Gli sciti: Voltaire's Play, Beretti's Ballet, Mayr's Opera

Paper presented at the conference “Simon Mayr: Der Bayerische Komponist im europäischen Kontext,” Ingolstadt, 21–24 September 2006. Published in Simon Mayr – der bayerische Komponist im europäischen Kontext (Mayr-Studien, 8), ed. Franz Hauk and Iris Winkler (Munich: Katzblichler, 2016), 119–135. For a PDF (with footnotes at the bottom of the page), go to Mayr's Gli sciti.pdf  

In exploring the origins of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Italian operas, we often come across two groups of theatrical works with which many of us today are unfamiliar: the tragedies of Voltaire and the balli tragici pantomimi performed in many of Italy’s theaters during the second half of the century. During the half century from 1780 to 1830 Voltaire’s tragedies constituted perhaps the most important source of subject matter for serious operas.1 And the tragic ballets that audiences enjoyed between the acts of operas often took for their subjects stories that attracted operatic settings only later—settings that in many cases were probably made under the direct influence of the ballets that preceded them.2

    Johann Simon Mayr's opera Gli sciti was first performed at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, during Carnival, 1800, with the following cast: 

Angelica Catalani            Atamaro

Teresa Dolliani                Obeida

Salvatore de Lorenzi      Indatiro  

Pietro Righi                      Sozame

Antonio Coldani              Ermodano

Angelica Chiesa               Zulma

Giuseppe Bertani            Ircano 

Gli sciti was not one of Mayr’s more successful operas. In his Cenni autobiografici Mayr wrote: “Quest’opera venne per vari intrighi teatrali tolta dalle scene dopo la seconda recita - ma dovette essere ben tosto rimessa a richiesta ed acclamazione universale del giusto publico.”3 That is an incomplete and somewhat inaccurate account. Gli sciti was performed five times at the end of Carnival 1800. The small number of performances resulted from its being the third of three operas (instead of the normal two) presented at La Fenice during Carnival. At the beginning of Carnival 1801 Gli sciti was revived, not “a richiesta... del giusto publico,” but as a stopgap: a replacement for a new opera that had to be postponed because of the late arrival of several singers.4 But Gli sciti is of interest to historians as the product of the interaction—so typical of the period—of Voltaire’s spoken tragedy, ballet, and opera. It also deserves our attention as the product of the confluence of the careers of three remarkable artists: the composer Mayr, the librettist Gaetano Rossi, and the soprano Angelica Catalani.

    Voltaire wrote Les Scythes in 1766; it was first performed at the Comédie Française in March 1767. Here is a list of Voltaire’s characters and very brief synopsis of the tragedy:

Hermodan, père d'Indatire, habitant d’un canton scythe

Indatire 

Athamare, prince d’Ecbatane 

Sozame, ancien général persan, retiré en Scythie 

Obéide, fille de Sozame

Sulma, compagne d'Obéide 

Hircan, officier d'Athamare Scythes et Persans

Act 1: Sozame, a Persian general, has been forced by court intrigues to flee Persia. He and his daughter Obéide have found refuge among the Scythians. To strengthen his friendship with the Scythian elder Hermodan, Sozame agrees to the marriage of Obéide and Indatire, Hermodan's son. Obéide agrees to the marriage, although she still loves the Persian prince Athamare.

Act 2: The wedding of Obéide and Indatire is interrupted by the appearance of Athamare, who still loves Obéide. Athamare asks Sozame to return to Persia; he refuses.

Act 3: Distraught by Obéide’s marriage to a Scythian, Athamare tries to persuade her to change her mind, but she refuses.

Act 4: Athamare confronts Indatire, who refuses to give up Obéide. They fight, and Athamare kills Indatire (but neither the fight nor Indatire’s death is shown on stage). The Scythians capture Athamare. According to Scythian law, Obéide must oversee the death of the man who has killed her husband.

Act 5: The only way for Obéide to avoid killing Athamare is to stab herself. She dies. Athamare grabs the knife, intending to join her in death, but a Scythian keeps him from killing himself. Moved by Obéide’s love for Athamare and her act of self-sacrifice, Sozame and the Scythians allow Athamare to go free:

Soumettons-nous au sort; 

Soumettons-nous au ciel, arbitre de la mort...

Nous sommes trop vengés par un tel sacrifice. 

Scythes, que la pitié succède à la justice.

    Like many of Voltaire’s plays, Les Scythes derives much of its dramatic interest from the confrontation of people of two very different cultures, in this case the Scythians and the Persians. Political machinations in Persia—a rich, militaristic society ruled by an autocratic king—force the Persian general Sozame into exile in Scythia—a rural, largely impoverished country in which the people enjoy independence and individual freedom. Beneath a thin pseudo-historical veneer Voltaire presented a picture of himself—a Frenchman in exile in Switzerland—and of the two societies of which he himself was a part. Already in the list of characters, in describing Hermodan as “habitant d’un canton scythe,” Voltaire used a word closely associated with Switzerland: the first of many allusions by which Voltaire made sure than any eighteenth-century reader or listener would identify the Scythians with the Swiss, the Persians with the French, and Sozame with Voltaire himself.

    Les Scythes first came to the Italian musical stage in the form of a ballet; and in this it was typical of a period in which ballet was generally more open than opera to new subject matter. Some of ballet’s innovative impulse came from the subsidiary role that it played in theatrical production in Italy. Ballets were typically performed during the intermissions of operas, with a serious ballet during the first intermission and a comic ballet during the second intermission (or, if the opera was in only two acts, after the opera). Choreographers may well have felt a need for novelty to attract the attention of an audience that might otherwise remain preoccupied with the opera.

    One novelty that choreographers often exploited in the late eighteenth century was the tragic ending. Operas that ended with murder, suicide, or other tragic and violent events became more common in the 1790s than in earlier decades, especially in Venice.5 But such operas were usually in the minority; many librettists and composers continued to avoid sending audiences away with their spirits dampened by tragic endings. Choreographers, in contrast, could take advantage of the fact that their balli tragici pantomimi ended long before the end of the evening as a whole. They could shock and sadden their audiences by depicting a death on stage, confident that a few hours later the operas for which their tragic ballets had served as intermission entertainment would end happily. Another reason why ballets showed death more frequently than operas did is that audiences could easily have perceived dancers as dying more naturally and more dramatically than singers. A late eighteenth-century public probably considered pantomime inherently more effective than song in the depiction of death.

    Among the most prolific and important Italian choreographers of the 1780s and 1790s was Filippo Beretti. A native of Rome, Beretti danced as a young man (in Florence in 1774) under the direction of Antoine Pitrot, one of the fathers of ballo tragico pantomimo.6 Later, in Venice in 1782, he danced as primo ballerino serio in ballets choreographed by the great Gasparo Angiolini.7 Beretti’s work as a choreographer (from 1778) represented a link between the tragic pantomime as developed by Pitrot, Angiolini, and other dancers of their generation, and early Romantic ballet. The list of his performances in Table 1 shows that he presented ballets often in Milan and Venice as well as many of the smaller cities of northern Italy.

    As far as Beretti’s influence on opera is concerned, his most important ballet was Giulietta e Romeo: possibly the first ballet based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.8 A ballo tragico pantomimo that he first presented in 1784, and at least seven times thereafter,9 Beretti's ballet—rather than Shakespeare’s play—was almost certainly the main inspiration of Zingarelli’s celebrated opera of 1796. 

    Another ballet by Beretti that influenced opera was Gli sciti, with a score by Vittorio Trento.10 Beretti first presented Gli sciti in Padua in June 1791. Two and a half years later, in a note addressed to the Milanese audience at a revival of Gli sciti during Carnival 1794, Beretti acknowledged his debt to Voltaire. But he departed often from the French tragedy. He enhanced the drama's ritualistic aspects by setting much of it in a temple—the Temple of Jupiter Ammon—and he gave important new roles to temple's priests and priestesses. Voltaire had written much dialogue for the two fathers, Sosame and Hermodan, on the execution of which, he felt, depended the success of the play: “La pièce est difficile à jouer. Elle a surtout besoin de deux vieillards qui soient naturels et attendrissants.”11 Beretti, seeing no way to translate into dance the conversations of two old men, removed Hermodan from the drama. With other changes he intensified the drama's violence and tragedy. He gave Indatiro a fiancée, Fedima—so that the marriage of Indatiro and Obeide violates not only Obeide’s love for Attamaro, but also Indatiro's promise to marry Fedima. Much of the ballet's dramatic interest comes from Fedima's jealousy and rage. And in his most shocking innovation, Beretti had Attamaro throw himself on a burning funeral pyre at the end of the ballet—thus turning Voltaire's single suicide into a double suicide. The description of the fifth and final act, as printed for the first production of Beretti’s ballet (Padua, 1791), suggests something of the dramatic excitement that the ballet must have aroused in the theater:

ATTO QUINTO 

Gran luogo in tempo di notte preparato per sacrificare le Vittime. Simulacro di Proserpina da un lato. Rogo dall'altro.

Al suono di lenta marcia vengono li Soldati in mezzo a quali sono i Grandi di Persia, ed Arsace incatenato. I Giudici li seguono con Ircano alla testa. Indi con segni di lutto si avvanzano le Donzelle portando corone di cipresso, colle quali adornano l'Ara, ed il simulacro. Preceduto da Sacerdoti entra da una parte fra le Guardie Attamaro coronato di cipressi, dall'altra preceduta dalle Sacerdotesse e fra le guardie Obeide. Appena s'incontrano gli infelici amanti, che corrono ad abbracciarsi. Le dividono i Sacerdoti, e Ircano ordina, che accendino il Rogo, ed esso accende il fuoco sacro sull'Ara. Obeide corraggiosa chiede al Padre perdono; il gran Sacerdote conduce Attamaro all'Altare, a pie del quale lo fa inginocchiare, indi presenta il sacro cortello ad Obeide, che frettolosamente corre per l'ultima volta ad abbracciare l'amante, prende risoluta il Cortello, e va sull’Altare; mentre tutti s'inginocchiano, rivolge essa gli occhi al Cielo, piena d'ardire alza il ferro, e in vece di ferire Attamaro, se lo immerge nel seno, e cade esangue fra le braccia delle Sacerdotesse. A tale spettacolo Sozame, ed Attamaro corrono a lei, essa appena può reggersi per abbracciarli, e spira fra le cor braccia. L'amante colto di disperazione, e furore raccoglie lo stesso ferro, e tenta di trafiggersi da se medesimo, ma commossi gli Sciti gli arrestano il colpo, e lo disarmano. Non potendo egli sopravere ad Obeide si svelle dalle braccia de’ Sciti, e corraggiosamente si precipita nel Rogo. Le fiamme lo inceneriscono, i Persiani, ed i Sciti rimangono attoniti immersi nel dolore, e nella confusione, e formando fra loro un quadro di maraviglia, e terrore termina il Ballo.12

    Beretti’s Gli sciti must have been a great success, because he revived it often—in Milan in 1793, in Venice in 1794, in Florence and Verona in 1797, in Trieste in 1800, and again in Venice in 1804 (under the title Atamaro e Obeide). It attracted the attention not only of audiences but also of opera librettists. An unknown poet wrote a version of Gli sciti for Giuseppe Nicolini, whose opera of that name reached the stage of La Scala during Carnival 1799. 

    Nicolini’s opera was based directly on Voltaire’s play; but it also derived some elements from Beretti’s ballet. It changed some of Voltaire’s names—Obéide became Semira, Sosame became Sebaste. Like Voltaire, Nicolini killed off Indatire and Obéide, but not Atamare. He thus gave the English singers John Braham (as Indatiro) and Elizabeth Billington (as Semira) golden opportunities to show off their histrionic talents in death scenes. Yet in placing their wedding in the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, he called attention to his debt to Beretti.

    The librettist Gaetano Rossi turned to Voltaire’s plays quite frequently in his long and fruitful career. For Mayr he adapted not only Les Scythes but also Adelaide de Guesclin; later, for Rossini, he turned both Tancrede and Semiramis into librettos.

    Mayr, for his part, was equally open to the idea of using Voltaire's tragedies and ballo eroico pantomimo as inspiration for his operas. Table 2 shows that several of Mayr’s early operas had antecedents in the ballets of the 1790s. Adelaide di Guesclino in particular was a product of influences very similar to those that produced Gli sciti: a drama by Voltaire, a ballet, a libretto by Rossi, and a production at La Fenice.13 One might reasonably guess that with Gli sciti Mayr hoped to repeat the success of Adelaide by reassembling its principal ingredients.

    That Mayr knew Beretti’s choreographic treatment of Voltaire’s Les Scythes is made likely by the fact that when Mayr was presenting Saffo at La Fenice during Carnival 1794,  Beretti was presenting Gli sciti at the Teatro San Benedetto. But Rossi evidently had access to Voltaire's play. Parts of the libretto are almost literally translated from Voltaire. For example, in the tragedy's final scene, here is how Obéide finally declares her love for Athamare:

                    O Scythes inhumains! 

Connaissez dans quel sang vous enfoncez mes mains.

Athamare est mon prince; il est plus... je l'adore;

Je l'amai seul au monde... et ce moment encore 

Porte au plus grand excès, dans ce coeur enivré, 

L'amour, le tendre amour dont il fut dévoré.

Athamare responds: "Je meurs heureux." 

    Rossi, in the analogous scene in Mayr’s opera (Act 2, Scene 16), had Obeida declare: 

                            Sciti inumani, o voi 

Nudrite di barbarie umane belve,

Tutto sappiate omai. – Quest’ infelice – 

Egli è il vero mio Prence – è l'idol mio. 

Lui solo sempre amai: 

Ed in quest’ebbro core,

Che si strugge d'amore, amore accresce 

Questo stesso momento 

Nell'eccesso maggior.

Atamaro responds (con trasporto): “Moro contento!” 

    The crucial role of Atamaro, the tragic lover, Mayr composed for Angelica Catalani, who was still near the beginning of her stellar career when she sang in Gli Sciti. The list of her early roles in Table 3 shows that Catalani was a pioneer in several respects. She was one of the first female sopranos to appear on the stage in Rome, in 1799. Her appearances in Venice “da musico” in 1800 helped to strengthen the legitmacy of a relatively new practice: that of women appearing in the place of the musico as the romantic lead in serious opera. She had good preparation for this kind of role, having sung opposite Luigi Marchesi—one of the last great musici—in several productions in the earliest stage of her career. In 1797 and 1798 she sang very often with Marchesi. She must have learned much from the musico. Her switch to trouser roles in 1800 involved one role—Orazio in Cimarosa's Gli Orazi e i Curiazi—that was one of Marchesi’s specialities. 

    Atamaro’s Persian soldiers have been defeated in battle by the Scythians. Obeida, hoping to save Atamaro’s life, leads him to a hiding place, described by Rossi as follows: “Vastissime grotte; nel fondo vi si vede un foro in un lato, per cui si va al fiume.” As in other sotterranei, the setting has an effect on every element of the scene; it demands from the composer musical unity: from the opening of the curtain to its closing, 428 measures of music flow unbroken, with instrumental music, recitative, duet, and quartet closely linked.

    Like many sotterranei, this one begins with an instrumental prelude: a twenty-six measure Largo in E flat major (a key whose connotations with darkness would have come across more vividly if Mayr had not used it so often earlier in the opera). [Musical Example 1] Mayr’s orchestra presents an image in sound that corresponds to the image evoked by Rossi’s stage directions. The slow harmonic rhythm (especially the three measures of tonic at the beginning) suggests something of the silence and motionlessness of the cavern. The oboes echo the horns (mm. 6-9), conveying a sense of the reverberations that one might hear in a huge underground chamber. A dialogue between flute and clarinet alludes to the protagonists, Atamaro and Obeida: two lovers alone and vulnerable in a terrifying place. The introduction reaches its climax as this amorous pair of woodwinds climbs in parallel thirds to a high point, accompanied by a crescendo (mm. 18–19).

    Atamaro’s opening exclamations are typical of the beginning of scene sotterranee— “Qual tremendo sentier! quale di morte spaventevol soggiorno!” (Although there is no sotterraneo in Nicolini’s Gli sciti, the analogous place in his libretto contains dialogue that might have inspired Rossi. Atamaro says: “E dove in queste rupi / Fra gli orrori di morte,/ Crudel, mi guidi?”21) To Catalani, as Atamaro, such lines and such a dramatic situation offered a wonderful opportunity to electrify her Venetian audience. Atamaro’s refusal to escape by himself leads to passionate dialogue, accompanied largely by motives introduced in the instrumental prologue, and finally to a duet, “Ah non so dirti addio.”

    The duet is interrupted by the sounds of the approaching Scythians, as described in the libretto:

Si dividono con tutto il dolore: Atam. giunto al fondo della Scena si rivolge, e vede Obeida, che immobile lo guarda a partire, sospira, e arrivato con tutto il dolore fino all'imboccatura della Grotta, odesi una improvvisa marcia guerriera, che viene sempre accostandosi, e ritorna agitatissimo.

Mayr realized the “marcia guerriera” as a series of crescendos, the first of which he built from the gradual entry of brass and winds--first trumpets and oboes, then flute, horns, clarinets, bassoons—“pianissimo come da lontano”; then the brass and winds grow louder, “crescendo poco a poco”; and finally the full orchestra builds to fortissimo at the words “s'avvicina... s'accresce.” Meanwhile Atamaro’s state of mind (“agitatissimo”) finds musical expression in the Allegro, beginning with the words “Numi! di là qual suono!”

    The appear of the Scythians a few seconds later brings about a moment of paralysis: "Mentre cercano nascondersi, dal foro entra Indat. co’ Sciti, e dalla parte, ove si celevano entra Sozame con Sciti, e faci: sorpresa, e analoghe attitudini."  Mayr conveyed a sense of suspended animation by setting the exclamations of surprise as a twelve-measure Larghetto—“Oh Dei! qual sorpresa”—in which all the characters, singing simultaneously, express their own feelings.

    Interaction between the characters resumes with the following Allegro. Indatiro orders that Atamaro be killed: “Ah quel perfido uccidete.” All four soloists and a chorus of soldiers bring the scene to an energetic conclusion with a rapid movement in C major, “Quale infausto orrendo giorno.”

    Rossi and Mayr, while admiring the theatricality of Voltaire’s Les Scythes, and probably also under the spell of Beretti’s ballet, understood opera to have strengths and limitations different from those of spoken tragedy and ballet. Instead of being disappointed by the lack of a tragic ending, we should appreciate Gli sciti for what it uniquely offers: scenes such as the sotterraneo that we have briefly examined, which corresponds to nothing in Voltaire’s tragedy or Beretti’s ballet, but which presented to opera audiences the kind of distinctly operatic scene they had come to expect and cherish.

Table 1. The Career of Filippo Beretti

Seasons: A = Autunno, Asc = Ascensione, C = Carnevale, E = Estate, Q = Quaresima

Date                       City                     Work or Works ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

1778 Agosto         Bergamo            balli

          A                    Venezia               Vertunno e Pomona

1779 C                    Venezia               balli

          A                    Torino                 Vertunno e Pomona; La cuffiara francese; Zemira e

                                                              Azor; Le gelosie di Annetta e Fiorello

1780 C                    Genova               balli

          P                    Firenze                La conquista del vello d'oro, Le d'Annetta e Fiorello;

                                                              Il ritorno del generale Pervischi

1781 C                    Torino                 La bella Arsene; Il volubile assodato; Il passeggio

                                                               autunnale ne' sobborghi di Torino

            A                  Bologna 1782     Il teatro italiano alla China; Annetta e Fiorello

            C                  Modena               balli

            A                  Torino                  L'innocenza scoperta; Divertimento campestre; La

                                                               contadina filosofa; Il pastor fido

1783   C                   Parma                 Il pastor fido; L'innocenza scoperta

            A                   Lucca                   balli

1784   C                   Novara                Il teatro italiano alla China; Divertimento

                                                               campestre

            Fiera            Padova                Giulietta e Romeo; L'ingannatore punito

            A                   Milano                 La filosofia delle donne, L'innocenza scoperta; I 

                                                               comici italiani alla China

1785   C                   Brescia                balli

            P                   Mantova             Giulietta e Romeo; L'ingannatore punito 

            Fiera            Brescia                I comici alla Cina; Annetta e Fiorello

1786   C                   Novara                La morte di Danao; L'ingannatore punito

            A                   Venezia               Ercole che libera Esione dal mostro marino; Il

                                                               matrimonio aggiusta tutto

1787   C                   Venezia               Li due sposi fortunati; L'esilio di Tarquinio;

                                                               Divertimento campestre; Senz' oro non si fa niente

            Fiera             Crema                Ipemestra, ossia La morte di Danao; Ballo

                                                               campestre

1788   C                    Milano                Giulietta e Romeo; Lilla e Lubino, ossia Una cosa

                                                                rara 

            P                    Piacenza             Filippo II re di Spagna; La guingette 

            P                    Parma                balli 

            Fiera             Crema                 Lucrezia romana

1789   C                    Roma                  Giulietta e Romeo; Bellezza e onestà, ossia Una

                                                                cosa rara

            Fiera              Reggio                balli

            Agosto          Bergamo            balli

            A                     Treviso               balli

1790   C                     Genova              Tamar e Selimo, ossia Padre e figlio rivali 

                                                                sconosciuti; Ipermestra, o La morte di Danao;

                                                                Divertimento pubblico, o La ginghetta

            P                    Genova               Manzichi re di Varù, ossia Gnugnes in America; 

                                                                Laomedonte re di Troia

            A                    Livorno                balli

1790   C                    Livorno                Gnugnes in America

            C                    Parma                  Il tempio della morte; Il tutore burlato

            P                    Verona                 Nanzichi re di Varù; Il tutore burlato

            Giugno         Padova                Gli sciti; Divertimento pubblico                

            Fiera             Brescia                 Il tempio della morte; L'inutile precauzione

1792   C                    Verona                 Ipermestra, ossia La morte di Danao

            P                    Verona                 Giulietta e Romeo; Il divertimento pubblico

            E                    Vicenza                 La caccia d'Isabella regina di Spagna; Le

                                                                  divertissement

            E                    Mestre                  Giulietta e Romeo

            A                    Livorno                 balli

1793   C                    Milano                   Gli sciti; Il divertimento camprestre; Andronico e

                                                                  Ramira; Il giudice e padre

            A                     Venezia                 I solitari di Scozia; Andronico e Ramira

1794   C                     Venezia                 Gli sciti, I soltari di Scozia; Il padre giudice; 

                                                                   Divertimento camprestre

            C                      Verona                 balli

            P                      Verona                 Il calzolaio

            A                      Firenze                 Giulietta e Romeo; Il calzolaro; I solitari di 

                                                                   Scozia

1795   C                      Verona                 balli

1796   C                      Torino                  Andronico e Ramira

            P                      Faenza                 Giulietta e Romeo; Il calzolaio veneto

            A                      Milano                  Lucrezia, ossia L'espulsione dei rei da Roma;

                                                                   La calzolaia

1797   C                      Verona                 Gli sciti

            Giugno           Padova                 balli

            E                       Venezia?              L'esilio di Tarquinio il superbo VII re di Roma

            A                       Firenze                Gli sciti; Divertimento camprestre 

1798   C                       Milano                 L'Italia regenerata; La morte del re Danao; Chi

                                                                    la fa l'aspetta

            A                       Milano                 L'Italia rigenerata; Raollo signore di Crequì, o

                                                                    La tirannia punita; Amor vince tutto; La 

                                                                    moglie virtuosa, ossia Costanza Ragozzi

1800   P                       Verona                Il maestro di villa; Raullo di Crequì

            E                       Verona                Le villane filosfe

            E                       Vicenza                Raullo di Crequì

            A                       Trieste                 Marte e Venere; Gli sciti; L'abbandono di 

                                                                   Arianna

1803   C                       Milano                 Le veste di Vulcano; I due sposi sfortunati

            Q                       Milano                 Selimo e Zalmira

            A                        Milano                 balli

1804   C                        Venezia              Atamaro e Obeide; Boleslao e Tusnelda

Table 2. Choreographic Antecedents of Mayr’s Early Operas, 1790-1800

Ballet                                                 Choreographer             Date             City ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Telemaco nell’isola di Calipso     Antoine Pitrot                A  1791            Milan

Lauso e Lidia                                    Gaspare Ronzi               C 1790             Cremona

                                                                                                        C 1791            Firenze

                                                                                                        A 1795            Milano

                                                                                                        Nov. 1798      Napoli

Gli sciti                                               Filippo Beretti                Giugno 1791  Padova

                                                                                                        C 1793            Milano

                                                                                                        C 1794            Venezia (22)

                                                                                                        C 1797            Verona

                                                                                                        A 1797            Firenze

                                                                                                        A 1800            Trieste

Adelaide di Guesclino                     Carlo Favier                     Asc. 1794        Venezia

Ginevra di Scozia                             Gaspare Ronzi                Nov. 1797        Venezia

                                                                                                        C 1800               Milano (23)

Ginevra di Scozia                              Urbano Garzia               C 1797              Parma

                                                                                                         P 1797             Torino

                                                                                                         P  1798            Firenze

                                                                                                         A 1799             Roma

Table 3. Angelica Catalani's Early Career

Luigi Marchesi sang in productions marked (M)

Date               City             Role                 Opera                                         Composer ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

1797   A          Venezia      Lodoiska         Lodoiska (M)                           Mayr

1798   C          Venezia      Lidia                 Lauso e Lidia (M)                    Mayr

            C          Venezia      Carolina          Carolina e Mexicow (M)        Zingarelli 

            C          Venezia      Cimene            Il Conte di Saldagna (M)       Zingarelli

            Q          Firenze      Egla                   Il trionfo di Gedeone            Moneta

            Asc      Venezia      Andromaca     Andromaca                            Paisiello

            Asc      Venezia      Zenobia?          Zenobia in Palmira              Cimarosa

            A          Livorno      Cimene             Il conte di Saldagna (M)      Zingarelli

            A          Livorno      Lodoiska           Lodoiska (M)                          Mayr

            A          Livorno      Polinessa          Pirro re di Epiro (M)             Zingarelli

1799   C          Roma          Ifigenia             Ifigenia in Aulide                    Mosca

            C          Roma          Lodoiska           Lodoiska                                 Caruso

            A        Firenze          Monima             Monima e Mitridate            Nasolini

            A        Firenze         Ifigenia                Ifigenia in Aulide                  Curcio

1800   C         Venezia        Mezio Curzio    Il ratto delle Sabine            Zingarelli

            C        Venezia        Curiazio              Gli Orazi e i Curiazi             Cimarosa

            C        Venezia        Atamaro             Gli Sciti                                   Mayr

            Asc    Venezia        Cleopatra           La morte di Cleopatra        Nasolini

            E        Verona         Curiazio              Gli Orazi e i Curiazi              Cimarosa 

            E        Vicenza        Curiazio               Gli Orazi e i Curiazi              Cimarosa

            A        Trieste          Romeo                Giulietta e Romeo              Zingarelli

            A        Trieste          Curiazio              Gli Orazi e i Curiazi             Cimarosa

Captions for illustration and musical example

Illustration 1. Gli sciti, dramma per musica di Gaetano Rossi da rappresentarsi nel nobilissimo Teatro La Fenice nel carnovale 1800, Venezia, Stamperia Valvasene, 1800, pp. 44-49

Musical Example 1. Mayr, Gli sciti, sotterraneo, mm. 1-36. Source: I-Mc, Noseda Q 48-11

Notes

1 On Voltaire’s tragedies and their influence on late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Italian opera see Sabine Henze-Döhring, "‘Combinammo l’ossatura...’ Voltaire und die Librettistik des frühen Ottocento," in Archiv für Musikwissenschaft XXXVI (1983), 113–127, R. S. Ridgway, "Voltairian Bel Canto: Operatic Adaptations of Voltaire’s Tragedies," in Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century CCXLI (1986), 125–154; Marita McClymonds, "La morte di Semiramide ossia La vendetta di Nino and the Restoration of Death and Tragedy to the Italian Operatic Stage in the 1780s and 90s," in Atti del XIV Congresso della Società Internazionale di Musicologia, ed. Angelo Pompilio et al., 3 vols.,Turin 1990, vol. III, 285–292; and Michele Calella, "Die Rezeption der Tragödien Voltaires auf den venezianischen Opernbühnen und das Problem der Tragik in der Oper des späten 18. Jahrhunderts," in: Johann Simon Mayr und Venedig, ed. Franz Hauk and Iris Winkler, München, 1999, 155–165. 

2 On the use by opera and ballet of the same dramatic subjects (with special reference to late eighteenth-century Venice) see M. Calella, "Die Rezeption der Tragödien Voltaires," 162. In reference to Alessandro Pepoli's libretto Meleagro (1789), Thomas Bauman wrote: “The theme of Meleager had been employed in a half dozen pantomime ballets on various Italian stages since 1779.... The priority of balletic realizations of the story was not unusual. The ballet often took up subjects that were considered too terrifying or unruly for serious opera” (Thomas Bauman, "Alessandro Pepoli’s Renewal of the ‘tragedia per musica’," in I vicini di Mozart, ed. Maria Teresa Muraro et al., 2 vols. Florence 1989, I, 211–220 [212]). 

3 Quoted in Ludwig Schiedermair, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Oper um die Wende des 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, vol. 1: Simon Mayr, Leipzig 1907, 172. 

4 Michele Girardi and Franco Rossi, Il teatro La Fenice: Cronologia degli spettacoli, 1792–1936, Venice, 1989, 38f., 41. The Giornale dei teatri, referring to Carnival 1801, reports: “Per le vicende di guerra, non essendo arrivati a tempo alla piazza li signori Storace Braham, Mattucci, Ronzi, e Piattoli, convenne all'impresario Cavos aprire provvisoriamente il teatro con una compagnia del momento, che rappresentò gli Sciti, musica del maestro Mayr” (quoted in Girardi and Rossi, Il teatro la Fenice, 41). 

5  McClymonds, "La morte di Semiramide," and Katharina Kost, Das "tragico fine" auf venezianischen Opernbühnen des späten 18. Jahrhunderts, diss., Heidelberg 2004. 

6 Robert Lamar Weaver and Norma Wright Weaver, A Chronology of Music in the Florentine Theater, 1751–1800, Warren, Michigan 1993, 328. 

7 L'indice de' teatrali spettacoli, ed. Roberto Verti, 2 vols., Pesaro 1996, vol. I, 437. 

8 Beretti’s Giulietta e Romeo appeared more than a year before another ballet of the same name by Eusebio Luzzi, to whom the first Romeo and Juliet ballet is erroneously attributed in Debra Craine and Judith Mackrell, The Oxford Dictionary of Dance, Oxford, 2000, 400; Luzzi's ballet, moreover, seems to have been presented only twice – in Venice during Fall 1785 and Carnival 1786. 

9 Kost, Das "tragico fine," 250. 

10 The relation of Beretti's ballet Gli sciti to Voltaire's tragedy and to Mayr's opera is briefly discussed in Calella, "Die Rezeption der Tragödien Voltaires," 162–63. 

11 Quoted in a note to act 1, scene 3, in: Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Théâtre, vol. 5, Paris 1877, 281. 

12 Gli sciti, ballo tragico pantomimo in cinque atti inventato e diretto dal sig. Filippo Beretti da esegursi nel nobilissimo Nuovo Teatro di Padova la fiera dell'anno 1791, Padua, 1791, 13. 

13 Calella, "Die Rezeption der Tragödien Voltaires," 162. 

14 Benedetto Frizzi, Dissertazione di biografia musicale (probably published in Trieste in 1802 or shortly thereafter), transcribed in part in John A. Rice, "Benedetto Frizzi on Singers, Composers, and Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century Italy," in Studi musicali 23 (1994), 368–393 (377). On the prima donna da musico see Giovanni Valle, Cenni teorico-pratici sulle aziende teatrali, Milan, 1823, 36–37: "Le prime donne da musico sonosi introdotte da che le filosofiche disposizioni di molti Governi hanno totalmente proibito il barbaro sistema dell' evirazione, e che a due o tre individui si riduce in oggi il numero de' soprani che tutt' ora calcano le scene. Queste prime donne sono in parità di rango, diritti e convenienzi eguali alle altre che agiscono appunto da femmina, ed anzi molte volte rappresentano il personaggio più importante del dramma, sia per lo intreccio e sviluppo dell' argomento, sia per la parte musicale che per esse viene composta."

15 L. Schiedermair, Beiträge, 173: “Einen verhängnisvollen Fehler aber beging Rossi dadurch, daß er den tragischen Ausgang, den das Stück bei Voltaire und auch im Libretto von Niccolini's ‘Sciti’ nimmt, abänderte und nach dem Rezept Metastasios die glückliche Vereinigung der beiden Liebenden uns vorführte. Auf diese Weise nähert sich das Stück von der 15. Szene des 2. Akts an jenen Texten, die in ihren oberflächlichen Begründungen und starken Unwahrscheinlichkeiten auf das Niveau der Libretti der opera buffa herabsanken. Als in der Schlußszene Indatiro das Liebespaar auffordert, ihn zu umarmen, nimmt der Text noch eine Wendung zum Rührstück.” 

16 Kost, Das "tragico fine," 20. 

17 McClymonds, "The Venetian Role in the Transformation of Opera Seria during the 1790s," 237. 

18 Thomas Bauman, "The Society of La Fenice and Its First Impresarios," in: Journal of the American Musicological Society 39 (1986), 332–354 (350). 

19 On the sotterraneo see Helga Lühning, Florestans Kerker im Rampenlicht: Zur Tradition des Sotterraneo, in Beethoven zwischen Revolution und Restauration, ed. Helga Lühning and Sieghard Brandenburg, Bonn, 1989, 137–204; and John A. Rice, Empress Marie Therese and Music at the Viennese Court, 1792–1807, Cambridge 2003, 93-98. 

20 Of Gli sciti Mayr wrote in his Cenni autobiografici: “Ne fu apprezzato particolarmente il quartetto del secondo atto dalla fu Imperatrice Maria Teresa seconda consorte del regnante Imp. Francesco” (quoted in Schiedermair, Beiträge, 172). Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, who often made music with the empress during his residence in Vienna from 1799 to 1803, wrote to her from Salzburg on 23 November 1803: “Abbiamo fatto questi giorni gli Sciti di Mayer, ed ho trovata la mia partitura mancante nel 2do Atto dei quinterni 9 10 11 del Sotterraneo che sono appunto quelli della bella Scena che a voi tanto piace” (quoted in Rice, Empress Marie Therese, 51). See also John A. Rice, "Mayr’s Music in the Private Concerts of Empress Marie Therese, 1801–1803," in Johann Simon Mayr und Wien, ed. Franz Hauk and Iris Winkler, Munich, 2005, 230–248. 

21 Nicolini, Gli sciti (Milan, 1799), act 2, scene 11. 

22 Beretti presented Gli sciti at the Teatro San Benedetto while Mayr presented Saffo at La Fenice. 

23 Performed at the premiere of Mayr’s Lodoiska (Milan version).