Francesco Cavalli (Caletti) was born in Crema in 1602. He received most of his musical education from his father. He eventually ended up in Venice where he was employed as cantor at the prestigious Saint Marc Cathedral and was taught by its conductor, Claudio Monteverdi.

Venice was the capital of a new European art form – opera. Cavalli came to be the foremost and most played Italian opera composer during the first years of Venetian opera. His 41 operas contributed to directing the attention towards expressive arias rather than recitatives.

Cavalli was able to with only a few notes and simple phrases capture the essence of a dramatic situation with the help of interesting modulations and intricate rhythms. He was also a master of rich, melodious recitatives, and he developed Monteverdi’s tendency to let the recitatives glide over into ariosi.

La Calisto was composed in 1661. It is based on a libretto by Giovanni Faustini (1615–1651), which combines two classical myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the one about Callisto and Endymion. The subject was intended to satisfy the audience’s preference for light, erotic comedies instead of stories about antique deities.
The text can also be interpreted as a manifestation of liberal thought in a century when the inquisition was a major threat, and science had to give way to religion. In the opera, Endymion has many similarities with Galileo Galilei, the astronomer who not long before had been forced to renounce his conviction.

At the beginning of the second act, Endymion climbs to the top of Mount Lycaeus to watch the stars and his beloved Diana, the moon goddess who appears in the night sky. In the recitative and aria “Erme e solinghe cime … lucidissima face” (You distant, lonely heights … the brightest of faces), he sings of the beauty of the moon – and falls asleep.

Text: Andreas Konvicka

Giovanni Antonio Boretti (1640–1672) was an Italian opera singer (bass), born in Rome but active in the Republic of Venice. He is best remembered as the composer of eight operas. As of the mid-17^th century the Venetian audience wanted more variation and virtuosity in melodies and vocal lines, and Boretti’s musical expression was highly varied and dramatically flexible, which meant he became a sought-after composer.

Francesco Cavalli composed a drama about the Roman emperor Heliogabalus for the Venetian carnival season 1667–1668, but the premiere was cancelled at short notice as the portrait of the emperor was too vivid; Cavalli and the anonymous librettist may have come too close for comfort to those in power. Heliogabalus is portrayed as an eccentric, ruthless man who would do anything to be with the woman he wants. Another reason for the cancellation may have been that Cavalli’s style was considered old-fashioned. As a replacement Boretti was asked to produce his own version of the same opera, Eliogabalo. While Cavalli’s hedonistic, desperate emperor is murdered at the end, he survives and repents in Boretti’s version. Eliogabalo premiered on 30 December 1667 at Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

In the third and final act Heliogabalus sings the melancholic, slightly ironic aria “Chi scherzo con Amor” (Who teases Amor?). Playing with love is like playing with fire, it will all end in tears; a fate worse than being tortured by Phalaris himself (a 6^th century BCE Greek tyrant known for his cruelty).

Text: Andreas Konvicka

Giovanni Antonio Boretti (c. 1640–1672) was an Italian opera singer (bass), but also a prominent composer who was much appreciated for his eight innovative operas. Most of the information about his brief career, which was mostly spent in Venice, comes from prefaces to opera libretti.
Before arriving in Venice, he served as a chorister at the Basilica di Sant’Antonio di Padova between 1659 and 1661, but he was dismissed on account of absence without leave. He probably arrived in Venice in 1662, where he spent the following nine years except for temporary engagements at various opera houses in Italy. Apart from the earliest known opera, La Zenobia, which was performed in Vienna, all Boretti’s operas premiered in Venice. He composed Claudio Cesare in December 1671, and only a few months later he died of unknown causes while he was preparing his last work, Domitiano.

Boretti’s music is rich, varied with flexible dramatic effects. It reflects the increasingly popular tendency to abandon the older, simpler styles for a more fashionable form of vocal exhibitionism. It is clearly shown in the sinfonia at the beginning of the second act. Boretti’s most attractive arias, for example “Crudo amor non hai pietà” (Cruel love, you are without mercy), were in the form of laments accompanied by strings and with a continuous baseline that convey the strong emotions.

In the second act Emperor Claudius (10 BCE–54 CE) laments: “… cruel love shows no mercy. It extinguishes the light of reason and ties gods and humans to their fetters.”

Text: Andreas Konvicka

Giovanni Bononcini (1670–1747) is yet another Baroque composer who once was as famous as Handel but is now unjustly forgotten. He was born into a family of musicians from Modena. He lost his parents when he was eight years old and later moved to Bologna to study music. He was subsequently employed by the Colonna family in Rome. They were powerful patrons of the arts, and through them he met Silvio Stampiglia, who became his librettist in Rome. Their successful collaboration resulted in, among other things, six serenatas, five operas and one oratory. Bononcini’s fame took him to all the great cities of music in Europe, and when he arrived in London in October 1720 it was he, not Handel, who for two seasons was the brightest star on the musical firmament.

Bononcini’s first major work, La Costanza non gradita (1694), is a serenata, a new type of cantata developed by Bononcini and Alexander Scarlatti. The arias are short and only accompanied by a continuo. Stampiglia’s text is complemented and enhanced ty Bononcini’s score, which manages to convey these contrasting emotions.

In the sombre aria “Infelice mia costanza” (My unhappy devotion) the troubled Aminta expresses her unrequited love, and that cruelty is the name of the power of love.

Text: Andreas Konvicka

Giovanni Bononcini (1670–1747) rose to fame in the 1690s by composing more than two hundred solo cantatas, five operas and six serenatas that were copied and disseminated abroad.
His popular serenatas were mostly written for August festivals, commissioned by wealthy cardinals, noblemen and other patrons of the arts in Rome and performed during lavish parties on the patrons’ terraces or on stages in front of their palaces.
Bononcini and the librettist Silvio Stampiglia (1664–1725) wrote their first serenata, La nemica d’Amore (Loves enemy), for their patron Filippo Il Colonna in August 1692.

The nymph Clori first rejects the shepherd Tirsis’ and then the satyr Filenos’ attempts at courting her as she refuses to give up her freedom. Pastorals were very popular as they reflected ideals associated with the Pontifical Academy of Arcadia, founded in Rome in 1690. Its purpose was to return to the original purity and simplicity of Italian poetry.

La nemica d’Amore fatta amante (Loves enemy turned lover) was completed in 1693. It returns to the story of Clori and Tirsis, and Filenos’ attempts at coming between them.

The opening sinfonia takes us to a pastoral landscape where time stands still. It begins with a wistful improvisation on the theorbo before the rest of the ensemble joins in. The solo violin explores the motif while the ensemble exposes Bononcini’s affective chromatics using small, melancholic, steps of scale.

Text: Andreas Konvicka

In 1711, the opera Rinaldo signalled the start of the popular Italian opera seria wave in London, which brought fame to the composer, George Frideric Handel. After having lived and worked in Italy he moved to London, and in 1719 he was appointed “Master of the Orchestra” at the Royal Academy of Music, London’s first Italian opera company. Not only was he to compose operas, he was also responsible for the singers and the orchestra as well as adapting Italian operas for the London stage.

Handel was not the only composer to be commissioned by the Academy, and the opera Muzio Scevola (Muzio the left-handed) from 1721 was a collaboration between several composers, although there was a certain amount of competition between them. This was common in Italy, but new to England, so the Academy had the opportunity to show off its assets. The first act was composed by Filippo Amadei (1690–1730), the second act by Giovanni Bononcini (1670–1747) and the third act by Handel.

The libretto, in Italian, was by Paolo Antonio Rolli. It was based on the historian Livy’s comprehensive Roman history Ab urbe condita (From the Founding of the City). Rome’s mythological origins serve as a backdrop to the fictive love story between the two historical persons Gaius Mucius (Muzio) and Clelia. The plot is contemporary with the power struggle that marks the end of the kings and the beginning of the republic.

The principal part was sung by the well-known castrato Senesino (Francesco Bernardi). The role of the troubled, but virtuous, lover was perfect for his voice, and it was the first time that Handel composed for him. In the third act Muzio confesses his love in the aria “Spera, ché tra le care gioie” (Hope is among the dearest pleasures). Love is a shining force, and its playful encounters are compared to an advancing army; but the attack cannot diminish the beloved’s beauty.

Text: Andreas Konvicka

Luca Antonio Predieri (1688–1767) was born into a prominent family of musicians in Bologna, where he later worked as a violinist and composer.
After his successful debut as a composer with the opera Partenope (1710), his popularity grew, and he began to receive commissions for operas from across Italy. His reputation eventually reached Vienna, where he moved in 1737. In 1741, he was appointed director of music at the Habsburg court, a position he kept for the following ten years.
When his position at court became less favourable, Predieri returned to Bologna, and spent the rest of his life there.

Predieri was a prolific composer of operas, he wrote about thirty, but he was also known for his sacred music and oratories.
Although he mastered several styles, he mostly based his compositions on his training in the Bologna school of music. The text was important, it had to get through to the listener, so his operas were characterized by carefully composed recitatives. His arias show a remarkable dynamic palette, which prevented the listeners from falling asleep.

The aria “Finche salvo è l’amor suo” (As long as love is certain) is taken from the first act of Scipione il giovane (The young Scipio). The libretto was by Giovanni Francesco Bortolotti, and the opera premiered in Venice in 1731 with the famous castrato Antonio Bernacchi in the principal role. It is hard not to be charmed and infected by the love that fills Scipio when he sings about the way his loved one’s love, even in the fiercest storm, makes him safe and calm.

Text: Andreas Konvicka

Nicola Matteis the Younger (1670–1737) was an English violinist and composer who was taught by his father. A successful musician at the end of the 17^th century, he soon left London for Vienna where he became a violinist at the Habsburg court. He was appointed director of music, and his first commission was to compose music for ballets inserted in opere serie. This was a long-standing tradition at the court of the Habsburgs, and Matteis composed a total of 59 short ballets for operas by court composers such as Fux, Conti and Caldara. They are usually placed at the end of each act for dramatic effect.

While French dances and styles dominate, other dances are sometimes included. Some are referred to as aria grotesca, a type of dance involving high leaps in the air, movement and gestures.
When it came to instrumentation, Matteis made use of the Hofkapelle. Less common instruments, such as cornet and chalumeau (an early form of clarinet), occasionally appear.

The ballet suite Ballo dei bagatellieri (Dance of the Dolls) was composed as the finale of the third act in Conti’s opera Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena (1719).
Don Chisciotte and his retinue have arrived at an inn. To amuse his guests Mendo, the inn keeper, is staging a puppet show about a king and queen who are persecuted by the Moors. Thinking about the couple’s imminent death upsets Don Chisciotte, so he cuts all the Moors’ heads off with his sword.

The suite is made up of French dances with one Spanish exception: Bourrée – Marche – Gigue – La folia spaniola (the Spanish folly) – Gigue – Chaconne.

Text: Andreas Konvicka

The musician and composer Antonio Luca Predieri (1688–1767) came from a well-known family of musicians in Bologna where he became first violinist and alto violinist at the Basilica di San Petronio. His first opera, Partenope (1710), was a success. He subsequently became one of the most famous opera composers of his generation together with Vinci, Pergolesi and Porpora.
In 1737 he moved to Vienna as deputy director of the Hofmusikkapelle, and in 1741 he was appointed director of music, but in his old age he moved back to his native city.

Predieri wrote about thirty operas that were performed in Bologna, elsewhere in Italy and in Vienna. The libretti reflect the first Arcadian opera reform, which was characterized by a more intimate relationship with the text and a broader range of emotional expression.

Structure and meaning were emphasized and placed in a musical context. Perdieri accentuated the text by a frequent use of interesting dynamic shifts within the arias. His music is in many respects influenced by the elegant style of the Bologna school. In Vienna Perdieri moved towards a more polyphonic and less structured score.

The opera Scipione il giovande (The young Scipio), with libretto by Giovanni Francesco Bortolotti, premiered at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice on 19 November 1731. The famous castrato Antonio Bernacchi – who was also one of Handel’s favourites – sang the principal part.

In the third act Scipio sings the emotional aria “Dovrian quest’occhi piangere” (These eyes shall weep): “Never again will I see my beloved’s face, but your faithful love makes me hold back my tears. Behold my fortitude, and tremble, you false deceiver.”

Text: Andreas Konvicka

The opera tragedy Nerone by Giuseppe Maria Orlandini (1676–1760) premiered during the Venice carnival in 1721. The libretto by Agostino Piovene – an exceptionally good example of early 18th century opera – is based on Jean Racine’s tragedy Britannicus.
Orlandini is remembered for his over forty operas, and together with Vivaldi he is considered one of the foremost creators of the new opera style that dominated the second half of the 18th century.

The German opera houses often took on successful Italian operas and adapted them to suit their national expectations. The recitatives and lesser arias were always sung in German while the major, romantic arias were sung in Italian.
Operas with an anti-tyrannic theme were very popular in Hamburg, and Nerone was very successful in Johann Mattheson’s (1681–1764) version, which came two years later. Mattheson was the son of a wealthy merchant. With an extensive education in foreign languages and music, he was an opera singer, composer and critic. He changed the principal role of the opera from a tenor to an alto and kept the original arias, but he translated the recitatives into German and added some of his own compositions.

Orlandini’s forward-looking style is characterized by feather-light accompaniment and slow, harmonious sections divided into two-bar phrases. The arias tend to be short and simple, but with alternately major intervals and repeated notes. The rhythm is lively and follows the text syllables, which became standard practice in the following decades.

In the aria “Che m’ami ti prega” (Please love me) we hear the tyrant Nero explode in wild eruptions of semiquavers, melodic leaps and plunges, asking Poppea to love him and praising his good luck in being an emperor who can get any woman he wants.

Text: Andreas Konvicka