Vittoria Archilei

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Vittoria Archilei as "Armonia doria" in Intermedio I " L'armonia delle sfere " (to: La pellegrina , 1589)

Vittoria Archilei , née Concarini, called " la Romanina " or " la Vittoria " (* approx. 1560 presumably in or near Rome - † around 1645) was a celebrated Italian singer ( soprano ) and lutenist . It was associated with the Florentine Camerata and had a decisive influence on early opera .

Life

Vittoria was born as the daughter of Francesco Concarini, probably in Rome, which her nickname " la Romanina " suggests.

It is often assumed that she was a student of the singer- composer and lutenist Antonio Archilei (1542-1612), whom she probably married in 1582. Her first employer was possibly a Cardinal Sforza , after which she was just like her husband in the service of Cardinal Ferdinando de 'Medici . In his entourage she sang for the first time in Florence in 1584 at the wedding of Vincenzo Gonzaga to Eleonora de 'Medici . In the same year Luca Marenzio published his madrigal " Cedan l'antiche tue chiare vittorie " (in: Secondo libro de madrigali a sei voci ) as a praise for Vittoria Archilei.

When Ferdinando de 'Medici had to lose his cardinal dignity in 1587 to succeed his brother Francesco I de' Medici as Grand Duke of Tuscany , Vittoria and Antonio Archilei moved with him to Florence, where they worked closely with Emilio de 'Cavalieri and where Vittoria also came into contact with Jacopo Peri , Giulio Caccini and later with Sigismondo d'India , who all inspired her with her singing.

Scene with Vittoria Archilei as Amphitrite in Intermedio V " Il canto d'Arione " (to: La pellegrina , 1589)

At the sumptuous wedding of Ferdinando and Christine de Lorraine in 1589, Vittoria appeared as prima donna in the famous intermedia to the comedy La Pellegrina , whose music was by Cristofano Malvezzi , Luca Marenzio , de 'Cavalieri, Peri, Caccini and perhaps Antonio (and Vittoria ?) Archilei came from. At the beginning, the singer floated on a cloud as “Armonia doria” ( Doric harmony) and sang the virtuoso solo adrigal “ Dalle più alte sfere ” while accompanying herself on a lute . The present German Barthold von Gadenstedt reports that she “began to sing so sweetly, at the same time striking the lute, that everyone said it was impossible that a person's voice could be so sweet. So, with her singing, all the viewers got the mood not to write about it. ”In later acts she appeared as Amphitrite and at the end sang the trio “ Oh che ” together with Lucia Caccini (the composer's first wife) and Margherita della Scala nuovo miracolo ”, whereby the three also danced and accompanied themselves on instruments; Vittoria Archilei played Spanish guitar . According to further eyewitness reports, she sang “ eccelentissimamente ” and “ molto soavemente ” (“completely excellent” and “very sweet and lovely”).

In the following year 1590 she appeared in Emilio de 'Cavalieri's La disperazione di Fileno . With the consent or at the request of Grand Duke Ferdinando, she also traveled to Rome on various occasions, for example to sing for Vittorio Orsini , Ferdinando's nephew , from 1593–1594 .

In 1595 the Spanish composer Sebastian Raval dedicated the publication of his Madrigali a tre voci to her .

After Emilio de 'Cavalieri returned to Rome in 1600 and was replaced by Giulio Caccini at the Florentine court, Vittoria Archilei is said to have had fewer appearances, probably because Caccini preferred to protect his own wife and daughter. Occasionally, a vocal crisis of the archilei is suspected. Some authors believe that she did not take part in the celebrations for the wedding of Maria de 'Medici with Henri IV (Florence 1600), so the Archilei would not have appeared in Peris " L'Euridice ". On the other hand, however, the fact that the composer mentions her in detail and praising her as his muse Euterpe in his foreword to the opera , as if he had (originally?) Written the part for her (see quote at the bottom) would speak against it . Other authors, including Kretzschmar , assumed that Vittoria Archilei sang Euridice.

In 1601 Vittoria Archilei gave a chamber music concert for the duchess and a French envoy of the Pope . In the following year 1602 she had to turn to the Duchess because of financial problems, with the request that they should continue to pay her salary. In the same year she also traveled to Rome again. She made a public appearance again in 1608 in the Intermedien, which were performed for the wedding of Cosimo II. De 'Medici with Maria Magdalena of Austria . However, when the famous Neapolitan singer Adriana Basile performed at the Florentine court in 1610 , the Archilei is said to have refused to sing next to her, which Charton attributes to the fact that her voice may already have waned at this time and could no longer compete with the younger singer.

Vittoria Archilei worked at the Medici court until at least 1611. In that year she appeared alongside Francesca and Settimia Caccini (Giulio's daughters) in the Mascherata di ninfe di Senna and, according to Cicognini, is said to have sung her own vocal composition "with the usual grace and angelic voice". Archilei is proven by correspondence up to 1619 and until the early 1640s she received an annuity , which Grand Duke Ferdinando had given her for life in 1607.

During her marriage to Antonio Archilei, she gave birth to at least five children: Ottavio (* 1585), Ferdinando, Emilia († 1597), Maria and Cleria.

After she had withdrawn from singing, various memorial texts appeared during her lifetime, giving the impression that she had already died: in 1614 Giambattista Marino dedicated his sonnet La morte di Vittoria cantatrice famosa to her , and in 1628 an "obituary" by Vincenzo was published Giustiniani .

Appreciation

Vittoria Archilei was a celebrated and versatile artist at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, who, according to Peri, had a great influence on the emergence of the recitar cantando ( monody ) and the early Italian solo singing of bel canto (see quote below). She sang in Rome and Florence not only in chamber music, but also in public performances in the intermedia and earliest operas, and even in church music . The latter was very unusual for a woman and especially in Italy.

Their singing was evidently a mixture of Roman and Florentine style elements. The rich decorations in her parts (e.g. " Dalle più alte sfere ") testify to a virtuoso coloratura technique which, as was customary for solo singers of this format at the time, she also brought to advantage in self-invented or improvised diminutions (see below Quote from Peri).

According to contemporary evidence, it must also have been very expressive, as it was able to “move the audience to tears” in Cavalieri's La disperazione di Fileno, for example . Sigismondo d ' India in his Primo Libro di musiche da cantar solo (1609) speaks of her sweet voice and praises her singing above all else; Archilei had praised the published pieces for their originality and performed them in front of an audience. Vincenzo Giustiniani called her “the inventor of the true way of singing among women”.

It is possible that Vittoria Archilei also took part directly in the meetings of the Camerata Florentina , which one could conclude from some hymns of praise for her intelligence. Nothing has survived from the compositions that she is said to have written for her own use (see above).

Jacopo Peri left the best and most beautiful description of Vittoria Archilei's art in the foreword to his Euridice (Florence 1600):

“Vittoria Archilei, who can be called the Euterpe (muse of lyric poetry) of our age: she gave meaning to my compositions through her song, not only with the ornamentation and the long runs , single and double, that differ thanks to the The liveliness of her talent can now be found everywhere, embellished - however more to obey the fashions of our time than to believe that this is where the beauty and strength of our singing lies - but also with those loveliness and gracefulness that arise not let them be written down and which, if they were written down, could not be learned from what was written. "

- Jacopo Peri : Foreword to Euridice (Florence 1600)

literature

  • Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg (online: mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de) (main source for this article)
  • Giuseppe Collisani: Sigismondo d'India , L'Epos, Palermo 1998, p. 15 (Italian)
  • H. Wiley Hitchcock, Tim Carter: Archilei (née Concarini), Vittoria (La Romanina) , online at Grove Music online (English; accessed December 19, 2019)
  • Hermann Kretzschmar: History of the Opera , (originally Breitkopf & Härtel 1919) New edition: BoD (Books on Demand) 2013, p. 33 ( online (accessed on December 21, 2019))
  • Wolfgang Lempfrid: The Florentine Intermedien of 1589 (SDR). Broadcast manuscript for Deutschlandfunk Köln (broadcast: Musikalische Akzente on April 15, 1986) on koelnklavier.de, accessed on September 11, 2017.
  • Isabelle Putnam Emerson: “Vittoria Concarini Archilei”, in: Five Centuries of Women Singers , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pp. 8-12
  • Nina Treadwell: She descended on a cloud “from the highest spheres”: Florentine monody “alla Romanina” , in: Cambridge Opera Journal 16/1 , Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 1–22
  • Jane M. Bowers, Judith Tick (eds.): Women composers in Italy, 1566–1700 , in: Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150–1950 , University of Illinois Press, 1987 (excerpts online as a Google Book ; English; accessed December 20, 2019)

Web links

  • Lisa Kaborycha: Vittoria Archilei , online (English; accessed December 19, 2019)
  • Archilei, Vittoria (née Concarini) , online at Encyclopaedia.com (English; accessed December 19, 2019)
  • " Vittoria Archilei ", short biography online at Quell'usignolo (French; accessed December 20, 2019)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg (online: mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de), p. 1
  2. ↑ Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg (online: mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de), pp. 1–2
  3. ↑ a b c d Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg, ..., p. 2
  4. ↑ a b H. Wiley Hitchcock, Tim Carter: Archilei (née Concarini), Vittoria (La Romanina) , online at Grove Music online (English; accessed December 19, 2019)
  5. ↑ Isabelle Putnam Emerson: Vittoria Concarini Archilei , in: Five Centuries of Women Singers , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pp. 8–12, here: p. 12
  6. ↑ a b c d Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg, ..., p. 4
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Lempfrid: The Florentine Intermedien from 1589 (SDR). Broadcast manuscript for Deutschlandfunk Köln (broadcast: Musikalische Akzente on April 15, 1986) on koelnklavier.de, accessed on September 11, 2017.
  8. ↑ Isabelle Putnam Emerson: Vittoria Concarini Archilei , in: Five Centuries of Women Singers , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pp. 8–12, here: p. 10
  9. ↑ a b c d e f Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg (online: mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de), p. 3
  10. ↑ a b c d e f Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg, ..., p. 5
  11. ↑ a b c Isabelle Putnam Emerson: Vittoria Concarini Archilei , in: Five Centuries of Women Singers , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pp. 8–12, here: p. 9
  12. ↑ Kretzschmar also names several other performers. Hermann Kretzschmar: History of the Opera , (originally Breitkopf & Härtel 1919) New edition: BoD (Books on Demand) 2013, p. 33 ( online (accessed on December 21, 2019))
  13. ↑ More recently, O'Grady and Ringer believe that Vittoria Archilei sang Euridice. See: Mark Ringer: Opera's First Master: The Musical Dramas of Claudio Monteverdi , Volume 1, Hal Leonard Corporation, 2006, p. 15 ( online ); and: Deirdre O'Grady: The Last Troubadours: Poetic Drama in Italian Opera, 1597-1887 , Routledge, 1991 ( online (both sources in English; accessed on December 21, 2019))
  14. ↑ It should be noted that Charton (or her source Kirkendale?) Erroneously speaks of Adriana Basile's daughter "Leonora Baroni", who, however, was not even born at that time, while Adriana herself sang in 1610 in Florence. Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg, ..., p. 5
  15. ↑ The other two singers also sang pieces they had composed themselves. See: Jane M. Bowers, Judith Tick (eds.): Women composers in Italy, 1566-1700 , in: Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950 , University of Illinois Press, 1987, p. 121 (in Excerpts online as Google Book ; English; accessed December 20, 2019)
  16. ↑ a b c Isabelle Putnam Emerson: Vittoria Concarini Archilei , in: Five Centuries of Women Singers , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pp. 8–12, here: p. 11
  17. ↑ Archilei, Vittoria (née Concarini) , online at Encyclopaedia.com (English; accessed December 19, 2019). According to this source, Marino's poem is from 1629.
  18. ↑ Anke Charton: Vittoria Archilei , biography in: Music and Gender on the Internet (MUGI) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg, ..., p. 6
  19. ↑ Sample music in: Adolf Beyschlag: Die Ornamentik der Musik , new edition 2011, pp. 14–15, online (accessed on December 20, 2019).
  20. ↑ Isabelle Putnam Emerson: Vittoria Concarini Archilei , in: Five Centuries of Women Singers , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pp. 8–12, here: p. 9
  21. ^ Giuseppe Collisani: Sigismondo d'India , L'Epos, Palermo 1998, p. 15 (Italian)
  22. ↑ Isabelle Putnam Emerson: Vittoria Concarini Archilei , in: Five Centuries of Women Singers , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pp. 8–12, here: p. 11
personal data
SURNAME Archilei, Vittoria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Concarini, Vittoria (maiden name); Romanina, la (stage name); Vittoria, la (stage name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian singer (soprano) and lutenist
DATE OF BIRTH around 1560
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome or near Rome
DATE OF DEATH around 1645