Titus l'empéreur

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Work data
Title: Titus l'empéreur
Head of the Titus Glyptothek Munich

Head of the Titus Glyptothek Munich

Shape: Opera seria (fragment)
Original language: Italian
Music: georg Friedrich Handel
Libretto : unknown
Literary source: Jean Racine , Bérénice (1670)
Place and time of the action: Rome , AD 79 (Titus has just become Emperor)
people

Titus l'empéreur ( HWV A 5 ) is a fragment for a Dramma per musica in three acts by Georg Friedrich Handel . How far Handel had got with the composition before leaving the piece is unclear. The beginning of the opera up to the third scene in the first act has been handed down.

Emergence

Handel introduced three new singers to his stage in the autumn of 1731: the tenor Giovanni Battista Pinacci , one of the most accomplished tenors in Europe, his wife, the contralto Anna Bagnolesi , who had joined him on the trip to London, and Antonio Montagnana , a real one Bass (in contrast to Boschi , who was actually a baritone ) with an astonishing vocal range of more than two octaves and equally high virtuosity. The latter was at the height of his career when he came to London in 1731, and Handel rewrote many roles in older operas for him in the following seasons in order to use his exceptional vocal skills when reviving them.

For this new constellation, Handel began to compose a new opera in October: Titus l'empéreur . But he broke off this work and instead turned to another libretto by Pietro Metastasio , Ezio , after the Poro in the previous season . At the same time, Handel opened the third season of the second Opera Academy on November 13, 1731 with a resumption of Tamerlano ; Poro and Admeto followed. Why and at what stage of the work he discontinued the composition of Titus is unknown.

Possible planned occupation (according to Strohm )

libretto

The use of a French title for an Italian opera is unique for Handel. The first page of the autograph reads: Ouverture pour l'Opera Titus, l'Empereur . The characters and the events correspond exactly to the processes in Jean Racine's play Bérénice . So far there is no information on who could possibly have written the Italian libretto that Handel used. Undoubtedly the literary source for this would have been Racine's tragedy of 1670. In terms of content, Handel's first three scenes are so closely based on Racine that one can even question an intermediate adaptation and assume that Handel (or Giacomo Rossi) had drawn directly from Bérénice and translated almost simultaneously. The French original title probably supports the assumption that there was no Italian intermediate version. In view of the fact that Handel was very preoccupied with Racine's works at this time and, shortly after Titus , had two oratorios based on his works, Esther and Athalia , the question arises all the more as to why he decided to plan the opera Titus gave up. The lack of a second tenor in his opera ensemble can hardly have played a decisive role; more likely there were artistic reasons. It is possible that Handel found that the librettist was not up to the challenge of transforming Racine's play into an Italian opera text book directly and without an intermediate model.

action

Historical and literary background

A marriage of his emperor Titus with Berenice, a Syrian Hasmonean , with Palestinian Tetrarch is related, would like the Roman Empire did not tolerate. Titus complies. Suetonius reports in his biography of Titus about Titus'

“[…] Insignem reginae Berenices amorem, cum etiam nuptias pollicitus ferebatur. [...] Berenicen statim ab urbe dimisit, invitus, invitam. "

“[…] Remarkable love for Queen Berenice, to whom he had even promised marriage. [...] Berenice had to leave the city immediately, reluctantly and reluctantly. "

- Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus : De vita Caesarum libri VIII: Vita divi Titi , Rome 79-81

This succinct statement is the essential material from which the piece should be built.

content

The action runs for a full day, just a week after Tito took office. Five years earlier, at the end of the Jewish War , Antioco had followed his friend Tito, together with Berenice, to Rome. Now, after the death of his father Vespasian , the companion in arms became the Roman emperor. The mistress Berenice preferred his rival Tito to him. Antioco has come to terms with it. Tito has not yet declared himself, but Berenice - the stranger in Rome - thinks Tito will defy the unruly Senate and marry her - even as a non-Roman queen. Titus, torn this way and that, loves Berenice passionately, but as the new emperor he cannot go against the raison d'etre. So his decision is made. He renounces her. Faithful Antioco is to accompany Berenice to the far east. Tito will always love Berenice, in spite of all this he has to sell his plan to Antioco, for which the approval of the Senate seems certain to him. The Roman province of Cilicia is subdivided into Commagene. Thus King Antioco and Queen Berenice become neighbors on both sides of the Euphrates . Berenice does not believe Antioco when he delivers the emperor's order - separation forever. Berenice and Antioco are due to leave together the next day. Furious with anger, the queen sends Antioco away and never wants to see him again. She wants to speak to the lover. Tito knows that in the upcoming encounter he has to be not only steadfast, but also cruel. The hour of separation strikes and Berenice leaves. Tito fears for the life of his beloved and wants to save her. So he calls Antioco. Before Berenice, Tito once again conjures up the five past years of burning love. Too late - Berenice wants to travel alone on the same day and never wants to see Tito or Antioco again. In the presence of Berenice, Antioco confesses to the astonished emperor that he was his rival for five years and is now looking for death after his lover's sharp rebuff. Thereupon Berenice makes it clear that she never wanted to become Empress and that all three were condemned to life as “role models for the world”. Tito in particular must rule. Antioco gives in with resignation.

music

The knowledge of Handel's planned Titus opera is only due to the fact that he reused the music of the first two arcs of the manuscript for his Ezio . He transferred the overture , reworked Antioco's aria Mi restano le lagrime (No. 3) to Onoria's Peni tu per un'ingrata (No. 25) for the third act in the Ezio and modeled Valentiniano's Se tu la reggi (No. 2) on the Base of Tito's Altra legge nall'amare (No. 2). The text of Mi restano le lagrime comes from Riccardo Broschi's L'isola di Alcina (Rome 1728) and Handel set it to music again in 1735 in his magical opera Alcina (No. 35) with completely different music, but he has to be aware of it or not reminded of Ecco alle mie catene (No. 22) from Ezio , which is the same key and strikingly similar in meter and tempo. The first six notes of the ritornello are identical over a lying tonic.

The first surviving arch of the manuscript contains the overture, which Handel, after turning away from the Titus idea, could just as easily use at the beginning of the Ezio by simply overwriting the old title with the new one. He had already used a similar procedure with the fragment of the Genserico when he transferred the overture to the Tolomeo . The first scene begins: a large open-air crowd on the Piazza Imperiale in Rome, where Titus is enthroned as emperor. The same situation will open the Opera Ezio . The second arch contains the immediate continuation, i.e. the rest of the first, as well as the second and the recitatives of the third scene. While the Genserico fragment does not contain any recitatives, although the arias extend up to the second act, most of the recitatives have already been composed here, which would be unusual for Handel, as he would otherwise only tackle them when the arias were finished. In this case, the conception of the arias must have been well advanced and it can be assumed that a large part of the original manuscript has been lost.

orchestra

Two oboes , two horns , strings, basso continuo ( violoncello , lute , harpsichord ).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ handelhouse.org
  2. ^ A b c Reinhard Strohm : Handel and his Italian opera texts. In: Essays on Handel and Italian Opera. Cambridge University Press, 1985, ISBN 0-521-26428-6 , pp. 62 f.
  3. ^ A b Winton Dean : Handel's Operas, 1726–1741. Boydell & Brewer, London 2006, ISBN 1-84383-268-2 , pp. 205 f.
  4. ↑ Svetoni Tranqvili Vita divi Titi . thelatinlibrary.com. Retrieved April 21, 2013.