ORLANDIANA -- Vivaldiana

Speranza

The formula Vivaldi chose was a modern homage to the basic components of Venetian music theatre.

An audacious and original gesture, anchored in a solid point of reference, a return to earlier sources, namely to an INITIAL ORLANDO FURIOSO, presented to the public of the SANT'ANGELO fourteen years earlier, which had enjoyed a memorable success with more  than forty performances.

It was also a symbolic gesture, insofar as this first ORLANDO FURIOSO had makred, in the autumn of 1713, the official start of Vivalid's operatic career in Venezia, as composer-impresario of the Teatro Sant'Angelo.

The original settin of a libretto by the Ferrara poet Grazio Braccioli had officially been attributed at the time to RISTORI.

However, it is now accepted that Vivaldi was, at the very least, the joint if not the sole composer, and that, in any event, he was entirely responsible for its revision the following year when it was revived at the Sant'Angelo.

The astonishing similarities between the style of the music attributed to RISTORI and that of contemporary works by Vivaldi, combined with the autograph contributions of Vivaldi and his father to the material elaboration of the original manuscript, offer clear arguments in favour of this view, which are moreoever supported by two fundamental considrations.

First of all, it is highly improbable that Vivaldi would have abandoned the responsibility of so crucial a season to an unknown composer.

Second, and above all, it is now established that Vivaldi began his operatic career concealed under the names of front men, and so it would not be surprising if RISTORI had been, if not his man of straw, at most his collaborator, who had simply taken some part in the composition of the work before officially assuming its exclusive paternity for strategic reasons.

The mysterious ORLANDO FURIOSO of 1713 and 1714, of which only the first two acts have survived, offered an original attempt to blend the Venetian theatrical tradition with the updated vision of opera which prevailed at the time, and of which Vivaldi was to emerge as the boldest exponent.

The thirst for experimentation characteristic of Vivaldi at the dawn of his theatrical career, aided and abetted by the extraordinary dramatic richness of Braccioli's ingenious libretto, led Vivaldi literally to shatter the conventional scheme of the "dramma per musica".

By rehabilitating the CAVATINA, the ARIOSO, and the entrance aria, musical forms which the generalisation of the "da capo" aria had gradually eliminated, and setting a number of extended MONOLOGICAL scenes, notably those of the paladin's madness, as RECITATIVO, Vivadli and his librettist looked back to the early days of the "dramma per musica".

The alternation of RECITATIVO and ARIA gave way to a subtly shifting monochrome of varied forms, in which the unfolding of the action and the exploration of the feelings that motivate the characters were overwhelmingly assigned to the alchemy of voice and BASSO CONTINUO.

A tribute to the theatre of the SEICENTO, audacious but in no way archaic, for the style of the arias and their orchestratin was wholly representative of the wind of change that Vivaldi blew into the Venetian musical world of the early Settecento. Following its revival in 1714, the work was also to enjoy a successful career outside Italy.