31. Butt’s chapter “Negotiating between Work, Composer and Performer: Rewriting the Story of Notational Progress,” in his Playing with History, 96–122, should be reread with this modern example in mind: the theoretical models Butt so carefully sets forth, however interesting, need to be evaluated in terms of actual performance situations, which often suggest quite a different reality. As for contemporary evidence, I wonder whether Butt has ever seen a set of parts—either printed or manuscript—actually used in the performance of a nineteenth-century French or Italian opera. Citations of a theoretical manifesto by Parker (“A Donizetti Critical Edition in the Postmodern World”) and an article by Hepokoski, applicable—if at all—only to Verdi’s last two operas (“Overriding the Autograph Score”), provide insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions (see Butt, 99–100). But, like most writers on performance practice, Butt has little interest in Italian nineteenth-century opera or the vast literature surrounding its performance. (To be fair, he does mention two important articles to demonstrate the interaction of a composer and his singers: Armstrong, “Gilbert-Louis Duprez and Gustave Roger in the Composition of Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète,” and Smart, “The Lost Voice of Rosine Stolz.”)
32. That it covers those situations, of course, does not necessarily mean that orchestral players will follow the instructions.
33. The banda sul palco, a military band not consisting of professional musicians, should not be confused with the orchestral ensembles playing on the stage or the wings that Mozart uses, for example, in Don Giovanni.
34. For Guillaume Tell, see the preface to the critical edition, xxxii–xxxviii; for Don Carlos the problems are outlined briefly in Budden, The Operas of Verdi, 3:24–25.
35. See my introduction to the facsimile edition of Il barbiere di Siviglia, 20–21 (English) and 73–74 (Italian).
36. Among the many discussions of appoggiaturas by modern scholars, see Crutchfield, “The Prosodic Appoggiatura in the Music of Mozart and his Contemporaries.” Beghelli focuses his attention primarily on Italian nineteenth-century opera in his I trattati di canto italiani dell’Ottocento, 423–47. Both Crutchfield and Beghelli give a host of contemporary references. I will discuss this matter at greater length in chapter 9.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. There are, of course, more subtle ways of thinking about continuity, ways that recognize that there have been changes over time, some of which remain valid, some of which ought properly to be reconsidered.
2. For a thoughtful position paper on these problems by one of our most distinguished scholars of medieval and Renaissance music, Margaret Bent, see her “Impossible Authenticities.”
3. Serafin and Toni, Stile, tradizioni e convenzioni del melodramma italiana del Settecento e dell’Ottocento.
4. The recording was reissued by EMI Classics in 1997, as D 220703.
5. See Charles Rosen, “The Benefits of Authenticity,” in Critical Entertainments, 214–21. For amusing and instructive instances of some of these conditions, see Kelly, First Nights.
6. A superb introduction to these problems from a literary perspective is Gaskell, From Writer to Reader. I recommend, in particular, the discussion of Tom Stoppard’s Travesties in Gaskell’s final chapter, 245–62. The complex issues surrounding King Lear are summarized effectively in the edition by R. A. Foakes, 110–46. The relationship between Dreiser’s manuscript of Sister Carrie and the printed edition is discussed in Pizer, “Self-Censorship and Textual Editing.”
7. I exclude the unique case of La traviata, which Tito Ricordi had engraved in full score no later than 1 November 1855, as demonstrated by Della Seta in the commentary to his critical edition of the opera (12–16). Ricordi’s purpose, though, was to counteract piracy by providing a printed score, which he hoped theaters would consider superior to manuscript copies. Ricordi described his score in the following terms in a circular to theaters he shared with Verdi on 2 August 1854: “Whoever wishes to consider how much advantage a copy of the score prepared in this way offers for its precision of engraving, its distinctness in legibility, the exactness of proofreading, the certainty of conformity with the original score of the maestro, and the economic advantage with respect to the usual manuscript copies, will rush to ensure a copy of it for the repertory of his own theater.” But it is clear from the letter of Tito to Verdi of 1 November 1855 that the composer had never even seen this score, let alone assisted with its preparation. The effort must have been unsuccessful, since Ricordi did not print another operatic full score until Otello in the late 1880s. Verdi certainly took more interest in the editions of Otello and Falstaff, and surely helped to determine what music was included and what was left out, as well as providing corrections to individual passages. Despite the view of Hepokoski, “Overriding the Autograph Score,” however, there is no evidence that Verdi concerned himself with Ricordi’s realization of details, such as articulation or dynamic levels, and—in the absence of serious compositional emendations—there is therefore no reason to grant greater authority to the early printed score than to the composer’s autograph manuscript. This is especially the case since the printed edition is filled with discrepancies no thoughtful musician seriously examining the score—either in 1895 or today—could sanction. It may be the product of the “socialization” of the text, but it is an excellent example of how badly the process worked when it was done under intense pressure of time.
8. The Venetian revision of Maometto II is considered in Emanuele, L’ultima stagione italiana, 161–218.
9. There has been little recent work on this early Bellini opera, but see the discussion by Pastura, Bellini, 125–38, as well as details on the source situation in Adamo and Lippmann, Vincenzo Bellini, 530–33.
10. The forthcoming critical edition of Maria di Rohan, edited by Luca Zoppelli, will clarify this history. For the moment, see his “I burattini del Cardinale,” in the program for the first performance of the new edition at the PalaFenice al Tronchetto (Venice, 1999). See also Bini and Commons, Le prime rappresentazioni, 1146–75.
11. The best treatment remains Budden, The Operas of Giuseppe Verdi, 2:425–521. For a different viewpoint, compare Parker, “Leonora’s Last Act: La forza del destino,” in Leonora’s Last Act, 61–99.
12. This is the way the matter is formulated in the guidelines to the critical edition, and it is valid for every opera through Aida. That does not deny that there exist isolated cases in which Verdi’s later modifications fail to be reflected in his autograph manuscript. His revisions for Macbeth in 1865 were done in a separate manuscript altogether, sent by the composer to Paris. Several important examples of modifications from Aida are not reflected in the autograph manuscript: they are mentioned by Lawton in “The Autograph of Aida and the New Verdi Edition.” The Verdi edition has adopted similar modifications in its edition of the Messa da Requiem, and it will do the same in Ilaria Narici’s forthcoming edition of Un ballo in maschera. But again and again, as late as his revision of Simon Boccanegra in 1880–81, Verdi made modifications to an opera by having Ricordi send him his original autograph manuscript and by sending the revised form back to Ricordi for the Milan archives. The passages he no longer considered definitive he placed in his personal collection at Sant’Agata.
13. For a sophisticated treatment of this problem, with reference to the finales of the two operas, see Fabio Vittorini, “Quelque chose pour le ténor.” I will discuss further the two versions of Macbeth at the end of chapter 8.
14. Dahlhaus’s position is most easily available in his Nineteenth-Century Music, 9–10.
15. This quotation is from his letter of 20 May 1847, in I copialettere, 39.
16. In a paper delivered to the American Musicological Society’s national meeting in Houston in November 2003, Hilary Poriss has demonstrated a similar history for Donizetti’s Marin Faliero, to which the soprano Carolina Ungher, perhaps with Donizetti’s approval, regularly added a cavatina for herself.
17. The Roman revival of Otello is discuss
ed fully by Michael Collins in the preface (xxxvi–xxxvii) and commentary (155–60) to his critical edition of the opera. Because no musical sources whatsoever are preserved for the revised finale, and because the conclusion neither had any significant diffusion in the nineteenth century nor seemed aesthetically justified to the editors of the Edizione critca delle opere di Gioachino Rossini, it was decided not to attempt a hypothetical reconstruction of the new finale in the critical edition. The edition did, however, through careful analysis of the libretto, provide a road map for how such a reconstruction could be carried out. That road map was subsequently followed by the English company Opera Rara, which issued in 2000 a CD (ORC 18) with both the original finale and a reconstruction of the happy ending.
18. Many have marveled at Pasta’s ability to sing roles as diverse as Rossini’s Tancredi and Bellini’s Norma, but in many cases she manipulated the vocal lines to suit her own talents. The question whether she should sing the soprano title role in Rossini’s Semiramide or the contralto role of Arsace was at the heart of a serious feud in Paris in 1825: for details, see my preface to the critical edition of Semiramide, lii–lviii.
19. For details, see the prefaces to the critical editions of La donna del lago (xxvii–xxx) and Semiramide (lv).
20. Rossini, Lettere e documenti, 3:304.
21. For a modern reprint of the first edition of the Vaccai opera, see Vaccai, Giulietta e Romeo and Excerpts from Zadig ed Astartea. On Romani and Bellini, see Roccatagliati, Felice Romani librettista, esp. 110–11, and Lippmann, “Romani e Bellini,” esp. 90–92.
22. These borrowings are analyzed by Brauner, “Parody and Melodic Style in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi.”
23. For an excellent summary of the history and reception of I Capuleti e i Montecchi, see Bellini, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, ed. Toscani, xi–xxix.
24. According to Giazotto, Maria Malibran, 228, Rossini himself may have advised Malibran to make the substitution. As Toscani has shown in his introduction to the critical edition (xxii–xxiii), the substitution had been made earlier, in the carnival season of 1831 at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, but not during the regular run of performances: it was an innovation introduced to help draw crowds to a benefit evening on behalf of the prima donna Santina Ferlotti. In his “Bellini and the Pasticcio alla Malibran” (134), Collins claims that Malibran did not actually make this substitution until her performances at La Scala in the autumn of 1834, but the evidence he presents is not altogether clear.
25. The article appeared in the Gazzetta Ufficiale Piemontese of 18 January 1836. I consulted the complete text in the ample program, edited by Maria Rosaria Adamo, accompanying performances of the opera at the Teatro Bellini of Catania during the fall of 1994; selections are printed in Basso, Il teatro della città dal 1788 al 1936, 216–17. Mesenzio is the cruel Etruscan king, protagonist of the latter part of the tenth canto in Vergil’s Aeneid.
26. The currently available vocal score from Ricordi (pl. no. 42043) continues to include Vaccai’s music, with the note: “To be substituted, if desired, as is generally done, for the last piece of Bellini’s opera.”
27. I quote this letter in the translation of Weinstock, Vincenzo Bellini, 249. His source is an 1885 publication in Italian by Scherillo, Belliniana: Nuove note, 35, but Scherillo was in turn quoting from Florimo, La scuola musicale di Napoli e i suoi conservatorii (1880–83), 3:192–93. Toscani (xxiii; see n. 23 above) cites the same source. One would not like to think it inauthentic, but Florimo was sometimes a less than reliable witness: see Rosselli, The Life of Bellini, 6–11.
28. See the critical edition of Armida, where Brauner and Brauner, in their preface (xxxv–xxxvi) mention the reuse by Rossini himself of entire numbers and melodies from Armida in the Roman revival of Otello in 1820, in the Alidoro aria added to La Cenerentola in 1821, in Il viaggio a Reims, in Moïse et Pharaon, and in the Cantata in onore del Sommo Pontefice Pio Nono (1847). Famous pieces, such as the duet for Armida and Rinaldo “Amor! (Possente nome!),” however, were introduced—without Rossini’s blessing—into revivals of many other operas, those by Rossini and those by other composers.
29. There are copies of this libretto in many different libraries. I consulted a copy at the Bibliothèque de l’Opéra in Paris (Lib. 1189).
30. Goodman, Languages of Art, 116–18.
31. There are several excellent treatments of the social situation of theaters, performers, administrators, and the public during the first half of the nineteenth-century. See especially the books by Rosselli already cited, as well as his summation, “Il sistema produttivo, 1780–1880.” Also important are Kimbell, Italian Opera, 417–29, and Sorba, Teatri. My concern here is not to duplicate their work but to understand the impact of this social organization on problems that affect today’s performers.
32. See Rossini, Bianca e Falliero, ed. Dotto. Information about the original libretto is given in the commentary, 39–41. A detailed description of Cimene can be found in Ritorni, Commentarii della vita e delle opere coredrammatiche di Salvatore Viganò e della coregrafia e de’ corepei, 298–301. The entire genre is described by Hansell in her “Il ballo teatrale e l’opera italiana.” The term “atto” in ballet would seem to be the equivalent of “scene” in opera, with only some of the “atti” involving actual changes of scenery.
33. Stendhal’s classic description of an evening at La Scala in February 1818, although inaccurate—as always—about details (see Hansell, “Il ballo teatrale,” 258n, and “Theatrical Ballet,” 258n), captures the spirit of theatrical life at the time. See his Vie de Rossini, 2:577–80 (447–48 in the Coe translation).
34. See Hansell, “Il ballo teatrale,” 288–90, and “Theatrical Ballet,” 288–90.
35. Descriptions of the structure and social practices at individual theaters throughout the peninsula should be consulted for a more detailed picture. An excellent summary remains Rosselli’s “An Industry in a Hierarchical Society,” chapter 3 of his The Opera Industry, esp. 39–49.
36. For a full description of the physical structure of the first Teatro San Carlo and of the theater which replaced it after the earlier structure was burned down in 1816, see vol. 1 of Il teatro di San Carlo 1737–1987, “la storia, la struttura” by Franco Mancini.
37. A good introduction to the problem of theatrical lighting is provided by Capra, “L’illuminazione sulla scena verdiana ovvero L’arco voltaico non acceca la luna?”
38. See Brombert, Cristina.
39. Stendhal, Vie de Rossini, 2:575 (444 in the Coe translation).
40. See Rosselli, The Opera Industry, 47–48.
41. For details, see Gatti, Il teatro alla Scala, 2:29.
42. See Gossett, “Rossini’s Operas and Their Printed Librettos.”
43. Some of those problems will be discussed in chapter 10.
44. The eight operas are Un giorno di regno, Alzira, I masnadieri, Il corsaro, La battaglia di Legnano, Luisa Miller, Rigoletto, and Un ballo in maschera. Of these works, of course, the first four had only a limited performance history. Verdi himself wished mightily to revise La battaglia di Legnano, but the right opportunity never came, while Un ballo in maschera is itself the end product of a complex process of revision.
45. On the complicated history of this opera and its libretto, see Scarton and Tosti-Croce, “Aureliano in Palmira.”
46. Romani (1791–1877) was still a mainstay of the Florentine staff more than thirty years later, when Verdi presented his Macbeth there. Verdi refers to him several times in his 1846–47 letters (see Rosen and Porter, Verdi’s “Macbeth,” 17 and 33–35).
47. Rossini had written two earlier roles specifically for Rosich, Buralicchio in L’equivoco stravagante (1811) and Taddeo in L’Italiana in Algeri (1813), but neither role has any music approaching the difficulty of “A un Dottor della mia sorte.” The original Bartolo, Bartolomeo Botticelli, was not a singer of great reputation, and neither Alberto Cametti nor Annalisa Bini mentions any contemporary reports citing ei
ther Botticelli or the aria: see Cametti, “La musica teatrale a Roma cento anni fa,” and Bini, “Echi delle prime rossiniane nella stampa romana dell’epoca,” esp. 173–76.
48. Among manuscripts of the opera which include Romani and omit Rossini are copies in F-Pn (D. 13.546), I-PAc (SL b 47, 48), and I-MOe (F.995). While Rossini’s aria was generally sung in Paris and London, according to contemporary printed librettos, it was almost always replaced in Italy by Romani’s. Among librettos attesting to this substitution are those printed in Florence (1816, 1831), Livorno (1821), Lucca (1818, 1821), Milan (1819, 1820, 1835), Prato (1822), Ravenna (1831), Trieste (1821), Turin (1818, 1833), and Venice (1822). None of the Italian librettos I have examined has the text of Rossini’s original aria, nor do they have other substitutions. Some, however, deprive Bartolo of an aria altogether.
49. All three editions published by Ricordi’s Milanese rival, Lucca, the first c. 1838, the last c. 1856, substituted Romani for Rossini without acknowledging the author. The note cited in the text, which does recognize Romani’s contribution, is found in the full score published by Guidi of Florence in 1864 (pl. No. 2342).
50. These include editions published by G. M. Meyer and Henry Litolff’s Verlag in Braunschweig; Breitkopf und Härtel, Philipp Reclam, and Peters in Leipzig; and Pietro Mechetti in Vienna.
51. On the other hand, if an accomplished singer were to decide, with full knowledge of this history, to adopt “Manca un foglio” for a particular occasion or even in alternation with “A un dottor della mia sorte,” I would find no cause for alarm. I say this independently of the assertion of Righetti-Giorgi (Cenni di una donna già cantante, 37), whose accuracy we cannot test, that “the aria for Don Bartolo, substituted for the original piece in Florence, is a composition by Sig. Pietro Romani. It is a lovely aria, and Rossini does not object to it being introduced into his opera.”
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