Mariette Mazarin News
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2024-03-29
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2021-06-14 07:13:16
17th century revival: HGO makes modern drama of Cavalli's early masterpiece, L'Egisto
Cavalli: L'Egisto - Helen May, Kieran White - HGO (Hampstead Garden Opera) (Photo Laurent Compagnon) Cavalli L'Egisto; Kieran White, Helen May, Eric Schlossberg, Shafali Jalota, Tom Kelly, Marcio da Silva, HGO at the Cockpit Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 12 June 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★) Young artists really bring to life this 17th-century tale of mismatched loveCavalli's opera L'Egisto premiered in Venice in 1643. It was his seventh opera (of over forty though not all survive) and the second (of around a dozen) with librettist Giovanni Faustini. The opera quickly spread, bringing Cavalli fame not only in Italy but in Vienna and in France (where L'Egisto would be performed in as part of Cardinal Mazarin's unsuccessful campaign to make Italian opera popular in Paris). Cavalli: L'Egisto - Shafali Jalota, Eric SchlossbergHGO (Photo Laurent Compagnon) As a young composer Cavalli was in the circle around Claudio Monteverdi when he […]
2021-06-07 16:49:00
[…] Theatre, it proved if not quite the earliest, then one of the earliest, to return to the fray this time round, with Francesco Cavalli’s (and Giovanni Faustini’s) L’Egisto of 1643. The second of Cavalli’s collaborations with Faustini, L’Egisto proved influential and popular beyond Venice, travelling to Naples and many other nascent centres of opera across the Italian peninsula. It even travelled with Cavalli to Paris, to be performed in 1646 at the behest of Cardinal Mazarin, determined yet frustrated in his every attempt to establish Italian opera on a permanent basis in the French capital. (Mazarin would later commission Cavalli’s Ercole armante for Louis XIV’s marriage to Maria Theresa of Spain, though neither opera nor théâtre à machines was ready in time. It would be performed two years later, in 1662, Cavalli’s Xerse quickly substituted—and highly popular.) The renaissance in Cavalli’s fortunes, if not quite initiated by Raymond Leppard, then […]
2021-03-01 08:24:05
To delight the eyes and ears without the risk of sinning against reason or common sense: the creation of Reform Opera
[…] French language rather than Italian was of prime importance and a distinctive French style of serious opera, the tragédie en musique (tragédie lyrique) had developed [see my article, Politics, Poetry & Personal Interest: Lully, King Louis XIV and the invention of French opera]. This was a genre that had its origins in the late 17th century French rejection of Italian style and culture as part of the political rejection of the regime of Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin. Tragédie en musique was no less stylised than opera seria, with five acts each with a main aria, recitative and shorter arias ending in a divertissement for chorus and ballet. The result, when it worked well, had a flexibility and fluidity with less focus on individual virtuosity. Whilst there were star French singers, casts for tragédie en musique could be significantly larger than in opera seria, with a large role for dancers and […]
2021-02-21 11:25:54
A Life On-Line: the 'wrong' Xerxes, RVW in Australia, Ash Wednesday at Wigmore Hall, and Mary, Mary Quite Contrary
[…] had based his opera on a libretto created in 1694 for Giovanni Bononcini, which in turn was based on one written for Cavalli. Cavalli's Xerse was premiered in Venice in 1654, but in 1660 he travelled to Paris to write an opera for King Louis XIV's wedding. This opera, Ercole amante was famously delayed and in the meanwhile Cavalli presented a revised version of Xerse in Paris. A year later the king's chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin died and King Louis took over reigns of government personally. There was an anti-Italian push-back (Mazarin had been Italian), Italian singers and composers (including Cavalli) were sent packing and French tragedie lyrique was born. The fame of Handel's Serse has rather knocked Cavalli's opera from the running so chances to see it are rare. Marcio da Silva and his Ensemble OrQuesta were due to be staging Cavalli's Xerse this year, but that has been […]
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