L'olimpiade (Pergolesi)

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Opera dates
Title: L'olimpiade
Scene from the second act

Scene from the second act

Shape: Opera seria in three acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Libretto : Pietro Metastasio
Premiere: January 1735
Place of premiere: Teatro Tordinona, Rome
Playing time: approx. 3 ½ hours
Place and time of the action: The fields of Elis near Olympia , on the bank of Alfios , 6th century BC Chr.
people
  • Clistene , King of Sicyon , father of Aristea ( tenor )
  • Aristea , his daughter, mistress Megacles ( soprano )
  • Argene , Cretan lady, lives as a shepherdess under the name Licori, mistress Licidas (soprano)
  • Licida , supposed son of the King of Crete , in love with Aristea, friend of Megacles (soprano)
  • Megacle , lover Aristeas, friend Licidas (soprano)
  • Aminta , Hofmeister Licidas (tenor)
  • Alcandro , confidante of Clistenes ( old )
  • a priest (silent role)
  • Nymphs, shepherds, priests, people ( choir )
  • Entourage Clistenes and Aristeas, guards, people, temple guards, temple servants (extras)

L'olimpiade is an opera seria in three acts by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi . The libretto is based on Pietro Metastasio's L'olimpiade . The first performance took place in January 1735 at the Teatro Tordinona in Rome.

Libretto and plot

The plot corresponds to that of Pietro Metastasio's libretto.

layout

Instrumentation

The opera's orchestra consists of two oboes , two horns , two hunting horns , two trumpets , strings and basso continuo .

Music numbers

The opera contains the following musical numbers:

first act

  • Sinfonia
  • Aria (Megacle): "Superbo di me stesso" (scene 2)
  • Aria (Aminta): "Talor guerriero invitto" (Scene 3, text in the appendix to the libretto, music from Adriano in Siria, there "Sprezza il furor del vento")
  • Aria (Licida): "Quel destrier che all'albergo è vicino" (scene 3)
  • Aria (Argene): "O care selve" - ​​"Qui se un piacer si gode" (scene 4, with Metastasio alternating with the choir)
  • Aria (Clistene): "Del destin non vi lagnate" (scene 5)
  • Aria (Aristea): "Tu di saper procura" (scene 6)
  • Aria (Argene): "Più non si trovano" (scene 7)
  • Aria (Licida): "Mentre dormi amor fomenti" (scene 8)
  • Duet (Megacle / Aristea): "Ne 'giorni tuoi felici" (scene 10)

Second act

  • Aria (Alcandro): "Apportator son io" (scene 2, text in the appendix to the libretto, music from Adriano in Siria, there "Contento forse vivere")
  • Aria (Aristia): "Grandi, è ver, son le tue pene" (scene 3)
  • Aria (Argene): "Che non mi disse un dì?" (Scene 4)
  • Aria (Aminta): "Siam navi all'onde algenti" (scene 5)
  • [Choir: "Del forte Licida"] (scene 6, not set to music by Pergolesi)
  • Aria (Clistene): "So ch'è fanciullo Amore" (scene 7)
  • Aria (Megacle): "Se cerca, se dice" (Scene 10)
  • Aria (Aristea): "Tu me da me dividi" (scene 11)
  • Aria (Argene): "No, la speranza" (scene 12)
  • Aria (Licida): "Gemo in un punto e Fremdo" (scene 15)

Third act

  • Aria (Alcandro): "L'infelice in questo stato" (scene 2, text in the appendix to the libretto, music from Adriano in Siria, there: "Prigioniera abbandonata")
  • Aria (Aristea): "Caro son tua così" (scene 2)
  • Aria (Megacle): "Torbido in volto e nero" (Scene 3, text in the appendix to the libretto, taken unchanged from Adriano in Siria )
  • Aria (Megacle): "Lo seguitai felice" (scene 3, possibly replaced by the previous aria)
  • Aria (Argene): "Fiamma ignota nell'alma mi scende" (scene 4)
  • Aria (Aminta): "Son qual per mare ignoto" (scene 5, music from Adriano in Siria, there "Leon piagato a morte")
  • march
  • [Choir: "I tuoi strali terror de 'mortali"] (scene 6, repetition in scene 7, not set to music by Pergolesi)
  • Aria (Licida): "Nella fatal mia sorte" (scene 6, text in the appendix to the libretto)
  • Aria (Clistene): "Non so donde viene" (scene 6)
  • Tutti: "Viva il figlio delinquente" (scene 10, designed by Metastasio as a choral movement)

music

The best-known aria of the opera is Megacles “Se cerca, se dice” from the second act. The melody develops from three-syllable motifs, which are repeated in opposite directions in the accompaniment and represent in a declamatory way his helplessness and helplessness. After the da capo repetition of the first part, another part follows, the motifs of which have been derived from the middle part, enhanced in Presto - a clear violation of the usual conventions, which has been "corrected" in some of the surviving manuscripts.

A typical example of the sensitive style of the Enlightenment period is Argenes' aria “Più non si trovano” in the first act, which as a “singing allegro” manages without any virtuoso passages.

Work history

Title page of the libretto, Rome 1735

Since the impresario of the Teatro Tordinona, which was reopened in 1733 after decades of closure, ran into financial difficulties, savings had to be made in the opera performances of the 1735 carnival season. Was commissioned for the setting of two planned operas on texts Pietro Metastasio the church music director Francesco Ciampi and young Pergolesi and held back and for expenditure for the singers. Nevertheless, some well-known names could be won.

Pergolesi used Metastasio's opera libretto L'olimpiade as text , which had been performed for the first time less than two years earlier with music by Antonio Caldara . With more than 70 settings up to the beginning of the 19th century, it was one of Metastasio's most popular libretti. Metastasio's text was largely retained in the original. Only the choirs were left out, but were printed in quotation marks (“virgolette”) in the libretto. In the sixth scene of the third act, a few lines of recitative were added. Five additional arias can be found in the appendix to the printed libretto.

Pergolesi took over some arias from his previous opera, Adriano in Siria, played in Naples in 1734 . This suggests that the time for the composition was tight. With the exception of the unchanged aria "Torbido in volto e nero", it has been thoroughly revised and underlaid a new text with appropriate content. Parts of the sinfonia also come from Adriano in Siria. The introduction, played with trumpets, and the middle movement, however, are new.

The exact date of the premiere is not known. What is certain is that it took place in January 1735 in the Roman Teatro Tordinona. Grove Music Online puts a question mark on January 2nd , Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater puts it on January 8th or 15th, and Corago puts it on January 8th or 9th. Since women were not allowed to appear on a stage in Rome at that time, castrati women were also sung by castrati . The soloists were Giovanni Battista Pinacci (Clistene), Mariano Nicolini (Aristea), Giovanni Tedeschi (according to Piper: Prior Vaini) (Argene), Francesco Bilancioni (Licida), Domenico Ricci (Megacle), Nicola Lucchesi (Aminta), Carlo Brunetti ( Alcandro). Pinacci and Nicolini were chamber singers for Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt . The performer of the Megacle, Domenico Ricci, sang in the Sistine Chapel . The performance series was interrupted from January 18 to 23 due to the death of the English pretender Maria Clementina Sobieska .

According to a report from Pergolesi's competitor Egidio Duni to the composer André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry , the performance was a failure. The singers were not good either. The musicologist Reinhard Strohm doubts his statement, however, since the report also contains other obvious misinformation. Some of the singers were quite renowned, and the large competing houses such as the Teatro Capranica and the Teatro delle Dame were closed due to ongoing scandals, leaving the audience only with the Tordinona.

Further performances were in January 1738 at the Teatro de 'Nobili in Perugia, on November 22nd at the Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice (revised, only six of the original arias and the duet were retained), possibly in Turin in 1740 and on June 30th 1741 in the Teatro Grande in Siena.

Until the publication of Baldassare Galuppi's version in 1747, Pergolesi's setting was the most popular opera after Metastasio's Olimpiade. More than 20 handwritten copies have been preserved, which were probably made for study or home music purposes. In addition to the intermezzo La serva padrona and his Stabat mater , this opera established his European fame. It was during the following decade, the foundation of many pastiches of olimpiade L' -Librettos. The castrato Angelo Maria Monticelli , who had sung the part of the Megacle in Venice as early as 1738, appeared from April 20, 1742 in such a pasticcio with the title Meraspe o L'olimpiade in London's King's Theater on Haymarket , where Charles Burney performed his musical and acting performance was extremely enthusiastic.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau particularly valued the work. He chose the duet as an example for the article “Duo” of his Dictionnaire de musique from 1767 and described the aria of the megacle “Se cerca, se dice” as a “classical aria”. Charles Burney also wrote about them :

“[…] Though it has often been set since to a more elaborate and artificial music, […] its effect has never been so truly dramatic; all other compositions to those words are languid on the stage, and leave the actor in too tranquil a state for his situation. "

"[...] although since then it has often been performed with more elaborate and artificial music, [...] its effect has never been so truly dramatic; all other settings of these words are powerless on stage and leave the performer in a state that is too calm for his situation. "

- Charles Burney : A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period: Volume the First, Volume 4

In 1979 Reinhard Strohm praised Pergolesi's opera as “an homage to youth and love, as it may only be possible to achieve in music theater” and “a combination of enthusiasm and a sense of beauty that […] actually 'doesn't work' aesthetically”.

Recordings and performances in recent times

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Helmut Hucke: L'Olimpiade. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Vol. 4. Works. Massine - Piccinni. Piper, Munich and Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-492-02414-9 , pp. 688-690.
  2. ↑ Information in the libretto, from Piper and the CD by Alessandro Di Marchi.
  3. ^ A b c Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: L'OLIMPIADE (Rome 1735). In: Reinhard Strohm : The Italian Opera in the 18th Century. Heinrichshofen, Wilhelmshaven 1979, ISBN 3-7959-0110-3 , pp. 212-223.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Dale E. Monson:  Olimpiade, L '(ii). In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  5. ^ A b Libretto (Italian) of the opera by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Venice 1738. Digitized in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna
  6. ^ Record of the performance from January 1735 in the Teatro Tordinona in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  7. ↑ Duo. In: Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Dictionnaire de musique ( online ).
  8. ^ Charles Burney: A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period. Volume 1, Volume 4. 1789, p. 555 ( online ).
  9. ↑ a b c d e f L'Olimpiade (Giovanni Battista Pergolesi) at operabaroque.fr (French), accessed on November 29, 2014.
  10. ↑ a b c d Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. In: Andreas Ommer: Directory of all opera complete recordings. Zeno.org , volume 20.