The Predominance of the Spectacular
Throughout the fifteenth century the lyric drama of Italy continued to
be a denizen of courts and to be saturated with what has been called the
"passionate sensualism" of the Italian genius. The rivalry of lords,
spiritual and temporal, of popes, of dukes and princes, in the luxury of
their fêtes was a salient phenomenon of the time. The lyric drama became
a field for gorgeous display and its pomp and circumstance included not
only elegant song, but considerable assemblies of instruments, dazzling
ballets, pantomimic exhibitions, elaborate stage machinery, imported
singers and instrumentalists. As the painters had represented popes and
potentates mingling with the holy family at the sacred manger, so the
lyric dramatists assembled the gods and heroes of classic fable to do
honor to Lorenzo and others of that glittering era.
In 1488 Bergonzo Botta, of Tortoni, prepared a festal play for the
marriage of Galeazzo Sforza and Isabella of Arragon. Arteaga[31] quotes
from Tristan Chalco, a Milanese historiographer, an account of this
production. The entertainment took place in a great hall, which had a
gallery holding many instrumental players. In the center of the hall
was a bare table. As soon as the prince and princess had entered the
spectacle began with the return of Jason and his companions who
deposited the golden fleece on the table as a present. Mercury then
appeared and related some of his adventures in Thessaly with Apollo.
Next came Diana with her nymphs dragging a handsome stag. She gave the
stag to the bridal pair and told a pretty story about his being the one
into which she had changed the incautious Acteon. After Diana had
retired the orchestra became silent and the tones of a lyre were heard.
Then entered Orpheus who began his tale with the words, "I bewailed on
the spires of the Apennines the untimely death of my Euridice." But, as
he explained, his song had changed as his heart had changed, and since
Euridice was no more, he wished now to lay his homage at the feet of the
most amiable Princess in the world. Orpheus was interrupted by the
entrance of Atalanta and Theseus and a party of hunters, who brought the
first part to an end in an animated dance.
[Footnote 31: "Le Rivoluzioni del Teatro Musicale Italiano della
sua Origine fino al Presente," by Stefano Arteaga. Venice, 1785.]
The second part introduced Iris, Hebe, Pomona, Vertumnus, and choruses
of Arcadians and others. This part concluded with a dance by gods of the
sea and the Lombardian rivers. The third part began with the appearance
of Orpheus leading Hymen, to whom he sang praises, accompanying himself
on the lyre. Behind him were the Graces, in the midst of whom came
"Marital Fidelity" and presented herself to the princess. After some
other minor incidents of the same kind the spectacle came to an end with
a ballet in which Bacchus, Silenus, Pan and a chorus of satyrs were
principal figures. This lively and comic dance, says Chalco, "brought to
an end the most splendid and astonishing spectacle that Italy had
witnessed."
In 1487 Nicolo de Corregio Visconti produced at Ferrara his fable
"Cephale et l'Aurore." In this there were choruses of nymphs, vows to
Diana, dialogues between Corydon and Thyrsis and other pastoral
dainties. At the carnival of 1506 at Urbino, Castiglione and his friend
Cesare Gonzaga, of the great Mantuan family, recited the former's
"Tirsi," dialogues in verse. The two interpreters wore pastoral
costumes. The dialogue was couched in the customary pastoral phrase, but
it was made plain that fulsome flattery of living personages was
intended.[32] The musical numbers of which we can be certain were one
solo, sung by Iola, a chorus of shepherds and a morris dance.
[Footnote 32: "Poesie Volgari e Latine del Conte B. Castiglione."
Rome, 1760.]
The impulse which brought the "Orfeo" into being had not yet exhausted
itself and the Italians continued to feast their souls on a visionary
Arcadia with which they vainly strove to mingle their own present. But
love of luxurious display slowly transformed their pastorals into
glittering spectacles. As for the music, we may be certain that in the
beginning it followed the lines laid down in the "Orfeo." It rested
first on the basis of the frottola, but when the elegant and gracious
madrigal provided an art form better suited to the opulence of the
decorative features of the embryonic lyric drama, the madrigal became
the dominating element in the music. Together with it we find in time
the dance slowly assuming that shape which eventually became the
foundation of the suite.
Adrian Willaert became chapel master of St. Mark's in 1527 and his
influence in spreading the madrigal through Italy was so great that he
has been called, as we have already noted, the father of that form of
composition. Certain it is that, despite the earlier publications of
Petrucci, the madrigal became dominant in Italy after the advent of
Willaert. But we must not lose sight of the influence of Constanzo
Festa, the earliest great Italian writer of madrigals, whose first book
of these compositions (for three voices) was published in 1537. We are
therefore to understand that in the plays about to be mentioned the
madrigal style prevailed in the music.
In 1539 at the marriage of Cosimo I and Eleanora of Toledo there were
two spectacular performances. In the first Apollo appeared in company
with the muses. He sang stanzas glorifying the bride and her husband,
and the muses responded with a canzona in nine parts. Now the cities of
Tuscany entered, each accompanied by a symbolical procession, and sang
their praises to the bride. The second entertainment was a prose comedy
of Landi, preceded by a prologue and provided with five intermezzi. In
the first intermezzo Aurora, in a blazing chariot, awakened all nature
by her song. Then the Sun rose and by his position in the sky informed
the audience what was the hour of each succeeding episode. In the final
intermezzo Night brought back Sleep, who had banished Aurora, and the
spectacle concluded with a dance of bacchantes and satyrs to
instrumental music. The accounts which have come down to us note that
the song of Aurora was accompanied by a gravicembalo, an organ, a flute,
a harp and a large viol. For the song of Night four trombones were used
to produce a grave and melancholy support. The music for this
entertainment was composed by Francesco Corteccia, Constanzo Festa,
Mattio Rampollini, Petrus Masaconus and Baccio Moschini. All these
musicians were composers of madrigals, and Corteccia was at the time
Cosimo's chapel master. In this spectacle was heard the solo madrigal
for Sileno already mentioned. Here is the opening of this piece; the
upper voice was sung and the other voice parts were played as an
accompaniment.
[Musical Notation]
In 1554 Beccari of Ferrara (1510-1590) produced his "Il Sagrifizio," a
genuine pastoral drama, in which the actors were Arcadian shepherds with
Roman manners. The dialogues were connected by a series of dramatic
actions, and the music was composed by Alfonso della Viola, a pupil of
Willaert. Among the personages was a high priest who sang, like
Poliziano's Orpheus, to the accompaniment of his own lyre. The same
composer wrote choruses for Alberto Lollio's pastoral, "Aretusa" (1563)
and several musical numbers for "Lo Sfortunato" by Agostino Argenti, of
Ferrara (1571).
In 1574 on the occasion of the visit of Henri III to Venice, the doge
ordered a performance of a piece called simply "Tragedia," which had
choruses and some other music by the great Claudio Merulo, composer of
the first definitely designed instrumental works. For the wedding
festivities attendant upon the marriage of Francesco de Medicis and
Bianca Capella in 1579 Gualterotti arranged a grand tournée in the
interior court of the Pitti Palace at Florence. This entertainment was
of a nature similar to that of 1539 above described. It was composed of
mythologic episodes spectacularly treated. The verse was by Giovanni
Rucellai, the distinguished author of "Rosamunda" and the "Api," and the
music by Pietro Strozzi. One of the singers was a certain young Giulio
Caccini, who lived to be famous.
Torquato Tasso's pastoral play "Aminta" (1573) had choruses though we
cannot say who composed the music. It is known that Luzzasco Luzzaschi,
pupil of Cyprian di Rore, master of Frescobaldi, and composer of
madrigals and organ toccatas, wrote the chorals in madrigal style for
Guarini's famous "Pastor Fido." There were choruses to separate the acts
and two introduced in the action. These two, which had a kind of
refrain, were the chorus of hunters in Act IV, scene sixth, and the
chorus of priests and shepherds in Act V, scene third. There was also an
episode in which a dance was executed to the music of a chorus sung
behind the scenes.
In 1589, on the occasion of the marriage in Florence of the Grand Duke
Ferdinand with Princess Christine of Loraine, there was a festal
entertainment under the general direction of Giovanni Bardi, Count of
Vernio, at whose palace afterward met the founders of modern opera.
Indeed, the members of the young Florentine coterie were generally
concerned in this fête and doubtless found much to move them toward
their new conception. The Count of Vernio's comedy "Amico Fido" was
played and was accompanied by six spectacular intermezzi with music. The
first of these was by Ottavio Rinuccini, author of "Dafne" and
"Euridice," usually called the first operas. It was named the "Harmony
of the Spheres," and its music was composed by Emilio del Cavaliere
(originator of the modern oratorio) and the chapel master Cristoforo
Malvezzi. The second intermezzo dealt with a contest in song between the
daughters of Pierus and the muses. The judges were hamadryads and the
defeated mortals were punished for their presumption. The text was by
Rinuccini and the music by Luca Marenzio, the famous madrigalist. The
contesting singers were accompanied by lutes and viols, while their
judges had the support of harps, lyres, viols and other instruments of
the same family.
Bardi himself devised the third intermezzo, Rinuccini wrote the verse
and Bardi and Marenzio the music. It had some of the essential features
of both ballet and opera and represented the victory of Apollo over the
python. The god descended from the skies to the music of viols, flutes
and trombones. Later when he celebrated his victory and the acclaiming
Greeks surrounded him, lutes, trombones, harps, viols and a horn united
with the voices. Strozzi wrote the fourth intermezzo with music by
Caccini. This carried the audience into both supernal and infernal
regions and its music, somber and imposing, called for an orchestra of
viols, lutes, lyres of all forms, double harps, trombones and organ.
The fifth intermezzo must have rivaled the glories of the ancient sacred
plays in the public squares. Rinuccini arranged it from the story of
Arion. The theater, so we are told, represented a sea dotted with rocks
and from many of these spouted springs of living water. At the foot of
the mountains in the background floated little ships. Amphitrite entered
in a car drawn by two dolphins and accompanied by fourteen tritons and
fourteen naiads. Arion arrived in a ship with a crew of forty. When he
had precipitated himself into the sea he sang a solo accompanied by a
harp, not by a lyre as in the ancient fable. When the avaricious sailors
thought him engulfed forever, they sang a chorus of rejoicing,
accompanied by oboes, bassoons, cornets and trombones. The music of this
intermezzo was by Malvezzi, who was a distinguished madrigalist. The
last intermezzo was also arranged by Rinuccini and its music was by
Cavaliere. In this the poet divided the muses into three groups, in
order to give antiphonal effect to their songs. He combined the episodes
so as to furnish the musician with the motives for a dance and in a
manner permit of the use of numerous and varied instruments, from the
organ to the Spanish guitar. Probably this ballet morceau was one of the
first of many medleys of national character dances so familiar now to
the operatic stage.[33]
[Footnote 33: This account is taken from Bastiano de' Rossi's
"Descrizione dell' apparato e degli intermedi fatti per la
commedia rappresentata in Firenze nello nozze del serenissimo
D. Ferdinando Medici," etc. Firenze, 1589. This work is not in any
of the great libraries and is here quoted from the previously
mentioned history of M. Chouquet, who had access to it in the
private library of an Italian scholar. The voice and instrumental
partbooks were edited by Malvezzi, and published at Venice in 1591
under the title "Intermedii e concerti, fatti per la commedia
rappresentata in Firenze nelle nozze del Ferdinando Medici e
Madama Cristiana di Lorena." Malvezzi's edition contains valuable
notes and an instructive preface.]
The published text of these creations shows that they contain much that
rests on the traditions of the lyric drama as it had been known in Italy
for a century, while there is also a little that approaches the new
style then in process of development. This is not strange, indeed, since
several of the men most deeply interested in the search after the
ancient Greek declamation were active in the preparation of this
entertainment. Nevertheless we learn from Malvezzi's publication that
the pieces were all written in the madrigal style, frequently in
numerous voice parts. The entire orchestra was employed in company with
the voices only in the heavier numbers.
It is plain that in these musical plays there was no attempt at complete
setting of the text. There was no union of the lyrics by any sort of
recitative. The first Italian to write anything of this kind in a play
seems to have been Cavaliere, but unfortunately his "Il Satiro" (1590)
and "La Disperazione di Sileno" (1595) are known to us only through a
comment of Doni, who censures them for pedantic affectations and
artificialities of style, inimical to the truth of dramatic music. The
dates of the production of these works show us that they were not as old
as the movement toward real monodic song, and it is certain that in
France, at any rate, the Italian Balthazarini had already brought out in
1581 a ballet-opera, "Le Ballet Comique de la Reine," which contained
real vocal solos. At the same time the evidence is conclusive that the
madrigal was acquiring general popularity as a form of dramatic music,
and the madrigal drama reached the zenith of its glory at the very
moment when its fate was preparing in the experiments of Galilei and
others in the new monodic style destined to become the basis of modern
Italian opera.