Hercules in love: Antonia Bembo and Ars Minerva

Ars Minerva founder, Executive Artistic Director and stage director Céline Ricci. Photo: Martin Lacey Photography. Image source: sfgate.com

For each year of the past decade (excepting the shutdown year of 2020), the visionary artistic director Céline Ricci of Ars Minerva has produced and directed the fully-staged modern première of a Baroque opera unperformed for centuries. All have featured powerful women from history or myth. The operas have centered on goddesses, sorceresses, Amazons, empresses, queens, princesses, and noblewomen, and featured roles taken by great singers from the past, such as the first Black diva Vittoria Tesi. For its eagerly-awaited tenth production this year, for the first time Ars Minerva staged an opera not only focused on women, but composed by one: Antonia Bembo.

The only child of a Venetian doctor, Antonia trained as a singer and composer with Francesco Cavalli, a former chorister and student of Claudio Monteverdi, and the most important Italian opera composer in the years after Monteverdi's death. Antonia was also associated with the guitarist Francesco Corbetta; a 1654 letter from the Mantuan envoy in Venice speculates that the 14-year-old Antonia is to be married to him.

But five years later, she was married instead to the nobleman Lorenzo Bembo. Her marriage probably brought an end to her studies with Cavalli, but if not, they would have ceased on his departure the following year for the court of the young Louis XIV to stage his wedding opera, Ercole amante (Hercules in love). Cavalli did not return to Venice until 1662, bitter over the difficulties that had delayed the production of his opera at the highly factionalized French court. It's not known whether Antonia was able to resume her studies with him after his return.

Francesco Corbetta. Image source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library.

Antonia's marriage was an unhappy one. After giving birth to three children, in 1672 Antonia filed for divorce on the grounds of her husband's unfaithfulness, profligacy, and physical abuse. These were evidently not sufficient reasons to grant a wife a divorce: Antonia lost the case. She did not finally escape Lorenzo until 1677, when she fled Venice with Corbetta and traveled with him (but without her children) to Paris.

There she began singing and composing again, performing for Louis XIV and being granted a pension that enabled her to live in the convent of the Filles de Saint Chaumont. For the rest of her long life she continued to compose. She lived to be around 80 years old, dying about 1720. Six manuscript volumes of her compositions are now held in the Bibliothéque National de France, and include Italian arias, cantatas, and serenatas, Latin masses, and French airs, petit and grand motets. Antonia composed a single opera: Ercole amante.

Title page of the manuscript score of Antonia Bembo's L'Ercole amante (1707). Image source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Dated 1707 (Antonia would have been in her late 60s), Ercole amante is a setting of the very same libretto by Francesco Buti that Cavalli had set nearly five decades previously for the royal wedding. Although Antonia incorporates elements of French opera such as choruses and dances, and the vocal types are typical of French opera (no roles for castrati), the libretto is in Italian. The musical and dramatic forms are also those of Italian opera of the 17th century, and would have been considered somewhat old-fashioned by 1707. The arias are generally short, don't have repeating sections, and flow out of and back into the arioso recitative. The libretto pulls out all the Baroque stops: it includes a sleep scene, a descent to the underworld, a tempest, and dei ex machina. In addition to goddesses, demigods and princesses, the characters include a comic page; the developing conventions of Italian opera seria would soon banish comic characters to the emerging genre of opera buffa.

The story is a curious one for a wedding opera, since the onstage wedding proves fatal to the (anti)hero. The backstory is that Ercole (Hercules) has fallen in love with Iole, the daughter of King Eutiro (Eurytus). The king had promised Iole's hand in marriage to the man who could best his sons in an archery competition. Ercole won the contest, but when he attempted to claim his prize the king reneged on his promise. The enraged Ercole killed the king, together with his sons, and abducted Iole.

Hercules abducting Iole, relief ca. second century CE, Archaeological Museum of Piraeus, Greece. Image source: David Stanley (flickr.com) CC-BY 2.0

As the opera begins we learn that Iole was and remains in love with Ercole's son Hyllo (Hyllus), and he with her, but both are powerless to defy Ercole. And at home Ercole already has a wife, Deianira (Dejanira). Ercole's plan to break his vows to Deianira outrages the goddess of marriage, Giunone (Juno), who was already angered because Ercole was born of her husband Jove's adultery with a mortal woman. Giunone is opposed by Venere (Venus), who uses her powers to further Ercole's desires.

Ercole banishes Hyllo and prepares to marry Iole. Iole is repelled by the thought of marrying her father's murderer, while both Deianira and Hyllo despair. Deianira asks her servant Licco (Lichas) to help her die, but he refuses. Hyllo throws himself from his prison tower into the sea, only to be rescued by Neptune at Juno's urging. It seems that both characters will be forced to live to witness their beloveds marry one another.

Iole visits the tomb of her father to try to win the acceptance by his spirit of her imminent marriage to his killer. When she learns of Hyllo's apparent death, Iole also contemplates suicide. But then Licco reminds Deianira that when the centaur Nessus tried to carry her off, Ercole shot him with an arrow that had been dipped in the poisonous blood of the Hydra (the slaying of the Hydra was the second of his Twelve Labors). As Nessus lay dying, he gave Deianira a cloak soaked with his blood, telling her that if Ercole wore it, it would ensure that he would never be unfaithful. Iole and Deianira give the robe to Ercole at the temple just before the marriage ceremony. But to the stunned horror of the onlookers, when Ercole dons the robe the poisoned blood of Nessus burns him and he dies in agony. Juno, her anger against Ercole finally placated, grants him immortality.

The occasion for which Antonia's opera was composed is not known, and it was probably never performed; Italian opera had not been staged at the French court for several decades. In addition, operas composed by women were a rarity then (and now): works by Francesca Caccini, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, and Maria Teresa Agnesi are known, the last probably also never staged. However, Antonia may have been drawn to a personal parallel with Iole's plight: both were forcibly parted from the men they loved and compelled to undergo marriage to more powerful and violent men they didn't. And both ultimately escaped and were reunited with their first loves.

Ars Minerva's production of Ercole amante (seen November 16 at ODC Theater in San Francisco) was one of its most accomplished yet. As Ercole, Zachary Gordin possessed both the strong baritone and impressive physique required by the role; Ercole's bare-chested preening at the opening of the opera told us all we needed to know about the character's self-regard.

Zachary Gordin as Ercole in Ars Minerva's production of Antonia Bembo's Ercole amante. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Aura Veruni's thrilling coloratura as the fierce Giunone provided a lightning-like jolt of energy from her first entrance, a descent from the heavens in costume designer Marina Polakoff's lit-from-within thundercloud dress. It was one of Polakoff's many spectacular creations for this production.

Aura Veruni as Giunone. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich movingly portrayed Deianira's emotional fluctuations between jealousy and despair.

Kindra Scharich as Deianira. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

In her Ars Minerva debut soprano Lila Khazoum convincingly portrayed Iole's anguish, while as Hyllo tenor Maxwell Ary (seen previously with Ars Minerva in last year's La Flora) coped well with the high tessitura of his role.

Maxwell Ary as Hyllo and Lila Khazoum as Iole. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Baritone Nick Volkert ably distinguished the characters of Sonno (Somnus), Mercurio (Mercury), and Nettuno (Neptune); he was especially effective as the enraged spirit of Eutiro summoning the restless ghosts of Ercole's victims to wreak revenge.

Nick Volkert as the spirit of Eutiro. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Melissa Sondhi's alluring voice and person were perfect for the love-goddess Venere; she also portrayed Sonno's wife Pasithea.

Melissa Sondhi as Venere. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

As Licco, mezzo-soprano Nina Jones was highly convincing; it's no wonder that this singer has made trouser roles something of a specialty. And as the comic Paggio (Page), rich-voiced contralto Sara Couden elicited laughter even as her character was being swept away by the raging sea.

Sara Couden as Paggio and Nina Jones as Licco. Photo credit: Valentina Sadiul. Image source: Ars Minerva

Speaking of that raging sea, it was wonderfully depicted by Entropy's projections, which brilliantly set every scene from the heavens to Hades. Her projections have always been a striking and highly effective feature of Ars Minerva's productions, and she surpassed herself in her work for Ercole amante.

The tomb of Eutiro. Image credit: Entropy. Image source: San Francisco Classical Voice

Ricci's assured direction deftly blended the opera's comic and tragic elements, and included many telling dramatic touches. As an example, Juno's lightning-bolt hairpin doubles as a dagger that she gives to Iole when urging her to stab the sleeping Ercole. (Hyllo bursts in and prevents Iole from carrying out Juno's plan, disarming her. But when Ercole awakes and sees Hyllo standing over him holding the dagger, he thinks his son is his intended assassin rather than his rescuer.)

Conductor and harpsichordist Matthew Dirst, together with concertmaster Cynthia Keiko Black (who also portrayed Antonia in a pre-curtain sequence) ably led the six additional musicians of the onstage period-instrument ensemble through the constantly shifting score.

Once again, Ars Minerva has pioneered the revival of a forgotten Baroque opera and proved it to be highly stageworthy when approached with creativity, flair and respect. For a taste of the production, see News Up Now's Gleidson Martins' preview, including rehearsal scenes and interviews with Ricci, Polakoff, Dirst, and translator Joe McClinton (who also has a fascinating essay in the program about creating the supertitles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOEX1bRso6o

Biographical information in this post was drawn principally from Dr. Paul V. Miller's program notes for Ercole amante, and from Laury Gutiérrez's essay "Antonia Bembo: The Resistant Exile." Gutiérrez is a gambist and founding director of La Donna Musicale, a group devoted to early music by women composers. There are surely more discoveries awaiting in the archives, and we are fortunate that artists like Ricci and Gutiérrez are dedicated to giving them new life. I'm eager to see what Ricci and Ars Minerva will do next; future plans will be announced on the Ars Minerva website.

A Grand Tour: American Bach Soloists

British gentlemen in Rome by Katherine Read, c. 1750. Image source: Yale Center for British Art

The Grand Tour was a rite of passage for young aristocratic British men in the 18th century: a months- or years-long trip to the Continent to increase their knowledge of the classical past; educate them in current European mores, fashions, politics, art, and music; and enable them to sample some of Europe's decadent pleasures before returning home, more worldly-wise, to settle down and produce an heir.

A typical route would begin in London, where before setting out the Grand Tourists (in the 18th century they were mostly men) would be outfitted for the rigors of 18th-century travel. Embarking from Dover they would cross the Channel (a sometimes rough voyage), and then travel by stagecoach to Paris. After acquiring a personal carriage in Paris, the travelers would often continue on southeast to Geneva, and then make the hazardous crossing of the Alps to their ultimate destination: Italy. As the Earl of Darmouth wrote to his son Lord Lewisham on a Grand Tour: "Having passed the Alps like Hannibal. . .you have nothing to do, but, like him, to enjoy the Luxurious sweets of Italy." [1]

Perhaps stopping first in Turin or Milan, they would travel east through Verona (location of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) to the fabled city of Venice. After a sojourn in Venice that might include the festive Carnival season (which ran from the day after Christmas until the dawn of Ash Wednesday), they would head south through Bologna and Florence to Rome. After some time in Rome examining ancient ruins and artifacts, they would travel further south to Naples to view the ruins of Herculaneum and, after its mid-century discovery, Pompeii, and climb Mount Vesuvius. Returning, they might head north into Austria (Vienna), Bohemia (Prague), and Germany before heading west to the Low Countries (Amsterdam). Then the Grand Tourist would sail back to Britain, laden with art, books, manuscripts, antiquities, and other luxuries or curiosities acquired on the journey.

Piazza San Marco, Venice, by Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto), c. 1730–1734. Image source: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum

For the inaugural concert of American Bach's 37th season, "A Grand Tour" (seen October 26 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco), artistic director Jeffrey Thomas used the Grand Tour as the selection principle for four Baroque masterworks: Handel's Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, "Eternal Source of Light Divine" (1713), representing London; Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major (c. 1725), representing Leipzig; Vivaldi's Gloria in D major (c. 1715), representing Venice; and Handel's Dixit Dominus (1707), representing Rome.

While there is no question about the quality of these four works, they don't all fit comfortably into a Grand Tour framework. And it's curious that there was no work included by a French composer to represent Paris. But any doubts about how closely the works reflected the concert's title were swept away by the superb performances of the vocalists and the American Bach Soloists orchestra and Cantorei chorus. To take the works in the order of performance (and geographically from north to south):

Handel's Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne: The concert's gorgeous opening work was probably never performed publicly in Handel's lifetime, and so would not have been heard by Grand Tourists on the eve of their journey. Queen Anne was severely ill on her birthday on 6 February 1713 and 1714, and so it's unlikely that a concert including this work was ever held. However, the first stanza of this Ode has become one of Handel's most-performed works.

Queen Anne by Michael Dahl, c. 1702. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG 6187

I only had a single hesitation about the ABS performance. The music for the opening stanza was originally intended to be performed by Queen Anne's favorite singer from her Chapel Royal, the high tenor Richard Elford. Thomas followed a common practice in having the opening stanza sung by a countertenor, the pleasant-timbred Kyle Sanchez Tingzon. Although he acquitted himself honorably, unlike Queen Anne I prefer to hear a female soprano or alto sing this exquisite, ethereal music.

As in this performance by Kathrin Hottiger, soprano; Dominic Wunderli, baroque trumpet; Jonathan Pesek, violoncello; and Frédéric Champion, organ:

https://youtu.be/RNj0lI7j6pE

Eternal source of light divine With double warmth thy beams display, And with distinguished glory shine, To add a lustre to this day.

After Tingzon, the other excellent soloists for the ABS concert were the bright-toned soprano Julie Bosworth; Morgan Balfour, whose warm soprano revealed both a lovely high extension and a mezzo-like lower register; the rich-voiced contralto Agnes Vojtkó; and the solid baritone Jesse Blumberg. Bosworth, Votjkó and Blumberg were soloists in last season's performance of Bach's St. John Passion by ABS, one of my favorite live performances of 2024; Blumberg has regularly performed and recorded with early music groups in the Bay Area and Boston. Balfour, an alumna of San Francisco Conservatory of Music, also appeared in ABS's 2023 concert performance of Rameau's Pygmalion, a favorite from our year of French Baroque opera.

The libretto by Ambrose Philips in praise of Queen Anne's virtues is exceedingly fulsome, but Handel's music is ravishing, and was ravishingly performed. This is the first time I'd heard the full Ode, with different soloists or combinations of soloists singing each stanza, all of which were concluded by the choral refrain "The day that gave great Anna birth/Who fix'd a lasting peace on earth." The peace, alas, was fleeting—Britain would go to war again in Europe just four years after the Treaty of Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession—but Handel's music has proved to be far more lasting.

Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major: Joseph Sargent writes in his informative program notes that "we imagine that Leipzig—home of the great Johann Sebastian Bach—and Venice—a focal point of Italian music—were high on the list of hotspots" for the Grand Tour. He is certainly right about the latter, with its opera, gambling, art, churches, canals, Carnival, and courtesans—but probably not the former.

Thomaskirche, Leipzig, 18th century. Image source: JS Bach Biografie Online

J.S. Bach was not well-known outside of Germany; significantly more famous were George Philip Telemann and Christoph Graupner, both of whom were offered the position of Thomaskantor in Leipzig before Bach, and both of whom turned it down. On hiring Bach the Leipzig town council grumbled, "Since the best could not be obtained, a mediocre candidate would have to be accepted." [2]

Fewer than two dozen of Bach's hundreds of compositions were published during his lifetime, primarily keyboard works, and he was mainly known as an organ virtuoso. In addition, the severe Lutheran town of Leipzig did not possess many attractions for a Grand Tourist. Dresden, capital of Saxony and a center of porcelain manufacture; Berlin, capital of Prussia; and Hamburg, with its Gänsemarkt (Goose-market) opera house, were more likely Grand Tour destinations. [3]

Despite the improbability of a Grand Tourist actually hearing a Bach orchestral suite, the concert performance highlighted the virtuosity of the ABS instrumentalists, particularly oboists Stephen Bard and Curtis Foster and bassoonist Georgeanne Banker. Their fingers were kept flying through Bach's series of dance movements, fluently conducted by Thomas.

The overture to Orchestral Suite No. 1, performed by the English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BURErcLxHi4

Vivaldi's Gloria in D major: In the early decades of the 1700s Vivaldi was employed by Venice's renowned Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage just to the east of the Piazza San Marco where young women were trained as musicians and singers. Travelers from Britain and across Europe attended performances by the all-female orchestra and choir of the Pietà, where the women performed behind latticed screens erected to shield them from the lustful gaze of men. So there's no question that a Grand Tourist might have heard this work, or one of the many others Vivaldi wrote to be performed by these highly skilled musicians and singers. [4]

The church of Santa Maria della Pietà (tallest building on the left) and the Ospedale della Pietà (immediately to the right of the church and to the left of the bridge), Venice, c. 1760. Image source: Venecísima

The ABS Cantorei is a mixed-gender choir, and they truly sounded glorious in this work, justly one of Vivaldi's most well-known. "Et in terra pax homínibus bonæ voluntatis" (And on earth, peace to men of good will), performed by the English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock; listen for the amazingly modern-sounding dissonance on the word "voluntatis" between about 3:20 and 3:48:

https://youtu.be/IS0Qz3SlN98

Handel's Dixit Dominus: It may seem odd that a work by Handel (rather than, say, a work by Corelli or Scarlatti) was chosen in this program to represent Rome; after all, he was born in Germany and spent most of his working life in Britain. But the 21-year-old Handel traveled to Italy in 1706 and composed there in Florence, Venice, Naples and Rome until 1710. In his program notes Thomas calls Handel's Italian years "the most important journey of his life." It was there that he absorbed Italian musical style and gained experience composing vocal works on both intimate and large scales, including Italian opera.

The psalm setting Dixit Dominus may have been commissioned by the wealthy Cardinal Carlo Colonna for the second Vespers service of the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel celebrated on 16 July 1707 in the Church of Santa Maria di Monte Santo in Rome.

Piazza del Popolo, Rome, by Gaspar (or Caspar) van Wittel, 1718. The church of Santa Maria di Monte Santo is the domed building to the left; the one to the right is its sister church, Santa Maria dei Miracoli. Image source: ArtsLife

The words of Dixit Dominus are taken from the Latin Vulgate Bible, and depict a wrathful Old Testament God. One verse reads, "Judicabit in nationibus implebit ruinas: conquissabit capita in terra multorum" (in the words of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, "He shall judge among the heathen; he shall fill the places with the dead bodies: and smite in sunder the heads over divers countries"). On the word "conquissabit" the choir percussively illustrates the blows smiting heads asunder (at around 5:35 in the following clip, which begins at 5:02):

https://youtu.be/H2i8dk8kMXY?t=302

The performers are Les Musiciens & Choeur du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski.

Dixit Dominus is a startlingly dramatic composition with a lot of antiphonal interplay. It is a supreme test of a chorus, and Cantorei (as in the other choral works, supplemented by the soloists) met every challenge of this demanding work. It was both a thrilling conclusion to the concert, and a sobering one: in recent years we have seen far too many places filled with dead bodies.

After the violence of "Judicabit," the final section before the "Gloria Patri" and Amen is a depiction of serenity and peace: "De torrente in via bibet" (He shall drink of of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up his head), beautifully sung in concert by Julie Bosworth and Morgan Balfour, here sung by Annick Massis and Magdalena Kožená:

https://youtu.be/XJ42ApWadwA

"A Grand Tour" will undoubtedly be among my favorite live performances of 2025. Information about the remaining concerts in American Bach's 37th season can be found on the American Bach website.

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1. Quoted in Mark Bridge, "Eighteenth century Grand Tours fueled by art—and adrenaline," The Times, 22 December 2020, a review of Sarah Goldsmith, Masculinity and Danger on the Eighteenth-Century Grand Tour, University of London Press, 2020. Instead of hazarding the dangerous Alps, some Grand Tourists would instead hazard the dangerous seas by boarding a ship and sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar to Genoa, south of Milan, or Livorno (Leghorn), west of Florence, on Italy's northwest coast.
2. Jörg Jacobi, "Rediscovery of a youthful masterpiece," booklet essay, Antiochus and Stratonica, Boston Early Music Festival recording, CPO 555369-2, 2020.
3. Although the extant manuscript of the Orchestral Suite No. 1 in a copyist's hand dates from Bach's early Leipzig years, there has been speculation that it and at least one of the other Orchestral Suites was actually written while he was Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen from 1717–1723. Köthen lies 60 km northwest of Leipzig.
4. You can watch a full performance of Gloria by all-female forces in the highly recommended BBC Four film Antonio Vivaldi: Gloria.