Great Operas E-Book

Michael Steen

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Great Operas
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 839

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

With four famous operas each from Mozart, Verdi and Puccini, and two each from Rossini and Donizetti, there is a feast of information. Here are short guides to The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni; to the splendour of Aïda, the heart-breaking La Traviata; the drama of Tosca. The range is very broad. There is Wagner's great love story Tristan und Isolde; there is Johann Strauss's light comedy Die Fledermaus. On the way you can be briefed about such favourites as Handel's Giulio Cesare, Bizet's Carmen, Gounod's Faust, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Britten's Peter Grimes. With plot summaries, composer biographies, observations on musical points of interest and background on the historical and cultural context of each opera, every one of these guides will enhance your appreciation and enjoyment and help you discuss the work and the performance with your fellow opera-goers. Steen shares his expert knowledge with a lightness of touch that makes each guide a pleasure to read. Witty, informative and beautifully presented, Great Operas is an indispensable reference guide for both seasoned opera-goers and those enjoying opera for the first time.

Leseprobe

Printed edition published in the UK in 2012 by

Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.co.uk

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Icon Books Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-84831-460-3 (ePub format)

ISBN 978-1-84831-487-0 (Adobe ebook format)

Some of the material in this book has previously been published in a series of individual ebooks, each titled A Short Guide to a Great Opera.

Text copyright © 2012 Michael Steen

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typesetting by Marie Doherty

CONTENTS

Title page

Copyright

PREFACE

HANDEL

GIULIO CESARE

MOZART

THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO

DON GIOVANNI

COSÌ FAN TUTTE

THE MAGIC FLUTE

ROSSINI

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

LA CENERENTOLA

DONIZETTI

L’ELISIR D’AMORE

LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR

WAGNER

TANNHÄUSER

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

VERDI

RIGOLETTO

IL TROVATORE

LA TRAVIATA

AÏDA

GOUNOD

FAUST

JOHANN STRAUSS

DIE FLEDERMAUS

BIZET

CARMEN

TCHAIKOVSKY

EUGENE ONEGIN

‘CAV & PAG’

MASCAGNI’S CAVALLERIARUSTICANA AND LEONCAVALLO’S PAGLIACCI

PUCCINI

LA BOHÈME

TOSCA

MADAMA BUTTERFLY

TURANDOT

BRITTEN

PETER GRIMES

SOURCES

INDEX

Other books by same author

PREFACE

‘We’re off to the opera in a couple of days,’ Rosemary reminded me. ‘I’m rather busy. Tell me what I need to know.’ She added, ‘We’ll want a drink when we get there. So I won’t have time to read much of the programme.’ ‘By the way,’ she continued, ‘Kate and John know all about opera and I want to hold my own with them during the interval.’

‘I’ll write you a short guide, something informative, but light and amusing, which will help you; you can read the key information in the car,’ I promised.

It worked so well that every time we went to an opera I gave her – and her knowledge of the technicalities is that of a typical BBC Radio 4 or Classic FM listener who learnt piano at school – a similar guide. I structured each so that she could get up front the key information on the opera’s background and what it is about. She could then ‘drill down’ if she wanted more information.

Having been to so many operas, and consequently having so many such guides at my fingertips, it has been a challenge choosing which to include in this compendium. I have concentrated on well-known favourites. This means that the operas of Mozart are bound to be well represented. And the contents are necessarily dominated by 19th-century Italian opera, in style, if not always by date.

The popularity of many of the Italian and French operas arises to a considerable extent from the impressive vocal pyrotechnics and gymnastics which enable celebrities, or would-be celebrities, to show off. Verdi, but more notably the Germans to the north, developed a more serious purpose to which the composer Hector Berlioz (who regarded himself as three-quarters German) applied the phrase un peuélevée, that is, ‘lofty’ or ‘noble’. They aimed to use music, both vocal and orchestral, to express the drama more effectively than the spoken word on its own could do. So, to reflect this, and to provide breadth, I have supplemented the popular operas with an early and a mature opera by Wagner. As a Dubliner, I would have liked to be able to include something with an Irish flavour. But accepting that Benedict’s The Lily of Killarney and Stanford’s Shamus O’Brien fell out of the repertory long ago, I settled for starting and ending with guides to well-known operas by Handel and Britten, both essentially English composers.

The guides vary in length. There is much more to say about Tristan und Isolde than there is about L’Elisir d’Amore. Besides, the length of the opera itself varies: the Italians, so commercially astute, knew exactly what their impatient audiences would tolerate. Verdi reckoned that 40 minutes was the maximum attention span for an act.

I have been keen to ensure that, for practical use, the reader has all the information he or she needs together in one place, in a stand-alone piece without too much cross-referencing. So it is inevitable that at times there will be some duplication between guides – it should come as no surprise that certain useful knowledge relating to one Puccini opera will be similarly valuable with regard to another. Conversely, biographical box features, which appear in the first guide for each composer, are not repeated in subsequent guides. And the same applies, occasionally, for librettists and other important figures.

In the original language, the first lines of certain arias and choruses can be important and useful milestones. But the translation of the first line of a verse is often not very meaningful, taken on its own. So I have often relied on the surrounding description to convey the overall meaning. I have also assumed that even though most readers do not have a glossary of musical expressions at their fingertips, they have encountered enough Italian waiters to know or guess what many phrases are likely to mean. Most operas are about love.

Some old hands may be disappointed not to see discographies. They can be obtained today at the touch of a button. The efficient and up-to-date way to see what is available is to refer to the internet.

I have drawn the information from my own considerable experience and from various authoritative sources listed in the acknowledgments. Without all these, without the team at Icon, Duncan Heath, Robert Sharman and Andrew Furlow, this book – and the accompanying ebook series of ‘Short Guides to a Great Opera’ – would not exist. More crucially perhaps, without the great composer, we would not have the opera. To my sources (and Rosemary and the others who have helped me, including Richard Todd and Katharine Hogg on photography, and Dr Guy Deutscher, Dr Janie Steen and David Vaughan on a host of other matters), I am very grateful. I am also indebted to the staff of various libraries, especially the British Library, the City of London Libraries and the City of Westminster Music Library. Their courtesy, helpfulness and responsiveness never cease to astonish me.

* * *

Andrew Porter, the leading 20th-century critic, tactfully drew attention to contradictory trends today: on the one hand, ever greater fidelity to the sounds of a composer’s score, and, on the other, ‘ever less respect for scenic indications’ that might be considered part of the composer’s overall creation, his complete, integrated work of art.

These guides help you to appreciate the opera the composer wrote. They cannot anticipate a particular production which is not in line with the composer’s original intentions. (Sometimes these are so ignored that I wonder whether the advertising, which holds the work out as being that of the composer, complies with local regulations on trade description.) Maybe the opera-house programme will indicate the thinking behind a particular production.

Rosemary and many friends have found these guides very helpful. I hope you do as well, and have a very enjoyable musical experience.

Michael Steen Mattingley

HANDEL: GIULIOCESARE

The opera and its composer

Who’s who and what’s what

The interval: talking points

Act by act

THE OPERA AND ITS COMPOSER

Today, Handel’s opera about Cleopatra, ‘the immortal harlot’, is the most popular of the 40 or so Italian operas that were his focus during the first part of his career, before he took up composing oratorios. ‘No Handel opera has been staged in so many countries or enjoyed greater success.’

We may be surprised that Giulio Cesare in Egitto was composed in Italian by a German resident in England. Handel’s contemporaries were amused by this fashion for Italian opera, which could be heard twice a week, starting ‘exactly at Six’. Such was the enthusiasm that The Spectator, a newly launched journal, feared that future historians might infer that the English spoke Italian. An extraordinary notion! Otherwise, how would the journalist’s great grandchildren possibly explain why ‘their Forefathers used to sit like an audience of Foreigners in their own Country’ in order to hear ‘whole Plays acted before them in a Tongue which they did not understand’?

The explanation is found in the enormous sums which Italian celebrities could earn in the booming English economy. Their success was facilitated and exploited by the Herculean efforts of Handel, a leading composer and producer. And The Spectator made the odd penny from advertising the opera and the celebrities.1

The audience must have found it very novel, not least the bizarre experience of seeing a eunuch purporting to be a Roman general, barking commands and bedding the sexy Queen of Egypt. Indeed, the ‘foreign Strumpets and Eunnuchs’, despite at first being pelted with oranges, enthralled London’s aristocratic audiences. Their popularity lasted until, in 1728, John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera undermined Italian opera. The ‘squeaking Italians’ were lampooned off the stage; besides, their tantrums had become wearisome. Handel, by then a true Englishman, had to turn his hand to oratorio, such as Messiah, to make his living.

Handel’s libretto for Giulio Cesare was based on an earlier one by Giacomo Francesco Bussani, a prolific librettist. This had been set particularly successfully in the 1670s by a leading composer of operas for Venice, Antonio Sartorio. It was adapted, and compressed to make it suitable for an English audience, by Handel’s ‘staff’ librettist in London, Nicola Haym. It has been suggested that in its final form the libretto of Giulio Cesare ‘is one of the best Handel ever received’, and that it ‘presents a historical love story with a subtlety of characterisation worthy of Shakespeare.’

Nicola Haym (1678–1729) was a cellist, composer, book collector and antiquarian. He was born in Rome, where he was a member of the Papal Chancellor’s orchestra. He came to London in 1701 to work for the Duke of Bedford and, later, the Duke of Chandos. He took a leading part in the establishment of Italian opera in London. He became secretary and librettist to Handel’s ‘Royal Academy of Music’. His opinion of the purpose of music is not wholly consistent with modern attitudes: ‘Music,’ he wrote, ‘must always have some Passion or Sentiment to express, or else Violins, Voices or any other Organs of Sound, afford an Entertainment very little above the Rattles of Children.’

Giulio Cesare was composed during the summer of 1723 and prem­ièred at the King’s Theatre on 20 February 1724. In that year, London audiences also saw two other operas for which Handel used libretti supplied by Haym, Tamerlano and Rodelinda.

The production was well-received and ran for thirteen nights. That summer, it was performed in Paris and, in the following year, in Germany. Handel prepared a revised version in 1725, and brought the opera back in the early 1730s.Giulio Cesare is long: the first act lasts almost an hour and a half, the second and third acts each over an hour. The action unfolds in ‘recitatives’. The narrative, this ‘speaking in music’, has to be quite lengthy to recount the intricate story. Perhaps more significantly, convention required that the story was interjected with arias, in which the characters express their emotional response (rage, love etc.) to the circumstances. These are composed in the standard three-part structure: after the second part, the soloist returns to the start and essentially repeats the first part in a more embellished form in which technical brilliance may be displayed. Cesare has eight of these, as has Cleopatra. They also have two duets together and two substantial orchestrally accompanied recitatives, ‘a full half of the set pieces in the opera.’

However, the opera is action-packed right up to the finale. And Handel’s art ensures that the listener’s interest is constantly drawn forward by presenting the act ‘as a complete unit’, rather than focusing on each aria separately. Thus cuts made by modern producers, however desirable, can upset the balance of the act, and give the impression of increasing the opera’s length.

Handel

In addition, to maintain box-office returns, producers are often tempted to introduce gimmickry and, not least, to commit the cardinal ‘sin of mounting irrelevant distractions during the arias’ – for example portraying Cleopatra as a gold-digging tart, or Cesare as a buffoon or even as a ‘silly-ass President of the United States.’ In the effort to popularise it, Giulio Cesare has been particularly prone to this tendency, which one commentator has described as ‘a desolating vulgarity and contempt for the opera as a work of art.’ However, this gimmickry can undeniably add to the entertainment value of the opera.

Several of the arias are memorably beautiful, for example, Cesare’s Va tacito e nascosto, which is unique in Handel’s operas for its solo horn accompaniment; and Cleopatra’s Act 2 love song V’adoro, pupille, which has been described as ‘one of the most haunting tunes ever written.’ One can add to the list the Venere bella, her lament Piangerò la sorte mia, and much more. The listener can settle in and enjoy some truly wonderful music.

The events portrayed in the opera took place about four years before Julius Caesar’s assassination, and eighteen years before Cleopatra’s death as portrayed almost 2,000 years later in the well-known 1963 film Antony and Cleopatra. This starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, with Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar.

George Frederick Handel (1685–1759) was to have an exceptional influence on music in England. He was born on 23 February 1685 in Halle, near Leipzig. Rather than becoming a lawyer, as his father, a barber-surgeon, had wished, he turned to music, and worked in Lutheran Hamburg. His talent was spotted by a Medici prince who invited him to Italy, where he continued to study and compose.

Italy provided no future for Handel, a Lutheran. Also, while ‘in Italy and France, there was something to be heard and learned’, in England, there was ‘something to be earned.’ So he moved to Hanover and then in 1710 to London. In 1711, his opera Rinaldo was a huge success. He also fitted well with the new Hanoverian monarch George I, who acceded to the throne in 1714. During a lull in the fortunes of Italian opera, Handel worked in the household of the Duke of Chandos. After this, about 60 noblemen and gentlemen formed an opera company, the ‘Royal Academy of Music’. They employed Handel, Bononcini (Handel’s greatest rival in London) and Ariosti. This flourished from 1720 to 1728, and Handel produced fourteen operas for it.

As well as composing operas, and much other secular and church music, and running ‘the business’, Handel had to deal with the squabbles between actors whose egos were inflated by spectacular fees. The public eventually tired of Italian opera, preferring the ballad style of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera.

After the Academy folded in 1729, Handel took over in conjunction with a Swiss impresario, but this venture failed three years later. A new ‘Royal Academy’ was then formed, but this faced such intense competition from the rival ‘Opera of the Nobility’ (backed by the Prince of Wales), that both companies were almost bankrupted. London could not support one, let alone two, opera companies. All these pressures led to a breakdown in Handel’s health.

The last of Handel’s London operas was premiered in 1741. By then, he was composing the oratorios for which he became idolised in England. Messiah was staged, with an enormous choir, annually in Westminster Abbey in aid of the Foundling Hospital. (Today, Handel memorabilia can be seen at the Foundling Museum near Russell Square, London, and in Handel’s own house at 25 Lower Brook Street, off Bond Street.) The operas were shelved in the 1750s and only reappeared 160 years later, at first in Germany where, with modern staging, and somewhat cut and messed about, they were popular as an antidote to Wagner productions.

Handel was central to the entertainment industry in London. He composed a wide variety of music, including works for the pleasure gardens at Vauxhall and Ranelagh. The strains began to show and contributed to his poor health. In 1752, he lost his sight. He died on 14 April 1759.

WHO’S WHO AND WHAT’S WHAT

The story below is based on the libretto. Certain directors may amend opera stories to suit their production.

It is 48BC. The Egyptians greet Giulio Cesare, the Roman general, and his lieutenant, the tribune Curio.2 They have pursued Cesare’s rival, Pompey, who has fled to Egypt to seek military support from the effete pharaoh Tolomeo (Ptolemy).

Pompey’s wife, the beautiful Cornelia, and his son Sesto want peace, but their initiative grinds to a halt when Achilla, Tolomeo’s general, formally presents Cesare with a gruesome welcome gift, Pompey’s severed head. Cesare is furious and orders proper obsequies. Cornelia’s distress is not lessened by the hasty amorous advances of Curio, whom she resists; Sesto knows he must seek to avenge his father.

Cleopatra, Tolomeo’s sister and Queen, is in her apartment. She is told what has happened by her confidant and pimp, the eunuch Nireno. She thinks of visiting Cesare in his camp. Cleopatra and Tolomeo squabble about the exercise of power. Achilla reports Cesare’s angry reaction to the gift. He offers to kill Cesare; that is, if he can have Cornelia. Tolomeo is non-committal.

(The action generally alternates between two separate strands until Act 3, when they come together in the battle: on the one hand, there is Cleopatra’s intense seduction of Cesare (impelled initially by her desire to outflank her brother); by contrast, there are the antics, comical at times, of Curio, Achilla and Tolomeo, each of whom makes one or more passes at, and is rebuffed by, the wretched Cornelia.)

Cesare is in his camp brooding over Pompey’s demise: Alma del gran Pompeo. Cleopatra turns up disguised as a lady-in-waiting, ‘Lydia’. He is bowled over by her, as is Curio.

Still disguised as ‘Lydia’, Cleopatra agrees to help Sesto and Cornelia, and deputes Nireno to take them to confront Tolomeo. First, however, Cesare has a difficult meeting with Tolomeo. He knows he must proceed with great caution: Va tacito e nascosto

Cornelia and Sesto now face Tolomeo. When Cornelia rebuffs his advances, he has her sent to work as a gardener in his harem. Sesto is sent to be locked up. Tolomeo confirms to Achilla that he can have Cornelia. But when Achilla offers to have her freed in return for marrying him, he too is rebuffed.

* * *

Cleopatra (still disguised as ‘Lydia’), has got Nireno to create an erotic pleasure garden, into which she will lure Cesare: V’adoro, pupille, saette d’amore. She will be there at sunset.

Cornelia, in the harem, when escaping the advances of Achilla, falls into the arms of Tolomeo. She rebuffs him as well. Nireno advises her to join the concubines in Tolomeo’s folly, his trysting place, where he is unguarded. This will give her (and Sesto) the opportunity to strike at him.

Cleopatra, in her pleasure garden, invokes Venus to help her seduce Cesare: Venere bella. Their dalliance is interrupted by Curio who warns that assassins are coming to murder Cesare. ‘Lydia’, despite being Cleopatra, has insufficient authority to stop them. Cesare, who refuses to flee, has to go and handle the situation.

Cornelia is with the other concubines. Tolomeo gives her the white linen towel, a sign that she is the chosen one for the night. Sesto is about to strike but he is interrupted by Achilla who reports that Cesare has escaped, jumped into the sea, and been drowned. However Cleopatra has declared war. Achilla’s renewed but ineffective attempts to have Cornelia anger Tolomeo.

* * *

Cleopatra’s forces make war on Tolomeo. Achilla, having been traduced by Tolomeo, is furious. He changes sides. In the battle, the Queen’s forces are defeated and she is put in chains. She laments her fate: Piangerò la sorte mia.

But Cesare did not drown. He overhears Sesto and Nireno as they discover the dying, and now penitent, Achilla, who advises them how to get into the palace and save Cornelia from Tolomeo. Cesare resolves to lead them to save both Cleopatra and Cornelia.

Cleopatra, desolate at her situation, is with her weeping maidens in her apartment. Cesare comes to the rescue. Sesto kills Tolomeo as he tries to rape his mother

In the grand finale, Sesto claims vengeance for his father. Cesare crowns Cleopatra. She, in turn, agrees to act as a vassal to Rome. Cesare and Cleopatra proclaim their love and fidelity. The Egyptians rejoice at their liberty.

THE INTERVAL: TALKING POINTS

Stage performance in Handel’s time

The recitatives and da capo arias

Handel’s art and characterisation

The castrati

A little Roman history

The Roman sequel: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

The original cast

Stage performance in Handel’s time

For 17th century audiences, the aim of the entire production was ‘not to create realistic illusion, but to excite wonder and delight.’ Visual spectacle and scenic effects, with scenery and scene changes which ‘transported the audience from scene to scene, almost in the manner of a modern film’, were executed in full view of the audience. The theatre in the Haymarket had a ‘live’ fountain on stage. Lighting effects were considerable. There were gantries packed with lights, and coloured transparencies were used. When a sudden burst of light was needed, sulphur was thrown on the candles.

The recitatives and da capo arias

Handel’s operas, typically of Italian opera seria (serious opera) of the period, are characterised by soloists singing arias linked together by recitative.3 Grand choruses are rare. They were usually sung by ensembles of soloists.

Following the action as described or enacted in the recitative, the soloist would step forward onto the apron of the stage, to a position predetermined by the character’s rank,4 and address the audience, providing it with an emotional response appropriate to whatever is taking place at the time. Convention required that the aria express just one single specific mood or feeling.5

Usually Handel’s arias involve three lines of music: the soloist, an accompanying instrument above, and a base line (the continuo), played by the harpsichord or a solo instrument below. He adopted the standardised structure known as da capo. This literally means ‘from the head’ and denotes the repeat of the first part after a contrasting second section. The music returns to the beginning or a point indicated near the beginning and more or less completely repeats the first part, the soloist usually slightly embellishing it with improvised ornamentation.

The section sandwiched in the middle of the aria provided a different and contrasting shade of this basic mood;6 the repeat allowed the soloist to burst forth again, reinforcing the mood with renewed energy. As the first section usually involved a repetition of the same words, some contrast was essential: no strong passion can be sustained for long.

The soloist, who had unashamedly exploited the opportunity to show off, then made a dramatic exit as the audience thundered its applause. Hence, many of these arias were also known as ‘exit arias’.

Later in the century, Gluck, the composer of the ‘best tune’ Che farò senza Euridice, was very critical of the disruptive and unrealistic effect of the da capo aria. In modern times, the series of isolated arias linked by recitative has been called ‘not so much a drama in music as a concert in costume.’ One critic has called these operas ‘pure concert in fancy dress with plots as thick as porridge in which nothing is said twice if it can be said four times.’

However, Handel could incarnate in music ‘the essence of a mood with overwhelming poetic depth and suggestiveness.’ To see how effectively he could combine arias and recitative, we only have to look at the scene in Act 1 when Cesare’s philosophical broodings on the death of Pompey, Alma del gran Pompeo, are interrupted by the arrival of Cleopatra dressed as ‘Lydia’. The 18th century writer Dr Burney called this ‘the finest piece of accompanied recitative, without intervening symphonies, with which I am acquainted.’ The seductive opening scenes of Act 2 provide another example.

Handel’s art and characterisation

It has been said that Handel’s Cleopatra is the equal of Shakespeare’s and ‘one of the most subtly drawn characters in opera.’ Every one of her eight arias contributes to her portrait; three at least ‘are among the supreme creations of their epoch.’

Handel builds up the character ‘facet by facet in the course of the arias until he or she stands complete.’ Cleopatra’s sexuality begins in a very light-hearted way as she teases Tolomeo about his effete behaviour in Non disperar. It becomes passionate in the great love scene. She regains some of her kittenish self-confidence in the Venere bella. Her mood changes when things look as if they are going wrong. She expresses her anxiety in Che sento and her desolation in the Piangerò.

To build up her character, Handel selected some arias from his ‘stock’. Seven of her arias are based on earlier versions.

The castrati

The parts of Cesare and Tolomeo were sung by male altos. Modern counterparts could not possibly sound the same; so, however much the performance may aspire to be authentic, it cannot be.

Small boys had not sufficiently powerful voices to deliver the ornamented church music that was expected of them. Because St Paul, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (ch. 14, v. 34), had forbidden women to perform in churches, it became necessary to employ eunuchs to get the appropriate sound. So castration was permitted, provided it was declared to be necessary for medical reasons or was undertaken with consent of the boy. For 300 years until 1898, there were castrati in St Peter’s in Rome. The soprano-male concept endured in roles such as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.

Usually the castrato grew exceptionally tall and large, and reputedly could provide immense power, while sounding like a choirboy. This sounded very different from the youthful softness of the female voice such as one would hear from the part of Sesto, sung by a female soprano, a ‘trousers role’.

Like celebrity footballers today, the few successful castrati were very highly paid. Senesino, the first Giulio Cesare, was majestic in public but, in private, he was touchy, insolent and vain. His contract for 1720 was worth £3,150 at a time when a shopkeeper might earn a pound a week. The less successful castrati led a life of drudgery.

The procedure usually involved the boy being anaesthetised with opium and being put in a hot bath, or being knocked out by compressing the carotid arteries.

Some actually married – apparently, they could ejaculate but were infertile – and the fact that they were ‘risk-free’ made them attractive to women concerned about unwanted pregnancies. Caffarelli (1710–1783), who purchased a dukedom, was surprised, in flagrante delicto, by a husband returning home unexpectedly. The castrato had to take refuge in a disused water tank, thereby causing considerable damage to his health.

A little Roman history

Although the characters, apart from Nireno, are historical, the libretto is only historical in broad outline. All of them, except Cornelia, came to a violent end.

Julius Caesar (c. 100–44BC), who Shakespeare called ‘the foremost man of all this world’, was born into a family that had held high office in the Roman state. At the age of 40, he took his first important military command in Gaul and Portugal. He pacified Gaul and entered Britain. On his second visit to Britain, in 54BC, he crossed the Thames, showing that an invasion would be feasible, but he did not conquer it. Those whose Latin education involved reading his Commentaries will probably recall the drudgery, and may have forgotten that they were regarded as a masterpiece of literature, faultless in style.

Caesar ruled Rome in a triumvirate with Crassus and Pompey.7 Crassus had defeated the Spartacus slave revolt and crucified 6,000 slaves. Notorious for his greed, he had become fabulously rich largely from trafficking in slaves and the property of those who had been proscribed by the state; he was killed in Syria in 53BC. This left Caesar, whose power base was in Gaul and the West, and Pompey, who was associated with Roman rule in the East.

Pompey the Great (106–48BC) was the husband of Caesar’s daughter Julia. He was ‘a cautious general with a cherubic face.’ He had been a soldier from an early age. He made his name in Spain, and by destroying the pirates in the Mediterranean who were disrupting Rome’s corn supplies. His ruthlessness brought him the title ‘the young butcher’. It also amassed him an immense fortune. He became the ‘first man in the Roman world’: he annexed Syria and stormed the Temple in Jerusalem and its Holy of Holies, killing 12,000 in the process. He returned to Rome for the ‘most magnificent triumph which Rome had ever witnessed.’

Caesar and Pompey ruled jointly. After Julia died in 54BC, their relations became strained. It was inevitable that the two protagonists would slug it out. In January 49BC, Caesar crossed over the River Rubicon into Italy, and became its master. In the following year, Pompey experienced his first ever defeat in the battle of Pharsalus in Greece. He fled to Egypt, a vassal state, the bread-basket of Rome, to secure the support of the boy-king Ptolemy XIII, but was murdered by one of his centurions as he stepped ashore. His face must have looked less cherubic when pickled.

Caesar followed close behind, and arrived two days after Pompey had been murdered. This was in October 48BC, at a time when Ptolemy and his ‘sister-wife’, the 21-year-old Cleopatra VII were also fighting each other.

This is the point at which Giulio Cesare takes place.

Caesar’s demand that Ptolemy and his sister disband was resented as ‘unwarrantable interference’. He was blockaded in Alexandria where the historic library was destroyed in the fighting.8 He was seduced by Cleopatra. Ptolemy was drowned in the Nile. Cleopatra was placed, as a Roman stooge, on the throne jointly with a younger brother.

Only in June 47BC did Caesar leave for Syria and return to Rome, where he was later created perpetual dictator, and set up with Cleopatra in a scandalous relationship. She was obviously very talented – she could converse in seven languages – but she was also a nasty piece of work: she poisoned her younger brother, and, later, her sister. Curiously, her long, aquiline nose and pointed chin argue against her beauty. Caesar possessed ‘almost superhuman energy’. He seems to have governed well: he introduced several administrative reforms, not least the reform of the calendar.

In 44BC, Caesar was assassinated at the foot of Pompey’s statue.9

The Roman sequel: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

After Caesar’s assassination, Cleopatra fled back to Egypt. Caesar’s former lieutenant Mark Antony, and Octavius (Caesar’s adopted son, later Augustus) defeated the assassins in 42BC at Philippi, in Macedonia, North-East Greece.

Along with the other assassins, Pompey’s younger son Sextus10 could not return to Italy. He set himself up in Sicily, where he disrupted Rome’s corn supplies. He was eventually murdered by one of Mark Antony’s officers. According to a 19th-century expert, ‘He had his father’s bravery as a soldier, but seems to have been a rough uncultivated man.’

Mark Antony followed Cleopatra to Egypt where he offered her his support in return for her favours. She was fourteen years younger than him. They had three children. As enthusiasts of the film will recall, Antony and Cleopatra lived together ‘in the most profuse and wanton luxury.’ It is therefore perhaps appropriate that it is said to be the most expensive film ever made, when adjustment is made for inflation.

There were various comings and goings in the intervening years. But Antony and Cleopatra were, in their turn, defeated in 31BC by Octavius in the naval battle at Actium in Western Greece, and they fled back to Egypt. There, she had her ships hauled from the Nile to the Red Sea so as to flee in the direction of India, but they were burnt by local Arabs. She was trapped. Antony fell on his sword, but must have made a bad job of it because he was just able to join her in a mausoleum where they died together. She killed herself either by applying an asp to her bosom, or by using a poisoned comb; nobody knows which.

The original cast

Giulio Cesare was composed with a specific cast in mind. It took great determination to control this unruly lot. Early in 1724, Senesino, the Cesare, insulted Anastasia Robinson, the Cornelia. The Earl of Peterborough, who she had already secretly married, ‘publicly and violently caned him behind the scenes.’ Another problem for Handel was the Cleopatra, the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni (1698–1770). During rehearsals, he lost his temper with her, grabbed her by the waist and threatened to throw her out of the window. Subsequently, there were fisticuffs on stage between her and her rival, the more aristocratic Faustina Bordoni.

Senesino

The arrogant, vain and insolent Senesino – real name Francesco Bernardi (d. 1759) – dominated London opera in the 1720s until superseded by Farinelli. He had a sweet alto contralto voice and was particularly skilled in recitatives. His performance in Giulio Cesare was described as being ‘beyond all criticism’. Horace Walpole, who came across him in Siena in 1740, thought he looked like a fat old woman, but spoke ‘in a shrill little pipe.’

Surprisingly, the stage performance of Cuzzoni was said to be cold, and her figure was not too favourable. She came from Bologna and made a sensational debut in London in January 1723. In contrast to her subsequent rival, Faustina Bordoni, who excelled in the fiery music, Cuzzoni’s strength was the expressive and pathetic cantabile (her Piangerò must have been sensational). Later, she joined the opera company that competed with Handel’s.11

Anastasia Robinson

Anastasia Robinson (1692–1755), the daughter of a portrait painter, was described by a contemporary as being ‘of moderate beauty but of the highest spirit’. She retired shortly after Giulio Cesare was produced. The elderly Earl of Peterborough only acknowledged her as his wife around ten years later.

The Sesto was Margherita Durastanti, who had been Cuzzoni’s predecessor as the Academy’s leading soprano. Although coarse and masculine, and even described as an elephant, she was musically very versatile, and had a longer personal association with Handel than any other singer. He had first encountered her in Rome when she sang at the regular Sunday afternoon salons. Handel wrote the part of the Magdalen for her in one of his first oratorios. By 1724, she was already old with a worn-out voice.

The Tolomeo was another alto castrato, Gaetano Berenstadt; the Achilla was Giuseppe Boschi, said to be best in the role of a tyrant or villain.

In the revised version, Handel omitted the part of Curio. Nireno, originally designed for the alto castrato Bigonzi, who was unequal to singing anything other than recitative, was reduced to a mute.

ACT BY ACT

Act 1

In 48BC, Cesare lands in Egypt where he is hailed as the equivalent of Hercules (Alcides), the greatest of the Greek heroes. He accepts the praise: Presti omai. His legate Curio describes how he came, saw and conquered.12 Pompey, his rival, has appealed to Tolomeo the King of Egypt for military support.

Pompey’s wife Cornelia and his son Sesto appear, seeking peace. But just as Cesare is giving a suitably magnanimous response, Tolomeo’s general, Achilla arrives. He invites him to stay in the palace and bears diplomatic gifts. One of these is the severed head of Pompey. Not surprisingly, Cornelia swoons. Cesare expresses rage at Tolomeo’s behaviour: Empio, dirò, tu sei (‘A king should be merciful, not pitiless’).

When Cornelia revives, she tries to kill herself, the first of several such attempts. It quickly becomes clear that she is ‘sufficiently attractive to provoke violent and instantaneous desire in every man she meets’ except, for some unexplained reason, Cesare. Although Achilla has already eyed her, Curio is the first to make a pass and get the brush-off. She is bereft at the loss of her husband: Priva son d’ogni conforto. By contrast, her enraged son is duty-bound to avenge his father’s death: Svegliatevi nel core. Indeed, his father’s shade expects this of him.

* * *

The scene changes to Cleopatra’s chamber. Her eunuch and royal pimp Nireno interrupts her musings about her ambitions. He brings news of Pompey’s death. She resolves to go to Cesare’s camp. Tolomeo interrupts her, and brother and sister argue about the exercise of power. He says that the woman’s role is with needle and thread, not the sceptre. She flippantly teases him about his effete behaviour: will he will be more fortunate as an effeminate philanderer than as a monarch: Non disperar, chi sà? – who knows?

Achilla returns to warn Tolomeo that Cesare was none too pleased with the gifts. He suggests that, in return for having Cornelia, he would arrange for Cesare to get the same treatment as Pompey. Tolomeo rages about Cesare coming to disturb his peace: L’empio, sleale, indegno vorria rapirmi il regno.

Meanwhile, in his camp, Cesare broods over the death of his great rival. The once-great Pompey is nought but dust: Alma del gran Pompeo.

Cesare’s reflections are interrupted by the arrival of Cleopatra, disguised as a lady-in-waiting, ‘Lydia’. Cesare is bowled over, and admires her hair. Curio is obsessed with her breasts, and reckons that if he cannot have Cornelia he will have a go at Cleopatra instead. Cesare expresses his admiration of her face, which is as beautiful as a flower in a meadow: Non è sì vago e bello. Once he has gone, Nireno and Cleopatra congratulate themselves on her success. There is nothing a pretty woman cannot do: Tutto può donna vezzosa.

* * *

Cornelia, still grieving over the death of her husband, intends to destroy Tolomeo, but is stopped by Sesto, who claims that revenge is his prerogative. Cleopatra, disguised as ‘Lydia’, overhears this. She almost reveals who she is by offering to introduce them into Tolomeo’s presence to enable Sesto to take his revenge. Nireno will guide them. Sesto is now optimistic that he will succeed: Cara speme, questo core.

* * *

Tolomeo, accompanied by Achilla, frostily receives Cesare in his palace. Cesare suspects a plot and determines to proceed, like an expert huntsman, with great caution: Va tacito e nascosto.13

When Cornelia arrives in the palace, it is Tolomeo’s turn to be utterly captivated by her. But he is annoyed by her insults. He orders her to be taken to the harem, and Sesto to be locked up. Out of respect to Achilla’s request to enjoy her, he pretends that she is condemned only to dig the flowerbeds rather than perform the more usual duties of the place. Achilla makes a pass at her (in a style consistent with his position as a senior officer): Tu sei il cor di questo core. But he is rebuffed.

As they are taken away, Cornelia and Sesto sing a sad duet lamenting their fate: Son nata a lagrimar, Son nato a sospirar.

Act 2

With the help of Nireno, Cleopatra (still ‘Lydia’) has created the ideal setting in which to seduce Cesare: a cedar grove with a backdrop of Mount Parnassus, the home of the Muses. This scene has been called ‘an epitome of seductiveness seldom equalled in any opera of any period … seldom has the process of seduction been so vividly expressed by musical means.’ The love music is ‘a glorification of sexual passion uninhibited by the shadow of matrimony.’

Cesare, guided by Nireno, gasps as he espies Virtue14 surrounded by the Muses, with a stage orchestra playing a delightful sinfonia, as if it were accompanying the Muses. Virtue proceeds to sing the exquisite V’adoro, pupille, saette d’amore (‘I adore you, dear eyes, arrows of love’).15 Cesare is captivated and interrupts her: such a beautiful sound is not heard in heaven. He demands to be taken to her, and to the accompaniment of a solo violin compares her to a songbird in a beautiful meadow: Se in fiorito ameno prato.

* * *

Meanwhile the unfortunate Cornelia is hard at work hoeing the garden of the harem. When Achilla comes to seduce her, she runs away, only to find herself falling into Tolomeo’s arms. Achilla renews his supposed deal with Tolomeo, but the pharaoh actually wants her for himself. The brusque soldier tells her that, if she yields to him, he will be faithful; if not, she can expect rough treatment: Se a me non sei crudele. Tolomeo then tries his luck, again without success, so his love turns to hatred: Sì, spietata, il tuo rigore sveglia.

Cornelia is about to kill herself by throwing herself from the battlements, but is prevented from this by Sesto. Things get worse for her when Nireno arrives to say that Tolomeo has ordered her to join his concubines. But he explains that he is on her side, and that Tolomeo’s trysting place is where he is undefended and Sesto can easily take revenge. Cornelia sees an end to her troubles and her sighing: Cessa omai di sospirare! And Sesto, likening himself to an angry snake, contemplates his revenge: L’angue offeso mai riposa.

* * *

We return to Cleopatra’s pleasure garden, where, in a confident mood, she awaits her lover. She implores Venus to enhance her attraction: Venere bella. She pretends to be asleep when Cesare arrives. Again, he is overwhelmed by her beauty and, out loud, contemplates ‘Lydia’ as his sposa e consorte – his wife and consort. He is disconcerted by Cleopatra’s positive response to this ill-considered proposal – after all, ‘Lydia’ is just a servant. When Cesare is initially taken aback by her presumption, she threatens to go back to sleep.

But Curio rushes in to warn that Tolomeo’s assassins are on their way.16 Cesare is surprised when ‘Lydia’ says that Cleopatra will come to his aid, and that her authority will halt them. At this, her cover is blown, and she rushes out to head off the assassins.

But she is unsuccessful and returns to advise Cesare to flee: Fuggi, Cesare, fuggi! However a warrior of Cesare’s stature is not fazed by this: Al lampo dell’armi. He rushes out to deal with it. Cleopatra is left behind to utter the anguished Che sento? followed by the aria Se pietà di me non senti: Heaven, if it were merciful, would let her die and release her from her torment. This sequence reveals unsuspected depths of suffering and has been described as being among the finest creations of any age, ‘Bach-like in its harmonic probing of emotion and scored in rich dark colours.’17

Back in the harem, Tolomeo hands Cornelia the linen towel, the sign that she is selected for the night. Sesto emerges from his hiding place and is about to strike, but is interrupted by Achillla, who reports that Cesare has escaped, jumped into the sea, and been drowned: Cleopatra’s troops are coming to avenge his death. Achilla again demands Cornelia in return for his support. This infuriates Tolomeo, who reneges on the deal, and enrages Achilla. Sesto is about to fall on his sword. But his mother stops him, thus reinvigorating him: L’aure che spira.

Act 3

In a wood near Alexandria, the betrayed Achilla resolves to change sides and support Cleopatra with his sword: Dal fulgor di questa spada. Unfortunately, in the surprisingly short and brisk battle which follows, represented by a sinfonia, Cleopatra’s forces are defeated. She is put in chains. Tolomeo resolves to tame her pride: Domerò la tua fierezza.

In the truly exquisite aria Piangerò la sorte mia,18 Cleopatra laments her cruel fate; when she is dead, her ghost will haunt the tyrant.

Fortunately for her, Cesare has actually survived his swim in the sea. His first thought is of course for his lover: Aure, deh, per pietà, although all he sees around him are the corpses of Cleopatra’s forces. He meets Sesto and Nireno who, still in search for revenge, come across the mortally wounded Achilla. He expresses a dying wish that Cornelia should be told that it was he who contrived both the death of Pompey and the attempted assassination of Cesare. This does not go down too well with Pompey’s son and Cesare. But fortunately Achilla, before expiring, tells them that in a nearby cave they will find a relief force with which they can enter the palace via an underground passage, save Cornelia, and kill Tolomeo.

Cesare takes control and determines to rescue the ladies and destroy, like a torrent rushing down the mountain, everything that gets in his way: Quel torrente, che cade dal monte. Achilla’s death renews Sesto’s confidence that he will avenge his father: La giustizia ha già sull’arco.

In her apartment, Cleopatra is still bemoaning her fate, when Cesare arrives. She is so surprised that, at first, she thinks he is a ghost. He dismisses the guards so that they can be alone together. They have a brief kiss, but he says that there is no time to hang about, and he rushes off with his soldiers. Cleopatra is overjoyed, and expresses in a bravura aria how she feels like a battered ship finally reaching a safe haven: Da tempeste il legno infranto.

Back in the palace, Tolomeo is still at it, trying to rape Cornelia, who resists him: after all, she is a Roman: Scostati, indegno, e pensa che Cornelia è Romana. She draws a dagger and is about to kill him when Sesto arrives and claims this honour for himself. Tolomeo falls. Cornelia now feels that she has nothing more to fear: Non ha più che temere.

The grand finale takes place at the port of Alexandria. It begins with a sinfonia with four horns providing a suitable sense of occasion. A somewhat self-satisfied Sesto recounts how he has avenged his father, and he swears loyalty to Cesare, who takes the crown and hands it to Cleopatra. She, in turn, agrees to act as a vassal of Rome. Cesare and Cleopatra sing a duet about their love and fidelity, Caro! Bella! Più amabile beltà. As the opera seria draws to its customary happy close, the Egyptians rejoice at their liberty.

1 Although The Spectator drew attention to celebrity grandees who would be present, there was no mention of the composer.

2 Handel sometimes omitted Curio in later productions.

3 Recitative is usually secco, denoting that it is accompanied by a solo instrument, often the harpsichord. For scenes of particular poignancy or rapidly shifting moods, Handel used the recitativo accompagnato, in which the recitative is accompanied by the orchestra.

4 One of Handel’s leading ladies had to be reminded that the location depended on the role she was playing, not on her own sense of self-importance.

5 The technical term for this mood is ‘affect’ or ‘affection’.

6 Cleopatra’s Piangerò in Act 3 provides an example. In its first section, she laments her cruel fate. In the second, she threatens that, when she is dead, the tyrant will be haunted by her ghost. While the sections contrast and reinforce each other, both represent her single emotional response to her situation, that is, self-pity and its obverse, rage. The coloratura second section also makes more poignant the return to the beginning; and the word agiterò (‘trouble’, ‘haunt’, ‘shake’) is coloured by speedy runs which were absent in the first section.

7 Caesar duly bedded his rivals’ wives. Albeit in his early fifties and ‘self-conscious about his balding pate’, he was well able to cope with Cleopatra when she arrived in a laundry bag. They had a child, Caesarion, who later ruled jointly with Cleopatra.

8 Caesar was supported by 3,000 Jewish troops. The Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt had begun when Alexander the Great’s empire was divided following his death in 323BC. Ptolemy I had been one of Alexander’s generals. The dynasty ended with the death of Cleopatra in 30BC. After her father died, she ruled jointly with her brother Ptolemy XIII who was seven years younger, but they soon were at war with each other. The Romans at first supported Ptolemy, but when Caesar arrived, his sister seized her chance.

9 At the bottom of Dante’s pit of hell, Lucifer holds in his three mouths the three greatest malefactors the world had ever seen by the 13th century: Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed their sovereign and their country, and Judas Iscariot.

10 Sextus (75BC–35BC) was actually Cornelia’s stepson rather than son. Although the opera portrays him as a youth, he was already in his mid-twenties when Pompey was murdered.

11 Notorious for her extravagance, Cuzzoni was imprisoned for debt and spent her last years making buttons in Bologna, where she died in obscurity and extreme poverty.

12 Julius Caesar actually pronounced Veni, vidi, vici later, following the battle of Zela in northern Turkey, after he had punished one of Pompey’s allies, Pharnaces. This was in 47BC, after Ptolemy had been defeated by him and Cleopatra.

13 Handel originally composed this superb aria for another of his operas, Berenice, about Cleopatra’s cousin. In that, she is urged to be careful in her approach to Caesar. So, not surprisingly, the aria can be criticised for contributing nothing to the characterisation of Cesare. However, it wholly satisfies an important requirement of Handel’s market, which he outlined to the composer Gluck: ‘The English like something they can beat time to, something that hits them straight on the ear drum.’

14 The notion of Cleopatra clothed as Virtue may be politely described as ‘delicate irony’.

15 The stage orchestra provides the main accompaniment. The pit orchestra interjects with echoes­ when the voice pauses for breath. The plaintive second section, with the pit orchestra again silent, hints at the same material in the minor mode. Before the return to repeat the first part, Cesare interrupts, musically gobsmacked.

16 On hearing that a squad has been sent to assassinate him, Cesare boasts: Cesare non seppe mai che sia timore (‘Caesar has never known what it is to be afraid’). In the 1732 revival, at this juncture, a piece of machinery fell down on him. ‘The poor Hero was so frightened, that he trembled and lost his Voice and fell a-crying.’ Cleopatra’s immediate response, O Dio, must have seemed particularly appropriate.

17 The conspirators shout ‘Death to Caesar’ in B flat. Cleopatra’s horror and concern are expressed immediately with dissonance on F sharp, as far removed as is possible.

18 The Piangero is on a bass descending by steps over a fourth. Bars 26–29 comprise an eloquent sequence from an earlier cantata, associated with cruel fate and separation.

MOZART:THEMARRIAGE OF FIGARO

The opera and its composer

Who’s who and what’s what

The interval: talking points

Act by act

THE OPERA AND ITS COMPOSER

‘Sheer perfection’ was how Brahms described Mozart’s groundbreaking opera. ‘Never,’ he said, ‘has anything like this been created, not even by Beethoven.’

The première of The Marriage of Figaro took place on 1 May 1786 in the Imperial Court Theatre (the Burgtheater) in Vienna. Mozart was almost halfway through a ten-year period he spent freelancing in Vienna. This followed his dismissal – ‘with a kick on the arse’, as Mozart himself put it – by the chamberlain of the Archbishop of Salzburg, his former employer, who found the young musician totally impossible to manage.

Mozart composed Figaro five and a half years before his death, aged only 35, in late 1791. He was at the height of his career, working so hard that his family back in Salzburg hardly ever heard from him.

At this time, Mozart was enjoying considerable success, particularly from subscription concerts, and living a handsome lifestyle. But, as the chamberlain had warned him, celebrity status was brittle. Mozart’s father was very worried about the powerful cabals ranged against his son. Competition from other composers was intense. Mozart’s popularity would decline. As it waned, fees from operas and foreign touring became an increasingly important source of income. His fee for Figaro, however, amounted to less than one year’s rent of his expensive accommodation.

Figaro was based on a successful but thoroughly disrespectful play, La Folle Journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro, written by Beaumarchais, which had finally been allowed its first public performance in Paris two years earlier.

Mozart. This has been called the most lifelike of all the portraits of him.

This play about love in all its guises, good and bad, features an insubordinate valet, a duplicitous noble and a flighty wife. It followed the French playwright’s earlier but less contentious comedy featuring the same characters, Le Barbier de Séville. This had recently been staged extremely successfully as an opera by the celebrated and wealthy Neapolitan composer Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816).1 It would be a further 30 years until Rossini’s version of TheBarber, with which we are today far more familiar.

Mozart had studied more than a hundred libretti before he chose the Beaumarchais play. He then found a librettist in whom he could have confidence. This was Lorenzo da Ponte, who he had met a few years earlier. Da Ponte cut the play considerably but, despite this, the opera was ‘the longest and most complicated one ever staged in the Burgtheater’, and is almost always itself subject to cuts today.

The Mozart family was employed in the service of the highly influential Archbishop of Salzburg, the local potentate where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756.

From the age of six, he spent much time away on tour. His father Leopold needed to extract, while it lasted, the most value out of his son and daughter Wolfgang and Nannerl, who were both infant prodigies. When Mozart was seven, the family went on a three-and-a-half year European tour to London. Between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, Wolfgang went on three tours to Italy.

As an adult, his father wanted him to get a permanent and secure position, which he never did. He went to Paris in fruitless search of a job, accompanied by his mother, who died there. Later, aged 25, he left Salzburg and fell out with the Archbishop. This did not provide a good basis for his ambition to work as a freelance in the capital of the Habsburg Empire, Vienna. There, the challenge was to distinguish oneself from the many other competing composers. At first, Mozart was successful in this precarious existence.

He married Constanze Weber, whose sister had earlier rejected him. With Constanze, he had two sons. It seems she was a liability: she was often away at a health spa, and Mozart was very worried by her tendency to flirt. He got into debt, fell ill, died and was buried in a common re-usable grave. The cause of his death, on 5 December 1791, is not known, and has been famously attributed to Salieri, not least in a play by Pushkin, an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov and in Peter Shaffer’s drama Amadeus (1984). Mozart had worked himself to death: he spent almost a third of his 36-year life – 3,720 days – away from home. Yet the piled-up volumes of the ‘Mozart Edition’ on display in Salzburg measure over six feet high.

Lorenzo da Ponte(1749–1838) wrote libretti for many composers, but is remembered particularly for Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. He was born near Venice.

As custom dictated, he took the name of the local bishop when his father, who was Jewish, converted to Christianity. Da Ponte was ordained priest, but because of his views and his serial adultery – he consorted with Casanova and ran a brothel – he was banned from Venice.

After enduring a year of great poverty, he managed to get Emperor Joseph II to appoint him librettist to the Italian theatre company in Vienna. He made his name as the librettist for ‘one of the most outstanding operatic successes that Vienna ever witnessed,’ Una cosa rara by the Spaniard Martín y Soler (1754–1806). This eclipsed Figaro. At this time, it was recalled that ‘in sooth, the abbé stood mightily well with himself and had the character of a consummate coxcomb; he had also, a strong lisp and broad Venetian dialect.’

Once the Emperor died, Da Ponte fell out with the authorities, partly because of his radical views, and was dismissed. He went to London with his wife, and was librettist at the King’s Theatre; he also ran a bookshop at 55 Pall Mall and a printing business. He backed somebody’s bill of exchange (cheque), and was arrested for debt no less than 30 times in three months – so he fled to New York and Elizabeth Township, New Jersey, where his financial problems continued on and off during his varied career as a poet, a grocer, and even as a haulier – in ‘L. de Ponty’s Wagon’. He was also a collector of Italian editions and an enthusiast of Italian operas­ when they came to New York.

He later became a distinguished teacher of Italian at Columbia College. His advertisements for pupils stated, ‘Every attention will be paid to the morals of those entrusted to his care.’

His astonishingly turbulent, long and varied life evinced some characteristics of Liszt (whose appearance, with long mane and hooked nose, was also somewhat similar). He died in the USA in 1838.

The Viennese première starred, in the title role, the celebrity bass-baritone buffo Francesco Benucci, ‘the greatest of his generation’. In the role of Susanna was his putative lover, the ideal soubrette, the London-born soprano Nancy Storace.2 The Irish baritone Michael Kelly sang both Don Basilio and Don Curzio.

It seems that the opera was at first only moderately successful. Yet by the third performance, there were so many encores that it took almost twice the normal time, and the Emperor Joseph II, the eccentric Habsburg monarch and patron of the arts who had commissioned the opera, had to forbid the encoring, except for solo numbers. But it had a short run, and this may be attributable to the ‘perceived difficulty of Mozart’s music.’ In Prague, however, Figaro fared particularly well and Mozart and his wife were given a wild reception. Mozart wrote to one of his pupils, ‘Here they talk about nothing but Figaro. Nothing is played sung or whistled but Figaro. Certainly a great honour for me!’

Emperor Joseph II supported Mozart’s venture. He was a monarch enlightened before his time, who was ‘bitten by the ambition to become his own theatre director.’ Although himself a very competent musician, Joseph thought Figaro rather heavy. (Famously, he had similarly complained that there were too many notes in Mozart’s Die Entführung.) For us, Figaro is far from heavy, although the details of the plot can be difficult to disentangle. Perhaps it seemed less complex to an audience who would have been familiar with the original plays.