Vittori Tesi: Some notable operatic performances, 1716-1754

Vittoria Tesi, probably at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice during the Carnival season of 1735-36; caricature by Anton Maria Zanetti. Image source: Royal Collection Trust

Between the year 1725 and 1740, the musical drama in Italy seems to have attained a degree of perfection and public favour which perhaps has never been since surpassed. The opera stage from that period being in possession of the poetry of Apostolo Zeno and [Pietro] Metastasio; the compositions of Leo, Vinci, Hasse, Porpora, and Pergolesi; the performance of Farinelli, Carestini, Caffarelli, Bernacchi,. . .la Tesi,. . .Faustina, and Cuzzoni. . . [1]

In researching my posts African Queen (on composer Maria Teresa Agnesi, her opera Sofonisba, and the singer the opera seems to have been intended for, Vittoria Tesi) and Vittoria Tesi: The first Black prima donna, I started compiling a spreadsheet of every documented production in which Tesi appeared (there are surely others for which documentary evidence has not survived). The list has reinforced what an extraordinary performer she must have been.

By any measure Tesi was one of the greatest singers of the 18th century. Her career spanned four decades in major opera centers such as Bologna, Dresden, Venice, Florence, Milan, Naples, Vienna, cities that were the sites of pilgrimage by opera aficionados from across Europe. She sang in 110 productions I was able to document, and at least 10 more mentioned in sources that I was unable to independently confirm; there are also some unaccounted-for gaps in her schedule (there are no performances documented for 1720 or 1740, for example). She sang in operas by the most prominent composers of the day, including Geminiano Giacomelli, Christoph Gluck, Johann Adolf Hasse, Leonardo Leo, Antonio Lotti, Giovanni Porta, and Leonardo Vinci.

From early in her career she was cast in leading roles, and of the 110 productions for which I was able to locate narrative descriptions, libretto summaries, or complete librettos, in fully 34 she played the title character. Among her most frequent roles (sometimes set by different composers):

• Cleofide, the faithful queen in Metastasio's Alessandro nell' Indie (Alexander in India);
• Mandane, Artaserse's sister and lover of the wrongly accused Arbace in Metastasio's Artaserse;
• Cornelia, widow of Pompey, in Geminiano Giacomelli's setting of Giacomo Bussani's Cesare in Egitto (Caesar in Egypt);
• Berenice, Farnace's murderously scheming mother-in-law in Farnace;
• Emira, Siroe's lover in Metastasio's Siroe; and
• the title characters in Zeno's Merope, Silvani's Semiramide and Metastasio's Semiramide riconosciuta.

Mandane's aria "Se d'un amor tiranno" from Leonardo Vinci's setting of Artaserse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wFRkHr_w-A

Se d’un amor tiranno credei di trionfar, lasciami nell’inganno, lasciami lusingar che più non amo. Se l’odio è il mio dover, barbara, e tu lo sai, perché avveder mi fai che invan lo bramo.

If I imagined I had conquered a tyrannous love, let me deceive myself, leave me the illusion that I no longer love. Since hatred is my duty, as you well know, cruel woman, why do you force me to remember what I long for in vain?

The performers are Max Emanuel Cencic as Mandane and Valer Barna-Sabadus as Semira, accompanied by Concerto Köln conducted by Diego Fasolis, from the 2012 Opéra National de Lorraine production.

Dresden 1719

Tesi sang for emperors and empresses, kings and queens, and was sought after for special occasions. An example was her participation in the celebrations surrounding the marriage of Frederick Augustus II, the Prince Elector of Saxony, to Maria Josepha of Austria in September 1719. It was a typically modest 18th-century royal affair, involving only the building of an elaborate new 2000-seat opera house, a garden amphitheater accommodating a similar number of spectators, and the mounting of a full month of music, dances, operas, fireworks, horse ballets, tournaments, and hunts involving the slaughter of hundreds of animals.

At the center of the celebrations were performances in the new theater of three operas by Lotti, including the opera written for the event, Teofane.

Orchester und Bühne im Großen Königlichen Theater (Opernhaus am Zwinger) mit Opernszene aus Teofane von Pallavicini und Lotti, uraufgeführt am 13. September 1719 anläßlich der Vermählung des sächsischen Kurprinzen mit Maria Josepha von Österreich 1719 [Orchestra and stage in the Grand Royal Theatre (Opera House at the Zwinger) with an opera scene from Teofane by Pallavicini and Lotti, premiered on 13 September 1719 on the occasion of the marriage of the Saxon Prince Elector with Maria Josepha of Austria 1719]. Carl Heinrich Jacob Fehling, ca. 1728/1730. Tesi is probably the figure on the viewer's left (stage right). Image source: Deutsche Fotothek

Teofane, with Tesi in the role of Matilda, was given on 13, 21, and 27 September. Lotti's Giove in Argo, with Tesi in the role of the goddess Diana, was performed on 3 September, and his Ascanio, ovvero Gl'Odi delusi dal sangue, with Tesi in the male role of Ascanio's friend and confidant Ceslo, on 7, 24, and 29 September. [2]

There were several other occasions involving vocal music, however. On Sunday 10 September there was a performance of Johann Heinichen's serenata La Gara degli Dei (The contest of the gods). The description of the piece from the libretto:

Among the many festivities with which the magnificent king wished to solemnize the wedding of his most serene son and the most serene archduchess, after His Serene Majesty had fixed the days of the week for the main ones, he decided that they should be announced by the seven planets that give the days their names. For this a suitable site was chosen in the royal garden of the palace known as the "Chinese," where one sees descending in a magnificent machine:

Mercurio	[Mercury, soprano castrato Matteo Berselli]
Il Sole	[The Sun, alto castrato Senesino]
Diana	[soprano Santa Stella Lotti]
Marte	[Mars, contralto Vittoria Tesi]
Venere	[Venus, mezzo-soprano Margherita Durastani or soprano Maddalena Salvai]
Giove	[Jupiter, bass Giuseppe Boschi]
Saturno	[Saturn, tenor Francesco Guicciardi]. [3]

Vermählung des Kurprinzen mit Maria Josepha, Holländisches Palais [Marriage of the Prince Elector to Maria Josepha, Dutch Palace]. Engraving by Johann August Corvinus. Image source: Deutsche Fotothek

Each of the seven gods described the activities that would take place on their day. Tesi, as Mars, announced the festivities for dies Martis (Latin) or martedì (Italian), that is, Tuesday 12 September, which consisted, naturally, of a tournament:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CykE8NlW4pY

Su volto alle belle Timor di periglio L'amabil vermiglio Non cangi in pallor. Quelle aste sì fiere Livore non spinge, Nonsangue le tinge, Nè brama chi fiere Vendetta, ma honor.

In the faces of the beauties the fear of danger the agreeable tint of rose should not change to pallor. Those fierce lances are driven not by envy nor stained with blood, neither do they wish revenge, but honor.

Mars is sung on this recording by Annette Markert accompanied by the Carl Philip Emanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hartmut Haenchen.

The performance of La Gara degli Dei was followed by a spectacle on the river and shore portraying Jason seizing the Golden Fleece, ending with fireworks (it was, after all, dies Solis, the Day of the Sun, or as we know it, Sunday) announced by 64 trumpets and 8 military drums, and salutes by heavy artillery.

On 18 September Tesi appeared in another Heinichen serenata, Diana su l'Elba (Diana on the Elbe). Michael Walter's description from the introduction to his critical edition of the score:

Monday [dies Lunae or lunedì], 18 September, was the day of Diana [goddess of the moon and the hunt] and featured a "Wasser-Jagen" (aquatic hunt): four hundred animals, mostly deer and and some wild boars and sows, were forced into the river Elbe near the palace to be shot by the hunters. At 2 p.m., before the hunt, a gilded and silvered ship approached, "drawn" by four "Wasser-Pferde" (water horses, presumably floating statues attached to the ship) and carrying the musicians and singers who performed Heinichen's Diana su l'Elba. [4]

An engraving made of the occasion shows the ship bearing the musicians and singers (who portray Diana and her court of huntresses) approaching the shore, while several hundred deer struggle in the water just beyond. I'd guess the engraver is conflating the two events; it's unlikely that the singers and musicians would be asked to perform the serenata on the river while hundreds of terrified deer were thrashing about in the water just a few dozen yards away.

Ankunft der Diana, Dianafest auf den Dresdner Elbwiesen am 18.09.1719 anläßlich der Vermählung des Kurprinzen [Arrival of Diana, [during the] Festival of Diana on the Dresden Elbe meadows on 18 September 1719 on the occasion of the marriage of the Prince Elector]. Alcippe (Vittoria Tesi) may be the figure seated in the shell at the right hand of Diana (the central figure holding the arrow, probably sung by Santa Stella Lotti). Image source: Deutsche Fotothek.

This is also implied by the libretto, which concludes with Diana singing:

Su snidate—su forzate Le ramose—fere asco A lasciar le verdi sponde; E al colpir delle maestre Regie destre Trovin morte in mezzo all'onde.

Drive out and force the hidden antlered beasts to leave the green banks; from the smitings of the masterly royal couple They shall find death amidst the waves.

After a chorus, there is a final note: "Segue la Caccia" (The hunt follows), suggesting that the animals weren't driven into the water and slaughtered until the conclusion of the serenata.

Weddings of the House of Bourbon

The 1719 wedding of Frederick Augustus and Maria Josepha was extravagant (not to say wantonly destructive), but not uniquely so. In 1738 there were two weeks of celebrations in Naples for the marriage of Charles III, King of the Two Sicilies (i.e., Naples and Sicily), and the 13-year-old Maria Amalia of Saxony, the daughter of Frederick Augustus and Maria Josepha.

Maria Amalia of Saxony in Polish costume by Louis de Silvestre, 1738 (detail). Image source: Museo del Prado

For these celebrations Tesi performed as Venere (Venus, mother of Cupid) in Leonardo Leo's Le nozze di Amore e Psiche (The wedding of Cupid and Psyche).

The following year, 1739, Tesi was invited to Madrid to perform in Francesco Corselli's setting of Antonio Luchini's Farnace for the festivities surrounding the marriage of Charles III's younger brother Philip with the 12-year-old Marie Louise Élisabeth, eldest daughter of King Louis XV of France. To modern sensibilities the choice of Farnace, as with many wedding operas, may seem curious: most of the opera's action concerns the implacable hatred of Berenice, Queen of Cappadocia (played by Tesi), for her son-in-law Farnace. Of course, all is forgiven and made right in the end.

From Corselli's Farnace, Act I Scene XII, Berenice's aria "Da quel ferro che ha svenato":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sraE3YrQmYA

Da quel ferro che ha svenato il mio sposo sventurato, imparai la crudeltà. Nel mirare un figlio esangue e bagnato del mio sangue mi scordai della pietà

From the sword that shed my ill-fated husband's blood, I learned cruelty. Beholding a lifeless son bathed in my blood, I forgot pity.

Other royal festivities

In 1747 Tesi returned to Naples to perform in the celebrations of the birth of a male heir to Charles III and Maria Amalia. The festivities involved more than two weeks of masked balls, an opera, galas, banquets, processions, fireworks, and five performances (in two different theaters) of a serenata written for the occasion in which Tesi portrayed the mother of Alexander the Great being visited in a dream by the gods, who prophesy his future conquests.

Plate V. Sala del Palazzo Reale apparata per la Serenata [Great Hall of the Royal Palace arranged for the Serenata]. Designed and created by Vincenzo Rè, engraving by Giuseppe Vasi, 1748. From Narrazione delle solenni reali feste fatte celebrare in Napoli da Sua Maestà il Re delle Due Sicilie Carlo Infante di Spagna, Duca di Parma, Piacenza &c. &c. per la nascita del suo primogenito Filippo Real Principe delle Due Sicilie. [Narration of the solemn royal feasts celebrated in Naples by His Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies Charles, Infante of Spain, Duke of Parma, Piacenza &c. &c. for the birth of his first son Philip, Royal Prince of the Two Sicilies]. Image source: Internet Archive

In addition to royal weddings and births, Tesi also performed for royal birthdays and name-days, including those for Habsburg Empress Elisabeth Christina (Milan, 1722, 1727, 1728 and 1731; Naples, 1729); Habsburg Emperor Charles VI (Naples, 1725 and 1729); King Philip V of Spain (Naples, 1736); and his son Charles III (Naples, 1736, 1737, and 1738-39).

The family of Philip V by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1743. King Philip V and Queen Isabella (Elisabeth Farnese) are seated at center; the Infante Philip of Spain is the blue-coated figure standing at the center with his seated wife Louise Élisabeth to his left (Tesi performed in Farnace during their wedding celebrations in Madrid in 1739); Maria Amalia and Charles III, King of the Two Sicilies, are at the far right (Tesi performed in Le nozze di Amore e Psiche during their wedding celebrations in Naples in 1738). Image source: Museo del Prado

The final celebratory opera in which Tesi performed, Christoph Gluck's setting of Metastatio's Le cinesi (The Chinese Ladies), was also Tesi's last appearance on an opera stage. The occasion was the 1754 Schlosshof festival honoring Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, and the choice of opera was meant to be part of the honor: as an 18-year-old two decades earlier Maria Theresa herself had sung in a Viennese court performance of the first version of the opera, set by Antonio Caldara. Maria Theresa had portrayed Lisinga, the eldest of the three Chinese ladies—the same role performed by Tesi in the Schlosshof production. And the meta-references didn't end there: Le cinesi, with its characters performing in the tragic, pastoral, and buffa styles and then debating about which style is most pleasing, is an early opera about opera. Lisinga sings a tragic scene in the character of Andromaca defending her son Astianatte; Tesi had performed the title role of composer David Perez's Andromaca five years earlier in Vienna.

From Le cinesi, Lisinga's aria "Prenditi il figlio":

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

Prenditi il figlio. . .Ah no! È troppa crudeltà. Eccomi. . .Oh dèi, che fo? Pietà, consiglio. Che barbaro dolor! L'empio dimanda amor, Lo sposo fedeltà, Soccorso il figlio.

Take my son. . .no! It’s too much cruelty. Here I am. . .oh gods, what am I doing? Give me pity and guidance. What barbaric agony! The wicked one demands love, But the faithful wife Must rescue the son.

I'll close with a description of the staging of Le cinesi from Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf's Autobiography (Breitkopf und Härtel, 1801); Dittersdorf was both a participant in and a witness to the Schlosshof festivities:

I am still elated by the extraordinarily beautiful rendition of the little comic opera [Le cinesi], arranged by Metastasio from his II ballo cinese and set to music by Gluck. Quaglio's decorations were completely in Chinese style, and transparent. Workers in lacquer, carpenters and gilders richly equipped them with everything that their abilities could achieve. But the greatest brilliancy of the decor resulted from prismatic rods of glass which had been polished in Bohemian glassworks, and, having previously been filled with many-coloured oils, were carefully fitted into one another in empty places. They worked a great effect even in broad daylight and sunshine, but it is impossible to describe the beauty and the utterly astounding spectacle of these prisms lit by innumerable lamps [once dusk fell]. One must imagine the reflected brilliance of the azure-coloured fields of lacquer, the glitter of the gilded foliage-work, and finally the rainbow-colours repeated from hundreds of prisms like diamonds of the finest quality. The most vivid imagination must fall short of this magic. And then, the god-like music of Gluck! It was not only the delightful playfulness of the brilliant Sinfonia, accompanied here and there by little chimes, triangles, hand-drums and bells, now singly, now all together, which sent the audience, even before the curtain had risen, into a transport of delight: all the music was from first to last an enchantment. [5]

Other posts on Vittoria Tesi:

• African Queen: Sofonisba
• The first Black prima donna: Vittoria Tesi
• Vittoria Tesi's colleagues: Rival Queens and castrati
• Why is Vittoria Tesi not better known?

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1. Charles Burney, A General History of Music: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, Volume the fourth, 1789, p. 561. https://archive.org/details/dli.granth.93402/page/561/mode/1up
2. A visitor named George Frederic Handel was in the audience for the operas, and took the libretti back to England. He later created his own settings for Teofane (retitled as Ottone, re di Germania, 1723) and Giove in Argo (a pasticchio largely of earlier Handel compositions, 1739).
   
3. See the digitized libretto at the Sächsische Landesbibliothek—Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (SLUB). Translation of the libretto and identifications of the singers from Michael Walter, ed., Johann David Heinichen: La Gara degli Dei, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 102, A-R Editions, 2000, pp. xvi-xvii, xx. The translation has been slightly adjusted.
4. Michael Walter, ed., Johann David Heinichen: Diana su l'Elbe, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 103, A-R Editions, 2000
5. Quoted in Max Loppert, "Gluck's Chinese Ladies: an introduction," The Musical Times, June 1984, Vol. 125, No. 1696: pp. 321-323,325. https://www.jstor.org/stable/960904. Translation slightly adjusted.