed. Most of today performable Vivaldi's operas are reconstructions, because frequently although the librettos are available, but only fragments of the scores were found. During the reconstruction, care is taken to preserve the context of the plot, most parts of the original libretto are omitted because the accompanying music is missing. 3 – Antonio Vivaldi – Complete Opera – Cantatas Vivaldi was inducted early into the world of the serenata. His first such composition, written in 1708 as an encomium for a Venetian official in Rovigo who had concluded his term of office, predates his earliest opera by five years. Altogether, we know of eight serenatas fRome his pen, and this probably understates their true number. Oddly, three of them survive in score and three more as published librettos that name Vivaldi as the composer – but in no cases do we possess both the music and the libretto. The two works in the present recording belong to a group of at least three serenatas with a French connection that the composer wrote in the 1720s. Wedding Cantata 'La Gloria e Imeneo' (Wedding cantata) – RV 687 Serenada in 2 Parts for Soprano and Basso Continuo Original language: Italian Playing time ca. 1 hour Premiere: August, 15 1725, Strasbourg Libretto by unknown Cast Recording The King's Consort-Robert King Tuva Semmingsen - Mezzo Soprano (Imeneo), Hilary Summers - Alto (Gloria) Recorded 2002 Roles: • Gloria (Alto) – The splendor, as an attribute of the French monarch • Imeneo (Mezzo Soprano) - Hymen, the Wedding-God Synopsis: In 1723, after a fourteen-year break in diplomatic relations, the French monarchy posted to Venice a new ambassador, Jacques-Vincent Languet, Count of Gergy. Languet managed to reoccupy the traditional Palais de France, situated on the Fondamenta della Madonna dell’Orto and facing out across the lagoon to the mainland. As a matter of course, he celebrated there every year the feast of St Louis on 25 August, thereby honouring not only the patron saint of his country but also its monarch. Vivaldi may have made contact with Languet earlier, but the first commission of which we have certain knowledge is that for the wedding serenata, RV687, written to commemorate the nuptials of Louis XV and the Polish princess Maria Leszczyska and performed in the evening of 12 September 1725 in a loggia (still standing) at the end of the ambassador’s garden. At very short notice, Languet organised a magnificent festa, which was minutely reported not only in a handwritten account in Italian for circulation among the ambassador’s friends but also in the Mercure de France for October 1725, where we read: ‘After the ball there was a serenata, whose words, suited to the subject [of the festivities], were much praised, and the music was by Signor Vivaldi, who is the best composer in Venice’. The two characters in this serenata are Imeneo (Hymen, the god of marriage) and La Gloria (Glory, the attribute of the French monarch). There is really no ‘plot’: the two characters simply vie with one another in heaping enconiums on the young couple. La Gloria leads off by descending to earth and inviting Louis to welcome his Polish bride in a pompous aria (‘Alle amene franche arene’) thematically related to one in Vivaldi’s recent opera Giustino (1724) and to the first movement of his concerto for two horns RV538. Imeneo then invites the princess to share the marriage bed and reminds her of the duties of a good wife in a strangely restless aria in C minor (‘Tenero fanciulletto’). The wedding congratulations continue in strict rotation until the two cheerleaders join forces in a lively duet, ‘Vedrò sempre la pace’. Two further arias (prepared, as always, by recitatives) arrive, and we at last reach the climax of the serenata: the final recitative. By tradition, this is the point at which the joyful occasion is summed up – the anonymous poet even manages to squeeze in a tribute to Languet himself for hosting the festa – and its ‘message’ is delivered in definitive form. This celebration, sings La Gloria, will remain indelibly etched in human memory. It remains only for the couple to sing a final duet, ‘In braccio de’ contenti’, which is another borrowing from Rome Giustino. 4 – Antonio Vivaldi – Complete Opera – Serenata a 3 'Mio cor, povero cor' (My poor heart) – RV 690 alias 'La Ninfa e il Pastore' (Die Nymphe und der Hirte / The Nymph and the Shepherd), alias ‘Eurilla e Alcino’ Serenada in 2 Parts for Soprano and Basso Continuo Original language: Italian Playing time ca. 1,5 hours Premiere: September 1725, Venice, Embassy garden Libretto by unknown Cast Recording Clemencic Consort & Ensemble Vocal La Capella - René Clemencic, Petya Grigorova (Eurilla) - Soprano, Marjorie Vance (Nice) - Soprano, Kurt Spanier (Alcindo) - Tenor Recorded 2003 Roles: • Eurilla (Soprano) – Nymphe / Nymph • Nice (Mezzo Soprano) • Alcindo (Tenor) – Hirte / Shepherd Synopsis: The most enigmatic aspect of Vivaldi's vocal music is undoubtedly that of his serenatas.