Opera at the Russian Imperial court in Saint Petersburg

Cecilia Bartoli at the concert promotion in Versailles

Italian mezzosoprano Cecilia Bartoli is famous as an interpreter of Baroque music, but also as a very curious artist who explores forgotten repertoire of different eras. On one of her compact discs we have the chance to discover the whole new world of Italian opera, created by very skilled masters who lived and worked in Imperial Russia. Her CD "Saint Petersburg", released in 2014, features the world premiere of arias from operas by predominantly Italian composers who traveled to Russia during the 18th century to serve the imperial family there.

As a vocal artist, Cecilia Bartoli is known to be particularly dedicated to discovering long-forgotten music, which resulted in the performance and recording of works that had hitherto been neglected. Thus, in 1999, she bravely stepped out with a compact disc containing Vivaldi's opera arias, with which she showed the musical world that the composer's oeuvre contains not only instrumental works. This was followed by releasing recordings of music written specifically for the great opera diva Maria Malibran. We were also was able to learn more about the art of castrati through Cecilia's disc "Sacrificium", where she interpreted extremely demanding arias. Her curiosity also led to another interesting recording, featuring the work of Agostino Stefani, a priest and composer from the 18th century.

Cecilia Bartoli

As for the album "Saint Petersburg", Cecilia Bartoli recorded arias from the operas of several Italian and two German composers - Francesco Araia, Domenico Cimarosa, Vincenzo Manfredini, Domenico Dal'Oglio, Luigi Madonis, Johann Adolf Hasse and Hermann Raupach. Apart from Cimarosa and Hasse, key figures in the development of 18th-century Italian opera seria und opera buffa, other names are far less well known in the musical world today. Cecilia made them famous with this album and made the audience far more interested in musical life in Imperial Russia.

Francesco Araia

When opera arrived in Russia in 1731 it was on a special occasion - King of Poland August II ceded his Italian opera company to Russian Empress Anna for the purpose of celebrating her coronation in Moscow. The first opera performance in Saint Petersburg took place in 1735. It was an opera by Francesco Araia La forza dell'amore e dell'odio.

Francesco Araia was born in 1709 and went to school in Naples. Before leaving for Russia, he wrote operas for theaters in Naples, Florence, Rome, Milan and Venice. Araia spent 25 years in St. Petersburg at the position of maestro di cappella in the service of the Russian Empresses Anna Ivanovna and Elizabeth Petrovna. He was the first composer to write an opera on a Russian libretto. 

During the reign of three Russian Empresses - Anna Ivanovna, Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine the Great - Russian art, literature and education flourished. St. Petersburg became one of the world's most beautiful capitals and an extremely attractive center for the development of music. Schools and academies were established all over the country. During the reign of Empress Elizabeth the first Russian university opened. They invested in architecture and painting. Empress Catherine the Great founded now famous Hermitage Museum. The art of ballet also flourished and a number of foreign musicians were brought in to the Imperial court. With their music they paved the way for the development of the Russian national school in the 19th century.

The main staircase in Winter Palace

One would certainly ask a question about why did the Italian composers come to Russia? How is it possible that they decided to go so far as Russia to get a job? Musicologists point out that in the 18th century there was a real hyper production of opera composers in Italy and they were forced to seek positions throughout Europe. The conditions in Russia were particularly favorable in that domain, because members of the nobility and members of the Russian imperial family generously rewarded their musicians. Opera performances have been put on stage for significant events such as birthdays for members of the imperial family or for coronation festivities. A lavish life in the court was a common occurrence at the time, which can be read from the biographies of the Empress who hired composers from abroad. Usually uninterested in foreign policy and diplomacy, Russian Empresses devoted themselves to a leisurely life filled with entertainment, balls, watching French comedies and Italian operas, enjoying ballet or hunting.

Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801)

To all afacionados of Italian comic opera the name of Domenico Cimarosa is certainly well known. He was an Italian composer who belonged to the Neapolitan opera school. He wrote more than eighty operas, the most famous of which is Il matrimonio segreto. In addition to staging operatic works in Italian cities, Cimarosa worked at the courts of Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg and Leopold II in Vienna. His operas have been performed in many European cities and he was indeed very popular during his lifetime. Like many other Italian composers, he also found himself in the Russian imperial court, where he resided between 1787 and 1791. A fine example of a virtuoso aria can be found on Bartoli's CD - it is Agitata da tante pene. In addition to the violin, there is also a clarinet as a obbligato instrument that accompanies the voice.

How did Cecilia Bartoli come up with the idea to explore this forgotten repertoire? Like many other students of music, Cecilia says, she was taught that the history of Russian opera began with Glinka's work Ivan Susanin, premiered in 1836. Even musicologists who deal with the subject of Russian music history of the time claim that they themselves, during their education, knew little about these composers in the Russian Imperial court. As she became more deeply involved in the study of Italian Baroque music during her singing career, Cecilia repeatedly came across information about composers who spent time at the court in St. Petersburg during the Enlightenment era. She wondered why they went there so much and found out that the Russian emperors had invited them to their court as instrumentalists and composers. For Cecilia that was enough to spakr her interest in that repertoire, but it turned out that it was not easy to get the opportunity and permission to visit the archives in Russia. After several attempts and with the mediation of maestro Valery Gergiev, conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater, Cecilia was able to see these manuscripts and, as she says, to discover true musical treasure. 

Summer Garden in Saint Petersburg

Cecilia Bartol's CD "Saint Petersburg" contains several arias written by a German composer and harpsichordist Hermann Raupach. He was born in 1728 and studied music with his father Christoph, who was an organist. This musician spent almost two decades in Russia as a composer at the Imperial court and later as a teacher of composition and singing at the Academy of Fine Arts, which was founded in 1758 under the patronage of Empress Elizabeth. Raupach will be remembered in Russian music history as the author of the second opera written on a Russian libretto. 

The Russian Empresses were generous patrons of the arts, literature and education. Lavishly staged operatic performances that brought together an international performing team were a means of showcasing the wealth and power of the Russian Empire. The operas that were staged at the Winter Palace and in the Summer Garden, depending on the season, were performed by Italian singers, set and stage designers. There were German instrumentalists in the orchestra and an ensemble of Russian dancers, along with some of them from France. The audience consisted of members of the Russian nobility and representatives of foreign diplomacy, so the opera was a kind of artistic extension of Russian foreign policy at the time, which focused on portraying the empire as one that could be measured against those at the West.

Another Italian composer who worked in St. Petersburg for a while was Vincenzo Manfredini, composer and harpsichordist, son of Francesco Manfredini, a Baroque composer and violinist. He embarked on the journey to Imperial Russia in 1758 with his brother Giuseppe, a castrato who was a member of an Italian opera troupe. Vincenzo was first appointed maestro di cappella and soon afterwards appointed as the leader of the opera troupe. After he was replaced by Baldassare Galluppi, Vincenzo was tasked with writing ballets and teaching the heir to the throne in playing the harpsichord.

With presenting this CD we did not exhaust all the stories about Italian composers who lived and worked at the Russian Imperial court. There were other composers who were really skilled masters who left a great mark on Russian music history.

Aria di furore - how to be furious in an opera

The form of a baroque opera was based on numbers - recitatvies and arias. There were far less duets and choral episodes. European opera houses were dominated by singers - castrati and primadonnas. They had such an influence that they could determined the number of arias per act. The roles were written for specific singers, so the composers knew exactly the advantages and disadvantages of their voices. Each baroque opera seria had arias of different character - written in a slow tempo and sad in character or in a faster tempo and full of coloraturas. What the Baroque inherited from the Renaissance was the tonal painting of individual words, expressions, natural phenomena or hero's feelings, which made the music very striking and suggestive.

The specific musical style of arias in Baroque operas was tied to the theory of affects (Affektenlehre), according to which the basic task of music is to provoke feelings. The foundations of this aesthetic theory were developed by ancient philosophers (Plato, Aristotle), claiming that certain modes provoke determinations of the state of the human spirit, and then were taken over by music theorists and therefore composers. There are four basic types of affect - sadness, joy, love and hate. If we are to express joy, then music should be written in a faster tempo, with melodies that have interval jumps and we should predominantly use consonant intervals. On the other hand, a composer would have to use slow tempo, gradual movement of melody, chromaticism and dissonance to capture sad feelings. We can find this kind of tonal painting in Renaissance madrigals, but also in Baroque operas where arias were a convenient place to express feelings of the main protagonists.

Among different types of arias, the rage aria was certainly the most interesting one because of its emotional charge and virtuosity. It is known by different names - aria di strepito, aria di furore, aria agitata or aria infuriata. They can be found in opera seria. These arias are short, written in a faster tempo and abound in technically demanding coloraturas. One such aria is in the score of "Julius Caesar in Egypt", an opera written by Georg Friedrich Händel, when the protagonist learns that Tolomeo cruelly beheaded Pompey. Tempo allegro, minor mode and a melody full of fast passages and arpeggios express Caesar's anger in the aria Empio dirò tu sei.

Jealousy or betrayal can really provoke strong feelings in a person and Baroque operas are full of arias in which heroes speak of the anger that overwhelms them because of their disappointments in love. The main protagonist of Händel opera "Xerxes" learns that the woman he loves is marrying his brother and the avalanche of his feelings is expressed in the aria Crude furie degl'orridi abissi. The intensity of the anger is felt in the extravagant coloraturas, punctuated rhythm and exciting orchestral accompaniment. Like many others, this aria is in da capo form, so widespread in Baroque times. When recapitulating the first part of the aria, the singer has the ability to decorate the melody and thus further emphasize the feeling that overwhelms him or her.

The Baroque tradition of writing arias of rage continued to be used in the era of classicism. In Mozart's oeuvre we find two striking examples of this type of vocal art. Everyone knows the aria Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen from the opera "The Magic Flute", in which the Queen of the Night, overwhelmed by hellish anger, threatens her daughter Pamina that she will give up on her unless she kills Sarastro. The melodic line is almost constantly in the higher register of the soprano. This aria also requires incredible precision and purity of intonation from the singer, including those famous high notes, available only to a small number of coloratura sopranos.

The first singer to perform this difficult aria was Josefa Hofer, sister of Mozart's wife Constanze, known for her agile voice and excellent high notes. Being well versed in her vocal abilities, Mozart wrote two arias for Queen of the Night, that are now so popular in the opera world. When she hears that her beloved Idamante becomes king and takes Ilia as his wife, desperate Elettra is distracted by her anger and wishes for her death, because she does not want to watch her beloved in the arms of her rival. Her aria D'Oreste, d'Ajace is found in Mozart's opera "Idomeneo". The role was intended for a German soprano Elisabeth Wendling, who grew up in a musical family.

Catalog arias in comic operas

The catalog aria (ital. aria di catalogo) is one of the most characteristic forms in Italian comic opera. It was very popular in the second half of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century. It is usually entrusted to a comic bass (ital. basso buffo), a type of deep male voice typical of this operatic genre. In the catalog aria, the singer lists certain persons, places or objects as if he was reading it from a catalog. Poetically, the texts are always full of words or sentences that are written without conjunctions. This adds a special rhythmical quality to a particular statement and creates an effect of accumulation or gradation. From a musical point of view, catalog arias are recognizable for their extremely humorous tone and swift declamation.

The most famous example of the catalog aria is Madamina, il catalogo è questo from Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni". The servant Leporello is telling Dona Elvira that his master Don Giovanni has been successful in seducing women from many countries. In addition, he describes what kind of women they were - beautiful or ugly, tall or short, big or small, blonde or brown. He didn't even make choice, he seduced them all. 

This is a two-part - in the first part, after the introduction, Leporello recites the places in which his master conquered women; this affects the fast pace of the performance and many notes sung in a syllabic way; in the second part there is a change - the tempo is now slower, the melody is more song-like and the rhythm has a dance-like character; here the text brings information about Dom Giovanni's the taste in women. During this time, Donna Elvira listens in disbelief, on the verge of her nerves.

In Italia seicento e quaranta;

In Alemagna duecento e trentuna;

Cento in Francia, in Turchia novantuna;

Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre.

...

Nella bionda egli ha l'usanza

Di lodar la gentilezza,

Nella bruna la costanza,

Nella bianca la dolcezza.

We can often hear this aria on concerts as it is very entertaining for the audience and effective for the performer.

Just a few months before the premiere of Mozart's opera, there was another significant preimere, but in Italy. On February 5th 1787, the one-act opera "Don Giovanni Tenorio" by the Italian composer Giuseppe Gazzaniga was presented to the audience. The piece is considered to be a direct precursor to Mozart's "Don Giovanni". Gazzaniga studied music at the Naples Conservatory of Music, where his professors were Niccolò Piccini and Niccola Porpora. He has written about fifty operas and is considered one of the last representatives of Italian comic opera.

Giuseppe Gazzaniga (1743-1818)

In his version of the story about this notorious lover, there is also an aria in which Don Giovanni's servant, here called Pasquariello, recounts successes of his master to Donna Elvira. Here, too, the countries in which Don Giovanni seduced women of different physical appearance and social status are comically enumerated.

Dell'Italia, ed Alemagna

ve ne ho scritte cento, e tante.

Della Francia, e della Spagna

ve ne sono non so quante...

He didn't care about what they were like or what social class they belonged to - it was enough that they were females and he was ready to conquer them.

...fra madame, cittadine,

artigiane, contadine,

cameriere, cuoche, e sguattere;

perché basta che sian femmine

per doverle amoreggiar.

Don Giovanni's insatiability is similarly described in Mozart's opera - it doesn't matter whether they were rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, if they wear a skirt, one knows what a great womanizer like Don Giovanni is doing to them.

A real masterpiece in this genre can be found in the score of Rossini's opera "Il viaggio a Reims", which premiered in Paris in 1825. Some of the greatest opera stars of the time participated, like Giuditta Pasta. Written on the occasion of the coronation of King Charles X of France, the opera tells a story about European aristocrats, officers and a poet who have embarked on a journey to take part in the celebrations. In the second act of the opera, comic bass Don Profondo sings an aria Medaglie incomparabili, in which he jokingly lists all the valuables that his friends from different countries have.

A very nice example of a catalog aria can be heard in Haydn's opera "Orlando Paladino". It premiered in 1782 and it was written for the theatre built at the estate of Esterhazy family. Pasquale, a noble, traveled a great deal and he sings about it in his aria Ho viaggiato in Francia, in Spagnia.

Enumeration as a comic feature can also appear as a passage in individual arias. The most famous example is the aria of Dulcamara Udite, uditi, rustici from the opera "Don Pasquale" by Gaetano Donizetti. He comes to the village where the love story between Adina and Nemorino takes place, presenting himself as a successful doctor who treats his patients with his miraculous remedies.

In Donizetti's one-act opera "Il Campanello", which premiered in Naples in 1836, Enrico wants to prevent Don Anibale, an old apothecary, from spending his first wedding night with his young wife Serafina. In an attempt to regain her affection, Enrico returns several time to the pharmacist's home seeking medical attention. During one of the visits, Enrico comes disguised as a blind man who begs for help for his sick wife. Listing as a feature of catalog arias is intended to create a comical effect through exaggeration, so in the text of this duet we read that Enrico's alleged wife is very ill - besides being blind and paralyzed, she suffers from a migraine, asthma, sciatica and more.