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Carlo Goldoni and the Transformation of the Aria in Comic Opera, c1750–c1760
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2025
Abstract
Comic opera from the first half of the eighteenth century borrowed many of the structural and formal features of the dramma per musica. The arias of early comic opera were almost exclusively set in da capo form, which had become ubiquitous near the end of the seventeenth century. Although commentators and librettists frequently lamented the banality of this inherited convention, it persisted until about 1750, when, over the course of approximately a decade, it was replaced by a much more flexible approach to the formal organization of arias. This article investigates that period of experimentation and identifies the individuals who drove the innovations. I argue that two singers in particular, Francesco Baglioni and Serafina Penna, provided the impetus to break away from da capo form. Their desire for arias that displayed their dramatic and musical abilities to the greatest advantage led the librettist Carlo Goldoni to provide them with textual prompts that required new approaches to musical form. By emphasizing the connection between singers and librettists, I draw attention to the collaborative nature of operatic production. This approach also demonstrates the ways in which musical form, usually considered the purview of the composer, is in fact rooted in the features of the libretto and inspired by the inclinations and abilities of singers.
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References
1 There are a few isolated instances of studies that foreground the relationship between a librettist and a singer. For an example see Savage, Roger, ‘Getting by with a Little Help from My Twin: Farinelli with Metastasio at His Right Hand, 1747–1759’, British Journal for Eighteenth Century-Studies 28/3 (2005), 387–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For surveys of Goldoni's librettos see Emery, Ted, Goldoni as Librettist: Theatrical Reform and the ‘drammi giocosi per musica’ (New York: Peter Lang, 1991)Google Scholar, and Rista, Pervinca, At the Origins of Classical Opera: Carlo Goldoni and the ‘dramma giocoso per musica’ (Bern: Peter Lang, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Paul Corneilson, ‘An Intimate Vocal Portrait of Dorothea Wendling: Mozart's “Basta, vincesti” – “Ah non lasciarmi, no”[,] K. 295’, Mozart-Jahrbuch (2000), 29–45.
3 For a detailed case study that sheds light on the singer–librettist–composer triangle see Daniel Brandenburg, ‘“Ad istanza del Sig. Francesco Baglioni e del Sig. Francesco Carattoli”: Zum Verhältnis von Sänger, Librettist und Komponist in der Opera Buffa’, in Per ben vestir la virtuosa: Die Opera des 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts im Spannungsfeld zwischen Komponisten und Sängern, ed. Daniel Brandenburg and Thomas Seedorf (Schliengen: Argus, 2011), 151–161. See also Daniel Brandenburg, ‘Goldoni e la rete delle compagnie dell'opera buffa’, Problemi di critica goldiana 14 (2007), 221–229.
4 Carlo Goldoni, Mémoires de M. Goldoni pour servir a l'histoire de sa vie et a celle de son théatre, two volumes (Paris: la Veuve Duchesne, 1787), volume 1, 289. All translations in this article are mine.
5 Carlo Goldoni, La bella verità (Bologna: Sassi, 1762), Act 1 Scene 8.
6 Carlo Goldoni, De gustibus non est disputandam (Venice: Fenzo, 1754), ‘L'autore a chi legge’ (To the reader), fol. A2v.
7 Goldoni, De gustibus, Act 3 Scene 2.
8 Goldoni, Mémoires, volume 2, 256.
9 Goldoni wrote a total of twelve roles for Baglioni over a span of almost ten years: L'Arcadia in Brenta (Ascension, 1749), Il negligente (autumn, 1749), Arcifanfano re dei matti (Carnival, 1759), Il mondo della luna (Carnival, 1750), Il paese della cuccagna (Ascension, 1750), Lo speziale (Carnival, 1754), Il filosofo di campagna (autumn, 1754), Li matti per amore (autumn, 1754), Il povero superbo (Carnival, 1755), L'isola disabitata (autumn, 1757), Il mercato di Malmantile (Carnival, 1758) and La conversazione (Carnival, 1758).
10 There is little documentary record of Baglioni's activities in the years leading up to the premiere of La finta cameriera in 1738. It is clear, however, that he was already well established in the Roman milieu, as he is listed in that libretto as ‘virt. del duca di Carpineta [sic]’ (virtuoso [in the service] of the Duke of Carpineto).
11 Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie, ‘The Creation of a Genre: Comic Opera's Dissemination in Italy in the 1740s’ (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1993), 256.
12 Mackenzie, ‘The Creation of a Genre’, 256.
13 Girolamo Francesco Zanetti, ‘Memorie per servire all'istoria della inclita città di Venezia’, book 29, part 1, 130–139. Manuscript held by Biblioteca Nazionale Marziana, Venice, S. Michele 2199, It. IX, 58 (6925). Quoted fully in Daniel Heartz, ‘Vis comica: Goldoni, Galuppi and L'Arcadia in Brenta’, in Venezia e il melodramma nel Settecento, ed. Maria Teresa Muraro (Florence: Olschki, 1981), 70.
14 Gianni Cicali, ‘Roles and Acting’, in The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Opera, ed. Anthony DelDonna and Pierpaolo Polzonetti (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 85–98. For a broader discussion of the connections between comic opera and the spoken theatre see Gianni Cicali, Attori e ruoli nell'opera buffa del Settecento (Florence: Le Lettere, 2005).
15 Piperno, Francesco, ‘Famiglie di cantanti e compagnie di opera buffa negli anni di Goldoni’, Il castello di Elsinore 78 (2018), 29–39Google Scholar.
16 Rice, John, ‘Antonio Baglioni, Mozart's First Don Ottavio and Tito, in Italy and Prague’, in Böhmische Aspekte des Lebens und des Werkes von W. A. Mozart, ed. Volek, Tomislav (Prague: Akademie Věd České Republiky, 2011), 24–38Google Scholar.
17 Mackenzie, ‘The Creation of a Genre’, 156, 207, 214 and 228.
18 This statistic is based on the original productions of each of these four operas.
19 Although this opera was extremely influential, the details of its creation are somewhat obscure. The music is by Gaetano Latilla, but the author of the libretto is not known for certain. The Roman premiere of 1738 is based on a Neapolitan opera (Il Gismondo, 1737) with a libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico. There were, however, substantial alterations in the Roman version of the libretto. While some early sources give Giovanni Barlocci as the author of these changes, that attribution is spurious. For more information see Mackenzie, ‘The Creation of a Genre’, 61–64.
20 I know of only one other aria in pre-Goldonian comic opera that uses a formal scheme akin to ‘Sposa non vieni’. ‘Son leggiadro, e son galante’, which is included in a printed collection of arias related to the London production of La commedia in commedia (1748), also alternates between two metres in its A section, with a third distinct metre for the B section of the da capo form. It may have originated in the Brescia production of La commedia in commedia of 1747, and was not included in any of the earlier productions of this opera. The aria was sung by and probably written for the tenor Filippo Laschi, a singer who resembles Baglioni in a number of important ways. For more on Laschi see Cameron Steuart, ‘Carlo Goldoni and the Singers of the dramma giocoso per musica’ (PhD dissertation, University of Georgia, 2023), 155–158.
21 A good example can be seen in the aria ‘A Serpina penserete’ from Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's La serva padrona.
22 Troy, Charles, The Comic Intermezzo: A Study in the History of Eighteenth-Century Opera (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1979), 100Google Scholar.
23 Baglioni's vocal range would today place him in the category of baritone, a term that was not used to describe performers of opera in the eighteenth century. His arias are most often notated in bass clef, and they generally adhere to the idiomatic features of music written for basses. None of his arias includes substantial sections of fioritura. While some comic basses could incorporate extensive vocal ornaments (for example, see the aria ‘Mi dice il cor sdegnato’ from Goldoni/Galuppi's Il conte Caramella), it was rare, and often functioned as a form of parody.
24 Mackenzie, ‘The Creation of a Genre’, 170–171.
25 The first aria (‘Quattrocento bei ducati’) for Baglioni in their first collaboration, L'Arcadia in Brenta (1749), employs a multi-sectional formal scheme that is very similar to that of ‘Se non è nata nobile’ (discussed below). In Il mondo della luna (1750), another important early collaboration, Baglioni's first few scenes culminate in a complex of three cavatinas (set in two tempos each) that are sung in quick succession, thus yielding the impression of a multi-sectional aria that is interrupted by brief segments of recitative.
26 The rarity and importance of these arias set them in a special class that is not unlike the status of the rondò that was favoured later in the century by singers such as Adriana Ferrarese del Bene.
27 Charles Burney remembers this work as one of the three most important operas of the century (the other two being La finta cameriera and La buona figliuola). Charles Burney, A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, four volumes, volume 4 (London: author, 1789), 458.
28 Hunter, Mary, The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart's Vienna: A Poetics of Entertainment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Hunter, The Culture of Opera Buffa, 105.
30 Goldoni, Carlo, Il filosofo di campagna (Venice: Fenzo, 1754), Act 1 Scene 7Google Scholar.
31 Goldoni, Il filosofo di campagna, Act 2 Scene 14.
32 When Baglioni began his collaboration with Goldoni, textual prompts that included multiple poetic metres were a special effect that rarely appeared in arias for other singers. Over time, however, Baglioni built up a troupe of singers around him, which included many of his own children, who could also handle arias of this nature. For example, see the aria ‘Compatite, signor, s'io non so’ written for Baglioni's daughter Clementina, who played his love interest Lesbina in Il filosofo di campagna.
33 The naming of Italian metres is based on the number of syllables in one verso piano because that is by far the most common type.
34 Goldoni, Il filosofo di campagna, Act 2 Scene 14.
35 This variant of the march, usually notated in cut time, is typically reserved for purely serious characters. See Allanbrook, Wye Jamison, Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ and ‘Don Giovanni’ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 225–232Google Scholar. One could certainly read the first section of ‘Se non è nata nobile’ as a standard march, but I believe that the conspicuous quantity of sighing gestures pushes it into a slightly more elevated territory.
36 Platoff, John, ‘The Buffa Aria in Mozart's Vienna’, Cambridge Opera Journal 2/2 (1990), 99–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Renda was perhaps the only other singer who, in one instance, inspired Goldoni in a way that compared to Baglioni. In particular, Renda's arias in Goldoni's L'Arcadia in Brenta break from the established patterns. Beyond this opera, however, Goldoni's arias for Renda adhere to the standard conventions of those written for a comic bass. Another isolated example is the titular role of Goldoni's Il conte Caramella, which was written for Francesco Delicati. Yet as in the case of Renda, the experiment is not repeated in other librettos written for Delicati.
38 Daniel Heartz, ‘The Creation of the Buffo Finale in Italian Opera’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 104 (1977), 69–70.
39 Librettos list her variously as ‘la Senesina’ or ‘di Livorno’.
40 The Tuscan dialect, as exemplified and promulgated through the works of Dante and Petrarch, had been established for centuries as the standard literary language of the Italian peninsula. It also served as the basis for modern Italian.
41 L'Arcadia in Brenta (Ascension, 1749), Il negligente (autumn, 1749), Arcifanfano re dei matti (Carnival, 1750), Il mondo della luna (Carnival, 1750), La mascherata (Carnival, 1751), Le donne vendicate (Carnival, 1751), Il mondo alla roversa (autumn, 1751), Il conte Caramella (autumn, 1751), Le pescatrici (Carnival, 1752), Le virtuose ridicole (Carnival, 1752), I portentosi effetti della madre natura (autumn, 1752), I bagni d'Abano (Carnival, 1753), La calamita de cuori (Carnival, 1753), La diavolessa (autumn, 1755), La cascina (Carnival, 1756), La ritornata di Londra (Carnival, 1756) and Filosofia ed amore (Carnival, 1760).
42 In this example, as in most of Penna's arias that use dialect, the dialect is evoked by a few conspicuous borrowings. Almost none of the arias authentically represent the given dialect. This allows Goldoni to establish the desired connotations, mostly derived from the association of certain dialects with specific characters from the commedia dell'arte, without seriously compromising the intelligibility of his text.
43 Carlo Goldoni, Le pescatrici (Venice: Bettinelli, 1752), Act 2 Scene 8.
44 In the first and third stanzas the region discussed and the dialect employed align. In the second stanza, on the other hand, Penna speaks Tuscan but describes Naples. This may reflect an inability or a lack of confidence on Penna's part in performing that specific dialect. While this might seem like a trivial detail, it highlights the fact that performing these dialects was a specific skill that is comparable to patter singing or fioritura. It also reflects Goldoni's intimate knowledge of Penna's skills and preferences.
45 Carlo Goldoni, Le virtuose ridicole (Venice: Bettinelli, 1752), Act 1 Scene 9.
46 Another aria that uses a similar strategy is ‘Si distingue dal nobile il vile’ from Goldoni's La diavolessa (set by Galuppi for Venice in 1755), in which cantabile corresponds to descriptions of noble women and patter to common women.
47 This aria does eventually employ a second musical metre that corresponds to a change in poetic metre going into the third stanza.
48 Steuart, ‘Carlo Goldoni and the Singers of the dramma giocoso per musica’, 175–230.
49 Goldoni, Mémoires, volume 2, 255. Later in this account Goldoni states that ‘La buona figliuola was happier in the hands of Piccinni’ (‘La Bonne Fille fut plus heureuse entre les mains de M. Piccini [sic]’). This detail is often quoted out of context to argue that the original composer, Egidio Duni, failed to realize the libretto's potential. Read in context, however, Goldoni clearly states that Duni's setting was completely satisfactory and that the blame lay entirely at the feet of the singers in Parma.
50 Carlo Goldoni, La buona figliuola (Parma: Monti, 1757), Act 2 Scene 10.
51 Little is known about this singer, whose name appears in only eight extant librettos – all of them from Rome – across the span of just three seasons (1759–1762). My assertion that he was not as progressive as Penna stems from a review of his arias in these librettos, which display a strong tendency for conventional textual prompts. A good example is the intermezzo version of Goldoni's L'Arcifanfano rei dei matti that Borghesi sang in Rome in 1759. While this libretto includes many interesting textual prompts for the other performers, those for Borghesi are traditional and tend toward the two-stanza da capo format. For more on the two different settings of ‘Alla larga, alla larga signore’ see Steuart, ‘Carlo Goldoni and the Singers of the dramma giocoso per musica’, 199–204.
52 For examples of a later aria type that relates to Penna's multipartite arias see Roland Pfeiffer, ‘Forme d'aria particolari nelle opere buffe di Giuseppe Sarti’, Studi musicali 31/2 (2002), 379–393.
53 Steuart, ‘Carlo Goldoni and the Singers of the dramma giocoso per musica’, 258–261.
54 Daniel Brandenburg, ‘Sulla ricezione del pensiero Goldoniano a Napoli nella seconda metà del Settecento’, in Musica e poesia: celebrazioni in onore di Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793), ed. Galliano Ciliberti and Biancamaria Brumana (Perugia: Università di Perugia, 1994), 69–76.
55 Steuart, ‘Carlo Goldoni and the Singers of the dramma giocoso per musica’, 242–287.
56 Even Christoph Willibald Gluck, who was an innovative and influential composer if ever there was one, built his Orfeo ed Euridice around the peculiar abilities of a star singer. See Daniel Heartz, ‘From Garrick to Gluck: The Reform of Theatre and Opera in the Mid-Eighteenth Century’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 94 (1967), 124–127.