Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca

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Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca (* around 1718 in Milan ; † around 1795 ) was a librettist of baroque operas in the tradition of Pietro Metastasio , who, alongside or after Apostolo Zeno, was the most widespread and most influential writer of texts for baroque operas.

Life

He was born in Milan around 1718 to rich parents. Direct sources on birth and childhood have not yet been determined and one can only understand his curriculum vitae and his work from indirect sources, secondary literature and the printed books. In 1736 he edited a collection of poems praising General de Noailles in Milan and became a member of the renowned Filodossi Academy in Milan. At this time he was also active in the diplomatic service, in particular with Elector Karl Albrecht of Bavaria (1697–1745) from the House of Wittelsbach, who from 1742 to 1745 was also Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. After his death in 1745, his diplomatic career ended.

So he possibly remembered his literary abilities again and in 1748 became secretary to Pietro Metastasio, Imperial Court Poet in Vienna and probably the most influential librettist of baroque operas. In addition to meeting personalities from public life, he also came into contact with the contralto Vittoria Tesi, with whom he had a long friendship. In addition, he maintained contact with the daughter of Karl Albrechts of Bavaria, Maria Antonia von Wittelsbach , who had married Prince Christian Friedrich of Saxony, but was above all interested in music and art. After Metastasio, she is said to have enjoyed singing and even put a piece by Migliavacca ( Giove fulminatore dei Giganti , lost) in notes.

Evidently, however, he made his debut as a librettist with Armida Placata ( The soothing Armida ), a text that was initially set to music by Giovanni Battista Mele for the wedding of the daughter of Philip V of Spain , Maria Antonia , with Piémont Amédée III from the House of Savoy. April 1750 at the Spanish Royal Court (Teatro de Buen Retiro) was performed. The commissioning of the libretto was arranged by Metastasio, who had been in contact with the famous Farinelli for a long time and who in turn was responsible for all court music in Madrid . Migliavacca had obviously received an unexpectedly large sum for the libretto. The same libretto was performed in the same year 1750 as the birthday opera for Empress Elisabeth Christina in Vienna as a pasticcio with arias by Johann Adolph Hasse , Girolamo Abos , Giuseppe Bonno , Luca Antonio Predieri and Georg Christoph Wagenseil .

On the recommendation of Metastasio, Migliavacca became court poet and legionary councilor at the court of the Saxon Elector and King of Poland in August in 1752 . There he succeeded Claudio Pasquinis , who had retired in 1749 and retired to Siena for his retirement . As a salary he was granted 600 thalers.

The very first opera Migliavacca wrote for Dresden was a festival of superlatives that was never achieved again afterwards. The production of Solimano , based on a libretto by Migliavacca and set to music by Johann Adolph Hasse, was premiered on February 5, 1753 in the Dresden Zwinger and cost 80,000 thalers. Its realization required the commitment of hundreds of people. When the Sultan moved in, there were 400 men alone on the stage - just dressing them costs a lot. In addition, there were real animals, from dromedaries and camels to an elephant . In addition, there was an opulent stage set that Galli-Bibiena wanted to shine with. And so the response was consistently positive, even enthusiastic, and Migliavacca distanced himself from his original plan of perhaps going into the service of the King of Portugal after all. At the same time, his first libretto, Solimano , remained by far the most successful, because after the first performance in the setting by Hasse, the piece was taken up 19 times by other composers and performed in other locations.

The second opera for Dresden, Artemisia , naturally had to lag behind such a glamorous premiere. Neither in the local newspapers nor in treatises on the history of the opera in Dresden was the premiere in Dresden or its resumption in the coming year mentioned more than marginally and for the sake of completeness, in contrast to Solimano .

What happened next is still unclear. However, it is quite possible that after the occupation of Saxony by the Prussians in the course of the Seven Years' War in 1756, Migliavacca fled Dresden together with the Hasse couple and went to Vienna with them. In any case, both Hasse and Migliavacca are involved in the celebrations of the wedding of Archduke Joseph, later Emperor Joseph II of Austria, with Isabella von Bourbon-Parma , which took place from October 8 to 10, 1760. While Hasse set Metastasio's libretto Alcide al bivio to music for the first evening , Migliavacca wrote the text for the festival opera Tetide ( Tethys ) called “ Serenata ” , which was set to music by Christoph Willibald Gluck . The opera, which was also festively decorated, was repeated on her name day by order of the Empress.

After the festivities in Vienna, he is said to have returned to Milan, apparently by 1765. It has not yet been possible to determine when exactly he started working as court poet again in Dresden. In any case, two pieces from 1785 and 1787 are to be found, in both of which he is still addressed as court poet and legation councilor: in 1785 an oratorio entitled Il ritorno del figliuol prodigo ( The Return of the Prodigal Son ) and for 1787 the Fiesta Teatrale La regio d'Imeneo ( Hymens Castle ) for the wedding of Prince Anton Clemens of Saxony with Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria. Both were set to music by the then court composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann . Until the end of 1795 he continued to receive his salary as court poet, after that neither salary nor pension, which was explained by the fact that he died that year.

Metastasio over Migliavacca

According to Charles Burney, Migliavacca's teacher Metastasio was full of praise for his student when he received him, Burney. He described him as a “man of great genius and very great science”. At the same time, however, he pointed out his anankastic traits, which prevented him from writing more and better things: "for he had such concepts of perfection that neither he nor perhaps anyone else could satisfy". This is the only reason why he “wrote only a little”, therefore “he has had very little practice, and practice does everything to man, even his virtues.”

That Metastasio did not have a very high opinion of his pupil is also evident in a letter to Farinelli dated August 17, 1748, two years before he was commissioned to write the libretto for Armida placata : “il nostro Migliavacca è capace di fare una Leila canzone, una cantata, un sonetto, e cose in somma che non esigono maestria di condotta, maneggio di passioni, espressione di caratteri; ma per un'azione teatrale, in questa occasione l'ho esperimentato più immaturo di quello che 1 'età sua, eh' è di là dai 3o anni, ei suoi piccioli e vaghi componimenti mi aveano fatto sperare “(ie Migliavacca could be wonderful write a cantata or canzone, but by no means larger works for the theater that made it necessary to deal with human passions and emotions.)

Metastasio also wrote when Migliavacca was still in Dresden on this, in particular about his two greatest operas written there, Solimano and Artemisia . While he partly praised and partly criticized the first (letter of January 13, 1753), he was full of praise for the libretto for Artemisia , even if the Passions still could not keep up with his own high standards (letter of February 16, 1754 ). Interestingly, the response in Dresden and the music world was completely different: Solimano was celebrated as a festival of superlatives and, slightly changed, was set to music at least eight times by other composers. Artemisia, on the other hand, did not meet with any noteworthy response either at the premiere or when it was revived a year later, and later critics and music historians have little to say about her.

In general, his dealings with others had been made more difficult by the fact that he was difficult to respond to, was inconsiderate and had little judgment. In the same letter from 1749 to his patroness Princess Anna Francesca Pignatelli di Belmonte, Metastasio also reports on a huge dispute between Magliavacci and the star of the singers - Caffarelli. From the beginning, the lyricist, who was also held responsible for the stage design, and the singer clashed, "whether because of rivalry in terms of their talents or their beauty," he, Metastasio, could not say, because unfortunately he was not there himself . In any case, Magliavacca ordered a rehearsal at which everyone, with the exception of Caffarellis, had appeared, who merely honored the assembled crew with his arrival at the end of the rehearsal. In response to his cheeky question what the point of such a rehearsal was, the lyricist replied that he had no need to justify himself to a singer. He, Cafarelli, should rather be glad that his absence from the rehearsal was simply accepted and he should let the others do the work. But what Cafarelli pulled himself up on in the episode was Magliavacca's insistence that whether he, the star singer, was present or absent would have no influence on the success of the opera. In any case, Cafarelli had kindly interrupted the poet and pointed out that whoever arranged such a rehearsal was nothing more than a "pathetic dude". Migliavacca, evidently well prepared as a poet, did not spoil himself and paid back with the same coin, whereby he probably referred in particular to Caffarelli's castratoism and covered him with all the bad names that he [and castrati in general] have heard all over Europe . This in turn only angered Cafarelli and challenged the offender to a duel. Regardless of whether he had suspected, as Metastasio suggests, that the poet would pull his tail as a supporter of the Muses or not - the two crossed the blades and had it not been for Migliavacca's long-time friend Vittoria Tesi, mentioned above, who would possibly have intervened on At the end of the evening the blood of poets and / or singers flowed. But whether the singer "gentleness, this pleading gesture", "Caffariello threw his sword at the singer's feet". The comedic potential of the whole thing is said to have been recognized quickly and a corresponding farce was performed on the stage at the time the letter was written, from which the princess's metastasio hoped to be able to get the libretto.

Works / libretti

literature

  • Grasso Caprioli: Giannambroglio Migliavacca. Outline of life in the Dizionario Biografico
  • Moritz Fürstenau: On the history of music and theater at the court of Dresden. Kuntze, Dresden 1862, pp. 274f., 280, 393f. (on-line)
  • Charles Burney (Ed.): Memoirs of the life and writings of the Abate Metastasio, in which are incorporated translations of his principal letters. Volume 1, Robinson, London 1796, pp. 255-256, 271-276. (on-line)
  • Carl Burney's The Music Doctors Diary of a Musical Journey. Volume 2, Bode, Hamburg 1773, pp. 226-227. (on-line)
  • O. Landmann: The comical Italian opera in the Dresden court in the first half of the 18th century. (= Series of publications by the University of Music "Karl Maria von Weber". IX). Dresden 1985, p. 136.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter Metastasios to Princess di Belmonte of July 5, 1749 - to Charles Burney (Ed.): Memoirs of the life and writings of the Abate Metastasio, in which are incorporated translations of his principal letters. Volume 1. Robinson, London 1796, p. 271. (online) : "The Poet of this theater, is a Milanese young man, descended from very worthy parents"
  2. ↑ In this context it should not be left unmentioned that Migliavacca apparently also had contact with Casanova later in Dresden, who from 1760 also called himself "Chévalier de Seingalt". He even wrote a letter of recommendation to Metastasio, whereupon he was admitted to the Viennese court poet. In: Memories and Adventures of Jacob Casanova von Seingalt. Volume 3, 3rd edition. Lembcke, Hamburg 1856, p. 193. (online)
  3. ^ Metastasio III, No. 1225
  4. ^ Rainer Kleinertz: Basic features of Spanish music theater in the 18th century: Ópera, Comedia, Zarzuela. Volume 1. Reichenberger, Kassel 2003, p. 308. (online)
  5. ↑ see letter Metastasios to Farinelli of March 8, 1749 - zn Charles Burney (ed.): Memoirs of the life and writings of the Abate Metastasio, in which are incorporated translations of his principal letters. Volume 1. Robinson, London 1796, pp. 255-256. (on-line)
  6. ↑ as can be read in the text book on Artemisia and many others. After Carl Mennicke: Hasse and the Graun brothers as symphonic orchestras. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1906, p. 417 also referred to as "Italian poet".
  7. ↑ s. Moritz Fürstenau: On the history of music and theater at the court of the electors of Saxony and kings of Poland. Kuntze, Dresden 1862, p. 274. (online)
  8. ↑ a b c compare Grasso Caprioli in his for the Dizionario Biografico. written entry.
  9. ↑ More about Gluck's setting and the celebrations can be found at Anton Schmid: Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck. His life and artistic work. Friedrich Fleischer, Leipzig 1854, pp. 79–84. (on-line)
  10. ↑ s. O. Landmann: The comical Italian opera in the Dresden court in the first half of the 18th century. (= Series of publications by the University of Music "Karl Maria von Weber". IX). Dresden 1985, p. 136.
  11. ↑ zn Charles Burney's musical Doctors Diary of a musical journey. Volume 2, Hamburg 1773, pp. 226-227. (on-line)
  12. ↑ zn Opere di Pietro Metastasio. Volume 16, Padova nel seminario, Padua 1812, p. 166. (online)
  13. ^ Letter Metastasio to Princess Anna Francesca Pignatelli di Belmonte of July 5, 1749 - to Charles Burney (Ed.): Memoirs of the life and writings of the Abate Metastasio, in which are incorporated translations of his principal letters. Volume 1. Robinson, London 1796, p. 271. (online) : "inconsiderate, a great admirer of the fair sex, despising money, and not more rich in abilities, than deficient in judgment." That is actually a devastating judgment and one wonders what caused Metastasio to pass it on.
  14. ↑ For details on such insults and how in particular Cafarelli saw himself injured in his masculinity, see Linda Maria Koldau : "Ille cum, tu sine" - The struggle for masculinity among the castrati of the 18th century. 2nd AIM conference. Lecture manuscript online ( Memento from April 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 82 kB)
  15. ^ Letter Metastasios to Princess di Belmonte of July 5, 1749 - to Charles Burney (Ed.): Memoirs of the life and writings of the Abate Metastasio, in which are incorporated translations of his principal letters. Volume 1. Robinson, London 1796, pp. 271-276 (online) . No further details can be determined about the farce mentioned in the letter.
  16. ↑ as far as can be found online, linked accordingly, the librettos for the two hate operas are linked in the corresponding article here on Wikipedia
personal data
SURNAME Migliavacca, Giovanni Ambrogio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian librettist
DATE OF BIRTH around 1718
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH around 1795