Tag: Opera Settecento

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Handel Fernando 6th April 2022 at The London Handel Festival

By Miranda Houghton

The Hallische Händel Ausgabe is a collection of Handel editions held in Halle, the city of Handel’s birth. A new edition of Fernando, re di Castiglia, the product of extensive scholarly research by Michael Pacholke and subsequently published by Bärenreiter will be performed by Opera Settecento at both the London and Halle Festivals in 2022. This edition is based on a comprehensive study of all the surviving sources. It represents both published research and functions as a performing edition. At the request of the Director of the Halle Händel Festival, Clemens Birnbaum, Opera Settecento under the baton of Leo Duarte, oboist and musicologist were preparing to perform the premiere of Fernando in 2020 before the pandemic struck. We live in hope that both the London and Halle Festivals will return with their usual magnificence in 2022.

Anyone was able to attend the Alan Curtis-devised staged production in 2005 or has acquired a copy of the CD might well ask on what grounds the Halle Handel edition can claim the April performance as a premiere. The critical edition editor explains that the Curtis version of Fernando is in fact a significantly-shortened version of the 1732 (First) version of Sosarme, but with the Iberian setting and the character names derived from the libretto of Fernando. In terms of the proportion of music which appears only in Fernando and not in Sosarme, the recording includes only 2 bars. Not one of the over 130 bars of recitative which were deleted when Fernando became Sosarme was reinstated by Curtis.

In December 1731 after Ezio was completed, Handel began to compose his second new opera for the 1731/32 season. He chose as his text Dionisio, Re di Portogallo by Antonio Salvi (1664-1724,) first set to music by Giacomo Antonio Perti in Florence in 1707. The following appeared in the original published version of the libretto:

“Most honoured reader, Dionision, King of Portugal, had with Queen Isabella of Aragon his first-born son who succeeded him on the throne. He also had a daughter who was married to Fernando, King of Castile. He had in addition several illegitimate children, amongst whom was Alfonso Sancio who, because he was loved above all others by his father, aroused such jealousy in Prince Alfonso that, fearing that the succession to the crown might fall to Sancio, after many manifestations of ill will and anger towards his father, eventually declared against him with a shameless rebellion. Dionisio was compelled to gather together the forces of the kingdom and attack Colimbra (ancient spelling) in order to restore his son and the rebels to their duty and to punish them. The resistance was so obstinate, as was the siege, and the anger of the father and the son went so far that, among historians there are those who assert that they finally challenged each other to end their conflict with a duel; but because of the great danger of parricide, Queen Isabella hastened there, settled their differences and reconciled the minds of her husband and son.

All this is true, taken from the History of Portugal written in French by Monsieur Lequien de la Neufville. The rest is a poetic fiction, based upon probability.”

In his creation of a new opera, Handel as usual changed the title to reflect one of the other key characters, calling his new work Fernando, re di Castiglia. At the end of the 13th century, King Dionysius I of Portugal signed the peace treaty of Alcañices between Portugal and Castile. Ferdinand IV of Castile was at the time twelve years old. The treaty was sealed with two marriages, the more important of which was that of Ferdinand IV of Castile and Constança de Portugal, (called Elvida in Fernando,) King Dionysius’ daughter. They were betrothed in 1291 when Ferdinand was six and Constança not even two years old and married when they were respectively 17 and 12. King Dionysius did indeed face a rebellion from his eldest son, Alfonso who feared he would lose his right to the succession in favour to Alfonso Sanchez, his father’s favourite. In fact Ferdinand and Constança had died about a decade before the rebellion occurred, so Ferdinand’s embodied involvement in the plot is poetic licence. What is document is the fact that Elizabeth or Isabel de Aragão did stand between the rival armies of her husband and her son, preventing battle on that occasion and contributing to her canonisation after death.

Scholars are not sure who reworked Salvi’s text into the “book” Handel set. However some anomalies which have been described as “poetic awkwardness” and a poor command of grammar have led to the suggestion the librettist was Giacomo Rossi. We know he prepared the libretti of Rinaldo and Il pastor fido and he is also credited as librettist of Silla which was later recycled as Amadigi di Gaula. Rossi’s limitations with the Italian language were apparently well-known amongst the Italian chattering classes in London who already objected to the way Handel stripped fine Italian poetry down to a bare minimum to appease his inadequately polyglot London audience. In 1729 Paulo Antonio Rolli mockingly wrote to Giuseppe Riva, “Now I must inform you that Signor Rossi, that famous Italian poet (not ed.), is Handel’s librettist.

The action of Fernando takes place in Coimbra, currently Portugal’s 4th largest city. The city is under siege which dates the plot to between 1280-1320. This makes Fernando the second most “modern” of Handel’s operas, after Tamerlano. There are no documents explaining why Handel changed the locus of the drama two thirds of the way through its composition. It could be because the setting was within living memory rather than set in Ancient Rome or a mythical middle-Eastern country. From 1727-1729 there had been war between England and Spain, so the portrayal of the eponymous magnanimous hero as a Spanish king might have offended some at a time when Spaniards were demonised as the enemy. By contrast Portugal had for centuries been a traditional ally of England.

Perhaps, instead it was the focus on a conflict between father and son which was felt to be insensitive. George II, one of Handel’s staunchest supporters and his son, Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales were estranged at the time of Fernando’s composition. When Queen Anne died, Frederick’s parents left Hanover for England. Their eldest son was 7 and was not reunited with his parents until he was 14. When his father ascended the throne in 1727, Frederick was called upon to give up his role as Head of the House of Hanover and take his place at his parents’ side as Prince of Wales. Sadly the separation irreparably damaged his relationship with his parents. In England he surrounded himself with dissenting politicians and supported The Opera of the Nobility, the rival opera company to Handel’s because his father attended and financially supported the latter. Frederick Lewis also played the cello and was a discerning collector of paintings as well as composers. His country seat was at Cliveden where the masque, Alfred (including Rule Britannia,) written by Arne was premiered by a cast including Kitty Clive. Would a depiction of a warlike rebellion in the 13th century of a son against his father be viewed as too resonant with England in 1732 and therefore disloyal to Handel’s greatest moral and financial supporter? Frederick, Prince of Wales married Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. The wedding was celebrated by a production of Atalanta at the King’s Haymarket and Porpora’s serenata, La festa d’Imeneo at The Opera of Nobility. As far as we know, the conflict was not resolved; Frederick Lewis predeceased his father at the age of 44.

Whatever the reason for realising the plot’s insensitivity, its locus was shifted to Lydia in a mythical period. The names of 6 out of 7 characters were changed. The editor of this edition posits that the only remaining connection to the Iberian peninsula is the use of a Sarabande in the opening movement of the overture – something unique amongst Handel’s operas. The reworking of Fernando (which Handel dropped within sight of the end of Act Two) involved significant cuts in the first accompagnato and in about half of the recitatives. Much has been written about the London audience struggling with long stretches of Italian recitative, even though for the most part a published translation was made available for premieres. It could be in part due to the fact that the preceding opera, Ezio which contained extensive recitative was not successful.

So Fernando became Sosarme and was premiered to great acclaim on 15th February 1732. At least two members of the Royal Family attended each of the initial 11 performances. The first cast featured Senesino, Anna Maria Strada del Po, Francesca Bertolli and the great bass, Montagnana. It also included an Italian tenor called Pinacci. When viewing Baroque opera from a 21st century perspective, we must suspend notions of copyright in the sense of droit d’auteur (rather than publishing copyright which was already in its infancy.) Operas at this time were events, the best possible combination of libretto, stage machinery, star singers, fine players and of course the music. Because of the success of Sosarme, Handel recycled five arias from the opera in the pasticcio, Oreste which he put together himself. He also reused a duet from Sosarme in Imeneo. Sosarme was reviewed by Handel in 1734. He made yet more cuts in recitative, reducing 505 lines of text to 365.

The differences between Sosarme 1732 and Sosarme 1734 largely came about because 6 of the 7 vocal parts were allocated to new singers. In taking over from Senesino, Giovanni Carestini retained none of Sosarme’s arias without alteration from the 1732 version of the opera. Two of the arias he sang were rearranged from Riccardo Primo. Two further arias were transposed upwards to reflect the higher fach of Carestini’s voice. The two duets were rearranged so that the lower part didn’t go too low for Carestini (who we think was a dramatic soprano rather than a contralto.) Otto Erich Deutsch, the 20th century Austrian musicologist, presumed Durastanti performed Haliate (which had been sung by a tenor in 1732) as trouser role. There are marks in the score which suggest the role was largely transposed up an octave, but then the second and third arias were subsequently removed. The performance materials have not survived from the 1734 performances so we cannot verify if this role was allocated to Durastanti. Two of Erenice’s arias were excised from the 1734 version and it appears the remaining arias were raised in pitch by a tone. The role of Argone was given to Scalzi, a soprano castrato. He was allocated two more rearranged arias from Riccardo Primo and a rearranged aria sung by Sosarme in the 1732 version. Whoever sang Melo’s role in 1734 lost one aria and the remaining arias were reworked for a singer with a more restricted range than Bertolli in 1732. With the loss of Montagnana, the first of Altomaro’s 1732 arias was cut (music which was lifted by the composer from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo) and also the second so that the baddie was left with only one aria to sing.

In conclusion, there is no such thing as a definitive Baroque opera in the sense that each busy composer would reuse/recycle/reinvent existing arias or adapt popular arias favoured by a new cast member to fit the context. The dramma, or section of epic poetry if you will, was at the heart of each opera and the arias had emotional themes which made them eminently adaptable to being recycled in a similar context. Two thirds of Sosarme started life as Fernando. It could be argued that there is a greater overlap between Fernando and Sosarme 1732 than there is between the two versions of what we now consider to be Handel’s opera, Sosarme.

Fernando, re di Castiglia: A Handel Premiere, Wednesday 06 April 2022, 19:00 at St George’s, Hanover Square – Opera Settecento conducted by Leo Duarte.

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Arias for Ballino

By Leo Duarte

Opera Settecento, whom you may think of as “The pasticcio people” after our performances at the London Handel and Halle Handel Festivals of Handel’s 34 PROOF 7: 21-10-22 pasticcio operas, Elpidia, Ormisda and Venceslao is poised to go into the recording studio next month with tenor, Jorge Navarro Colorado. We are most grateful to those members of The Handel Friends, The Serse Trust and Jorge’s family whose donations have enabled us to record our first CD which is entitled “Arias for Ballino.”

Owen Swiney relates that Handel talent-spotted Annibale Pio Fabri, known affectionately as Balino or Ballino, the diminutive form of his forename, in Bologna. Swiney writes, “This Man Sings in as good a Taste as any Man in Italy.” Of a performance of Lotario in London, Mrs Pendarves wrote, “a tenor voice, sweet clear and firm..He sings like a gentleman without making faces. The greatest master of musick that ever sung upon the stage.” I hope any of you who have recently attended ETO’s Tamerlano production will agree this review could easily have been written about Jorge’s performance in the role of Bajazet. Before travelling to London, Ballino sang in operas by Vivaldi, Caldara, Alessandro Scarlatti, Orlandini, Gasparini, Leo, Vinci and Porpora. In 1719 he became a member of the Accademia Filharmonica of Bologna as a composer. He was named President of the Society no less than five times. In London Handel wrote roles for him in Lotario, Partenope and Poro and he appeared in revivals of Cesare, Tolomeo and Rodelinda. Handel also transposed arias from Scipione, originally written for castrato, specifically for Ballino to sing the title role. Later in his career he was based in Vienna, had considerable success in three operas by Hasse performed in Madrid and composed his own setting of Metastasio’s great libretto, Alessandro nell’Indie. With such a wealth of wonderful repertoire associated with Ballino, we have not only put together an enticing and varied list of arias but can also claim modern premieres for many of them.

Until now Opera Settecento has focused on resurrecting neglected operas as concert performances, although both our Halle and Vienna performances have been broadcast around the world. It is a big step for us to launch our first CD and we need in the region of a further £10,000 to make its release in 2023 a reality. Cheques can be made payable to The Serse Trust, and sent to 6, Beechwood Avenue Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 9TE. We are a registered charity so can claim Gift Aid on your donation if you are a UK tax payer. As a taster of what is to come, here is a link to Jorge singing with us on Youtube. 

https://youtu.be/PUcWXO52sJk
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Handel’s man in Italy

By Miranda Houghton

It is just possible that Mr Swiny was the only honest man in the theatrical business at
the beginning of the 18th century. Christopher Rich was banned from presenting plays at the Theatre Royal when he appropriated a third of the actors’ revenues from benefit performances. Subsequently Swiny, courtesy of the Lord Chamberlain, was made responsible for the opera performances (two a week) at the Queen’s Theatre whilst a consortium of actors presented plays. These actor-managers stole from Swiny whilst he was in Dublin, but he received reparation. Subsequently the Queen’s Theatre was rendered virtually bankrupt when the MP, William Collier, to whom Swiny had sublet the theatrical licence, tried to oust the current manager and strip the theatre of all its assets.

Swiny resumed management of the Queen’s Theatre after this coup, but by 1713, during the production of Handel Teseo, “Mr Swiney brakes and runs away and leaves ye singers unpaid, ye Scenes and Habits also unpaid for.” It was at this point that Mr Swiny fled to the continent, some say to The Netherlands, others to Paris, but eventually located himself in Venice.
He established himself as the Italian agent for The Royal Academy, negotiating contracts before importing Italian singers such as Faustina, the wife of Johann Adolf Hasse. He also sourced the latest “drammas” set to music in Venice and northern Italy in the preceding Carnival season and sent them by horse and ship to Handel in London. This was a time when the latest operas heard by nobles on the Grand Tour were being introduced to English audiences, either by the Royal Academy or its rival, The Opera of the Nobility. We know that two of the pasticcio operas created by Handel and his team, given their modern premieres at recent London Handel Festival performances, were Swiny’s choice. What we don’t know is how much this canny Irish scholar contributed to the finished versions of Ormisda and Elpidia. The original libretti were significantly tampered with in an attempt to make them appealing to an English audience. Recitative was cut, reworked and often freshly set to music. Singers substituted their favourite arias which also involved some rewriting, often part way through a production. Swiny was paid – eventually. What is not quite clear was whether he was merely charging a finder’s fee or did he participate in the creation of these “must see” musical events?
To put Swiny’s early career in context, he worked alongside the famous Colley Cibber, an actor-manager who preceded David Garrick. Colley Cibber wrote 25 plays for his company at the Theatre Royal and amazed the establishment by becoming Poet Laureate in 1730, more as a result of his political affiliations than of his ability as a poet. He was known as a comic, but also bowdlerized the classics, including Shakespeare, in order to adapt “high art” into the vernacular. A 19th century theatrical historian described his Richard III as: “a hodge-podge concocted by Colley Cibber, who cut and transposed the original version, and added to it speeches from four or five other of Shakespeare’s plays, and several really fine speeches of his own.” Even though Cibber takes fewer than 800 lines from Shakespeare, he stays for the most part with the original design, mainly adapting the plot to make it more suitable for the stage, as well as performable in less than two hours. If this sounds familiar to those cognizant with Handel’s operas and pasticcio operas, it is because the plays and operas which would be heard serially on the same stage, suffered similar reworkings.

It is into this world of presumptuous adaptation with little or no respect for the droit d’auteur which would seem shocking today that young Mr Swiny immersed himself. He had presented Italian operas to the London audience before his association with Handel and the Royal Academy began. In 1706 the opera Camilla was presented at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, initially translated into English by Owen Swiny himself before being turned into poetic verse by a Mr Northman and then set to music, adapted from existing music of Bononcini, by one Mr Nicola Haym, better known as “Handel’s librettist” between 1713-28. What is intriguing about this is firstly that Mr Swiny’s Italian was good enough to render a decent English translation from an Italian libretto and secondly that Haym was credited as being the composer of Camilla when in fact he was patently Bononcini’s arranger. In 1708 Haym was once again commissioned to arrange music from an existing opera – this time by Scarlatti – to produce the opera, Pirro e Demetrio. (It also included 18 of his own arias.) For this Haym was paid £300. He was also credited with Dorinda (1712) and Creso (1714) as “set on ye stage by Mr Haym” and for Lucio Vero (1715) at the King’s (formerly Queen’s) Theatre “Ye Musick was managed by Nic Haym.”

In 1712 Haym and two fellow musicians and concert promoters were accused of blocking the performance of Italian opera in London. They wrote a letter to the Spectator, protesting that, “The Songs of different Authors injudiciously put together and a foreign Tone and Manner which are expected in every Thing now performed amongst us, has put Musick itself to a stand; insomuch as the Ears of the People cannot be entertained by any Thing but what has an impertinent Gayety, without any just Spirit; or a Languishment of Notes without any Passion or common Sense.” So Nicola Haym, (who, despite his Italian forenames, was of German extraction,) was instrumental in ensuring opera seria in the Italian style was presented with some modicum of integrity, rather than being bowdlerized in the manner of Cibber’s Richard III.

By 1706 the Queen’s Theatre was leased to Swiny by Sir John Vanbrugh for
£5 “in the acting day.” By 1708 his opera season (part of the theatre’s programme) was sufficiently established to generate subscribers. One of Vanbrugh’s letters to the Earl of Manchester states, “He has a good deal of money in his pocket that he got before by the acting company and is willing to venture it upon the singers.” He brought the famous castrato, Niccolini over to star in Pirro e Demetrio. Despite Niccolini’s bitter complaints about the terms of his contract – drafted and negotiated by Swiny – Niccolini was paid the extortionate sum of 800 guineas per annum. Because the intention was to honour the crowned heards of Europe, Italian opera seria was intended to be a magnificent spectacle, employing the finest singers, players, sets, stage conceits and even full armies and fleets (in the case of some Hasse opera performances.) As the costs escalated, interest in the art form began slowly to wane. Perhaps it is not surprising that by 1713 Swiny was forced to flee his creditors. It was not until 1735 that he was allowed to return the UK (presumably as a discharged bankrupt) and had changed his name to MacSwiney.

Swiny resumed his association from his base in Venice with Italian opera in London by 1724, in which season the libretto of Ariosti’s Artaserse was dedicated to him. Much of his correspondence with the Duke of Richmond, who was elected Deputy Governor of the Royal Academy in 1726, survives. Swiny appears to have undertaken a dual role in Italy as an agent for Venetian painters as well as for the finest Italian singers of the day. In 1724 Haym was deputised to write to Swiny in Venice to ask him to report on the greatest operatic productions in the Italian theatres of the day. Swiny’s response was to snub Haym and send his own vision of the Italian opera in London directly to the Duke of Richmond. It appears he understood his role to be the recommendation of libretti and Italian singers to grace the stage of the Royal Academy. Firstly he had to contend with the composer, Bononcini and castrato, Berenstadt who tried to ensure only their friends obtained the privilege of singing on the London stage.

Both Richmond and Swiny were very keen to import Faustina to the Academy, but were opposed by other directors of the Academy as well as singers already based in London. It took two years of negotiation before Faustina eventually appeared in Alessandro. After that the Academy tried to remove Cuzzoni, the existing prima donna, by offering her less money than Faustina. However the feisty soprano maintained her connection with the Academy beyond the term of its first incarnation, which closed after the 1727-8 season.

In 1725 Swiny was asked to approach both Gizzi and Carestini, possibly because Senesino was proving an unreliable employee, often feigning ill health. He failed to secure their services and in 1728 suggested Farinelli would be more of a draw. Sadly for the Academy, Swiny reported that the singer wished to continue his studies “in the Lombard manner” and could not be persuaded. Subsequently Farinelli was briefly heard in the rival establishment, The Opera of the Nobility.

When it comes to a choice of vehicle with which to present Faustina to the British public, Swiny credits himself with the choice of Venceslao as a libretto. He vetoed Partenope on the basis the opera only worked in Italy because of the “depravity” of the audience. After the premiere in Venice of Porpora Siface he claimed this drama would never work because the protagonists were all vicious and would not elicit compassion from a more refined English audience. When he heard that the Haym-Handel partnership had in fact launched her with Alessandro, he asked to receive a score: his response was predictable. This was the worst book he had ever read and the weakest score Handel had so far written. Swiny tried too to be a precursor of Giovanni Ricordi and put himself in charge of costumes and scenery as well as the music, but the Academy, lurching towards its first demise, was reluctant to import his preferred Italian designers at significant cost.

Despite Swiny’s hopes for Venceslao, because of delays in the postal service it was another libretto handpicked by Swiny and sent on horseback from Venice – Elpidia -which became Handel’s first pasticcio for the Royal Academy. This marks the first time the operatic music of Leonardo Vinci had been heard outside Italy. In the manuscript in the British Library, the published score is misattributed as “Opera de Leonardo Vinci a Londra 11 Mai 1725.” Swiny’s correspondence regarding Elpidia makes it clear that the majority of arias which feature in the pasticcio are taken from Vinci’s Rosmira, Ifigenia and Orlandini Berenice, all three of which were premiered in Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo at Carnival 1725. As to why Swiny chose this particular libretto by Apostolo Zeno, one can only presume he came across it being reincarnated by Vignatti (a Milanese court composer) for performance in Venice at Ascension in 1726. In a letter dated January 23rd 1726 Swiny refers to a payment of £50 for “the opera of Elpidia.” Of this sum, £40 went “for copying the score, and Vinci’s regalo.” According to Markstrom, if Swiny chose the libretto and the best arias of the 1725 Venetian season, “Handel’s role would have been limited to composing the recitative and rehearsing and conducting the new opera.”Elpidia

John H Roberts has postulated that, because of this reference to £40 and the fact that the extant scores appear not to feature the hand of either Handel or his known copyists, plus the attribution of the manuscript in the British Library to Vinci rather than Handel, the score of Elpidia might have been composed or prepared by Vinci himself in Venice. This might explain why the published libretto is only in Italian without the usual verbatim (as opposed to performing) translation into English.

However one has to ask why Vinci would put together an opera which he was never to hear, wasn’t going to rehearse and conduct and, perhaps more to the point, why would he cobble something together for a mere £40 including copying when Haym in London was paid £300 for his arrangement of Scarlatti? I prefer to think that Vinci was rightly paid for providing half the arias included in Elpidia and that the score includes a variety of hands because singers brought in their own favourite arias in many cases. (Certainly the bass arias from Lotti Teofane are written in a completely different hand and their words are also absent from the printed libretto.)

I think it’s likely that whoever edited the Elpidia libretto was also responsible for making the cuts in Leo’s Catone in Utica to create the first Handel pasticcio Opera Settecento premiered at the London Handel Festival. The removal of whole scenes in Elpidia as well as one character (love-interest and all) is very similar to the treatment of Catone; in both cases the original Italian book is virtually unrecognisable. This is presumably what Handel and/or Haym thought worked for a London audience. Having recently heard uncut operas by Hasse, Broschi and Porpora, it is clear that the London audience for Handel’s Italianate operas was not willing to tolerate long stretches of recitative in Italian, much preferring to leap from one engaging aria to the next.

When The Royal Academy dies a second death, we hear no more of Swiny as opera impresario or agent. Swiny turned to his second string as an art dealer. We have all heard of Canaletto, but may not know that it was Swiny in the 1720s who first proposed to the artist that, if he were to create small, topographical views of Venice, his paintings would find a market in the UK. The other Venetian painter who became an international success in her day, due in no small part to the offices of Mr Swiny, was the pastellist, Rosalba Carriera.
The first illustration which follows is her allegorical portrait of Faustina which hangs in the Die Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, the city which was later to become the epicentre of her husband’s highly successful career. It was not unusual for a portraitist at the time to depict his/her subject as a mythical figure or concept, such as Spring. Dating from some six years later, the portrait of Faustina Bordoni Hasse which hangs in the Ca’ Rezzonico in Venice, is more modest and, I think a more realistic record of the singer’s character.

Another of Rosalba’s sitters was Lord Boyne. He embarked on his Grand Tour with Edward Walpole, second son of the prime minister and Horace’s brother; they arrived in Venice in time for the carnival of 1730 at which Hasse Artaserse was performed. From there they travelled to Padua, Bologna, Rome, Naples and Florence, meeting on the way none other than Owen Swiny. They returned to Venice in early 1731 and it is thought Rosalba painted Lord Boyne on that occasion. This portrait currently hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One version of this portrait was listed as being in the possession of Owen Swiny at his death. Not only did he enhance the careers of Venetian artists but he also amassed his own collection of their works, including many works by Canaletto which found their way into the Royal Collection.