| Gli Orazi e i Curiazi | |
|---|---|
| Azione tragica by Domenico Cimarosa | |
 Giuseppina Grassini as Orazia | |
| Translation | The Horatii and the Curiatii |
| Librettist | Antonio Simeone Sografi |
| Language | Italian |
| Based on | Horace by Pierre Corneille |
| Premiere | |
Gli Orazi e i Curiazi (The Horatii and the Curiatii) is an opera in three acts ( azione tragica ) composed by Domenico Cimarosa to a libretto by Antonio Simeone Sografi, based on Pierre Corneille's tragedy Horace .
The opera was first staged on 26 December 1796 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The première was so unsuccessful that Cimarosa, disappointed, decided to leave the town immediately. The run of the following performances, however, turned into a big success, as would happen twenty years later with Rossini’s The Barber of Seville . [1] At least 49 performances were held throughout the season [2] and the opera was later staged in the major European theatres, including Teatro La Scala in Milan and Napoleon’s imperial court in Paris. [3] In Europe during the 18th century Italian operas did not normally endure very long in theatres, hardly ever getting through one season. Gli Orazi e i Curiazi, however, kept running for several decades, even after the death of Cimarosa. In Venice, for example, the opera had four further runs during the six years following the première [4] and "more than 130 performances" altogether were staged in the same period. [5]
The opera had several re-adaptations, among which Marcos António Portugal’s staged in 1798 is specially notable, [6] and was also employed as the object of the parody La prima prova dell'opera "Gli Orazi e i Curiazi" by Francesco Gnecco on Giulio Artusi’s libretto – later to be renamed La prova di un'opera seria – which was also staged in Venice in 1803. [7]
Gli Orazi e i Curiazi was very dear to Napoleon, especially in the Parisian performances of the singer Giuseppina Grassini who was for some time a lover of the Emperor, and of the castrato Girolamo Crescentini — both of whom had been the original creators of the major roles of Horatia and Curiatius in 1796. Grassini would almost always interpolate arias different from the original ones, mostly drawn from Portugal’s version. [8]
The opera has been a matter of renewed interest in modern times with several stagings beginning from the Genoese Teatro dell’Opera Giocosa’s in 1983, which was also the first world recording, with Curiatius played by the soprano Daniela Dessì. [9] Another notable revival took place at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in 1989 with the conductor Alan Curtis, Gianna Rolandi as Curiatius and Anna Caterina Antonacci as Horatia.
Gli Orazi e i Curiazi is generally regarded as the best of the eleven opere serie produced by Cimarosa, even though the composer himself considered 1797's Artemisia, regina di Caria "the most passable" of his works. [10] It represents the typical example, not so much of the second half of the 18th century’s dramma per musica in general, as that of the special kind of melodrama which was forced into fashion in the century’s last decade, following in the wake of revolutionary France’s military successes. The new fashion required melodrama to share in the new times by adequately exalting the republican virtues of ancient Rome. Rodolfo Celletti writes: "Cimarosa had already happened to occupy himself with Gaius Marius and Junius Brutus, but it was unintentionally. Now with Orazi e Curiazi, and the following year with Attilio Regolo, he was to give a more specific contribution to the exaltation of the republican myths". [11] In the end, however, the composer still remained quite the same and according to Celletti it brought about the conclusion "that the opera hadn’t anything intimately tragic or really heroic. ... We have to consider everything according to the use it was conceived for. In Oriazi e Curiazi, an archetype of the classicist and 'republican' drama between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, we must see a kind of elegant evolutive operation in ultra-conservatism ... As to musical habit, the republican melodrama by Cimarosa and others was adorned with some more embellishment and accepted clangs of trumpets and some marches in order to remain, substantially, the one it had always been at the time of court theatres: a source of lyric effusions and not of epic [bursts]." [11] The musicologist Francesco Florimo, Bellini’s friend, chanced to observe: "sometimes Cimarosa gives himself up to a more lyric than tragic affection, at other times to vocalisms and graces which can only be borne in the comic genre".
According to Celletti it is rather hard to claim Gli Orazi e i Curiazi as a masterpiece, as it is for such a large part of the second half of the 18th century’s Italian opera seria. "Domenico Cimarosa was the standard-bearer of our comic musical theatre and … it is clear that the comic operist not only prevails over the serious one but it rather often gets out of his control and inspires him". So it happens in the duet between Curiatius and Horatius that opens with "the solemnity of the typical duets of challenge (Quando nel campo armata …)", only to pass soon, almost imperceptibly, "to the tenderness and the abandon of A questi accenti adesso …". [10] Celletti says it is true for all the most noted pages of the opera, first of all Curiatius's Quelle pupille tenere. The only possible exception is Oratius’s Se alla patria ognor donai, which constitutes instead "an example of heroic aria for a tenor of buskined melodrama", which was to remain in full vogue till Rossini beginnings, "central range, periodical ascending intervals to give vigour and fit to the melody, short melismas or descending scales to strengthen its aulic expression, and intensification of the melismas when the Allegro A voi tutti il vivo lampo begins." [10]
Celletti also says that Cimarosa got to give the best of his inspiration in the grand scene of the subterranean temple in act two: "An orchestral introduction, solemn and mysterious, is followed by other orchestral moments of a descriptive character that show how brilliantly certain operists of ours could catch the element either mysterious or fearful or horrid without imitating nature slavishly…; but in the meantime the beautiful recitatives of Curiatius and of Horatia and Curiatius’Andantino Ei stesso intrepido intersect, to come to the great resumption of the other solo voices and of the chorus (Regni silenzio muto, profondo)." [10]
The final furious duet between Marcus Horatius and Horatia is unusual in Metastasio melodrama, but was reported to be "greatly appreciated" by the public. [10] In the première it was performed by two of the most imposing coeval singers: the young beautiful man-eater diva (and great cantatrice), Grassini, and the handsome heroic tenor Matteo Babini (or Babbini), who, besides being a cultured, most refined and expressive singer, could undoubtedly cut a worthy figure by her side, not surely lacking in phisique du rôle (he was tall, blond, slender and with a very fine countenance). [12]
Cimarosa's vocal writing is extremely measured, avoiding high tessitura, long vocalizations, acrobatics and excessive ornamentation — save, to a small extent, in Marcus Horatius’ heroic aria. Celletti comments on this "Cimarosa’s coloratura is one of those we can define as wide, opposed to the minute coloraturas of some baroque operists or of the Neapolitan period’s Rossini. Hence the performers have not the discretion but the duty of integrating the composer’s writing with variations, reductions and interpolation of cadenzas, especially in the da capo". [10]
The action takes place in Rome during the war against the town of Alba Longa. The protagonists of the opera are two families, the Horatii from Rome and the Curiatii from Alba. In spite of the state of war the two families are connected as a girl from the Curiatii, Sabina, has married Marcus Horatius, the designate heir of the Roman family. During a truce in the war Horatius' daughter Horatia is in her turn given in marriage to her beloved Curiatius, leader of the Alban family. In order to avoid further major damage the two kings, Tullus Hostilius and Mettius Fufetius, reach an agreement to settle contention between the two towns through a limited encounter to the death between six champions, three from the Horatii and three from the Curiatii. The news of the agreement drives the two families to despair as the two sisters-in-law are doomed to weep over the death of either their husbands or their brothers.
In act two Horatia and Sabina, supported by the people and the priests, endeavour to prevent the abomination of a mortal challenge between relatives by swarming over the Campo Martio just as the struggle is about to start. They manage to wring a postponement in order to allow Apollo's oracle to be consulted. Both families warriors accept this decision reluctantly. Act two ends in a grand scene in the vaults of Apollo's temple: at first Curiatius and Horatia appear there alone, later they are joined by all the others and Curatius bewails the sad fate of those who are possibly going to shed their relatives' blood. Finally the oracle's voice proclaims that the challenge must go on.
Act three is shorter than the others and is generally staged along with act two. After a farewell scene between Curiatius and Horatia it shows the final encounter between Marcus Horatius, victorious in the fight, and his distressed sister. Horatia, rebelling against her fate, calls down curses from the gods upon her native town which has driven her husband to a bloody death and is in her turn slain by her furious ruthless brother and flung headlong down the staircase.
| Rôle | First performer's vocal register | Premiere cast, 26 December 1796 (Scenery: Antonio Mauro ) |
|---|---|---|
| Publio Orazio | tenor | Giuseppe Desirò |
| Marco Orazio | tenor | Matteo Babini |
| Orazia | mezzo-soprano/contralto | Giuseppina Grassini |
| Curiazio | soprano castrato | Girolamo Crescentini |
| Sabina | soprano | Carolina Maranesi |
| Licinio | soprano castrato | Francesco Rossi |
| Il Gran sacerdote | basso | Filippo Fragni |
| L'augure | basso | Fantino Mori |
| l'oracolo | basso | Fantino Mori |
| Tullo Ostilio (usually not performed) | tenor | Odoardo Caprotti |
| Mezio Fufezio (usually not performed) | tenor | Antonio Mangino |
| coro | ||
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian composer of the Neapolitan School and of the Classical period. He wrote more than eighty operas, the best known of which is Il matrimonio segreto (1792); most of his operas are comedies. He also wrote instrumental works and church music.
Girolamo Crescentini was a noted Italian soprano castrato, singing teacher, and composer.
Gioacchino Conti, best known as Gizziello or Egizziello, was an Italian soprano castrato opera singer.
Daniela Dessì was an Italian operatic soprano.
The Horatii and the Curiatii can refer to:
The Teatro Comunale in Ferrara is an opera house, located in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, and built between 1786 and 1797 with seating for 990. Privately owned theatres with limited seating capacity had existed in the city for many years, but the arrival of Cardinal Spinelli, the new papal envoy, in 1786 spurred the construction of a new public theatre under the architects Cosimo Morelli and Antonio Foschini. However, their disagreements led to conflicting design concepts regarding the elliptical shape of the auditorium which were resolved through compromise. The theatre was finally ready for its inaugural presentation of Portogallo's Gli Orazi e i Curiazi on 2 September 1798.
The Teatro Valle is a theatre and former opera house in Rome, Italy. It was built in 1726 for the Capranica family. In the middle of the 19th century, it switched from staging opera and theatre to only performances of spoken drama. After closing down in 2010, it was squatted in 2011, then in 2014, the squatters were evicted.
Orazi e Curiazi is an opera by the Italian composer Saverio Mercadante. It takes the form of a tragedia lirica in three acts. The libretto, by Salvadore Cammarano, is based on the Roman legend of the fight between Horatii and Curiatii. It was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, on 10 November 1846.
Gioseppa Maria Camilla, commonly known as GiuseppinaGrassini was a noted Italian dramatic contralto, and a singing teacher. She was also known for her affairs with Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington. She sang in various productions by composers such as Cimarosa, Cherubini and Zingarelli.
Matteo Antonio Babini, also known by the family name of Babbini, was a leading Italian tenor of the late 18th-century, and a teacher of singing and stage art.
Anna Caterina Antonacci is an Italian soprano known for roles in the bel canto and Baroque repertories. She performed as a mezzo-soprano for several years, particularly performing the Rossini canon.
Rodolfo Celletti (1917–2004) was an Italian musicologist, critic, voice teacher, and novelist. Considered one of the leading scholars of the operatic voice and the history of operatic performance, he published many books and articles on the subject as well as several novels.
Horace is a play by the French dramatist Pierre Corneille, drawing on Livy's account of the battle between the Horatii and the Curiatii. Written in reply to critics of his Le Cid, it was dedicated to cardinal Richelieu and proved the author's second major success on its premiere in March 1640. Its protagonist Horatius is more daring than Rodrigue in Le Cid, in that he sacrifices his best friend and kills his sister Camilla. It was the basis for the libretti for the operas Les Horaces and Gli Orazi e i Curiazi. It is considered one of Corneille's great tragedies.
The gens Horatia was a patrician family at ancient Rome. In legend, the gens dates back to the time of Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome. One of its members, Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, was consul suffectus in 509 BC, the first year of the Republic, and again in 507. The most famous of the Horatii was his nephew, Publius Horatius Cocles, who held the Sublician bridge against the army of Lars Porsena circa 508 BC.
Giuseppe Siboni was an Italian operatic tenor, opera director, choir conductor, and voice teacher. He began his career in his native country in 1797 and actively performed in major Italian opera houses up through 1818. From 1806 to 1809, he performed successfully in London, and from 1810 to 1814, he was active in Vienna, where he enjoyed the friendship of Ludwig van Beethoven. He played a critical role in Danish musical life from 1819 until his death in 1839. In 1819, he joined the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, where he worked first as a singer and later as director of the opera chorus and head director. In 1827 he founded the Royal Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen. He was married three times during his life, including his second marriage to the sister of poet Franz von Schober. His third marriage produced a son, the composer and pianist Erik Siboni (1828–1892).
Duel of Champions is a 1961 film about the Roman legend of the Horatii, triplet brothers from Rome who fought a duel against the Curiatii, triplet brothers from Alba Longa in order to determine the outcome of a war between their two nations.
Publius Curiatius Fistus Trigeminus was a Roman politician in the 5th century BC, consul in 453 BC and decemvir in 451 BC.
Claudio Bonoldi was an Italian tenor.
Nanette Schechner, real name Anna Schechner, married name Anna Schechner-Waagen, was a German operatic soprano.
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