Mozart in Italy, part 5: "There is little hope"

Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy: Coming of Age in the Land of Opera. Picador, 2023. 262 pages. Image source: The Hanbury Agency

A continuation of the series on Mozart's Italian journeys; for the previous post please see Mozart in Italy, part 4: "Such useless people".

The successor: Hieronymus Colloredo

On 14 March 1772 Count Hieronymus Colloredo was elected Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg as the successor of Siegmund von Schrattenbach, who had died suddenly in December 1771 just as Leopold and Wolfgang returned from the triumph of Ascanio in Alba in Milan.

Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo, artist unknown, 18th century. Image source: Salzburg Museum

Colloredo was well-connected to the Viennese court—his father was Vice-Chancellor of Austria—and he was aligned with the reformist ideas of Joseph II, Maria Theresa's first-born son who had been Holy Roman Emperor since 1765. Joseph II would go on to become Habsburg Emperor on his mother's death in 1780, and play a large role in Mozart's musical life in Vienna in the following decade. It was during the rule of Joseph II that Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Rescue from the Harem, 1783), Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (All women do the same, 1790) were first performed.

Emperor Joseph II (right) with Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Pompeo Batoni, 1769. Image source: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

One of Colloredo's first actions after his election was to dismiss his Kapellmeister Giuseppe Francesco Lolli, who was 70 years old. Leopold Mozart was Vice-Kapellmeister and was nearly twenty years younger than Lolli; however, if he had expected to be appointed in his turn as Kapellmeister those hopes were immediately dashed. Instead of promoting Leopold, Colloredo chose Domenico Fischetti, a composer from Naples who had also worked in Vienna and Dresden.

Colloredo didn't entirely overlook the Mozarts, though: in July he appointed Wolfgang to the paid position of Konzertmeister (that is, violinist and occasional composer). Mozart had already been named Konzertmeister by Colloredo's predecessor von Schrattenbach, but in a purely honorary (that is, unpaid) capacity. Under Colloredo the 16-year-old Wolfgang would now be paid 150 gulden a year, about a third of what his father earned as Vice-Kapellmeister.

Despite his son finally receiving pay for his work, being passed over for promotion was a blow to Leopold and indicated that he was unlikely ever to advance in the Prince-Archbishop's service. His 19 months of absences out of the 24 months between the beginning of the Mozarts' first Italian journey in December 1769 and von Schrattenbach's death cannot have helped his cause.

And Colloredo was aware that another absence was imminent. After the success of Mitridate, re di Ponto during the first Italian journey, Wolfgang had received a contract from Maria Theresa's representative in Milan, Count Firmian, to compose the first opera in the 1773 Milan Carnival season. That opera would open on 26 December 1772; as with Mitridate, the recitatives were due in October and Wolfgang would need to be in Milan by November so that he could meet the singers and compose the arias to suit them.

Final journey to Milan and Lucio Silla, 24 October 1772–13 March 1773

Wolfgang and his father departed for Milan on 24 October, arriving twelve days later on 4 November after some winter weather delays and a few brief stopovers with friends along the way.

Their Milan lodgings were comfortable, but that was the only bright spot—things seemed to go wrong from the start. First, Wolfgang had to revise his recitatives: Giovanni De Gammera's libretto had been sent to the court poet Pietro Metastasio in Vienna for review and had been returned with revisions and the addition of a full scene. The opera was Lucio Silla which, like Mitridate, was based on a historical figure—in this case the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Title page of Lucio Silla, Milan, 1772–73. Image source: Internet Archive

Wolfgang had plenty of time to alter the recitatives, however, because only in late in November did the first of the principal singers arrive, primo uomo Venanzio Rauzzini. Rauzzini was cast as Cecilio, an exiled Roman senator who is loved by Giunia, the daughter of Lucio Silla's murdered political rival, and who loves Giunia in return. However, Lucio Silla wants Giunia for himself, and has placed the lovers under threat of imprisonment and death: Cecilio if he returns against Lucio Silla's orders, and Giunia if she resists his advances.

On 28 November, only four weeks before opening night, Leopold wrote to Maria Anna, "Up to the present very little has been done. Wolfgang has only composed the first aria for the primo uomo, but it is superlatively beautiful and he sings it like an angel." [1] That aria was "Il tenero momento," in which Cecilio, having secretly returned to Rome, anticipates "the tender moment" when he will be reunited with Giunia.

"Il tenero momento," sung by countertenor Valer Sabadus accompanied by Recreation – Großes Orchester Graz conducted by Michael Hofstetter:

https://youtu.be/m6vBPNA5kAA

The prima donna who was to play Giunia, Anna De Amicis, did not arrive from Venice until 4 December. Wolfgang had seen her perform in the title roles of two operas during his first trip to Italy: in Niccolò Jommelli's Armida Abbandonata in Naples in May 1770, and in Giovanni Battista Borghi's Siroe in Venice in February 1771.

On the same day of the good news of her arrival, though, came some extraordinarily bad news about the singer who was to play the title role. On 5 December Leopold wrote to Maria Anna,

Unfortunately poor Cordoni, the tenor, is so ill that he cannot come. So the Secretary to the Theatre has been sent off by special post-chaise to Turin and a courier has been despatched to Bologna to find some other good tenor, who, as he has to play the part of Lucio Silla, must not only sing well, but be a first-rate actor and have a handsome presence. As the prima donna only arrived yesterday and as it is not yet known who the tenor will be, you will realise that the major and most important portion of the opera has not yet been composed; but now great strides will be made. [2]

In the meantime Wolfgang focussed on the arias for De Amicis. On 12 December Leopold wrote to Maria Anna that De Amicis "is very well satisfied with the three arias which she has had so far. Wolfgang has introduced into her principal aria passages which are unusual, quite unique and extremely difficult and which she sings amazingly well. We are very friendly and intimate with her." [3]

Giunia's principal aria from Act II, "Ah se il crudel periglio del caro bel rammento" (Ah, when I think of the cruel peril of my beloved), performed by Sandrine Piau accompanied by Freiburger Barockorchester conducted by Gottfried von der Goltz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AJxNKKVz6o

Leopold wrote to Maria Anna,

De Amicis is our best friend. She sings and acts like an angel and is extremely pleased because Wolfgang has served her extraordinarily well. Both you and the whole of Salzburg would be amazed if you could hear her. [4]

But finding an appropriate tenor was proving difficult. On 18 December, with only four rehearsals to go before opening night, Leopold wrote, "The tenor arrived only yesterday evening and Wolfgang composed to-day two arias for him and has still two more to do. . .I am writing to you at eleven o’clock at night and Wolfgang has just finished the second aria for the tenor." [5]

The cast of Lucio Silla, Milan, 1772–73. Image source: Internet Archive

The tenor was Bassano Morgnoni, a church singer from the town of Lodi who had very little stage experience—clearly a choice made out of desperation. Given the limitations of the singer and the lack of time before opening night, the wise decision was made to cut two of his four arias, and the two that remained were kept short (about two minutes each). Rauzzini and De Amicis would determine the opera's success or failure.

Fortunately Wolfgang gave them some striking music. A key example is the Act I reunion duet of Giunia and Cecilio, "D'Eliso in sen m'attendi ombra dell'idol mio" (The soul of my beloved awaits me in Paradise). Here it is sung by soprano Simone Nold (Giunia) and mezzo-soprano Kristina Hammarström (Cecilio), accompanied by the Danish Radio Sinfonietta conducted by Adam Fischer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WAUDrWNv1A

Miraculously, everything was somehow gotten ready in time. Just before heading to the theatre for the opening night performance, Leopold was optimistic: "The dress rehearsal the day before yesterday went off so well as to give us reason to hope for the greatest success. The music alone, without the ballets, lasts for four hours." [6] As was the standard practice, Wolfgang would lead the first three performances from the harpsichord, except for the ballets which followed each of the three acts, which were written by other composers.

Credits for the ballets following each of the three acts of Lucio Silla, Milan, 1772–73. Image source: Internet Archive

"Several distressing events": First-night disaster

It would be a long night, and it started inauspiciously. "On the first evening several distressing events took place," wrote Leopold afterwards.

Picture to yourself the whole theatre which by half past five was so full that not another soul could get in. On the first evening the singers are always very nervous at having to perform before such a distinguished audience. But for three hours singers, orchestra and audience (many of the latter standing) had to wait impatiently in the overheated atmosphere until the opera should begin.

The delay was due to the late arrival of the Archduke and Archduchess, so that "the performance, which was due to begin one hour after the Angelus, started three hours late, that is — about eight o’clock by German time. Thus it did not finish until two o’clock in the morning."

Francesco Galliari, scene from Act I of Lucio Silla, Milan, 1772–73. Image source: Meisterdrucke.com

Once the opera was able to begin, Morgnoni, the tenor playing Lucio Silla, showed his inexperience by overacting, disconcerting De Amicis:

At the point where in her first aria the prima donna expected from him an angry gesture, he exaggerated his anger so much that he looked as if he was about to box her ears and strike her on the nose with his fist. This made the audience laugh. Signora De Amicis, carried along by her own enthusiasm, did not realise why they were laughing, and, being thus taken aback, did not sing well for the rest of the evening. [7]

Leopold also alleged that Rauzzini had schemed to have the royal couple applaud his first entrance by telling them that he needed encouragement to perform well; and if the royal couple were applauding, of course everyone else had to applaud as well. De Amicis did not receive similar royal applause at her entrance. The Archduke and Archduchess later learned that they had upset the prima donna, and soothed her hurt feelings by inviting her to a private audience and, in future performances, by applauding her arias so enthusiastically that they had to be repeated. 

"An extraordinary success" and an extended run

Evidently ruffled feathers were smoothed, because on 9 January, after the opera had been performed for two weeks and with Wolfgang no longer in the pit, Leopold wrote Maria Anna,

Thank God, the opera is an extraordinary success, and every day the theatre is surprisingly full, although people do not usually flock in large numbers to the first opera unless it is an outstanding success. Every evening arias are repeated and since the first night the opera has gained daily in popularity and has won increasing applause. [8]

Eventually the opera was performed a total of 26 times, with several extra performances added at the end of January (meaning that the second opera, Giovanni Paisiello's Il Sismano nel Mogol, had its run shortened).

"A jewel of a piece": The sacred motet

Lucio Silla went so well that during its run Wolfgang was asked to compose a sacred motet for Rauzzini's spectacular voice. On 17 January, just ten days before Wolfgang's 17th birthday, they performed the work at the Sant' Antonio Abate church in Milan.

Church of Sant'Antonio Abate, Milan. Image source: Cronache Turistiche

Stanley Sadie writes of the motet, "This is a jewel of a piece. . .its music speaks unmistakably of his relaxed high spirits at the time he wrote it and of the elation and confidence that his opera-house success had brought him." [9] The church where it was first performed is as jewel-like and elaborate as Wolfgang's music.

The motet is now one of his most famous and often-performed works. The opening of "Exsultate, jubilate" performed by Amanda Forsythe accompanied by Boston Baroque conducted by Martin Pearlman:

https://youtu.be/2gjcwchj4Cw [opening movement ends at 4:43]

"We still live in hopes": An offer to Florence

On 9 January Leopold wrote to Maria Anna, "Up to the present there is no thought of our leaving here. We may do so at about the end of this month, for we want to hear the music of the second opera." However, in a postscript written in the family's secret substitution cipher, he revealed the real reason for their remaining in Milan: "I hear from Florence that the Grand Duke has received my letter, is giving it sympathetic consideration and will let me know the result. We still live in hopes." [10] (Leopold seems to have used the cipher mainly so that Maria Anna could show the letters to others to explain his and Wolfgang's delay in returning to Salzburg without revealing that they were seeking appointments elsewhere.)

In early January Leopold may have been thinking that the evident success of Wolfgang's opera could result in an appointment at the Archduke Ferdinand Karl's court in Milan. However, the Empress Maria Theresa had quashed that idea the previous year, and the 18-year-old Archduke would not go against his mother's advice. So Leopold now turned to the Archduke's older brother, Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Peter Leopold was a passionate Italian opera fan and the patron of Giovanni Manzuoli, the primo uomo of Wolfgang's Ascanio in Alba.

Archduke Leopold of Austria, Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Anton Raphael Mengs, 1770. Image source: Museo del Prado P002198

On 16 January in another encoded postscript to Maria Anna Leopold baldly stated his desire to leave the Prince-Archbishop's service in Salzburg and find an appointment at another court:

There is little hope of what I wrote to you. God will help us. But do save money and keep cheerful, for we must have means, if we want to undertake a[nother] journey. I regret every farthing which we spend in Salzburg. Up to the present no reply has come from the Grand Duke, but we know from the Count [Firmian]’s letter to [his secretary Herr Leopold] Troger that there is very little likelihood of our getting work in Florence. Yet I still trust that at least he will recommend us. [11]

A week later, Leopold wrote a long letter complaining that he had been kept bedridden from rheumatism, but in cipher reported that he had sent the score of Lucio Silla to the Grand Duke in Florence and was awaiting word. On 30 January he wrote in code,

I have received no further reply from the Grand Duke in Florence. What I wrote about my illness is all quite untrue. I was in bed for a few days, but now I am well and am off to the opera this evening. You must, however, spread the news everywhere that I am ill. You should cut off this scrap of paper so that it may not fall into the hands of others. [12]

But no word came, and the Mozarts continued to wait.

"There is nothing to be done"

For public consumption Leopold continued to pretend that his rheumatism prevented him from travelling, and asked Maria Anna to report his indisposition to the Prince-Archbishop's court to allay anger over their continued absence. As the weeks passed Leopold added concerns about icy roads and avalanches in the Tyrol keeping them in Milan. Finally, however, it became clear that no appointment would be offered by the Grand Duke. On 27 February Leopold wrote to Maria Anna, "As for the affair you know of there is nothing to be done. I shall tell you all when we meet. God has probably some other plan for us. You cannot think into what confusion our departure has thrown me. Indeed I find it hard to leave Italy." [13]

They left Milan a few days later in early March, arriving back in Salzburg on the 13th—just in time to be present for the celebrations commemorating the one-year anniversary of Prince-Archbishop Colloredo's election. Neither Leopold nor Wolfgang would ever return to Italy.

Coda: Jane Glover's Mozart in Italy

This post series was inspired by my reading of Jane Glover's Mozart in Italy. Her book is a highly readable and enjoyable account of Wolfgang and Leopold's travels, and travails, in Italy. Perhaps inevitably there are a number of small errors: as examples, twice (p. 167 and 176) she mistakenly specifies dates in October when she must mean November. And she apparently mistranscribes the title of Giovanni Paisiello's 1773 Carnival opera as Il Sosmano del Mogol; Grove Music Online has [Il] Sismano nel Mogol, a title confirmed by a libretto in the Albert Schatz Collection of the Library of Congress. (A misstep that Glover probably had nothing to do with: the smiling face on the cover is not Wolfgang's, but has been Photoshopped onto a portrait of him at age 13. Why not simply use the affecting image of the actual Mozart?)

More concerning is Glover's tendency to simplify the stories she's telling. For example, from the music Wolfgang wrote for the prima uomo Giovanni Manzuoli and the prima donna Antonia Girelli of Ascanio in Alba she concludes that Manzuoli possessed "vocal gifts no longer at their peak" while Girelli was "the finest singer in Wolfgang's cast." However, reports by Charles Burney indicate that Manzuoli was famous for cantabile (flowing, lyrical singing) rather than fioritura (rapid, agile singing), so it's not surprising that Wolfgang would de-emphasize showy fioritura in his music. And Burney attended a concert by Girelli in London just a few months after her appearance in Ascanio and wrote that "her voice was in decay, and her intonation frequently false." So it doesn't seem possible to come to firm conclusions about the singers' vocal condition solely from the notes on the page.

This tendency to tell a simple (and shorter) story over a more complex one is especially pronounced at the end of the book. There she writes of the sublime music of Mozart's mature Italian operas Idomeneo (1781), Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte that "The roots of all of these were in his Italian experience. . .After the manner of Caesar, he came to Italy, he saw (and heard) it, and he conquered it" (p. 235). But all of these Italian-language operas (oddly, La clemenza di Tito is omitted) were composed years after his final departure from Italy as a 17-year-old. To claim that he "conquered" Italy both ignores the failure to gain a court appointment, and the influence of composers he encountered later in Vienna such as Christoph Willibald Gluck, Vicente Martin y Soler, Antonio Salieri, and Giuseppe Sarti. As I've shown elsewhere on this blog, Salieri's La scuola de' gelosi (The School of Jealousy) influenced Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, and there are echoes of his La grotta di Trofonio (The Cave of Trofonio) in Don Giovanni and Così.

Incidentally, the composer whose opera was delayed by the success of Wolfgang's Lucio Silla in Milan, Giovanni Paisiello, went on to become the most popular opera composer by far in Vienna during Mozart's time there. Between 1783 and 1792, there were 251 performances of Paisiello's operas; Mozart ranks seventh with 63. [14]

Giovanni Paisiello, by Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, 1791. Image source: Château de Versailles

Mozart in Italy is definitely recommendable, but I found myself turning to Stanley Sadie's Mozart: The Early Years, 1756–1781 (2006) for greater detail, and to Emily Anderson's Letters of Mozart and His Family (1938) to read more of Leopold's and Wolfgang's own words about their experiences. (Unfortunately, Maria Anna's and Nannerl's side of the correspondence has not survived.) But Glover knows how to tell a good story, and Mozart in Italy—in which we see a teenaged musical genius trying to make his way in an adult world of politics, money, favoritism, and social and artistic hierarchies—is packed full of them.

Posts in this series:

• Mozart in Italy, part 1: "We shall not become rich"
• Mozart in Italy, part 2: "We have won the first battle"
• Mozart in Italy, part 3: "The most dangerous place in all Italy"
• Mozart in Italy, part 4: "Such useless people"
• Mozart in Italy, part 5: "There is little hope"

---

1. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 163, 28 November 1772, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, London: Macmillan, 1938, p. 318.
2. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 164, 5 December 1772, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 319.
3. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 165, 12 December 1772, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 320.
4. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 167, 26 December 1772, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 324.
5. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 166, 18 December 1772, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 322.
6. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 167, 26 December 1772, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 324.
7. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 168, 2 January 1773, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, pp. 325–326.
8. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 169, 9 January 1773, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 327.
9. Stanley Sadie, Mozart: The Early Years, 1756–1781, W.W. Norton, 2006, p. 292.
10. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 169, 9 January 1773, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, pp. 327–328. Leopold seems to have used the cipher mainly so that Maria Anna could show the letters to others to explain his and Wolfgang's delay in returning without revealing that they were seeking an appointment elsewhere.
    
11. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 170, 16 January 1773, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 329.
12. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 172, 30 January 1773, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 333. Obviously Maria Anna did not follow his instructions.
    
13. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 176, 27 February 1773, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 337.
14. John Platoff, "Mozart and his rivals: Opera in Vienna," Current Musicology, Vol. 51 (1993), pp. 105–111. Paisiello's Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville, 1782—three and a half decades before Rossini's version) received almost as many performances as all of Mozart's operas put together.

Mozart in Italy, part 4: "Such useless people"

Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy: Coming of Age in the Land of Opera. Picador, 2023. 262 pages. Image source: The Hanbury Agency

A continuation of the series on Mozart's Italian journeys; for the previous post please see "Mozart in Italy, part 3: The most dangerous place in all Italy."

Wolfgang and his father would not remain with Maria Anna and Nannerl in Salzburg for long. Arriving home in time for Easter at the end of March 1771, they were due back in Milan by the end of August so that the 15-year-old Wolfgang could compose the serenata for the wedding celebrations of the 17-year-old Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Milan, the fourth born and third surviving son of the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, and the 21-year-old Princess Maria Beatrice d'Este of Modena.

Of course, both Leopold and Wolfgang held positions in the musical establishment of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Siegmund von Schrattenbach, and had been absent for 15 months during their first journey to Italy.

Siegmund III Christoph Graf von Schrattenbach, by Franz Xaver König, ca. 1760s. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Von Schrattenbach lost no time in putting Wolfgang to work, even though his position was unpaid. During the spring and summer he was kept busy composing several sacred works and also a serenata for Salzburg. The celebratory occasion for the Salzburg serenata, a setting of Metastasio's libretto Il sogno di Scipione (The dream of Scipio), was probably the anniversary of von Schrattenbach's consecration on 21 December. Since the Mozarts would not return from Milan until December, Wolfgang needed to compose Il sogno in advance to ensure that it would be ready in time. He also composed the oratorio commissioned by Marchese Ximenes in Padua, La Betulia liberata (Bethulia liberated, the Apocryphal story of Judith and Holofernes).

However, he could not begin work on the wedding serenata for Milan because during the summer the libretto was still being written by the court poet Giuseppe Parini. Even after the libretto was completed it would first be sent to Vienna to receive imperial approval. Wolfgang would have to be in Milan as soon as the approved libretto was available so that he could compose the music to suit the singers, rehearse the work, and have it ready for performance by mid-October. He and Leopold once more received leave from the Archbishop, although somewhat begrudgingly: even though they would be gone only for four months this time, von Schrattenbach ordered Leopold's salary to be stopped. (In the end his full salary was paid after Leopold petitioned for it on his return.)

Return to Milan and Ascanio in Alba, 13 August–15 December 1771

Leopold and Wolfgang left on their second journey to Italy on 13 August. Following the same route south through the Brenner pass as during their first journey, they made excellent time on their dry (and dusty) summer route except when their carriage wound up stuck behind slow farmer's carts on the narrow mountain roads.

They had planned to post the score of the oratorio Betulia liberata to Padua from Verona. They may have left the score with their Veronese host Pietro Lugiati for that purpose, although there is no mention in the letters that they did so. No performances of Wolfgang's Betulia liberata have been documented in Padua or elsewhere, and no libretto crediting him with the music has been found (the oratorio was set by different composers more than 40 times in the 18th century), so whether it was ever performed is unknown.

Swiftly crossing the northern Italian plain and arriving in Milan on Wednesday 21 August—traversing in just eight days the same distance that had taken a leisurely six weeks on their first journey—they discovered that their haste had been in vain. Three days after their arrival Leopold wrote Maria Anna,

I ought to tell you that we have not yet received from Vienna the text which everyone is awaiting with great anxiety, for until it arrives the costumes cannot be made, the stage arranged nor other details settled. [1]

Among those "other details," of course, was Wolfgang's musical setting of the words. The serenata was entitled Ascanio in Alba.

Title page of the libretto of Ascanio in Alba, Milan, 1771. Image source: Internet Archive

Ascanio, in this version of the myth the son of the goddess Venus and the Trojan hero Aeneas, is prompted by his mother to test the fidelity of his promised bride, the nymph Silvia, by appearing in disguise. At first Silvia rejects the idea of marrying Ascanio, whom she has never met, because she has fallen in love with a youth she has seen in a dream. When Ascanio appears undisguised but without identifying himself, she recognizes the figure from her dream but doesn't realize that he is Ascanio. Finally Venus descends from the heavens and sets everything right: Silvia learns that her dream lover is Ascanio, and he is declared the ruler of Alba, where he will found a great city and, with his new wife, produce a dynasty.

Although used for other ruling-class weddings before and afterwards, this story seems to allegorize the betrothal of the Archduke Ferdinand and the Princess Maria Beatrice.

Maria Beatrice d'Este, by Anton von Maron, c. 1770s. Image source: Château de Versailles

In 1753, when she was three years old, Maria Beatrice had been united by treaty to the six-year-old Peter Leopold, the third-born son of the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa.

Peter Leopold of Austria, by Jean-Étienne Liotard, 1762. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

But eight years later in 1761, when the Empress's second son Karl Joseph died of smallpox, roles were suddenly shifted. Since Peter Leopold was now second in line to the thrones of both his mother (the Habsburg ruler) and his father (the Holy Roman Emperor), the engagement to Maria Beatrice was broken and he was engaged to the more consequential bride originally intended for Karl Joseph: Maria Luisa, daughter of King Charles III of Spain. [2]

Two years later, in 1763, Peter Leopold's younger brother, 9-year-old Ferdinand, took his place as the fiancé of the now 13-year-old Princess Maria Beatrice. As in Ascanio in Alba, the groom's mother arranged the whole thing, and the couple would never set eyes on one another in person before their nuptial ceremonies.

The parallels make the "testing of virtue" plot of Ascanio seem even creepier. Maria Beatrice had, after all, been betrothed to Ferdinand's brother for eight years; Ascanio in Alba seems designed to reassure Ferdinand and all the courtly spectators that the switch in fiancés accorded with Maria Beatrice's own wishes, that he was her "dream lover." But this was a consoling fiction. Love was a luxury that royal couples did not require, at least in the view of the parents who arranged their marriages. Their job was to produce children: two sons, an heir and a spare, and any number of daughters, to be married off strategically among the European powers for the political advantage of the Habsburg Empire.

Ferdinand Karl of Austria, by August Friedrich Oelenhainz. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The wedding was scheduled for Tuesday 15 October, less than two months away from the time the Mozarts arrived in Milan. On Saturday 31 August Leopold could finally report,

The text has arrived at last [in a postscript to his sister Wolfgang added that it had arrived two days earlier, on Thursday], but so far Wolfgang has only written the ouverture, that is, a rather long Allegro, followed by an Andante, which has to be danced, but only by a few people. Instead of the last Allegro he has composed a kind of contredanse and chorus, to be sung and danced at the same time. He will have a good deal of work during the coming month. [3]

The "rather long Allegro" of the overture to Ascanio in Alba performed by Mozarteumorchester Salzburg conducted by Leopold Hager:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho7xWm8zg10

In a previous letter Wolfgang had written to Nannerl about their Milan lodgings,

Upstairs we have a violinist, downstairs another one, in the next room a singing-master who gives lessons, and in the other room opposite ours an oboist. That is good fun when you are composing! It gives you plenty of ideas. [4]

Wolfgang began with the recitatives and choruses, and then turned to the arias. His task was made even more difficult because he knew only one of the cast members: the exceptional castrato Giovanni Manzuoli, who would play Ascanio. Burney wrote of Manzuoli's first appearance in London in 1764, "Manzoli's voice was the most powerful and voluminous soprano that had been heard on our stage since the time of Farinelli; and his manner of singing was grand and full of taste and dignity." Manzuoli excelled in the cantabile (flowing, lyrical) style of singing; Burney noted, "His voice alone was commanding from native strength and sweetness. . .and as to execution [of rapid coloratura passages and elaborate ornamentation], he had none." [4]

Giovanni Manzoli [Manzuoli] Fiorentino. Image source: New York Public Library.

The Mozarts had first met him when they were in London in 1764, and had renewed their acquaintance in Florence the previous year. The vocal capabilities of the 51-year-old Manzuoli were thus probably known to Wolfgang. At his entrance, Wolfgang gave him time to warm up with a secco dialogue with Venere, followed by an extended accompanied recitative, before his first aria, "Cara, lontano ancora" (Beloved, though you are far away).

"Cara, lontano ancora" performed by Agnes Baltsa accompanied by Mozarteumorchester Salzburg conducted by Leopold Hager:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbg3ayZucsE

Glover writes that in composing the arias for Manzuoli "Wolfgang was manifestly aware of vocal gifts no longer at their peak." [6] Perhaps, but as we saw in Mozart in Italy, part 1, in 1770 Manzuoli was still expecting 1,000 ducats to appear in a Milan Carnival season—ten times what Wolfgang was paid to write an entire opera. Wolfgang later reported that Manzuoli had been paid 500 cigliati, or about 500 ducats, to perform in Johann Adolph Hasse's wedding opera Il Ruggiero, which alternated with Ascanio during the celebrations and which involved the same singers. This is apparently the same rate—there were two operas per Carnival season in Milan—although his contract had not mentioned Wolfgang's serenata, for which he expected to be paid an additional 500 cigliati. In the end he received 700 cigliati and a fine gold snuff-box for both the opera and the serenata; offended, he returned both the fees and the gift. His vocal decline could not have been very apparent, or Manzuoli would not still demand such fees. So we may hear in Manzuoli's Ascanio in Alba arias, not so much a composer attempting to disguise his primo uomo's vocal decline, but one (as was common practice) showcasing his strengths.

But tailoring the arias for the other singers required Wolfgang to meet and work with each of them.

The cast of Ascanio in Alba, Milan, 1771. Image source: Internet Archive

Jane Glover writes that, judging from the score, "The finest singer in Wolfgang's cast was clearly Girelli as Silvia." (This would not be a surprise; she was the prima donna.) "She had splendid coloratura, which Wolfgang readily exploited, but she could also convey the greatest tenderness." [7] In Part II, Silvia's aria "Infelice affetti miei," here performed by Edith Mathis accompanied by Mozarteumorchester Salzburg conducted by Leopold Hager, displays both aspects of her talent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehyw8tpklcY

Time was short, and Wolfgang reported to Nannerl on 13 September that he had "a very heavy cold and a bad cough." Nonetheless he had to compose without rest, because rehearsals in the theater would begin in only ten days. He pressed on, and a week later was able to write to his sister, "I cannot write much, firstly, because I have nothing to say, and secondly, because my fingers ache so from composing. . .There are now only two arias of the serenata to compose and then I shall be finished." The final aria was completed on Monday 23 September, the very day the recitatives were rehearsed for the first time. Wolfgang was, of course, also leading the rehearsals, and so never got a chance to fully recover from his exhausting composing marathon; in the midst of rehearsals ten days before the wedding he reported to Nannerl, "I am quite well, but always sleepy." [8]

Leopold was confident of his son's abilities, and had not only the chance to hear the music as Wolfgang composed it, but also in rehearsal. He wrote to Maria Anna on 28 September,

You will be pleased to hear that I have good hopes that Wolfgang’s work will win great applause; firstly, because both Signor Manzuoli and all the other singers are not only immensely pleased with their arias, but are looking forward even more than we are to hearing the serenata performed this evening with all the instruments; and secondly, because I know how good Wolfgang’s work is and what an impression it will make, for it is more than certain that his composition is excellently adapted both to the singers and to the orchestra. [9]

Il Ruggiero

In addition to Wolfgang's serenata, the Viennese court had commissioned the wedding opera Il Ruggiero from Hasse and the librettist Pietro Metastasio, both now in their 70s.

Title page of the libretto of Il Ruggiero, o vero L'Eroico Gratitudine (Ruggiero, or true heroic gratitude) by Pietro Metastasio, with music composed by Johann Adolph Hasse, Milan, 1771. Image source: Internet Archive

The story was derived from the last three cantos of Ludovico Ariosto's chivalric romance Orlando Furioso, in which the knight Ruggiero finally marries the woman to whom he has been long betrothed, Bradamante. She is the female warrior who, in male disguise, rescued the bewitched Ruggiero from the magic island of the seductive sorceress Alcina. The opera was fitting not only because it ends with a wedding celebration, but also in its choice of source, which honored Maria Beatrice. Her ancestor Alfonso I had been Ariosto's patron, and Orlando Furioso fancifully traces the lineage of the House of Este back to Ruggiero and Bradamante.

Il Ruggiero librettist Pietro Metastasio, attributed to Martin van Mytens II, c. 1740-1750. Image source: Christies.com

In the opera Ruggiero (Manzuoli) has been made prisoner by the Greeks, but is freed from captivity by their ruler Leone (Adamo Solzi, Fauno in Ascanio), who admires his enemy for his bravery. Leone, betrothed to Clotilde (Geltrude Falchini, Venus in Ascanio), decides he wishes to marry Bradamante (Girelli) instead. She sets a condition on anyone who would ask for her hand: first he must best her in single combat. Leone, knowing that he is no match for Bradamante, asks Ruggiero to stand against her in his place. Torn between love for his betrothed and obligation to his liberator, Ruggiero fights her as "Leone" until time expires, winning her for his rival. Leone, abashed by Ruggiero's adherence to his knightly code, admits before the Emperor Carlo (Charlemagne, sung by Giuseppe Tibaldi, Aceste in Ascanio) that Ruggiero fought in his place and that he wishes to honor his prior engagement to Clotilde. Carlo unites the two original couples and a double wedding is celebrated.

The cast of Il Ruggiero in Milan, 1771. Image source: Internet Archive

With its theme of the switching of fiancés and its Este-associated source, Il Ruggiero also seems to deliberately allegorize the situation of Ferdinand and Maria Beatrice. Curiously, it was originally intended (but not completed) for a different wedding the year before, that of Maria Theresa's daughter Maria Antonia with the dauphin of France; the French context is probably the reason it is set on the banks of the Seine near Paris. Maria Antonia and the dauphin would become better known to history as Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI.

Hasse's opera was performed the day after the wedding of Ferdinand and Maria Beatrice, Wednesday 16 October, and Ascanio followed on Thursday. Ascanio was an immediate success, as Leopold had predicted. Operas were not performed on Fridays, a day of penitence, and no performances had been planned for Saturday or for Sunday, which was the anniversary of the death of the Empress Maria Theresa's father. However, after the enthusiastic reception of Ascanio on Thursday an extra performance was scheduled for Saturday 19 October.

It seems that the response to Hasse's opera was not nearly so positive. On 19 October as he and Wolfgang were "just off to the opera," Leopold paused to dash off a note to Maria Anna: "We are constantly addressed in the street by courtiers and other persons who wish to congratulate the young composer. It really distresses me very greatly, but Wolfgang’s serenata has completely killed Hasse’s opera." [10]

Leopold was probably being sincere about his distress, as the Mozarts and the Hasses knew one another and were on friendly terms; nonetheless, he couldn't help but be gratified at Wolfgang's success, even if it came at Hasse's expense. On 26 October Leopold reported that two nights earlier "their Royal Highnesses the Archduke and Archduchess not only caused two arias to be repeated by applauding them, but both during the serenata and afterwards leaned over from their box towards Wolfgang and showed their gracious approval by calling out 'Bravissimo, maestro' and clapping their hands. Their applause was taken up each time by the courtiers and the whole audience." Wolfgang added in a postscript, "The two arias which were encored in the serenata were sung by Manzuoli and by the prima donna, Girelli, respectively," but did not indicate which they were. [11]

After hearing Ascanio, Hasse is said to have remarked, "This boy will cause us all to be forgotten." [12]

Johann Adolph Hasse by Balthasar Denner, c. 1740. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

No source I have found indicates how many performances of Ascanio were given, but from the evidence of the letters it looks as though there were at least six: 17, 19, 22, 24, 27 and 28 October. As we've seen, the performance on 19 October was added, and that on 28 October also may been added because it breaks the alternating pattern of the two works up to that point, and that Leopold mentions in his letters. [13]

After what may have been the final performance of Ascanio on Monday 28 October, Hasse's opera, which had clearly been intended as the centerpiece of the wedding celebrations (note the difference in the ornateness of its libretto compared with that of Ascanio), continued for a few more performances; Leopold and Wolfgang missed the (final?) Ruggiero performance on 2 November because Leopold had a bout of rheumatism. The Mozarts remained in Milan to have a celebratory meal at Count Firmian's with Hasse on 8 November; there Hasse was presented with a snuff-box and Wolfgang a watch set with diamonds (they both may also have received their fees on this occasion).

Leopold had been planning to leave Milan by mid-November, perhaps stopping off in Padua (could this be when a performance of Betulia liberata might have taken place?). But then suddenly word came from the Milanese court. Leopold wrote Maria Anna,

I hoped to leave for certain on the 18th [of November], but His Royal Highness the Archduke now wishes to speak to us when he returns from [his honeymoon in] Varese in a week’s time. So our stay here will have to be prolonged for more than ten days. . .My head is full and I have more things to think of than you can guess. [14]

Leopold was anticipating that the Archduke, who had clearly been very impressed with Ascanio, would offer both father and son a position at his court. If so, he was disappointed. When the Mozarts were finally received by the Archduke on Tuesday 26 November, he was evidently highly complimentary, but did not extend an immediate invitation to join his court. He may have held out some hope, however, because the Mozarts stayed in Milan for another nine days after their audience. Finally, receiving no definite word from court, they left Milan on 5 December. There was no time to stop off in Padua, and they headed directly back to Salzburg. On 8 December from Ala in the foothills of the Italian Alps Leopold wrote to Maria Anna,

The question which you asked me in one of your four letters which I found in Verona, I shall answer when we meet. All that I can now say is that the affair is not quite hopeless. [15]

The question Maria Anna raised was undoubtedly that of the possibility of an appointment to the Archduke Ferdinand's court in Milan. What Leopold didn't know was that as he and Wolfgang were crossing the Brenner Pass towards Salzburg, a letter from the Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna to her son Ferdinand in Milan was crossing in the opposite direction.

Empress Maria Theresa by Anton von Maron, after 1765. Image source: Château de Versailles MV 3859

The Archduke had written to her for advice about finding positions for the Mozarts at his court; her reply, dated 12 December, was blunt:

You ask me about taking the young Salzburger into your service. I do not know why, believing you have no need for a composer or useless people. If however it would give you pleasure I would not hinder you. What I say is so that you do not burden yourself with useless people or giving titles to people of that sort. If they are in your service, it debases the service when such people go about the world like beggars. Furthermore, he has a large family. [16]

The Mozart family, of course, numbered only four, and their purpose in "going about the world" was precisely to obtain a paid court position for Wolfgang. But the Archduke would not go against his mother's wishes, and no appointment was ever offered.

It was now winter; the days were short and the weather and roads were bad, causing delays, but Leopold and Wolfgang arrived in Salzburg on 15 December. The very next day they received the stunning news of the death of their employer, Prince-Archbishop von Schrattenbach. The future for them both was now extremely uncertain.

Next time: The final journey to Milan and Lucio Silla

Posts in this series:

• Mozart in Italy, part 1: "We shall not become rich"
• Mozart in Italy, part 2: "We have won the first battle"
• Mozart in Italy, part 3: "The most dangerous place in all Italy"
• Mozart in Italy, part 4: "Such useless people"
• Mozart in Italy, part 5: "There is little hope"

---

1. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 140, 24 August 1771, in Emily Anderson, editor and translator, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, London: MacMillan and Co., 1938, p. 282.
2. At the 1738 marriage of Maria Luisa's parents, King Charles III of the Two Sicilies and Maria Amalia of Saxony, Vittoria Tesi performed. In 1762, as a six-year-old, Wolfgang met the famous Tesi (by then retired) in Vienna. For more details of their meeting, please see The first Black prima donna: Vittoria Tesi.
3. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 141, 31 August 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 284.
4. Mozart to his sister, Letter 140a, 24 August 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 283.
5. Charles Burney, A general history of music, from the earliest ages to the present period, Vol. 4. London: Printed for the author, 1789, p. 485.
6. Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy: Coming of Age in the Land of Opera. Picador, 2023, p. 164.
7. Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy, p. 163. However, we have a first-hand account of Girelli's abilities around this time which contradicts this picture. Six months after she appeared in Ascanio, Burney wrote of her first appearance in London, "Her style of singing was good, but her voice was in decay, and her intonation frequently false, when she arrived here; however, it was easy to imagine from what remained, that she had been better" (A general history of music, Vol. 4, p. 499). One wonders whether Burney heard her at a time when she was indisposed.
8. Mozart to his sister, Letter 143a, 13 September 1771, Letter 144a, 21 September 1771, & Letter 146a, 5 October 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 288, 291 & 294.
9. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 145, 28 September 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 292.
10. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 148, 19 October 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 296.
11. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 149, 26 October 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 297.
12. William Smyth Rockstro and Donald Francis Tovey, "Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus," Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 18, 1911, p. 950.
13. "On the 16th there will be the opera, the 17th the serenata, on the 18th, 19th and 20th nothing on account of the anniversary of the death of His Majesty the Emperor. On Monday the serenata will be repeated and so forth." As we've seen, a performance of the serenata was added on the 19th. Leopold to his wife, Letter 147, 12 October 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, pp. 295–296.
14. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 152, 16 November 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 301.
15. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 155, 8 December 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 304.
16. Quoted in Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy, pp. 169–170. Translation slightly altered.

Mozart in Italy, part 3: "The most dangerous place in all Italy"

Jane Glover, Mozart in Italy: Coming of Age in the Land of Opera. Picador, 2023. 262 pages. Image source: The Hanbury Agency

This is the third in a series of posts on Mozart's Italian journeys; for the previous post please see Mozart in Italy, part 2: "We have won the first battle."

Milan to Venice, 4 February 1771–12 March 1771

Today it's a four-hour train trip from Milan to Venice. In 1771 in the dead of winter, it took Wolfgang and his father a week to cross the northern Italian plain. They stopped to eat, sleep, and attend an opera buffa in Brescia, but also encountered, as Leopold wrote to Maria Anna, "shocking weather and a violent gale." [1]

When they arrived in Venice on Monday 11 February it was still raining. Their lodgings were in the Casa Ceseletti next to the Ponte dei Barcaroli, midway between the Piazza San Marco and the Teatro di San Benedetto opera house.

Casa Ceseletti, adjacent to the Ponte dei Barcaroli, from the Rio de l'Barcaroli canal. Image source: Google Maps Street View.

Their residence was very near the home of Johannes Wider, a friend and business associate of Johann Hagenauer, the Mozarts' landlord in Salzburg since 1743. The Wider family entertained the Mozarts throughout their monthlong stay in Venice.

In the afternoon of the same day the Mozarts arrived, in fact, Herr Wider and his wife went with them to the opera. It's likely that they attended Antonio Boroni's Le contadine furlane (The Friulian peasant women), a dramma giocoso at the Teatro Giustiniani di San Moisè, just a few minutes' walk from the Casa Ceseletti.

Title page of the libretto of Antonio Boroni's Le contadine furlane, Venice, 1771. Image source: Albert Schatz Collection, Library of Congress.

The following day was Shrove Tuesday, and the Mozarts made the most of the final day of Carnival (and the final night of opera until after Easter):

On Tuesday we lunched with him [Herr Wider] and went to the opera, which began at two and went on until seven. [2]

It's likely that on the final evening of Carnival they saw Giovanni Battista Borghi's Siroe at the Teatro di San Benedetto. Metastasio's libretto was very popular and had been set by many composers, including Antonio Vivaldi (for Reggio nell' Emilia, 1727), George Frideric Handel (for London, 1728), and Johann Adolph Hasse (for Bologna, 1733).

Title page of of the libretto of Giovanni Battista's Siroe, Venice, 1771. Image source: Albert Schatz Collection, Library of Congress.

The prima donna of Borghi's Siroe was Anna De Amicis, a soprano the Mozarts had met in Mainz during their European tour in 1763, and had encountered again in May 1770 in her native city of Naples when she performed the title role in Jommelli's Armida Abbandonata. (Wolfgang had written of her Armida, "De Amicis sings amazingly well." For more on Jommelli and the opera, please see Mozart in Italy, part 1.) In Siroe De Amicis played Emira, who spends most of the opera in male disguise as "Idaspe." Originally seeking revenge against King Cosroe for the death of her father, Emira soon falls in love with the King's son and heir Siroe, and he with her. The two must foil the machinations of the King's mistress Laodice, whose love for Siroe is unrequited, and of Siroe's younger brother Medarse, who wants the throne for himself. De Amicis would later perform in Wolfgang's opera Lucio Silla during his third Italian journey in 1772-1773.

The interior of the Teatro San Benedetto, Venice, with the 1782 ball in honor of the 'Conti del Nord.' Image source: Christies.com

After attending the opera, the Mozarts wanted to enjoy, in the company of Herr Wider and his family, the pleasures that would be suspended just a few hours later when Ash Wednesday dawned.

We dined with him afterwards and about eleven or twelve o'clock by German time we were on the Piazza San Marco on our way to the Ridotto. We said to one another that at that moment both of you would probably be with Herr Hagenauer and would be little thinking that we were talking about you on the Piazza San Marco. [3]

Piazza San Marco, by Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), late 1720s. Image source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Ridotto was a casino located in the Palazzo Dandolo, just to the east of the Piazza San Marco. Although ostensibly public (it was run by the Venetian state), the stakes were high and masquerade dress was required (Leopold had been irritated by the expense of the cloaks and cowls he and Wolfgang had to have made to order for Carnival in Milan a year earlier). As a result the Ridotto was frequented by the nobility and the nobility-adjacent, such as rich merchants like Herr Wider. 

In the painting by Canaletto immediately below, the Palazzo Dandolo is the large building to the right, directly above the blue and red cloths shading the deck of the boat in the far right foreground:

The Molo, Venice, from the Bacino di San Marco, by Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), ca. 1730s. Image source: Christies.com.

Another view by Canaletto of the Palazzo Dandolo, in the right center to the east of the Doge's Palace, the Prigioni (prisons), and a group of smaller buildings:

View of the Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, by Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), ca. late 1730s. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

An 18th-century depiction of the interior of the Ridotto filled with revellers in maschera:

The Ridotto in the Palazzo Dandolo at San Moisè, attributed to Francesco Guardi, ca. 1746. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Wolfgang, who had turned 15 in late January, seems to have thoroughly enjoyed his time in Venice—particularly when that time was spent in the household of Herr Wider, who had six daughters. Wolfgang wrote to Johannes Hagenauer, the son of their Salzburg landlord,

The particularly splendid pearl [Catarina Wider, the eldest daughter] and all the other pearls too [the five younger daughters] admire you very greatly. I assure you that they are all in love with you and that they hope that like a Turk you will marry them all, and make the whole six of them happy. I am writing this in Herr Wider’s house. He is a fine fellow, as you told me in your letter. Yesterday we wound up the carnival at his house, dined with him and then danced and went with the pearls to the new Ridotto, which I liked immensely. . .I am charmed with Venice. [4]

After Lent had begun the Mozarts and Widers continued to spend time together in sometimes ribald games. A week after the letter quoted above Wolfgang wrote his sister Nannerl,

Tell Johannes that Wider’s pearls, especially Mademoiselle Catarina, are always talking about him, and that he must soon come back to Venice and submit to the attacco, that is, have his bottom spanked when he is lying on the ground, so that he may become a true Venetian. They tried to do it to me—the seven women all together—and yet they could not pull me down. [5]

There was also time for sightseeing and attending performances at the ospedali, the famous all-female orphanages of Venice. Leopold wrote to Maria Anna,

Later on I shall tell you in detail how I like the Arsenal, the churches, the ospedali and other things, in fact Venice as a whole. Meanwhile I shall content myself with saying that beautiful and unusual things are to be seen here. [6]

In their travel notes the Mozarts mention the composer Ferdinando Bertoni, the organist at the Basilica di San Marco and the musical director of the Ospedale di San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti; the Mozarts may have attended services at both places. Like Antonio Vivaldi earlier in the century, in addition to his musical duties at an ospedale, Bertoni was also an opera composer.

Ferdinando Bertoni by Angelo Crescembeni. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Earlier in the 1771 Carnival season (December and January) Anna De Amicis had appeared as Cleofide in Bertoni's setting of Metastasio's Alessandro nell' Indie at the Teatro di San Benedetto. Charles Burney reported that the opera "has been universally applauded; particularly a duet, sung by Signora de Amicis and Signor Caselli."

Burney attended a service at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti, and described what it was like to hear the all-women chorus, soloists and orchestra perform behind the metal screens which partially hid them from the lustful eyes of the men in the audience:

. . .I went to the hospital de' Mendicanti, for orphan girls, who are taught to sing and play, and on Sundays and festivals they sing divine service in chorus. Signor Bertoni is the present Maestro di Capella. There was a hymn performed with solos and chorusses, and a mottetto à voce sola, which last was very well performed, particularly an accompanied recitative, which was pronounced with great force and energy. Upon the whole, the compositions had some pretty passages, mixed with others that were not very new.

Burney described how Bertoni composed for a chorus made up entirely of women:

The girls here I thought accompanied the voices better than at the [Ospedale della] Pietà: as the chorusses are wholly made up of female voices, they are never in more than three parts, often only in two; but these, when reinforced by the instruments, have such an effect, that the full complement to the chords is not missed, and the melody is much more sensible and marked, by being less charged with harmony. In these hospitals many of the girls sing in the counter tenor [range] as low as A and G, which enables them always to keep below the soprano and mezzo soprano, to which they sing the base; and this seems to have been long practised in Italy. [7]

Venice, the Rio dei Mendicanti looking North with the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, by Francesco Guardi, ca. 1780. Image source: Christies.com

The Mozarts weren't only cultural tourists; they were also in Venice to further Wolfgang's career. Virtually every day they were invited to one or another noble's house for a meal (and, probably, an "impromptu" performance by Wolfgang). Leopold wrote Maria Anna that he and Wolfgang

are only sorry that we cannot remain here longer. It is indeed a pity, for we have got to know very well the whole nobility; and everywhere, at parties, at table, and, in fact, on all occasions we are so overwhelmed with honours that our hosts not only send their secretaries to fetch us and convey us home in their gondolas, but often the noble himself accompanies us on our return; and this is true of the greatest of them, for instance, the Cornaro, Grimani, Mocenigo, Dolfino, Valieri and so forth. [8]

All of the patrician families Leopold names are significant—the current Doge was Alvise Giovanni Mocenigo—but one stands out in particular in the context of Venetian opera history: the Grimani family. The family had built no less than four opera houses in Venice. These included the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo, built in 1638, where Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (Ulysses' return to his homeland, 1640) and the scandalous L'incoronazione di Poppea (The coronation of Poppea, 1642) had their first performances. In 1678 the Grimanis built the lavish Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, where Handel's wickedly entertaining Agrippina (1709), with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani, had its première. The Grimanis' latest opera house was the Teatro di San Benedetto, built in 1755, where the Mozarts had just seen Anna De Amicis sing; although the Grimanis had ceded the theatre to a group of its boxholders in 1766, they probably still had significant influence there. In any case, Glover states that "there was early discussion with the Teatro San Benedetto of a possible commission for Wolfgang, for November 1772." [9]

On 5 March Wolfgang gave a "big concert" at the Palazzo Maffei, but nothing is known about what was played, who attended, or its reception. [10] A week later the Mozarts left Venice; neither of them ever had an opportunity to return.

Northern Italy to Salzburg, 12 March–28 March 1771

In the journey to Padua, rather than take a carriage from Fusina on the mainland, Leopold decided to take the more comfortable and more scenic route by sailing down the Venetian lagoon and hiring a burchiello (barge) on the Brenta Canal. This also enabled the Mozarts to prolong their visit with the Widers.

I took a barcello for ourselves and Wider, his wife and his two [eldest] daughters, Catarina and Rosa; and the Abbate [Giovanni Maria Ortes, a rich opera lover] too came with us as far as Padua. They brought food and drink and all other necessaries and we cooked and ate on board. [11]

A View of la Porto del Dolo on the Brenta Canal, by Francesco Guardi. Image source: Sothebys.com

In Padua they had a busy 24 hours: Wolfgang gave two performances in private houses and played the organ at the church of San Giustino. He also received a commission from the Marchese Giuseppe Ximenes of Aragon for an oratorio setting of Metastasio's libretto Betulia liberata. 

From Padua, Leopold and Wolfgang went on to Vicenza, while the Widers and Ortes returned to Venice. On hearing that the son of a Salzburg acquaintance was travelling to Venice, Leopold wrote to Maria Anna, "Herr Kerschbaumer. . .ought to entrust his son too to Johann Wider. . .I know what is good and what is bad for young people, especially in Venice, the most dangerous place in all Italy." [12] 

After a day in Vicenza, where Mozart performed at the house of their host, the bishop, the Mozarts travelled on to Verona. There they stayed with Pietro Lugiati, who a year earlier had commissioned a portrait of Wolfgang (to view the portrait please see Mozart in Italy, part 1), and received some excellent news. A letter from Milan, probably from Count Karl Joseph von Firmian, let them know that they would soon receive the formal contract for the first opera of the 1772–73 Carnival season there, and also announced that on their return to Salzburg they should expect to receive another commission. Leopold wrote Maria Anna that the new commission "will not only fill you with amazement but will bring our son imperishable honour." [13] It was from the imperial court, for a wedding serenata to be performed in the coming autumn during the marriage celebrations for the Archduke Ferdinand Karl, the fourth son of the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa and Governor of the Duchy of Milan, and Princess Maria Beatrice d'Este of Modena.

The Mozarts left Verona on 20 March and travelled by carriage to Rovereto and then across the Brenner Pass into Austria. On 25 March Leopold wrote to Maria Anna from Innsbruck, "We arrived here this evening in a violent gale, in snow and horribly cold weather." [14] Undeterred by the unpleasant conditions, the next day they pressed on, and reached Salzburg on Maundy Thursday, 28 March. As he embraced his mother and sister, though, Wolfgang already knew that he would be returning to Italy twice more without them.

Next time: Mozart's second Italian journey and Ascanio in Alba

Posts in this series:

• Mozart in Italy, part 1: "We shall not become rich"
• Mozart in Italy, part 2: "We have won the first battle"
• Mozart in Italy, part 3: "The most dangerous place in all Italy"
• Mozart in Italy, part 4: "Such useless people"
• Mozart in Italy, part 5: "There is little hope"

---

1. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 132, 13 February 1771, in Emily Anderson, editor and translator, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, MacMillan and Co., 1938, p. 266.
2. Same as note 1.
3. Same as note 1.
4. Mozart to Johannes Hagenauer, Letter 132b, 13 February 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 267.
5. Mozart to his sister, Letter 133a, 20 February 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 269.
6. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 134, 1 March 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 270.
7. Quote on Alessandro nell' Indie: Charles Burney, The present state of music in France and Italy, Becker, 1771, p. 190. Quote on  the performance at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti: Burney, The present state of music in France and Italy, pp. 141–142. The article on Bertoni by George Truett Hollis in Grove Music Online states that while in Venice "Mozart and his father may have heard Anna de Amicis sing in Bertoni's Alessandro nell' Indie (Venice, Teatro S Benedetto)," but the letter Burney quotes on Alessandro dated 25 January 1771 confirms that "At the same theatre we have at present Il Siroe riconosciuto, composed by Signor Borghi, which is generally disliked." The Mozarts went to the Teatro di San Benedetto on 11 or 12 February.
8. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 135, 6 March 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 272.
9. Glover, Mozart in Italy, p. 138.
10. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 134, 1 March 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 271.
11. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 136, 14–18 March 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 273.
12. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 136, 18 March 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 274.
13. Same as note 11.
14. Leopold Mozart to his wife, Letter 137, 25 March 1771, Letters of Mozart and His Family, Vol. 1, p. 275.