"Farewell to hope": Baldassare Galuppi's L'Olimpiade

DVD cover for Baldassare Galuppi's L'Olimpiade (The Olympiad, 1747), with Romina Basso as Megacle (left) and Ruth Rosique as Aristea (right). Image source: Internet Archive

The 18th-century Italian composer Baldassare Galuppi is far less well known today than his contemporaries Antonio Vivaldi and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. The passage of time and changing musical styles caused Galuppi's work to fall out of fashion after his death in 1785, and until recently it had rarely been revived. But in the 1750s he was one of the most famous opera composers not only in Italy but throughout Europe. And his rise to international fame began with a crisis in the professional life of another composer: George Frideric Handel.

Handel's 30-year career of composing and producing Italian opera in London ground to a permanent halt with the failure of Deidamia in January 1741; at age 56 he was faced with having to reinvent himself. (For how he did so, please see the post Every Valley: Handel's Messiah.) You might think that if Handel couldn't make Italian opera succeed in the British capital, no one could. Remarkably, though, the failure of Deidamia was not the end of Italian opera in London, even temporarily. For the 1741–42 season Charles Sackville, the Earl of Middlesex, gathered a group of subscribers and brought the 35-year-old Galuppi to London.

Portrait of Baldassare Galuppi, artist unknown, 1751. Image source: Sotheby's

Probably agents or friends of Lord Middlesex in Venice had heard Galuppi's two most recent serious operas: Oronte (1740) and Berenice (1741); it's also possible that Middlesex himself heard Galuppi's work when he travelled in Italy in 1737–38. In any case, Galuppi was invited to London and stayed for two seasons. In that time he supervised the production of 11 operas, two of which in each season were his new compositions. The first, Penelope, ran for nine performances at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket between December 1741 and February 1742, while Scipione in Cartagine (Scipio in Carthage) opened on 2 April 1742 and alternated with two other operas by different composers until it closed the season on 1 June.

Perhaps the most significant opera Galuppi introduced to London in his first season was Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade, with a libretto by Pietro Metastasio and music by several composers including Pergolesi, who had died in 1736. Meraspe was one of the operas alternating with Galuppi's Scipione in the spring of 1742.

Title page of the libretto of Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade, adapted by Paolo Rolli from Pietro Metastasio's original libretto, 1742. Image source: Gale Eighteenth Century Collections Online (subscription required)

Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade was the first time Pergolesi's music was heard on a London stage; it had eight performances before the season ended for the summer, and was so popular that a collection of The Favorite Songs in the Opera call'd Meraspe, o[vero] L'Olimpiade was published by the London firm of John Walsh.

Title page of Favorite Songs in the Opera call'd Meraspe, o[vero] L'Olimpiade, Printed for I. [John] Walsh, London, 1742. From the collection of the University of Western Ontario. Image source: Internet Archive

The first two arias in Favorite Songs were by Pergolesi. "Tremende oscuri atroci" (Loathsome, dreadful, dark and drear) and "Se cerca se dice" (If she seeks, if she speaks) were both sung in Act II by the soprano castrato Angelo Maria Monticelli in the role of Meraspe, who in most versions of L'Olimpiade was named Megacle. Music historian Charles Burney wrote of Monticelli's performance that "the union of poetry and of Music, expression and gesture, seldom have had a more powerful effect on an English audience." [1]

Print of castrato Angelo Maria Monticelli by John Faber Jr after an Andrea Casali mezzotint, published by John Bowles, London, circa 1740–1780. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D14314

Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade sparked widespread interest in Pergolesi's music in London; over the next decade his reputation continued to grow until he was probably the most famous Italian composer outside of Italy. As Grove Music Online states, "The almost universal fame he attained posthumously represented a new phenomenon in music history." [2]

In his second London season Galuppi composed Enrico, which became a hit and ran for 17 performances after premiering on 1 January 1743, and Sirbace, which ran for nine performances and closed the season. (In comparison, two years previously Handel's Deidamia had managed only three performances before closing.) A collection of arias from Enrico was also later published by Walsh.

Title page of Favorite Songs in the Opera Call'd Enrico by Sigr. Galuppi. Printed for I. [John] Walsh, London, ?1744. [3] From the collection of Westminster City Libraries and Archives. Image source: Wikipedia

Instrumental parts for his overture for Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade were published along with those for the overtures of Enrico, Penelope, and Scipione in Cartagine, as well as two overtures from Porpora operas produced in London in the 1730s.

Title page from Six Overtures in Seven Parts. . .from the Late Operas Compos'd by Sigr. Hasse, Vinci, Galuppi & Porpora, Printed for I. [John] Walsh, London, 1748. [4] From the collection of the University of Western Ontario. Image source: Internet Archive

Although Enrico was a major success and Galuppi's other operas did respectably, at the end of the 1742–43 London season the Venetian composer returned to Italy. Galuppi's departure from London was likely made easier because he had a prestigious job waiting for him back in Venice: while in London he was formally on leave from his position as teacher and composer for the women of the Ospedale dei Mendicanti. [5]

Lord Middlesex would continue to produce Italian opera at the King's Theatre through the autumn of 1748 despite financial losses, a 1744 lawsuit he filed against his own subscribers, and a 1748 lawsuit filed against him by Monticelli for unpaid salary. Among those who replaced Galuppi as music director and chief composer were Giovanni Battista Lampugnani in the 1743–44 season, and after a year-long lawsuit hiatus, Christoph Willibald Gluck in the 1745–46 season. In Grove Music Online Carole Taylor writes that "Middlesex was more than usually susceptible to opera's attractions, but to his love of music and social distinction there was added an unfortunate mixture of recalcitrance, impetuosity and managerial ineptitude. . .The Italian Opera, in decline in the 1730s, struggled through the 1740s largely as a result of his energies, and it may have owed its further decline to his incompetence." [6]

"The Old Opera House": The Italian Opera House [King's Theatre], Haymarket, prior to the fire of June 1789. Pencil drawing and watercolor by William Capon, c. 1788. Image source: Victoria & Albert Museum S4169-2009

Back in Italy as the decade of the 1740s continued, Galuppi wrote sacred music for the Ospedale and adapted comic operas for Venetian theatres. He also composed opera seria setting the libretti of Pietro Metastasio. Every composer of opera seria set libretti by Metastasio because they were so well-written and -constructed. Between 1723 and 1843, Metastasio's 27 opera seria libretti were set to music a thousand times by more than 300 composers.

L'Olimpiade was one of Metastasio's most popular libretti, set at least 57 times between 1733 and 1815. Perhaps inspired by the reception of the Meraspe, o L'Olimpiade pasticcio in London, Galuppi composed his own version of L'Olimpiade for Milan, which was given as the first opera in the 1747–48 Carnival season.

Title page of the libretto of L'Olimpiade from the Teatro Regio Ducale, Milan, with music composed by Baldassare Galuppi, performed during the Carnival season of 1747–48. Color adjusted from the source. Image source: Internet Archive

The backstory is given in the libretto's Argument, here taken from a 1770 London pasticcio of L'Olimpiade with "Music by several Eminent Masters":

Clistenes, king of Sicyon, ordered his son Phylinthus, an infant, to be exposed to the sea; the Oracle having foretold, that he should attempt to kill him; and [after the passage of two decades] refused Aristea, his daughter, to Megacles the Athenian, on account of the hatred he bore to Athens. Megacles on a journey, having been set upon and over-powered by ruffians, was rescued by Licidas, the supposed son of the king of Crete; whereupon, through gratitude and affection, there grew a strict [i.e., close] friendship between them.

Licida (giving him and the other characters the Italian forms of their names) learns that King Clistene is offering his daughter Aristea in marriage to the winner of the Olympic Games. To gain the bride, Licida asks Megacle, a renowned athlete, to compete in his stead and under his name. He doesn't realize that Megacle himself loves Aristea, and Megacle doesn't enlighten him. Owing his life to Licida, Megacle feels that honor requires him to do as his friend asks.

Singer Angelo Maria Monticelli as Megacle. From Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni?, Costumes of the opera L'Olimpiade by [Pietro] Metastasio and [Johann Adolf] Hasse, 1756, Plate 7. Hoftheater Dresden, premiere 16 February 1756. Artist: Francesco Ponte. From the collection of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Image credit: Regine Richter. Image source: Deutsche Fotothek

In Crete Licida had been betrothed to Argene. She has followed Licida to the Peloponnesus disguised as a shepherdess in order to avoid a forced marriage decreed by the king of Crete to a man she doesn't love: none other than the Athenian champion Megacle. In the countryside near Sicyon she encounters Aristea, and the two women are soon sharing their sorrows.

With its coincidences, silences, disguises, cross-matched couples, and long-lost son, this plot sounds highly contrived on paper. But onstage it works remarkably well, as each of the major characters finds themselves in a succession of situations in which they face an intense conflict, either an inner dilemma or a confrontation with another character. And each emotionally fraught situation gives rise to an aria of sorrow, anger, hope, defiance, despair, or love.

At the end of Act I, Megacle meets with Aristea as he is preparing to leave for the Games. She is overjoyed at seeing him, but to her bewilderment Megacle bids her a sorrowful farewell. The duet "Ne' giorni tuoi felici" from the video of the Teatro Malibran production, with Romina Basso as Megacle and Ruth Rosique as Aristea:

https://youtu.be/pIrTm4JVaSg?t=4217 [duet ends at 1:18:41]

Megacle: Ne' giorni tuoi felici Ricordati di me. Aristea: Perchè cosi mi dici, Anima mia, perche? Megacle: Taci, bell' idol mio. Aristea: Parla, mio dolce amor. Megacle: Ah, che parlando Aristea: Ah, che tacendo À due: Oh dio! Tu mi traffiggi il cor. Aristea: (Veggio languir chi adoro, Ne intendo il suo languir.) Megacle: (Di gelosia mi moro, E non lo posso dir.) À due: Chi mai provò di questo Affanno più funesto Più barbaro dolor.

Megacle: In your happy future days, remember me. Aristea: Why are you saying this to me, my love, why? Megacle: Ask me not, my beautiful one. Aristea: Then speak to me, my sweet love. Megacle: If only I could speak— Aristea: What chilling silence— Together: O God, my heart is breaking. Aristea: (I see my beloved is suffering, but I don't understand why.) Megacle: (I die of jealousy, And I cannot say anything.) Together: Who has ever felt more deadly anguish, more barbaric pain.

Metastasio felt that Galuppi's music did not always ideally reflect the sense of the words, and indeed one could imagine this music accompanying a scene of reunion rather than parting. This scene, of course, is both.

In the Faber print of Monticelli above, he is portrayed holding the music for the phrase "E non lo posso dir" (And I cannot say anything) from this duet:

Detail of the print of castrato Angelo Maria Monticelli by John Faber Jr. Image source: National Portrait Gallery NPG D14314

The print, published in London, is based on a mezzotint by Andrea Casali, who was living in London in 1742. This suggests that the music depicted may be from the pasticcio Meraspe, overo L'Olimpiade. The music in the print shows a descending phrase that does not match the scores for this duet in prior settings of Metastasio's libretto by Antonio Caldara (1733), Antonio Vivaldi (1734), Pergolesi (1735), or Leonardo Leo (1737). Making a musical identification even more difficult, I noticed an apparent error in the musical representation. In the key signature I believe that a B flat rather than a D flat should be indicated. Also, the first word in the line does not look like "E" or "e" ("and," in Italian). There may be additional errors introduced in Casali's original mezzotint or in Faber's rendition of it for his print.

The closest match I have found is to Galuppi's 1747 score:

Music for the phrase "e non lo posso dir" from Galuppi's L'Olimpiade, 1747. Image source: Baldassare Galuppi, L’Olimpiade, introd. by Howard Mayer Brown. Garland, 1978. Facsimile score reproduced from a manuscript in the Conservatorio di musica Giuseppe Verdi, Milan. From the collection of the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library, University of California Berkeley.

The music in the Faber print may be intended to represent Monticelli's vocal ornamentation of this phrase. Might Galuppi have written the duet for the 1742 Meraspe pasticcio, and then reused it in his 1747 full setting of L'Olimpiade? Below I've mapped the two phrases on the same staff; the larger notes and thicker lines represent the pitch and relative duration values from Galuppi's score, the smaller notes and thinner lines those from the print's musical fragment, and the red arrows indicate the five notes that exactly match in pitch.

This is speculation, but the pitches of the two phrases map reasonably well, certainly for the first half of the phrase ("e non lo") and the syllable "-so"; they diverge on "pos-" (Galuppi has two 16th notes descending from F to D, while the print has a 16th and two 32nd notes descending from C to B flat to A) and "dir" (Galuppi writes a C, the print has an A). I also note that both phrases seem to have one and a half beats per measure. Those who are more musically knowledgeable than I am are invited to investigate further.

As the video of the Megacle-Aristea duet demonstrates, the playing and singing on the DVD recording from the Teatro Malibran are excellent. There are especially strong vocal and acting performances by the four principals: Basso, Rosique, Franziska Gottwald (Licida), and Roberta Invernizzi (Argene).

The production, though, frequently undermines the singers. Director Dominique Poulange, herself an actress, sometimes places singers behind scrims, and too often her blocking sends the singers into shadows (it's as though she and lighting designer Fabio Barettin never consulted one another about where the singers would be standing). In one scene in Act III, Aristea is placed behind a scrim during the entirety of her lovely 9-minute aria "Caro son tuo cosi" (Dearest, I am yours), while in front of the scrim Argene and Megacle are sitting motionless and staring fixedly and sorrowfully into space. Shouldn't that positioning have been reversed? [7]

Francesco Zito's handsome costumes suggest a cross between Ancient Greece and the 18th century, and are especially flattering on Ruth Rosique. But his sets are often puzzling. A gray slab looking a little like the monolith from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 on its side appears onstage in Act I during scenes set in a woodland, a garden and the countryside. Is it supposed to be a very symmetrical rock? Equally odd, in the first part of Act II a three-foot by twelve-foot slot appears across the middle of the stage which then magically disappears midway through the act, the only hint that we've changed location. (Perhaps it is supposed to represent a stream? Supporting that interpretation, Argene sits on the edge and dangles her legs in it.) In Act III the slot reappears, this time representing Licida's prison—but it's only thigh-deep, and Licida could step out of it any time he pleased. Abstract sets can work, but (like all sets) they have to enhance the action rather than distract from it.

This video remains, so far as I am aware, the only full recording of Galuppi's L'Olimpiade. Although the production is at times problematic, the excellent cast and orchestra are strong recommendations to anyone interested in 18th-century Italian opera.

Credits

Work: L'Olimpiade, libretto by Pietro Metastasio, 1733, music by Baldassare Galuppi, 1747.

Cast: Romina Basso (Megacle), Ruth Rosique (Aristea), Franziska Gottwald (Licida), Roberta Invernizzi (Argene), Mark Tucker (Clistene), Furio Zanasi (Alcandro), Filippo Adami (Aminta)

Musicians: Venice Baroque Orchestra conducted by Andrea Marcon. Score preparation and revision by Clarie Genewein and Andrea Marcon.

Production: Teatro Malibran, Venice. Stage direction: Dominique Poulange; video direction: Tiziano Manoni. Set and costume designer: Francesco Zito. Lighting designer: Fabio Barettin.

Video: Dynamic 33545. Recorded 2006, issued 2008.

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1. Charles Burney, A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, Vol. 2, Dover Publications reprint, 1957, p. 840; originally published 1789. The other arias included in The Favorite Songs in the Opera Call'd Meraspe o L'Olimpiade were "Immagini dolente" (Painful thoughts) by Giuseppe Scarlatti, sung by tenor Angelo Maria Amorevoli in the role of King Clistene; "Superbo di me stesso" (Proud of myself) by Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, sung by Monticelli; "Per novo amor delira" (Smitten by a new love) by Leonardo Leo, sung by Lucia Panichi ("La Moscovita") in the role of Argene; and "Si mi lascia, o padre amato" (You leave me, beloved father) by Francesco Feo, sung by Caterina Visconti in the role of Aristea. Of note is that no arias sung by the castrato Giovanni Battista Andreoni in the secondo uomo role of Licida were included.
2. Helmut Hucke and Dale E. Monson. 2001. Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista. Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.21325 (subscription required)
3. The British Library catalog record for this collection of arias from Enrico states that it was published in 1744. However, it pretty clearly uses the same title page engraving plate as Favorite Songs in the Opera Call'd Meraspe, o L'Olimpiade seen above, with the opera title changed. The British Library catalog record for the Meraspe collection states that it was published in 1742. Galuppi was no longer in London in 1744, and so it would have been a curious time to bring out sheet music of his year-old opera; I wonder whether it was published instead in 1743, the year Enrico was staged.
4. Despite the claims of the title page, according to the catalog record on the Internet Archive the publication does not contain overtures by Johann Hasse or Leonardo Vinci. The catalog record also states that this publication was not issued until 1748, five years after Galuppi had left Britain. That timing also seems curious; perhaps it was issued a few years earlier?
5. The Mendicanti was one of the four large Venetian orphanages where women abandoned as infants were raised and trained as musicians. Performances by the women of the Ospedali were famous, and were a sought-after experience by international visitors to Venice. 
6. Carole Taylor. 2002. Middlesex, Earl of. Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O903065 (subscription required)
7. In her DVD booklet notes, Claire Genewein mentions that the music for this aria was taken from one of the Walsh Favorite Songs collections, but it was not included in Meraspe o[overa] L'Olimpiade, nor in Volumes 1, 2, or 5 of Le delizie dell' opere: Being a Collection of all the Favourite Songs in Score, which is advertised on the cover of Favorite Songs.