Castrati

Este artigo aborda o surgimento de mulheres que interpretaram papéis masculinos na história da ópera, como isso ocorreu, e como se desenvolveu. Analisa-se junto a isso a história dos castrati, e possíveis causas para seu apogeu e declínio. O conceito de gênero, seu desenvolvimento através dos séculos e sua aplicabilidade à história dos papéis travestidos também é estudado, usando como base o autor Thomas Laqueur. Examina-se também a contribuição da teoria de ouvido de época de Naomi André. Faz-se um resumo das cantoras que primeiro interpretaram papéis en travesti, ou se especializaram nesse tipo de personagem.

From Winston Black in The Medieval Review 15.06.24...

'In the concluding essay, "The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination," Lila Yawn clearly takes the most chances and has the most fun in exploring the topic of medieval wounds and wounding. After a review of graphic and supposedly "medieval" dismemberments in modern movies and literature, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, or Pulp Fiction, Yawn poses the simple question of "how medieval cutting up living bodies really was" (218). In response, she gives a whirlwind tour of nearly two millennia of images and descriptions of amputation, dismemberment, fragmentation, and mutilation from Cicero to Thomas Jefferson. In so doing she demonstrates, as many medieval apologists have already noted, that there is no greater amount or degree of dismemberment in the Middle Ages than before or after, but what leads moderns to equate "medieval" with "dismemberment" is the medieval tendency to celebrate dismemberment and put severed body parts on display, be they of the criminal or of the saint.'

The Medieval Review 15.06.24
Kirkham, Anne, and Cordelia Warr, eds. Wounds in the Middle Ages. The History of Medicine in Context. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. pp. xvi, 254. $124.95 (hardback). ISBN: 9781409465690 (hardback).
Reviewed by: Winston Black, Assumption College. [email protected]
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/19219/25339

This paper aims to discuss the role of Muzio Scevola sung by Senesino in the homonymic opera written in 1721 by Filippo Amadei, Giovanni Bononcini and Händel. The three composers wrote the music for each one of the acts of the opera. While Händel’s setting of the 3rd act has been already discussed by scholars, little attention has been paid to the former two. As the role of Muzio Scevola is an original one, I would like to show, by analysing it, how the composers approached Senesino’s vocality.

In this dissertation we identified some changes in the Italian vocal practice of the
XVII to the XIX centuries through the comparative analysis of the vocal treatises of Pier
Tosi: "Opinione de' cantori antichi e modemi, o sieno osservazione sopra il canto figurato",
written in 1723; of Giambattista Mancini: "Pensieri e rijlessioni pratiche sopra il canto
figurato", written in 1774; and of Manuel P.R. Garcia: "Traite compet sur l'art du chant",
written in 1847. From this comparative analysis we were able to observe elements which
helped and enhanced our performance of the vocal repertoire contemporary to these
authors, achieving a performance historically more sound. Due to the lack of
Portuguese translations of these treaties, we have included in this work our translation
of numerous excerpts of these three works. Also included is a biographical study of the
three authors, tracing relationships between them. Several musical examples of these
authors are presented to better illustrate their intentions. As a result of this study we
noticed that the interpreter of early music needs to be willing to comprehend the
musical practice of the historical period he is performing, or else he(she) runs the risk of
inserting elements totally anachronistic to the music he( she) wishes to perform.

O presente artigo, escrito em 2012, tem como objetivo trazer a luz esclarecimentos sobre os castrati, cantores castrados que influenciaram fortemente a história da música vocal europeia entre os séculos XVI e XIX. Apresenta uma visão holística da prática da castração com finalidade musical, a escolha e treinamento dos meninos cantores, o resultado vocal alcançado, abordando o fim dessa prática quando o papa Leo XIII a declarou ilegal em 1878.

This paper explores religious prohibitions of castration—and the language of body parts—in the Hebrew Bible and in Patristic literature.  It then asks why Jean de Meun has his character, Reason, describe the castration of Saturn at the beginning of his poem, and then amplify the parrhesia by using the vulgar vernacular term “couilles” (“balls”) in describing the act? In answer,  the paper argues that Jean offers, first, a bold critique of Augustine’s exposition on castration in De civitate dei—and, by implication, a critique of the reigning Patristic doctrines of sexuality and  permissible language of sex and body parts.  In the second place, he eviscerates attitudes towards love and sexuality elaborated in lyric poetry and romance during the 12th and 13th centuries.  In so doing, he elaborates an “art of love,” akin to the less sophisticated, but more realistic fabliaux.

Ao longo deste trabalho, procuramos demonstrar a presença dos castrati em território português, precipuamente nos reinados de D. João V e D. José I [fruto da herança joanina], de modo a alcançarmos o devido entendimento sobre a relevância destes indivíduos no processo de enriquecimento da cultura erudita, englobando-a no ambiente religioso-católico, palaciano ou até mesmo político, constituindo assim, uma espécie de mecenato régio através da italianização dos chamados usos e costumes, já que muitos dos reinos europeus foram “vítimas” desta influência setecentista.

The employment of castrati in the Byzantine Church can be traced back to the choirmaster Brison in the fourth century. Brison was called upon by John Chrysostom to organize the antiphonal hymn-singing in the patriarchal church. Since eunuchs were generally considered to be remnants of a pagan past, castrati are seldom mentioned in early Byzantine sources, but beginning in the tenth century references to eunuchs or castrati became more and more frequent.  By the twelfth century all the professional singers in the Hagia Sophia were castrati. The repertory of the castrati is discussed and the question is raised whether the introduction of castrati to the Sistine Chapel was influenced by the employment of castrati in Italo-Greek cloisters.

In the late 17th century, the Castrati are a familiar presence for the aristocrats of the Italian Peninsula, who usually enjoy their singing and in various circumstances exercise the functions of playwrights and organizers of musical events. However, the ability as singers and the 'self-promotional' talent can raise the status of some «musici» and introduce then into the same noble class, although the social ascent is not entirely undisputed and free of any risk for a Castrato of the Baroque period.

Grande conoscitore e amico dei pittori, egli stesso dilettante d’arte, Anton Maria Zanetti di Girolamo (1680-1767) è ben noto pure per il suo album di caricature, una galleria di trecentocinquanta indimenticabili ritratti: dai famosi divi dell’opera agli anonimi popolani, irrisi senza distinzioni. Dopo il catalogo della mostra del 1969 e sulla base della bibliografia, la schedatura iniziata nel 2008 e condotta grazie al contributo fondamentale di Save Venice Inc., con la partecipazione dell’UNESCO Office in Venice e del Francis Haskell Memorial Fund, ha ricostruito la genesi della raccolta, confrontandola con i simili album del console Smith (Windsor Castle, collezioni reali) e di Francesco Algarotti (Gerusalemme, Israel Museum). Sono molte le novità del volume, edito da Lineadacqua, dedicato alla memoria di W. R. Rearick: le attribuzioni a Marco Ricci caricaturista, la cronologia e il montaggio dei disegni sulla pagina, l’identificazione di alcuni effigiati e del postillatore tardo settecentesco, i legami con le arti figurative, il teatro e la musica, aspetti che gettano nuova luce su Zanetti, sulla sua rete cosmopolita, su Venezia.

This thesis describes the vocal practice in Rio de Janeiro in the early nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on how it was influenced by the presence of the Portuguese court. To this end a substantial number of primary sources have been consulted, both musical and historical. The most important musical sources are those of the actual repertoire composed there at that time, as well as a considerable body of books on musical theory and methods written in both Brazil and Portugal. Among the historical sources consulted are letters, government expense ledgers, reports by those in charge of the Royal Chapel, and periodicals. From an analysis of these documents, it has been possible to carry out a wideranging biographical study of the singers active in Rio de Janeiro during the regency and reign of King João VI, whenever possible including a description of their interpretative style and their voices. The descriptions of individual voices are based on the solos expressly written for certain singers and composed by Father José Maurício Nunes Garcia and by Marcos Portugal. The data confirms that the presence of the Portuguese court in Rio did indeed lead to considerable change in vocal practice there and, by means of an analysis of most of the vocal lines by Fr. José Maurício, it can be shown how this actually occurred. We may conclude that up to the early 1840s the most influential model of vocal excellence in Rio de Janeiro was the eighteenth-century Italian school, represented above all by a number of castrati at the Royal Chapel. This research, which links questions relating to both musicology and interpretation, provides an example of how an analysis of the activities of performers contributes to a better understanding of musical output as a whole. Key words: Singing, Opera, Song, Musicology, D. João VI.

Introducendo il ruolo dei castrati nell’opera settecentesca, mi sono concentrato su alcuni dei più applauditi virtuosi dell’ugola che si esibirono a Londra nelle opere di Haendel, analizzando i principali ruoli feticcio composti per essi, nella speranza di cogliere, attraverso la realizzazione musicale dei drammi, le peculiarità tecniche ed espressive di queste star d’un tempo: ossia Niccolò Grimaldi detto Cavalier Nicolino/Rinaldo (1711), Francesco Bernardi Senesino/Giulio Cesare (1724) e Giovanni Carestini il Cusanino/Ariodante (1735). Inoltre, partendo dalla considerazione che quando impersonò Bajazet nel Tamerlano (1724), Francesco Borosini cantò una parte 'prima', ho analizzato poi la vocalità tenorile nel teatro haendeliano, tentando di illustrare il ruolo attribuito da Haendel al tenore (all'epoca spesso un semplice comprimario), quando se ne avvalse nelle opere successive: per farlo ho posto lo sguardo su altri due grandi tenori del primo Settecento, l’italiano Annibale Pio Fabri e l’inglese John Beard. Infine, ho concluso con qualche riflessione sulla odierna prassi operistica, se si debba cioè affidare le parti originariamente scritte per i castrati ad un mezzosoperano 'en travesti', ad un controtenore o, perchè no, ad una voce grave - baritono o tenore.

Διαθέσιμο στο: https://www.pemptousia.gr/video/vizantini-chorodiaki-paradosi-ke-nea-methodos-grafis-provlimatismi/ 
Η Νέα Μέθοδος γραφής παρουσιάστηκε από τους δημιουργούς της με σειρά πλεονεκτημάτων έναντι της Παλαιάς Γραφής. Μεταξύ αυτών, έμφαση δόθηκε στη συντόμευση της πολύχρονης μαθητείας, χάρη στη διευκόλυνση της διδασκαλίας της ψαλτικής, μέσα από την αναλυτική καταγραφή των ψαλλομένων που αποδέσμευσε τους μαθητές από την ανάγκη απομνημόνευσης των περίπλοκων θέσεων.
Σκοπός της ανακοίνωσης είναι να διερευνήσει το εάν, στις συνθήκες που έχουν πλέον διαμορφωθεί, υπάρχουν έστω κάποια από τα χαρακτηριστικά της βυζαντινής αντίληψης για τη χορωδιακή εκτέλεση των ψαλμάτων που θα ήταν δυνατόν να αναδειχθούν, χάρη στις ευκολίες που προσφέρει η αναλυτική σημειογραφία.

Tese apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para  à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Música realizada sob a orientação científica do Doutor David Cranmer e Doutora Edite Maria Oliveira da Rocha.  A presente tese tem como objeto de estudo os castrati em Portugal e noBrasil, visando principalmente às atividades musicais realizadas nos teatros da corte portuguesa entre 1752 e 1822. A partir de documentação histórica inédita, como livros de despesa do governo, os relatos fornecidos por viajantes estrangeiros da época, libretos, partituras originais e correspondências, a tese aborda o percurso histórico dos castrati italianos ampliando o entendimento sobre as práticas musicais que esses cantores protagonizaram tanto em Lisboa como no Rio de Janeiro.

This article follows an aesthetic debate about opera seria in letters written in 1780 by the playwright Francesco Albergati Capacelli and the poet Francesco Zacchiroli. The correspondents belonged to different generations, not only in age but in aesthetic assumptions and emotional outlook.

Zacchiroli, a passionate opera lover, set off the debate by writing to Albergati about his experience at La Scala in Milan during Carnival 1780. The singing of the musico Luigi Marchesi
had overwhelmed him and the rest of the Milanese audience during a performance an aria by Giuseppe Sarti, “Mia speranza io pur vorrei.” In his opening salvo, Zacchiroli vividly conveyed the depth of feelings, the emotional intoxication that opera seria could arouse in eighteenth-century audiences. Albergati responded with an attack on opera seria whose vehemence reflects not only his impatience at what he perceived as the genre’s absurdities, but also the frustration and jealousy felt by a playwright in a country where spoken theater had been opera’s poor cousin since the seventeenth century.

In addition to extensive excerpts from the letters, with commentary, the article presents several assessments of Marchesi’s voice and musicianship by those who witnessed his performances and subjects “Mia speranza”—an early and influential example of the two-tempo rondò—to detailed analysis.

The analysis of gender as a social construct has become widely accepted in the humanities and social sciences, not least because of the reception of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler's contributions to gender theory. 1 Butler argues that sex is not "a bodily given on which the construct of gender is artificially imposed but […] a cultural norm which governs the materialization of bodies." 2 The most pronounced criticism of Butler came from the German body historian Barbara Duden, who placed the concept of "body" alongside the concept of "Leib." This concept is almost untranslatable in English. 3 In German, Leib means the Greek "Soma," i.e., the body as experience, ruled by affects, which eludes access. "[…] Körper denotes the physical body as object, while Leib 1 Modules on Butler I: On Gender and Sex. URL: https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/the ory/genderandsex/modules/butl ergendersex.html#:~:text=Sex%2C%20for%20Butler%2C%20%22is,norms%22 %20(Bodies%202), accessed September 6, 2021. 2 Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex". New York: Routledge; 1993, p. 2f. 3 "I stated the long project title in German not simply for official accuracy but because it highlights a crucial philosophical point that these articles underline and which also makes their English translation difficult. German has two words with rather different meanings that are commonly used for what in English we simply call 'body.' These German words for body-Körper and Leib, with their accordingly different cognate grammatical derivatives (körperlich/leiblich, Körperlichkeit/Leiblichkeit)-are typically sharply opposed in philosophical discourse on embodiment, not only in German but in their adaptation into French and other languages by Merleau-Ponty and others." Shusterman, Richard. Soma and Psyche.

The large majority of attempts to depict the complex phenomenon of castrati, both in its genesis  and quick dominion of the  Opera, tend to disregard the  imaginary aspects of castration.  These  are  inherent  to  the  double  inscription  of  the  castrato:  the  opulent aristocracy  of  renaissance  city-states,  mostly  on  the  north  of  the  italic  peninsula (Florence,  Mantua…),  and  the  ambiguities  of  catholic  discourse  after  the  Council  of Trent.
There  is  no  doubt  that  much  of  the  richness  of  the  castrati  is  due  to  its  historic singularity. We can read it based on a biopolitical framework, showing a peculiar way to  explore  and  manipulate  biological  traits  affecting  the  possibilities  of  artistic expression. On the other hand, the aesthetic experience of the castrati, the observation of their  performance,  should  somehow  expose  the  latent  disarrange  between  the  bodily  constitution, sexual identity and the attributions of gender.

The marriage of Dorothea Maunsell, a wealthy 14-year-old Irish Protestant girl, and Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci, the 34-year-old Italian castrato sensation of the British Isles in the late 1760s, was rich with deceit, invention, and imposture. Tenducci, who had been born in the 1730s in Sienna, Italy, had his testicles removed as a child to preserve his voice, and unlike the majority of boys who underwent the dangerous and destructive surgery in the hopes of gaining fame and fortune, Tenducci's voice held and he became a sensational "public" singer, performing throughout the continent and British Isles in the 1750s and beyond. By 1766, well-known and very well-loved in London, he made his way to Dublin, Ireland-perhaps to avoid his latest English creditors-and he quickly found himself a frequent guest at the home of Thomas Maunsell. Here, "under pretence of instructing Dorothea Maunsell in the art of singing," he fell in love with the girl.

This article was intended for inclusion in my 2015 book _Music and the Exotic from the Renaissance to Mozart_ (Cambridge U Press), but I removed it for reasons of length. ABSTRACT: In Europe, during the Early Modern Period (ca. 1500-1800), lands and peoples that were located far away were often perceived, by inhabitants of a European land, as somehow exotic: that is, as different from “Here” and “Us.” Rarely mentioned in discussions of “music and the exotic” are certain important and highly formalized events that were put on by major European courts, that mainly occurred out of doors, and that often made use of horses: namely processions (often pageant-like), jousts, tournaments, and equestrian ballets. Several French and Italian courts represented the exotic Other in distinctive ways at such events. A notable series of events took place in 1565 during the politically fraught visit of the young French king Charles IX and his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, to Bayonne. Detailed accounts of the Bayonne séjour reveal instances in which foreigners were portrayed, including Turks, “Moors,” American “savages,” an Amazon warrior (from an unknown distant land), and legendary sorceresses from Syria and Cathay, and also rural French villagers (arguably a “foreign” group, from the viewpoint of Paris-based aristocrats and their Spanish guests). These portrayals reflected struggles among the major European powers over religion, territory, and overseas empire and struggles between Europe and the Ottoman Empire over control of the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe.

On 8 March 1808, the the Portuguese court established itself in its American dominions, seeking refuge from Napoleon’s army which had taken possession of Portugal. Thus, what had hitherto been the capital of the Viceroyalty of Brazil, found itself elevated overnight to the headquarters of the Portuguese Empire. This was the beginning of a serires of political and social changes that would lead to the independence of Brazil in 1822, almost a year after the return of the Portuguese court to Europe. In the midst of all these events, musical life in Rio underwent a process of profound transformation. In the present text I aim to describe how the presence of the Portuguese court came to influence vocal practice in Rio de Janeiro. To this end, I will identify the changes that took place in musical circles there, in the churches, in the theatres and in private salons.

The paper reconstructs the history of creation and performance of the opera "Pirro" by Zingarelli / De Gamerra, and considers the role of castrato Luigi Marchesi in the compositional process, the performances and the long lasting success of the score. Original embellishments by Marchesi on two rondos are discussed within the musical environment the opera was produced (Milan) and for the revivals in Bergamo and Venice.

The architectural shell of the Church of Holy Wisdom surrounds a supernatural space preserving through the centuries the most exquisite acoustical and optical tensions imaginable.  John Chrysostom called upon the services of Brison, a eunuch in the service of the empress Eudoxia, to establish the two foundation stones which were to influence the development of musical culture until the 13th century; namely antiphony between two choirs of singers and the use of castrati.  Both castrati and regular male singers figured in the choirs of the Hagia Sophia until the 9th century.  At the Christmas service in St. Stephen’s chapel in 820, however, the emperor Leo V was murdered by assassins who had assumed the costumes of singers and sneaked into the palace precincts.  After this incident singers were required to live in quarters within the imperial palace, a regulation which put ‘bearded’ singers with families at a disadvantage.  Theodoros Balsamon states that by the 12th century the ordo cantorum consisted entirely of eunuchs.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo trazer a luz esclarecimentos sobre os castrati, cantores castrados que influenciaram fortemente a história da música vocal europeia entre os séculos XVI e XIX. Apresenta uma visão holística da prática da castração com finalidade musical, a escolha e treinamento dos meninos cantores, o resultado vocal alcançado, abordando o fim dessa prática quando o papa Leo XIII a declarou ilegal em 1878.
Artigo publicado na revista Música e Linguagem - Revista do Curso de Música da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo v. 1, n. 2 (2013) https://www.periodicos.ufes.br/musicaelinguagem/issue/view/338/showTo

The book is an important contribution to the social and cultural histories of music and gender. It combines audience, vocal training histories, and performance conventions to show that audiences, performers and composers constructed the gender of operatic characters independently of the biological sex of the performers. A terrific read that amplifies the literature on women and opera, the book spotlights the early nineteenth century history of performance as well as the social constructedness of vocal technique and the longevity of audience memories of sounds and performances. A key contribution to histories of the social and political importance of musical life and soundscape: musical performances do not vanish when they end, after all.

Nel XVIII secolo, raramente le musiche operistiche resistevano al variare del gusto musicale. Resistevano al passare del tempo soprattutto le arie di baule, brani di cui fecero largo uso interpreti del rango di Carlo Broschi detto Farinelli (1705 - 1782).
L’oggetto del presente intervento sarà la partitura dell’Orfeo, un pasticcio composto nel 1736 da Nicola Antonio Porpora e da Paolo Rolli (nel quale Farinelli interpolò un gran numero di arie di baule). La maggior parte dell’opera consiste di brani scritti ex novo (o quasi) dello stesso Porpora, cui si affiancano arie di baule di compositori quali Francesco Araia, Johann Adolf Hasse e Leonardo Vinci. La paternità di alcune arie è stata già asserita nella letteratura secondaria; in questo studio si tenterà di determinare la paternità dei rimanenti pezzi chiusi dell’Orfeo, facendo ricorso a tutte le fonti superstiti e all’analisi delle concordanze musicali e letterarie (una nuova fonte musicale, identificata a Zurigo nel 2016, ci permette di confermare il contributo originale di Francesco Maria Veracini). In questa sede si analizzerà il modus operandi di Porpora nell’approntare nuove composizioni, nel modificarne di proprie, nell’adattare i brani di altri compositori avanzati da Farinelli.
Il fenomeno delle arie di baule nel primo Settecento non fu un semplice capriccio dei cantanti: in esso vedremo il momento di massima espressione della loro consapevolezza artistica, della loro capacità di influenzare il gusto del pubblico, e determinare lo stile di un’epoca. Così fu anche nel caso di Farinelli per l’Orfeo, con l’aiuto del suo antico maestro Porpora.

The opera libretto Comala (1774) by Ranieri Calzabigi has traditionally been regarded as one of the poet’s lesser creations. It has sometimes been dismissed as being too closely based on Melchiorre Cesarotti’s influential Italian translation from 1763 of the eponymous dramatic poem, which James Macpherson included in his 1762 collection of the songs of Ossian, adapted or translated from Gaelic oral poems. In the present article, however, the author argues that Calzabigi’s Comala was not only an independent adaptation but also a highly original attempt to translate the peculiar poetic and cultural features of the Ossianic world – its savagery, sublimity, melancholy, and psychological obscurity – into theatrical terms. In this experimental musical drama, Calzabigi depicts the mysterious death of the overstrung heroine as the culmination of a process of withdrawing physically from the other characters and ultimately from the stage itself, as a metaphor for her gradual withdrawal from l...

Von Velluti zu Nozzari. Das Ende der Kastraten und der Aufstieg des Operntenors in Neapel, in: Der Tenor. Mythos - Geschichte - Gegenwart, hrsg. von Corinna Herr, Arnold Jacobshagen und Thomas Seedorf (Musik - Kultur - Geschichte, Bd. 8), Würzburg (Königshausen & Neumann) 2017, S. 131-144

A number of Venetian scenes painted by Pietro Longhi (1701-1785) are still without a clear-cut title because the identification of the portrayed protagonists has been lost. Thanks to the music sheet with operatic aria ““pupille amabili, se voi piangete” depicted in the hitherto so-called Music Party or Spinet Concert formerly in the Perera collection, New York, the author claims that the puzzling subject shows the Castrato Gioacchino Conti called Gizziello (1714-1761) singing with the support of a harpsichord apparently between the première of the opera Siroe (26th December 1749) and the last performance of Artaserse (started on the 24th January 1750) in San Giovanni Grisostomo, theatre where this celebrity was caricatured by Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder. According to previous studies, the location of the Cembalo Concert (The Singer Gioacchino Conti) should be a room in the patricians Grimani ai Servi’s Cannaregio mansion, Longhi’s well-known patrons. The new chronology permits to connect this work to the Rhinoceros executed for Giovanni Grimani ai Servi in 1751. For the noble Venetian, the exotic animal and the Castrato voice and body were both intended as an intriguing marvel. The renowned rapport between Pietro Longhi and Carlo Goldoni, another Grimani ai Servi protégé, lead to peruse the influence of theatrical and meta-theatrical experiences on the original iconographies of the painter. The essay highlights the great importance of puppet shows in 18th
Century Venice, from the Teatro dei Bambocci in the miniaturized San Girolamo theatre to the marionettes performed by Giulio Goldoni, Zanetti the elder and other friends, perhaps among them the painter and caricaturist Marco Ricci. The mention of the caricature and puppet shows relates Longhi’s dolls (Levey) to Tiepolo’s Punchinellos.

The opera libretto Comala (1774) by Ranieri Calzabigi has
traditionally been regarded as one of the poet’s lesser creations.
It has sometimes been dismissed as being too closely based on
Melchiorre Cesarotti’s influential Italian translation from 1763
of the eponymous dramatic poem, which James Macpherson
included in his 1762 collection of the songs of Ossian, adapted
or translated from Gaelic oral poems. In the present article,
however, the author argues that Calzabigi’s Comala was not only
an independent adaptation but also a highly original attempt to
translate the peculiar poetic and cultural features of the Ossianic
world – its savagery, sublimity, melancholy, and psychological
obscurity – into theatrical terms. In this experimental musical
drama, Calzabigi depicts the mysterious death of the overstrung
heroine as the culmination of a process of withdrawing physically
from the other characters and ultimately from the stage
itself, as a metaphor for her gradual withdrawal from life and
reality. The article ends with a discussion of Pietro Morandi’s
setting of the libretto, performed in Senigallia in 1780, in which
Calzabigi’s dramatic choices are translated into music. Adhering
closely to the principles of Gluck’s and Calzabigi’s Viennese
operas, Morandi’s Comala is the first example of a »reform
opera« written specifically for Italy.