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ANTONIO VIVALDI

VIVALDI

Opera Arias and Sinfonias

EMMA KIRKBY

THE BRANDENBURG CONSORT

ROY GOODMAN

mental works, he was also a prolific composer of operas.

By the time of his operatic debut in 1713, at the age of

thirty-five, he had already achieved an international reputation

as a concerto composer; from then on both activities continued

in parallel for the rest of his career. We do not know exactly how

many operas Vivaldi wrote: a letter of 1739 claims ninety-four,

but this figure, reflecting Vivaldi’s penchant for exaggeration,

doubtless included revivals and rearrangements of his own

and other composers’ works. Nevertheless, we have over fifty

surviving printed librettos and around twenty scores, most

of which are largely complete. Vivaldi’s involvement with the

operatic scene was not only as a composer: he was active

throughout his career as impresario, running theatres, booking

singers (often knocking down their fees in the process!), and

putting on works by other composers as well as his own. In fact

it was his operatic engagements that led to many of his travels

outside Venice, to centres as far afield as Rome, Florence,

Vienna and probably Prague.

All Vivaldi’s surviving operatic overtures, which the com-

poser entitles ‘Sinfonia’, fall into the three-movement pattern

found in the vast majority of his concertos. With the exception

of Dorilla in Tempe , where the sinfonia’s final movement and

the opera’s introductory chorus share material taken from

the opening of Vivaldi’s famous concerto La primavera , RV269,

from The Four Seasons , there is normally no thematic connec-

tion between overture and opera. Indeed, their independence

is underlined by the nature of the manuscripts, in which the

sinfonia normally appears before the work’s title page, and in

fact several of Vivaldi’s operas reuse sinfonias from earlier

works.

The opening movement in the major key is normally bril-

liant in character, the initial idea frequently exploiting the

more showy aspects of violin technique such as the multiple-

stopped ‘three hammer-strokes’ (familiar from many of

Vivaldi’s concertos) which open the overtures to two operas

from 1735, Griselda and Tamerlano (the latter is entitled

Il Bajazet in the composer’s autograph score). Once the

audience’s attention has thus been gained, Vivaldi presents a

series of contrasting ideas, some of which return, frequently in

a slightly curtailed form, giving a structure similar to that of

the ripieno concerto. One prominent section is often soft and in

the minor key: in Griselda this involves chromatic inflections

and appoggiaturas, while in Tamerlano it strikingly presents a

melodic bass line under sustained chords in the upper strings.

The middle movements of these two overtures are typical of

Vivaldi: they are gentle minor-key andantes , a lyrical line for

unison violins being accompanied by throbbing repeated notes

in the lower strings without harpsichords. The finales are lively

triple-time dance movements providing a brief return of the

major key. Here again the violins are in unison, although in

Tamerlano the horns, silent in the central andante because of

its minor tonality, are added to the texture.

The sinfonia to the early opera Ottone in villa is the only

such work, other than the Tamerlano overture, to include wind

instruments; here, however, Vivaldi calls on a pair of oboes,

whose prominent solo passages in thirds alternate in the first

movement with more virtuoso writing for two solo violins. The

second movement departs from the normal style of the later

sinfonias: it is in binary form, each half being played first by

the oboes accompanied by violins and then by the full strings

with oboes doubling the violins. The same eight-bar first sec-

tion is then transposed from C minor to C major for the closing

Allegro . This is also reminiscent of an oboe passage from bar

32 of the first movement, thus producing an unusual thematic

link between all three movements.

Griselda was written for the Teatro San Samuele in Venice

towards the end of Vivaldi’s career and was first performed on

18 May 1735 during the Ascension Fair. For this production

Zeno’s popular libretto was rearranged by the young playwright

Carlo Goldoni, whose memoirs describe how the composer,

initially sceptical of the inexperienced poet’s abilities, was en-

tirely won over when Goldoni produced a new aria text on the

spot. The opera tells how Gualtiero, King of Thessaly, takes a

A LTHOUGH VIVALDI is now best known for his many instru-

simple peasant, Griselda, as his wife. The resultant unrest

among the people is brought to a head by the birth of a

daughter, Costanza. To prevent an uprising, the king pretends

that the child has died, while in fact sending her to Athens to

be raised in secret. Some years later, in order to test Griselda’s

loyalty, Gualtiero recalls Costanza to the city and, concealing

her true identity, pretends that she is to be his new wife. In

the second scene of Act II, Costanza describes her conflicting

feelings of duty to her husband-to-be and love for her child-

hood sweetheart Roberto. In the aria Agitata da due venti 5

she likens her predicament to that of a ship tossed on a stormy

sea, a common simile for which Vivaldi provides vivid pictorial

writing recalling his Tempesta di mare concertos. It must have

been a hit with the audience, for Margherita Giacomazzi had

already sung the same aria earlier that year as Matilde in

L’Adelaide . The virtuoso vocal writing was clearly designed to

show off Giacomazzi’s impressive technique to the full, exploi-

ting the same kind of rapid repeated notes and wide leaps

that are found in the orchestral ritornellos that frame the vocal

sections. In the final act of the opera, Roberto and Costanza

have been discovered embracing by a horrified Griselda, but,

to their astonishment, Gualtiero immediately forgives them.

Costanza’s gentle C major aria Ombre vane, ingiusti orrori 4

looks forward to a happier future, although the breathless

middle section recalls her past suffering.

From 1718 to 1720 Vivaldi was appointed maestro di

cappella da camera to the court at Mantua. Initially joint im-

presario, he gained full control of the theatre for his operas Tito

Manlio and Teuzzone during the 1718–19 carnival season.

Tito Manlio opens with the eponymous Roman consul swearing

an oath of hatred for the rebellious Latins, followed by his son

and even the Latin knight Lucio, since he is in love with Tito’s

daughter Vitellia. She, however, refuses to swear the oath as

she loves the Latin captain Geminio. Tito maintains that, if she

insists on betraying her motherland, she must die. In the aria

Non ti lusinghi la crudeltade 6 from the opening of Act II,

Lucio begs Tito to show his daughter pity. Vivaldi’s autograph

score shows that an earlier version of this scene borrowed

the aria Non mi lusinga vana speranza from L’incoronazione

di Dario (also on this disc, see track br ) with the new text ‘Non

ti fomenti la crudeltade’. The later aria, scored just for oboe

and continuo, is an excellent example of Vivaldi’s treatment of

a solo obbligato instrument in partnership with the voice, the

two lines sometimes imitating each other and sometimes

coming together in thirds.

Ottone in villa is Vivaldi’s earliest known opera, first per-

formed in Vicenza in spring 1713. It is a small-scale affair with

only five soloists and a lightweight libretto by Domenico Lalli, a

writer also at the beginning of an operatic career. The work is

set in a villa close to Rome, where the Emperor Ottone (Otho)

is staying with his flirtatious mistress Cleonilla. Also there is

Caio Silio, Cleonilla’s lover, who is horrified to overhear her

declare her abhorrence of him and her love for the young page

Ostilio (who in fact turns out to be Caio’s ex-lover, Tullia, in

disguise). At the end of Act I, Caio, sung originally by the

soprano castrato Bartolomeo Bartoli, muses on his treatment

at Cleonilla’s hands. He gives vent to his jealousy in an im-

passioned aria, Gelosia, tu già rendi l’alma mia bl , with

expressive wide leaps and angry semiquaver runs. The middle

section suddenly changes to slower, more chromatic writing as

he muses on the pain which her rejection has caused him.

In the third scene of the following act, Caio, lost in thought,

is seated on a knoll, while Tullia/Ostilio is hidden within a cave

to overhear him. He laments his misfortune and is taken aback

when her disembodied voice, in the guise of ‘an unhappy

spirit’, accuses him of treachery. The ensuing aria, L’ombre,

l’aure, e ancora il rio bm , adopts the popular baroque con-

vention of the echo, Tullia’s repetitions of Caio’s final syllables

playing with the Italian to alter the meaning of the text. The aria

is particularly notable for its great flexibility of tempo and scor-

ing. The opening line is split into three Adagio vocal phrases

interspersed with instrumental passages in different tempos,

the shadows being depicted by the main orchestral strings over

a falling chromatic bass, the breezes by semiquavers on two

EMMA KIRKBY

mezzo soprano Anna Girò, who sang the role of Pulcheria.

Atenaide, the daughter of an Athenian philosopher, has taken

refuge in Constantinople to escape the attentions of Varane, a

Persian prince. Now under the assumed name of Eudossa,

she is to be married to the Emperor Theodosius II, but Varane

has followed her to Constantinople and Atenaide is forced to

choose between them. She opts for loyalty to Theodosius, but

the jewel she sends him as a token of her decision is inter-

cepted and, unbeknown to her, given to Varane instead. Thus

in Act III she is accused of treachery by Theodosius’s sister

Pulcheria and, to her astonishment, rejected and banished for

ever by the Emperor. She gives vent to her tormented feelings

in the powerful dramatic scena Ferma, Teodosio bn , which

mixes simple recitative, accompanied recitative and arioso in

a very flexible fashion more reminiscent of Handel than Vivaldi.

She begs Theodosius to stay, but his abrupt departure triggers

a brief six-bar lament ending in C minor. A dramatic section

of accompanied recitative follows as she muses on her fate

and the Emperor’s words of banishment; then an aggressive

allegro molto leads into a furious presto section with rushing

semiquavers in both voice and strings as she resolves to flee,

though this is interspersed with gentle largo passages as she

muses on her innocent love. Finally, after another brief recita-

tive section, she launches into a full-scale da capo aria in the

extreme key of F minor with a relentless syncopated rhythm, in

which she resigns herself to a life of exile as a poor shepher-

dess.

Following his operatic debut in Vicenza, most of Vivaldi’s

theatrical works during the next few years were performed in

his native Venice. In L’incoronazione di Dario of 1717, Oronte,

a handsome young man and the people’s favourite, is one of

three pretenders to the Persian throne following the death of

King Ciro (Cyrus). To avoid bloodshed, the noble Dario (one of

Oronte’s rivals for the throne) proposes that whoever marries

Statira, Ciro’s elder daughter, should also gain the throne. In

Act II Scene 6 this arrangement is approved by the oracle of

the sun, Apollo, and Oronte, in the aria Non mi lusinga vana

solo violins, and the stream by a similar trilling phrase on two

recorders, positioned, like the solo violins, behind the scenes

to exploit instrumental echo effects. The second stanza of text

includes further changes of tempo and texture, a dramatic

allegro with repeated bass semiquavers to express Caio’s

horror contrasting with a more self-pitying largo with pulsating

quavers in the upper strings.

Like Griselda , L’Atenaide is one of the few works by Vivaldi

to use a text by Zeno. The popularity of Vivaldi’s operas in

Rome during the mid-1720s must have encouraged other

theatres to offer him commissions, and early in 1727 his

Ipermestra was staged at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence.

Its success resulted in the premiere of L’Atenaide in December

the following year, although this was not so well received,

criticism being levelled particularly at Vivaldi’s protégée, the

speranza br , hopes that he will be the chosen one. This haun-

ting Siciliano, originally sung by the castrato Carlo Cristini,

shows various features of Vivaldi’s early operatic style, inclu-

ding the exploitation of augmented intervals in the opening

melody, the frequent use of the Neapolitan sixth chord, and the

omission of the bass instruments to lighten the accompani-

ment during vocal sections.

Catone in Utica comes from near the end of Vivaldi’s ca-

reer and was commissioned by the Teatro Filarmonico, Verona,

for its spring season in 1737. Metastasio’s libretto, first set

around ten years earlier by Leonardo Vinci, tells of the Roman

senator Cato, a close friend of Pompey who refuses to accept

the authority of Julius Caesar after Pompey’s death and even-

tually commits suicide. This tragic ending was very unusual

for opera seria and proved unacceptable to many audiences.

Metastasio soon added an alternative happy ending and it was

on this version that Vivaldi based his setting, of which only

Acts II and III survive. Se mai senti spirarti sul volto bs is an

aria for Julius Caesar, a role first taken by the soprano castrato

Lorenzo Girardi. It comes from Act II Scene 5 (Scene 4 in the

printed libretto) where Caesar is being urged by Marzia, Cato’s

daughter with whom he is in love, to make peace with her

father. He agrees to do as she asks, and in his aria compares

his fervent sighs of love to soft breezes wafting around her

face. The music captures the tone of the text beautifully, with

sighing phrases on muted violins and gentle pizzicato semi-

quavers for the violas. Cato, however, continues to reject

Caesar’s attempts to make peace, and this eventually proves

too much: Caesar tells him that he must choose between

war and peace, a choice which Cato easily makes. Caesar’s

D major aria Se in campo armato bt from Act II Scene 9 has

an appropriately martial addition of two trumpets to its string

accompaniment, although in the gentle middle section Caesar

turns to address his beloved Marzia, before the opening allegro

returns.

Although there have been occasional modern revivals of

Vivaldi’s operas, mainly since the tercentenary of his birth

in 1978, only one, Griselda , has ever been staged in Britain.

While this selection of arias, several of which are recorded for

the first time, can give an indication of the variety of styles and

the impressive dramatic power of individual pieces, it is only

after some of his best works have been staged in productions

sympathetic to the genre of opera seria that we will be able to

make a true assessment of Vivaldi’s stature as an operatic

composer.

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