Le grazie vendicate
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Le grazie vendicate |
Angelika Kauffmann: |
|
| Shape: | Componimento drammatico |
| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | First setting by Antonio Caldara |
| Libretto : | Pietro Metastasio |
| Premiere: | August 28, 1735 |
| Place of premiere: | Vienna |
| Place and time of the action: | Boeotia , mythical time |
| people | |
Le grazie vendicate (German: Die avenged Graces ) is a libretto for a componimento drammatico in one act by Pietro Metastasio . The work was performed for the first time in the setting by Antonio Caldara on August 28, 1735 to celebrate the birthday of Empress Elisabeth in the private apartments of the Imperial residence of Favorita in Vienna. The executives were the young archduchesses Maria Theresia and Maria Anna as well as their educator Karoline Countess Fuchs .
action
The following table of contents is based on the translation by Wilhelm Heinse .
A lovely laurel grove, traversed by the waters of the Akidalía spring in Boeotia .
The three graces Eufrosine , Aglaja and Talía are supposed to adorn the goddess of love Venus as usual in the early morning . Eufrosine is indignant about this and suggests that Venus leave alone this time. Aglaja and Talía are initially cautious and do not want to disturb the usual course of events. Eufrosine is also tired of the mockery of Venus' son Amor . She wants to get revenge on the two. When Aglajas asked what crime Amor had aroused her anger, Eufrosine replied that Cupid was caught yesterday by a storm and fled to Cyprus, where she was staying with Venus. Because he was dripping with moisture, she dried, warmed and comforted him. As a reward, however, he shot an arrow at her heart, which she was just able to avoid. Instead of punishing him, Venus even praised him. Aglaja is outraged and tells her own experience. She once lay to rest in the forest when Cupid sneaked up, tied her hands and feet with roses and tied her to a laurel tree. When she woke up and couldn't free herself, he mocked her. It was only after a long time that she was released from Hebe . But she couldn't be angry with Amor for long, since he was just a spoiled child. Now Talía tells one of the many pranks that her Cupid played. She was fishing on the beach while Cupid was playing nearby. He called her over on the pretext that he had been stung by a bee. To relieve his pain, she collected diptame leaves, which Amor had prepared with his arrows so that she stabbed her fingers. Then he laughed at her. When she ran after him to punish him, she got caught in a trap that he had hidden among the flowers. Talía also longs for revenge, but does not know what to do, since the gods and humans also have to endure his pranks. Eufrosine thinks that the goal of her revenge should not be Cupid himself, but his mother, who is to blame for his mistakes and who also insulted her. The real task of the graces is to bring harmony, peace and friendship to people - but Venus forces them to serve her and her son while the people on earth are tormented by furies. To punish her, Eufrosine suggests that instead of adorning Venus, creating a new beauty that is majestic, humble and virtuous at the same time. The ideal person for this is Elisa (the Empress Elisabeth, whose birthday is being celebrated). The three graces look forward to shaming Venus in this way and raise Elisa to the new goddess of love. Finally, the choir celebrates the new day and the joys that it promises for the future.
history
Metastasio wrote Le grazie vendicate a few months after Le cinesi in 1735. Like this one, it was to be performed by the young Archduchesses Maria Theresa and Maria Anna and a lady-in-waiting in the private apartments of the imperial residence of the Favorita . The occasion was the birthday of Empress Elisabeth on August 28th. As in Le cinesi, there is no real dramatic plot, but a conversation between a few characters, which is not based on comedy but on the Hellenistic taste of the first half of the 18th century. The starting point of the piece corresponds to that of L'asilo d'Amore : Amor is accused of some crimes for which he is to be punished. The meeting of Eufrosine and Cupid offers the opportunity to two typical Rococo scenes that are reminiscent of pictures by the painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo : The description of the wet Cupid and his warming up by Eufrosine. The scene changes in each of the following stories by Aglaja and Talía. Eufrosine's story took place in the Palace of Venus, Aglajas in the forest, and Talías by the sea. By pointing out the problems with people that arose as a result of Venus' commissions, Eufrosine creates an indication of the current political situation in Austria during the War of the Polish Succession from 1733 to 1738. The transition to paying homage to Elisabeth takes place directly in the course of the plot. Through the revenge of the Graces, the world can return to its basic harmonic state.
A French translation of the libretto under the name Les Grâces vengées was published in a French anthology on the subject of Graces in 1769.
A German translation by Wilhelm Heinse was published posthumously in 1805 in his work Musical Dialogues. The included second dialogue between a princess and Metastasio deals with the libretto.
The painter Angelika Kauffmann created a cycle of six tondi on Cupid and the Graces at the end of the 1770s . The first of these round pictures with the name Aglaia, tied to the tree by Amor, takes up a motif from the libretto Metastasios. However, she added the other two graces, which do not appear in the text at this point.
Settings
The following composers set this libretto to music:
| year | composer | premiere | Performance location | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1735 | Antonio Caldara | August 28, 1735, private apartments in the imperial residence of Favorita | Vienna | "Componimento drammatico" |
| 1753 | Giovanni Battista Ferrandini | 1753, Salvatortheater | Munich | |
| 1758 | Georg Reutter | 1758 | Vienna | |
| 1762 | Luciano Xavier Santos | 1762 | "Azione teatrale" | |
| 1784 | Anton, King of Saxony | 1784 | on the birthday of Queen Maria Amalia Augusta of Saxony on September 26, 1784 |
Web links
Digital copies
- ↑ a b Wilhelm Heinse: Musical Dialogues. Heinrich Gräff, Leipzig 1805, pp. 145 ff. Digitized at Google Books .
- ^ Pietro Metastasio: Poetry e cantate profane di Pietro Metastasio. Digitized version of the libretto (Italian) on Google Books .
- ↑ Les Graces. Laurent Prault, Paris 1769 , p. 99 f. Digitized in the Internet Archive .
- ^ Libretto (Italian) of the opera by Antonio Caldara, Vienna 1735. Digitized in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Don Neville: Metastasio [Trapassi], Pietro (Antonio Domenico Bonaventura). In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
- ↑ Metastasio, Pietro in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart , p. 50861 ff (cf. MGG vol. 9, p. 229 ff.) Bärenreiter-Verlag 1986 ( digital library volume 60).
- ↑ a b Waltraud Maierhofer: From the punished Cupid to the triumph of love. Angelika Kauffmann's cycle of graces and the motif of poetry, opera and book illustration of the 18th century. (PDF)
- ^ Acidalia . In: Vollmer-Lexikon : "A source at Orchomenus in Boeotia , whose grace caused Venus and the Graces to often bathe in what Venus was nicknamed Acidalia."
- ^ Jacques Joly: Les fêtes théâtrales de Métastase à la cour de Vienne, 1731–1767. Pu Blaise Pascal, 1978, ISBN 978-2845160194 , pp. 160 ff.
- ↑ Le grazie vendicate (Antonio Caldara) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna , accessed on March 2, 2015.
- ↑ Le grazie vendicate (Giovanni Battista Ferrandini) at opening night! Opera & Oratorio Premieres , Stanford University, accessed March 2, 2015.
- ^ List of stage works by Georg Reutter based on MGG at Operone, accessed on March 2, 2015.
- ↑ Le grazie vendicate (Luciano Xavier Santos) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna , accessed on March 2, 2015.
- ^ Anton, King of Saxony - Le Grazie vendicate. Library record in RISM-OPAC , accessed on March 2, 2015.
- ↑ Maria Amalia Augusta of Saxony had her birthday on September 26th, but she was not queen. Instead, the RISM dataset refers to Amalie von Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld-Bischweiler , who had her birthday on May 10th.