Sense, Sensibility, and Opera Seria

Abstract

This article follows an aesthetic debate about opera seria in letters written in 1780 by the playwright Francesco Albergati Capacelli and the poet Francesco Zacchiroli, and published shortly thereafter in their Lettere capricciose. The correspondents belonged to different generations, not only in age but in aesthetic assumptions and emotional outlook. Albergati, the older, admired Voltaire and Goldoni, "and I study and meditate on the tragedies of the former and the comedies of the latter." From these masters he learned to value above all buon gusto and buon senso. Albergati was a man of the enlightenment; he valued reason, consistency, and moderation in all things. Zacchiroli represented a newer taste. He lived in the irrational world of sensibility and enthusiasm. He had little regard for reason and good sense; he preferred to trust his feelings. "Dear friend, give up the madness of wishing to be rational—a man of good sense—in the theater." In their conflict over the merits of opera seria, Albergati and Zacchiroli offer insights into the place occupied by this genre in a larger question: whether intellect or emotions, sense or sensibility, should dominate our reaction to the arts.

   Zacchiroli, a passionate opera lover, set off the debate by writing to Albergati about his experience at La Scala in Milan during Carnival 1780. The singing of the musico Luigi Marchesi had overwhelmed him and the rest of the Milanese audience during a performance of Myslivecek's Armida, into which Marchesi had incorporated an aria by Giuseppe Sarti, "Mia speranza io pur vorrei." In his opening salvo, Zacchiroli vividly conveyed the depth of feelings, the emotional intoxication that opera seria could arouse in eighteenth-century audiences. Albergati responded with an attack on opera seria whose vehemence reflects not only his impatience at what he perceived as the genre's absurdities, but also the frustration and jealousy felt by a playwright in a country where spoken theater had been opera's poor cousin since the seventeenth century.

    In addition to extensive excerpts from the letters, with commentary, the article presents several assessments of Marchesi's voice and musicianship by those who witnessed his performances and subjects "Mia speranza"—an early and influential example of the two-tempo rondò—to detailed analysis.

The title page and first page of music (with the main theme of the slow section) of a parte cantante (vocal part with bass, used by singers to learn their part) of Sarti's rondò "Mia speranza io pur vorrei," written for Luigi Marchesi to sing in Achille in Sciro (Florence, 1779), and inserted by him in other operas, such as Myslivecek's Armida. The complete vocal score is on Internet Culturale.

The complete article is in Studi musicali 15 (1986), 101–38. A version of the article with all quotations in English translation (as well as in the original languages) is on academia.edu.

Further discussion of the contributions of Sarti and Marchesi to the two-tempo rondò in Marino Nahon, "Le origini del rondò vocale a due tempi: Tempo musicale e tempo scenico nell' aria seria tardosettecentesca," in Musica e Storia 13 (2005), 25–80, and Damien Colas et Alessandro di Profio, "Le rondò "Rendi, o cara, il Prence amato' de Sarti et les ornements de Marchesi," in D'une scène à l'autre: L'Opéra italien en Europe, vol. 1: Les pérégrinations d'un genre, ed. Damien Colas and Alessandro di Profio (Wavre, Belgium, 2009), 157–87. For a study of Gabrielli's reception in Milan based primarily on the poetry that she inspired, which provides a background to the hostility that she experienced during the production of Armida, see Alessandra Mignatti, "'Alla sempre bella, e virtuosa': Materiali per uno studio della figura femminile nel teatro fra Seicento e Settecento," in Communicazioni sociali, 2012, 50–75 (especially 63–72). On Armida, see Daniel E. Freeman, Joseph Myslivecek, "Il Boemo": The Man and His Music, Harmonie Park Press, 2009.