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Ezio, Gluck
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Odyssey Opera (2016)
03 - 05 červen 2016 (2 představení)
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Ezio by Gluck, ne 05 čvn 2016, Od (2016/2016), Režie Joshua Major, Dirigent Gil Rose, BU Theatre, Boston, United States

Zobrazení obsazení a štábu pro 05 čvn 2016

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Program

1

Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782) provided twenty-seven opera seria librettos that were set by over 400 composers during his lifetime and into the beginning of the 19th century. Although he decried the way ornate musical settings could so easily render the poetry of the libretto incomprehensible, Metastasio’s texts often lent themselves to florid musical settings. The formula of opera seria or, to use the term most common in the 18th century, dramma per musica, centers on the recitative/aria pair. The plot moves forward with the recitative, which provides new information or background previously unrevealed, and, in an extended multi-part structure known as the da capo aria, emotional states are reflected through displays of vocal virtuosity. An opera seria opens with the action already in progress, inviting the audience to “look in” on a scene rather than formally introducing them to the topic at hand. Scenes are defined by the exit or entrance of a character, most often following an (exit) aria. Several scenes are located in the same area, whether indoors or outside, creating a larger-scale construct defined by a change of scenery, usually one scenery change per act. The number of characters on stage remains relatively stable until the end of Act 3, when all characters gather to celebrate the resolutions to all of the earlier conflicts. Before Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) helped to revolutionize dramatic standards in opera, he first established his career as a composer of traditional opera seria. Gluck grew up in Bohemia, where he most likely had his first music instruction, both as a vocalist and instrumentalist. Gluck was known for performing on unusual instruments, particularly musical glasses; while in England, he gave at least two performances on twenty-six drinking glasses tuned with water. In 1731, Gluck attended the University of Prague; he did not finish a degree, but certainly gained experience as an organist in the Týn Church located in the Old Town Square. This is also when Gluck probably encountered Italian music: opera at the theater sponsored by Count Spork and oratorio at the Franziskanerkirche. Six years later, Gluck was in Milan and according to one contemporary source was studying with Giovanni Battista Sammartini (c.1700–1775), from whom he learned “practical knowledge of all the instruments.” Sammartini was known as a symphonic rather than opera composer; nevertheless, Gluck’s studies with Sammartini, in addition to the opera activities centered around the Teatro Regio Ducale, would have made for an exciting and well-balanced musical education that exerted an influence on Gluck’s later compositions. 9 On December 26, 1741, Gluck’s first opera, a setting of Pietro Metastasio’s Artaserse, opened the 1742 Carnival season at the Teatro Regio Ducale. An account from 1792, the source of which may have been Gluck himself, states that the opera was accepted because the composer had added an aria in the “local style.” Whether or not this was the one point that made Gluck’s opera a success, he was given the honor of composing works for the next three seasons in Milan as well. That Gluck garnered the support and protection of the nobility may have been part of the reason for his success in Milan and a subsequent invitation in 1745 to be the house composer at King’s Theatre in London. The politically charged atmosphere in London had led to the closing of King’s Theatre for the better part of the year; however, Gluck presented two operas there in 1746, both of which were adapted from his earlier works. Still, Gluck’s stay in London would prove fruitful for his continually developing ideas on opera. One instance was his contact with the English actor David Garrick, who espoused a more natural acting style and whose student Gaetano Guadagni sang the title roles in several Gluck operas. Gluck’s association with Vienna and the Habsburg family was established with the commission of an opera in 1748. Semiramide riconosciuta to a libretto by Metastasio celebrated Empress Maria Theresa’s birthday and the re-opening of the recently renovated Burgtheater (court theater). Despite the success of this opera—twenty-seven performances—Gluck left Vienna and joined the opera company of Giovanni Battista Locatelli the following year. Potential reasons for this decision on the heels of an important success vary from the sway of Metastasio’s opinion—the influential court poet did not like the work—to the fact that there was no position open at the court. Gluck composed Ezio for the 1750 Carnival season in Prague. It was premiered at the Kotzen Opera by Locatelli’s company and given in Leipzig and Munich the following year; Gluck was not present for these performances and other music was added to the original score. Ezio was revived in 1751 by Locatelli’s company, with Gluck hired as maestro di cappella (director). Gluck revised the score for the Vienna premiere in 1763. The title character of Gluck’s Ezio is a general who has just returned home to Rome after defeating Attila. He is loyal to the emperor Valentiniano and will not disavow that loyalty, even when he discovers that Valentiniano intends to take his love, Fulvia, as his wife. Fulvia is Massimo’s daughter; Massimo harbors a hatred for the emperor because Valentiniano tried to seduce Massimo’s wife. Massimo is blinded by his need for revenge against the emperor and is willing to use Ezio’s loyalty to both the emperor and his daughter as a means by which to exact his revenge. After a failed assassination attempt on the emperor’s life, Massimo frames Ezio, who is then arrested. Throughout the opera loyalties are overtly questioned: Ezio’s loyalty to the emperor after he is framed for the assassination attempt, then Fulvia’s loyalty to Ezio after she promises herself to the emperor in an attempt to safe Ezio’s life. Unmoved by her loyalty, Valentiniano orders Ezio’s execution. Only at the end of the opera do all—characters and audience alike—realize that Varo, a guard 10 of the emperor’s who is loyal to Ezio, did not kill him. Through a story related by his sister Onoria, Valentiniano understands the source of Massimo’s anger and realizes his actions were at the root of the conflicts. Massimo is not repentant; he tries now to incite a rebellion against the emperor. Ezio’s loyalty is now proven as he helps to quell the insurrection. This last act of loyalty enlightens the emperor, who allows Ezio to marry Fulvia, and forgives Massimo for his treachery. In revising the work for Vienna, Gluck kept many of the arias and choruses from the original production. One number dropped from the 1763 version of the opera is “Se povero il ruscello,” which became “Che puro ciel” in Orfeo, staged in Vienna the previous year. Similarly, some of the new material for the Vienna production of Ezio came from other Gluck operas, including Il trionfo di Clelia. The famous castrato Gaetano Guadagni sang the role of Ezio for the Vienna premiere; he sang the title role in Orfeo as well. As castrato singers became less common at the turn of the 19th century, women often sang roles such as Ezio. In Odyssey Opera’s production, the role of Ezio will be sung by a female mezzosoprano and Valentiniano will be sung by a countertenor, a male singer who can sing in the alto or mezzo-soprano range. The role of Cecilio in Mozart’s Lucio Silla will also be sung by a countertenor. Composed in 1772, when Mozart was sixteen years old, Lucio Silla follows the conventions of the day, particularly as applied to opera seria. Like Ezio, Lucio Silla grounds its dramatic formula on a historical figure on which contemporary values are imposed. Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756. At the age of six, Wolfgang, and often his sister Maria Anna, began performing to enthusiastic audiences in Vienna and Munich. Over the next eight years, he traveled to European capitals. In 1767, he heard the premiere of Gluck’s Alceste in Vienna with his father. Leopold was not impressed with the work. Later, however, he suggested orchestration inspired by this opera when corresponding with Mozart about Idomeneo. Mozart traveled to Italy three times between 1769 and 1773. The first, from 1769-1771, was like many of Mozart’s whirlwind tours. He visited some 40 cities, demonstrating his skills to appreciative audiences. The second and thirds trips were shorter and for the specific purpose of staging an opera in Milan at the Teatro Regio Ducale, the same theater for which Gluck staged his opera Artaserse in 1741. Mozart’s first opera for Milan, Mitridate, rè di Ponto, created some controversy over whether a fourteen-year-old could write an opera. After the premiere in December 1770, Leopold wrote that the detractors were proved wrong because the opera “is still winning general applause.” With the success of Mitridate, Mozart was commissioned for another opera for Milan. Lucio Silla, to a libretto by Giovanni de Gamerra (1743-1803), opened the Carnival season, premiering in Milan on December 26, 1772. Still, the compositional process and performance were not without their difficulties. Mozart began composing the recitatives for Lucio Silla while in Salzburg, where he and his father had returned after their second trip to Italy. Some of the recita 11 tives had to be rewritten in Milan, however, due to changes made in the libretto. Mozart also wrote the choruses, overture, and fourteen of the numbers after arriving in Milan with his father on November 4, 1772. This much work may have left the sixteen-year-old a little overwhelmed; he wrote in December that “I can think of nothing but my opera.” Again, Leopold Mozart declared the premiere a resounding success with the public and the press, even though things had not gone smoothly. The performance started three hours late and did not end until about two o’clock the next morning. Leopold also relates a story about some tension between two of the singers, the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini and the soprano Anna de AmicisBuonsolzzi. Rauzzini apparently told the archduchess that he was nervous and couldn’t sing well. In order to encourage him, the sympathetic archduchess then applauded every time Rauzzini came on the stage. This made Anna De Amicis nervous and she did not sing well. According to Leopold, “This was a castrato’s trick, for he had arranged that the archduchess be told that he would not be able to sing because of nervousness, in order that he might thus ensure that the court would encourage and applaud him.” The types of characters in Gluck’s Ezio appear in Lucio Silla as well. The title character is the tyrannical-turned-compassionate ruler. The other characters are more one-dimensional in their depictions. Cecilio cares only for his bride, Giunia, and not for political intrigue. Giunia, also caught in the middle of political and emotional turmoil not of her making, remains staunchly devoted to Cecilio and continually spurns Lucio Silla’s advances. Celia, Lucio Silla’s sister, has one focus: Lucio Cinna. Aufidio, perhaps the most rigidly drawn character, never falters in expressing his desire for vengeance. He is, so to speak, the devil on one shoulder of Lucio Silla while the loyalty of Cecilio and Giunia stands on the other shoulder as the example of goodness, constancy, and true love. Lucio Cinna plays both sides of the political field. He is plotting to kill Lucio Silla at whatever cost and does not care who he uses to this end, including Cecilio. When Cecilio bursts into Lucio Silla’s palace with sword drawn and is captured, Lucio Cinna is just behind. When Cinna sees that the situation has gone against them, he immediately tries to pretend he was defending Silla. Silla’s actions in pardoning Cecilio, allowing Giunia to stay with Cecilio, approving the marriage of Celia and Cinna, and abdicating his throne are parallel to the actions of Valentiniano in Gluck’s Ezio. In Lucio Silla, however, the audience is allowed glimpses of Lucio Silla’s vulnerabilities. We might be skeptical at first, but true to the conventions of the day, the compassionate person will win the internal battle against the tyrannical ruler and the erstwhile despot will see the error of his ways. Because Mozart and his music were so well received on each of his three trips to Italy and on all of his travels, there was mounting hope that he would be offered a court position in Italy or Vienna. This did not happen, so a discontented Mozart returned to his duties as Konzertmeister in Salzburg in 1775. After Mozart 12 moved to Vienna in 1781, he wrote another opera, Die Entfürhrung aus dem Serail. Unfortunately, as with Gluck, no court position was offered to Mozart. Unlike Gluck, Mozart chose to stay in Vienna for the remainder of his life. Like any stock characters, opera seria roles such as those found in Ezio and Lucio Silla are predictable. Their motivations need no other explanation; they are who they are and the 18th century audience delighted in them as much as the music that accompanied them. Metastasio’s librettos and those fashioned after him were constructed as beautiful poetry and ultimately vehicles for composers, who found inspiration for new musical guises in the telling of historical stories that could, in addition to conjuring up the exoticism of ancient times, reflect more of the values of the composer’s own day than the history on which they were based. Gluck’s influence on Mozart may be more easily discerned in the connection between the former’s Alceste and the latter’s Idomeneo. Comparisons between the two were not lost on audiences even in the late 18th century. In commenting on a 1794 performance of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito (with a libretto based on Metastasio), Franz Niemetschek wrote “…in short, Gluck’s nobility is united to Mozart’s original art, his flowing feelings, his totally enchanting harmonies.” Both men had passed away by this time, yet their musical connection, or perhaps continuity, was still apparent.
Informace o produktu jsou k dispozici v: English
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