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"

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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.