Il pastor fido ("The Faithful Shepherd") (HWV 8) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was set to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi based on the famed and widely familiar pastoral poem of the 'Il pastor fido' by Giovanni Battista Guarini. It had its first performance on 22 November 1712 at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket, London.
It was composed in 1712 and first performed on 22 November of the same year under the composer. The opera opened to a largely hostile reception, probably due to disappointment after the success of Rinaldo : one diarist noted critically that "the scene represented only the Country of Arcadia; the Habits [costumes] were old – the Opera short". The roles of Mirtillo and Silvio were originally sung by the castratos Valeriano Pellegrini and Valentino Urbani. The overture is in six movements and is long for its time: it is thought that it may have been originally composed as an unrelated orchestral suite.
The revival of the spring of 1734, in which Giovanni Carestini took the role of Mirtillo, was far more successful, but Handel significantly altered the music: only seven of the original arias remained, and those cut were replaced by arias from Handel's cantatas or earlier operas. This production proved popular and enjoyed a run of 13 performances. In the winter of 1734 Il pastor fido was revived again: Carestini remained as Mirtillo and the English tenor John Beard took the role of Silvio. A newly composed prologue, Terpsicore , was added to the opera for this run of performances. The prologue consisted of solo arias, choral movements, and orchestral writing for dance: the danced role of Terpsichore was performed by Marie Sallé, whose dance company had been engaged by Covent Garden manager John Rich.
As with all Baroque opera seria, Il Pastor Fido went unperformed for many years, but with the revival of interest in Baroque music and historically informed musical performance since the 1960s,Il Pastor Fido, like all Handel operas, receives performances at festivals and opera houses today. [1] Among other performances, the work was performed as part of the London Handel Festival in 2012 [2] and by the Handel Festival Halle in 2019. [3]
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, 22 November 1712 | Revised version, 18 May 1734 | Revival 9 November 1734 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amarilli | soprano | Elisabetta Pilotti-Schiavonetti | Anna Maria Strada | Anna Maria Strada |
| Dorinda | contralto | Jane Barbier | Maria Caterina Negri | Maria Caterina Negri |
| Eurilla | soprano | Francesca Margherita de L'Epine | Margherita Durastanti | Maria Rosa Negri |
| Mirtillo | soprano castrato | Valeriano Pellegrini | Giovanni Carestini | Giovanni Carestini |
| Silvio | alto castrato | Valentino Urbani ("Valentini") | Carlo Scalzi | John Beard |
| Tirenio | bass | Richard Leveridge | Gustavus Waltz | Gustavus Waltz [4] |
Diana, virgin huntress goddess, has become displeased with Arcadia and has let it be known that only through the marriage of a couple descended from heavenly ancestors, one of whom will be "a faithful shepherd", will her wrath be appeased. The couple who are believed to fit this description are the hunter Silvio, but he has no interest in love, being dedicated to Diana and only interested in hunting, and the shepherdess Amarilli, who however is in love with the shepherd Mirtillo, whose ancestry is unknown.
The shepherd Mirtillo is unhappy due to his great love for Amarilli, who is going to have to marry the hunter Silvio in order to please the goddess Diana.
Amarilli is also unhappy about her proposed marriage as she has fallen in love with Mirtillo, whose family background is not known, although she has not told him she loves him. Mirtillo overhears her lamenting her love for him and woos her, but she rejects him as her duty is to marry Silvio for the sake of the common welfare.
Mirtillo is in such despair at this that he resolves on suicide. The shepherdess Eurilla is also in love with Mirtillo, prevents him from killing himself, and offers to try to win Amarilli for him. Eurilla is really only interested in winning Mirtillo for herself.
Silvio, the hunter, has no interest in girls or getting married at all, he wishes to remain chaste like his patroness the goddess Diana. Yet another shepherdess, Dorinda, is smitten with Silvio but he rejects her love, to her sorrow.
In a rocky grove, Mirtillo sings himself to sleep with a song in praise of his beloved Amarilli. As he slumbers, Eurilla enters with a garland of flowers with a note "From someone who adores you and is waiting for you there" and places it on his body. When he awakes, he thinks it must be from Amarilli.
Eurilla tells Amarilli that Mirtillo has received a love token and an invitation to an amorous tryst from another girl, which makes her very jealous.
Meanwhile, Dorinda continues to pester Silvio with her protestations of affection, and he continues to make it clear he is not interested.
Eurilla tells Mirtillo that his love is on her way and he should go into the nearby cave and wait for her, which he does. Eurilla then fetches Amarilli and tells her she can watch what Mirtillo is up to with the other girl from inside the same cave, and leads Amarilli into it too. Now that the two are in the cave together, Eurilla will go and tell the law authorities to arrest them for illicit sex, for which Arcadian law prescribes death for the female partner, Amarilli will be executed, and then Eurilla will have Mirtillo for her own.
In the sacred grove outside the temple of Diana, the lovesick Dorinda hears her Silvio coming with his fellow hunters and hides in the bushes to watch him. Silvio, seeing movement in the growth, thinks it is a deer and spears it, but he is sorry to find it is Dorinda, who is not dead but wounded. Silvio discovers he is overwhelmed with love with her after all and they vow to be one.
Eurilla's scheme has been successful - Amarilli has been condemned to die for unchastity. Mirtillo begs to be allowed to die in her place but he is refused. Amarilli is being led to her execution when the chief priest of Diana enters with a new decree from the goddess. Mirtillo is of divine parentage and is the "faithful shepherd" of the prophecy. Human sacrifice is abolished, a double wedding is announced, Mirtillo and Amarilli as well as Silvio and Dorinda. Eurilla asks for and receives forgiveness, the curse is lifted from the land, and all rejoice. [5] [6]
The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera Rinaldo . A tremendous success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. Rinaldo, a "magic" opera featuring enchantments, sorceresses and scenic ingenuity, was followed by Il Pastor Fido, a shorter and simpler opera, which was not a success with London audiences at its first performances. The substantial revision of 1734, with the famed castrato Carestini, was much more successful, and the subsequent revival the same year featured dances by celebrated French ballerina Marie Sallé and her troupe, with specially composed music by Handel. 18th century musicologist Charles Burney wrote that Il Pastor Fido:
'upon the whole, is inferior in solidity and invention to almost all his other dramatic productions, yet there are in it many proofs of genius and abilities which must strike every real judge of the art, who is acquainted with the state of dramatic Music at the time it was composed.' [5]
The opera is scored for two flutes, two oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo (cello, lute, harpsichord) in the 1712 version and for two flutes, two oboes, bassoon, two horns, strings, and continuo in the 1734 version.
The second edition is notable for its extended overture. In six movements, it includes numerous contrasted sections and may originally have been intended for independent performance. [7]
The overture was included in the 1986 album of Handel Overtures on Archiv Produktion, with The English Concert conducted by Trevor Pinnock, and is a popular stand-alone work for concerts or recordings.
Ariodante is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The anonymous Italian libretto was based on a work by Antonio Salvi, which in turn was adapted from Canti 4, 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Each act contains opportunities for dance, originally composed for dancer Marie Sallé and her company.
Arminio is an opera composed by George Frideric Handel. The libretto is based on a libretto of the same name by Antonio Salvi, which had been set to music by Alessandro Scarlatti. It is a fictionalisation of events surrounding the Germanic leader Arminius, who defeated the Romans under Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, and his wife Thusnelda. The opera was performed for the first time at the Covent Garden Theatre on 12 January 1737.
Atalanta is a pastoral opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel composed in 1736. It is based upon the mythological female athlete, Atalanta, the libretto being derived from the book La Caccia in Etolia by Belisario Valeriani. The identity of the librettist is not known.
Teseo is an opera seria with music by George Frideric Handel, the only Handel opera that is in five acts. The Italian-language libretto was by Nicola Francesco Haym, after Philippe Quinault's Thésée. It was Handel's third London opera, intended to follow the success of Rinaldo after the unpopular Il pastor fido.
Orlando is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel written for the King's Theatre in London in 1733. The Italian libretto was adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's L'Orlando after Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which was also the source of Handel's operas Alcina and Ariodante. More an artistic than a popular success at its first performances, Orlando is today recognised as a masterpiece.
Sosarme, re di Media is an opera by George Frideric Handel written in 1732 for the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, London, where it ran for 12 performances. The text was based on an earlier libretto by Antonio Salvi, Dionisio, Re di Portogallo, and adapted by an unknown writer. The original setting of Portugal was changed to Sardis in Lydia.
Ottone, re di Germania is an opera by George Frideric Handel, to an Italian–language libretto adapted by Nicola Francesco Haym from the libretto by Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino for Antonio Lotti's opera Teofane. It was the first new opera written for the Royal Academy of Music (1719)'s fourth season and had its first performance on 12 January 1723 at the King's Theatre, Haymarket in London. Handel had assembled a cast of operatic superstars for this season and the opera became an enormous success.
Oreste is an opera by George Frideric Handel in three acts. The libretto was anonymously adapted from Giangualberto Barlocci’s L’Oreste, which was in turn adapted from Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris.
Arianna in Creta is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was adapted by Francis Colman from Pietro Pariati's Arianna e Teseo, a text previously set by Nicola Porpora in 1727 and Leonardo Leo in 1729.
Margherita Durastanti was an Italian singer of the 18th century. Vocally, she is best described as a soprano, though later in her career her tessitura descended to that of a mezzo-soprano. First heard of professionally in Mantua in 1700–01, she later appeared in Bologna and Reggio Emilia (1710), Milan and Reggio (1713) and Florence (1715). Today she is particularly remembered for her association with the composer George Frideric Handel: indeed she enjoyed a longer personal association with the composer than any other musician.
The Faithful Shepherdess is a Jacobean era stage play, the work that inaugurated the playwriting career of John Fletcher. Though the initial production was a failure with its audience, the printed text that followed proved significant, in that it contained Fletcher's influential definition of tragicomedy. Like many of Fletcher's later tragicomedies, The Faithful Shepherdess deals with the darker side of sexuality and sexual jealousy, albeit within a comic framework.
Ezio is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel to a libretto by Metastasio. Metastasio's libretto was partly inspired by Jean Racine's play Britannicus. The same libretto had already been set by many other composers, first of all Nicola Porpora who managed to preempt the official Rome premiere of Pietro Auletta's setting for 26 December 1728 with his own version for Venice on 20 November, a month earlier. The libretto continued to be set and reset for another 50 years, including two versions of Ezio by Gluck. Handel's Ezio is considered one of the purest examples of opera seria with its absence of vocal ensembles.
Clori, Tirsi, e Fileno, Cantata a tre, subtitled Cor fedele in vano speri, is a 1707 comic cantata by George Frideric Handel. The subject is a pretty shepherdess who loves two young men, but loses both when they discover her fickleness. Believed lost for many years, the score is the source of arias in some of Handel's later, more celebrated operas.
Silla is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was by Giacomo Rossi. The story concerns the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla as recounted by Plutarch.
Il pastor fido is a pastoral tragicomedy set in Arcadia by Giovanni Battista Guarini, first published in 1590 in Venice.
Carlo Scalzi was an Italian castrato who had an active performance career in major opera houses in Italy from 1718-1738. He was also heard in London in 1733–1734 where he notably created the role of Alceste in the world premiere of George Frideric Handel's Arianna in Creta. The librettist Pietro Metastasio described Scalzi as a "very unique singer" and likened his voice to that of the famous castrato Farinelli.
Elisabetta Pilotti-Schiavonetti was an Italian operatic soprano who was associated with the House of Hanover. She was one of the leading prima donnas at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket from 1710 to 1717. She is best remembered today for creating roles in at least four operas by George Frideric Handel, possibly five. Three of the roles that Handel wrote specifically for her were sorceresses, and the demands of those roles indicate that she possessed an exceptional voice capable of both dramatic power and technical agility. She is said to have had a bitter rivalry with the Queen's other leading soprano, Isabella Girardeau.
Jane Barbier was an English contralto of the 18th century, best known for her performances in the operas of George Frideric Handel. She first performed in 1711 in the revival of the opera Almahide. She created the roles of Dorinda and Arcano, and also sang in Rinaldo. After leaving Italian opera she performed in the masques of Johann Pepusch, and worked for John Rich in various pantomimes and English-language operas. Thomas Arne's Rosamond (1733), where she took the role of King Henry, marked the end of her successful career, and after this she largely disappears from the historical record.
Terpsicore (HWV)(8b) is a prologue in the form of an opéra-ballet by George Frideric Handel. Handel composed it in 1734 for a revision of his opera Il pastor fido which had first been presented in 1712. The revision of Il pastor fido with Terpsicore as the prologue was first performed on 9 November 1734 at Covent Garden theatre in London, opening Handel's first season in that newly built theatre. Terpsicore mixes dance along with solo and choral singing and was patterned after models in French operas, a particular source being Les festes grecques et romaines by Louis Fuzelier and Colin de Blamont, first presented in Paris in 1723. The work featured the celebrated French dancer Marie Sallé as well as stars of Handel's Italian operas and was a success with audiences of the day.
The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham made several orchestral suites from neglected music by George Frideric Handel, mostly from the composer's 42 surviving operas. The best known of the suites are The Gods Go a'Begging (1928), The Origin of Design (1932), The Faithful Shepherd (1940), Amaryllis (1944) and The Great Elopement.
Notes
Sources
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
