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From Guadagni’s Suitcase: A Primo Uomo’s Signature Aria and its Transformation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2015
Abstract
By 1760, the great musico Gaetano Guadagni had made a name for himself singing the role of Arbace in Baldassare Galuppi’s popular setting of Artaserse. A replacement aria connected with that work emerged as Guadagni’s signature song. Its text appears in all librettos for Galuppi’s setting that Guadagni sang; Johann Christian Bach provided Guadagni with another setting of the text; and a third by an unknown composer suggests links between the poetry and settings by Gaetano Pampani and Leonardo Vinci. This article examines Guadagni’s aria and its transformation, re-examining the role of a solo song in the creation of a singer’s international reputation, its power to evoke memories of other celebrities in the minds of audiences and its function in placing a singer within a broad community of star performers.
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- Research Article
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- © Cambridge University Press 2015
Footnotes
*
Margaret R. Butler, University of Florida; butlermr@ufl.edu. I thank Suzanne Aspden for insightful suggestions that helped strengthen this article. An earlier version was read at the American Bach Society Biennial Conference, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, May 2014. I also thank John Rice and Paul Corneilson for helpful comments made at that stage. All translations are my own.
References
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2 Daniel Heartz, ‘From Garrick to Gluck: The Reform of Theater and Opera in the Mid-Eighteenth Century’, and ‘Orfeo ed Euridice: Some Criticisms, Revisions, and Stage Realizations during Gluck’s Lifetime’, in Heartz, From Garrick to Gluck: Essays on Opera in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. John A. Rice (Hillsdale, NY, 2004), 257–70 and 313–23; Bruce Alan Brown, Gluck and the French Theatre in Vienna (Oxford, 1991), esp. ch. 9, ‘Theory into Practice: Orfeo ed Euridice’, and elsewhere.
3 Butler, Margaret R., ‘The Misadventures of Artaserse (Turin, 1760): J. C. Bach’s First Italian Opera from Production to Performance’, in Theatrical Heritage: Challenges and Opportunities, ed. Bruno Forment and Christel Stalpaert (Leuven, 2015), 89–104Google Scholar, rpt. in Essays on J. C. Bach, ed. Paul Corneilson (Aldershot, forthcoming 2015). The date on which Turin’s theatrical directors chose the libretto is unknown (the first mention of Artaserse in the institutional documents reflecting theatrical production appears on 28 June 1760, well after the libretto would have been selected: Turin, Archivio storico della città (hereafter I-Tac), Libri Ordinati della Nobile Società dei Cavalieri, V: 14). I thank Melania Bucciarelli for helpful questions regarding Guadagni’s influence on the choice of libretto.
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13 Revivals were given in Mantua, 1753; Venice, 1754; Treviso, 1755; Brescia, 1756; Vicenza, 1756; Faenza, 1757; Ferrara, 1757; Lucca, 1757; Brescia, 1758; Verona, 1759; Venice, 1761; Sartori, I libretti italiani, VI: 388. Wiesend, Reinhard, ‘Baldassare Galuppi fra opera seria e opera buffa’, in Galuppiana 1985: Studi e ricerche, atti del convegno internazionale, Venezia, 28–30 Ottobre 1985, ed. Maria Teresa Muraro and Franco Rossi (Florence, 1986), 159Google Scholar, gives a partial list, omitting the Mantua and Verona revivals.
14 Menchelli-Buttini noted the presence of ‘Vivrò se vuoi così’ in Guadagni’s three performances of Galuppi’s setting and tentatively attributed the aria’s appearance to the singer’s participation. See Menchelli-Buttini, ‘Introduzione’, Artaserse, xx.
15 These are Mantua, 1753; Venice, 1754; Treviso, 1755; Brescia, 1756.
16 The copy of the aria in the composer’s hand is held in Brussels, Conservatoire Royale de Bruxelles, Bibliothèque, 3942. The score from the 1756 production is held in Stockholm, Statens Musiksamlingar, Kungl. Teatern A 10 (12). See Wiesend, Reinhard, Studien zur opera seria von Baldassare Galuppi: Werksituation und Uberlieferung, Form und Satztechnik, Inhaltsdarstellung: mit einer Biographie und einem Quellen verzeichnis der Opern, 2 vols. (Tutzing, 1984) I: 138Google Scholar and II: 61. The musical text of the aria copy is identical to that of the aria in the 1756 score. The aria survives only in these two copies.
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18 Burney, Charles, A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, 4 vols. (London, 1776–89), IV (1776), 494–495Google Scholar; see Howard, The Modern Castrato, 80.
19 Heartz, , ‘From Garrick to Gluck’, in From Garrick to Gluck, 268–269Google Scholar.
20 Heartz, Daniel, ‘Portrait of a Primo Uomo: Carlo Scalzi in Venice ca. 1740’, Hamburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft 12 (1994), 133–145Google Scholar; Heartz, , Music in European Capitals, 40–42Google Scholar.
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22 Brunelli, Bruno, ed., Tutte le opere di Pietro Metastasio, 5 vols. (Milan, 1943–54), III: 57–58Google Scholar. The relevant excerpt from the letter to Marianna Bulgarelli Benti in Rome (from Vienna, 7 July 1731) consists of these lines: ‘Io temeva assai dell’Artaserse, non avendone sentito parola nella vostra lettera dell’ordinario scorso. Ma oggi e da voi e da Bulga e da Leopoldo e da Peppe Peroni sento l’incontro del medesimo, e mi consola infinitamente, persuaso del piacere che per mio riguardo incontrerete voi nella rappresentazione del medesimo … Da tutte le parti sono assicurato della premura ed esattezza de’ rappresentanti; rendetene, vi priego, loro grazie a mio nome, e particolarmente agl’incomparabili Scalzi e Farfallino, che riverisco ed abbraccio. Povero Vinci! Adesso se ne conosce il merito, e vivente si lacerava.’ (‘I was worrying greatly about Artaserse, not having heard a word about it from you in your last regular letter. But today from you, Bulga, Leopoldo, and Peppe Peroni, I receive news of the same, and I am infinitely consoled, persuaded by the pleasure that it seems that you experienced at the performance of the same … From all sides I am assured of the care and precision of the performers; convey my thanks to them, I urge you, and particularly to the incomparable Scalzi and Farfallino, whom I revere and embrace. Poor Vinci! Now [that he has died] his greatness is recognised, while during his life he was denigrated.’)
23 Markstrom, Kurt Sven, The Operas of Leonardo Vinci, Napoletano (Hillsdale, NY, 2007), 322Google Scholar. The aria collection is held at the Royal College of Music, RCM MS 629. I was not able to examine the collection but library staff informed me that the arias carry no singers’ names.
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25 Heartz, , ‘Portrait of a Primo Uomo’, 140Google Scholar.
26 Catone in Utica (Pesaro, 1752); copy from Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Bologna consulted.
27 An aria Scalzi would have heard, and whose first line resembles ‘Vivrò se vuoi così’, is ‘Parto se vuoi così’ from Metastasio’s Issipile, Act II, scene 12. This text was sung by Anna Maria Strada del Pò in a pasticcio titled Arbace, consisting of arias assembled by Handel in which Carlo Scalzi sang the role of Artaserse (libretto from London, 1734, Act II, scene 11). On Arbace see Strohm, Reinhard, ‘Handel’s Pasticci’, in Essays on Handel and Italian Opera (Cambridge, 1985), 164–211Google Scholar (Arbace is discussed on 182–96).
28 Heartz, , ‘Portrait of a Primo Uomo’, 140Google Scholar. John Rice discovered the connection between Farinelli’s recitative, Giziello’s aria and the duet texts (see Heartz, ‘Portrait of a Primo Uomo’, 143). Rice had also surveyed other librettos that I was not able to check and likewise found no appearances of the aria text; I thank him for sharing his unpublished findings with me.
29 Nine copies appear in RISM.
30 Although Howard (The Modern Castrato, 78–80, 197) questions the connection between Giziello and Guadagni, the scenario I outline here supports the possibility of their close association.
31 Mozart stated in a letter of 28 February 1778 that an aria should ‘fit a singer as perfectly as a well-made suit of clothes’; see The Letters of Mozart and His Family, ed. and trans. Emily Anderson, 3rd edn (London, 1985), 171.
32 Howard, , The Modern Castrato, 199–210Google Scholar.
33 Howard, , The Modern Castrato, 198–199Google Scholar. (Burney’s General History (I: 863) is referenced in Howard’s n. 28 on 199.)
34 Administrative documents from as early as June 1760 clarify that the Teatro Regio’s administration was already planning to abbreviate the recitative and change some of the aria texts, so perhaps the change of the Act III aria text was in place by then. Bach’s setting corresponds to the 1760 libretto from Turin in the emended recitative and in the presence of other substitute aria texts.
35 Excerpt from the contract for Johann Christian Bach, 30 May 1760. I-Tac, Carte sciolte 6242. ‘Per virtù della presente Scrittura … Il Sig.r [first name omitted] Bacchi Maestro di Capella si obbliga verso gli Signori Cavalieri Direttori delle Opere nel Reg.io Teatro di Torino, di comporre, e dare composta in Musica affatto nuova, e non già sentita, la prima Opera da rappresentarsi in d.o Reg.io Teatro’ (‘By virtue of this contract … Mr. [first name omitted] Bach maestro di cappella is engaged by the Society of Nobles, directors of the operas at the Royal Theatre of Turin, to compose and deliver composed in new and not previously heard music, the first opera to perform in the aforementioned Royal Theatre’).
36 This background is treated in greater detail in Butler, ‘Misadventures of Artaserse’.
37 Guadagni’s contract in I-Tac, Carte sciolte 6242. By 1760, Guadagni had sung in London and Lisbon and in several of Italy’s most prestigious theatres (those in Venice, Turin and Naples). See Howard, , The Modern Castrato, Appendix A, ‘Guadagni’s Dramatic Roles’, 213–218Google Scholar.
38 The directors first contacted Hasse in April or early May 1760. By the end of May they were still waiting for a commitment from him. Although the date on which they sent Bach his contract is unknown, Bach must have had it by 17 June since he mentioned it in a letter to his teacher, Padre Martini, on that date. (The date on his contract, 30 May, was the date on which it was prepared, but the directors held it until they had heard from Hasse.) See Butler, ‘Misadventures of Artaserse’.
39 See Butler, Margaret R., Operatic Reform at Turin’s Teatro Regio: Aspects of Production and Stylistic Change in the 1760s (Lucca, 2001), 82Google Scholar, 229, 244.
40 Heartz, , ‘From Garrick to Gluck’, in From Garrick to Gluck, 269Google Scholar.
41 Howard, , The Modern Castrato, 204–205Google Scholar. See also the recent recording, ‘Arias for Guadagni’ (Iestyn Davies, countertenor; Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen, cond., Hyperion CDA67924, 2012). (Despite the disc’s title, only ten of the nineteen tracks represent pieces actually written for Guadagni: four arias Handel revised for him, one aria is of Guadagni’s own composition, one is by J.C. Smith and four excerpts are by Gluck.)
42 Spitzer, John and Zaslaw, Neal, The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650–1815 (Oxford, 2004), 142–143CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Francesco Galeazzi declared the orchestra ‘indisputably the finest in Europe’ in his Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, 2 vols. (Rome, 1791–6), I: 222 (cited in Spitzer and Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra, 306).
43 Butler, ‘Misadventures of Artaserse’.
44 Libretto in Turin, Biblioteca civica, L.O. 193. Photographs in Butler, ‘Misadventures of Artaserse’.
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46 Those involved in the modern world premiere of Bach’s Artaserse (staged at the ‘Revaluing Theatrical Heritage’, international conference, Kortrijk, Belgium, January 2013) made the opposite decision: they kept the short cavatina but cut the longer ‘Vivrò’, in order to further abbreviate the scene, a choice that underscores the difficulties in presenting lengthy opere serie for modern audiences.
47 Butler, Margaret R., ‘Gluck’s Alceste in Bologna: Production and Performance at the Teatro Comunale, 1778’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 65 (2012), 727–776Google Scholar; see also Candiani, Rosy, ‘La Fortuna della ‘riforma’ di Calzabigi e Gluck sulle scene italiane Settecentesche’, in Ranieri Calzabigi tra Vienna e Napoli, ed. Francesco Paolo Russo and Federico Marri (Lucca, 1997), 57–84Google Scholar.
* Copy of manuscript score from Brussels (B-Bc), Conservatoire royale de Bruxelles, Bibliothèque, 3942.
** Copy of manuscript score from Lisbon (P-La), Biblioteca da Ajuda, 44 II 34–36.