Calandro
Encyclopedia
Opera buffa
Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...
in three acts composed by Giovanni Alberto Ristori
Giovanni Alberto Ristori
Giovanni Alberto Ristori was an Italian opera composer and conductor. He was the son of Tommaso Ristori, the leader of an opera troupe belonging to the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony August II the Strong...
to a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Stefano Benedetto Pallavicini
Stefano Benedetto Pallavicini
Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino was an Italian poet and opera librettist. He was the son of the composer Carlo Pallavicino...
. The libretto was based on the comedy Il Calandro by Bernardo Dovizi
Bernardo Dovizi
Bernardo Dovizi or Bibbiena was an Italian cardinal and comedy-writer, known best as Cardinal Bibbiena, for the town Bibbiena, where he was born.-Biography:...
(Cardinal Bibbiena). In turn, Dovizi's play borrowed elements of the plot from Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
's Menaechmi
Menaechmi
Menaechmi, a Latin-language play, is often considered Plautus' greatest play. The title is sometimes translated as The Brothers Menaechmus or The Two Menaechmuses....
and the character Calandro
Calandrino
Calandrino is a beloved character from Giovanni Boccaccio's the Decameron, in which he appears as a character in four stories. In these tales he is the victim of the pranks of Bruno and Buffalmacco....
from Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
's Decameron
The Decameron
The Decameron, also called Prince Galehaut is a 14th-century medieval allegory by Giovanni Boccaccio, told as a frame story encompassing 100 tales by ten young people....
It was first staged on September 2, 1726 in Dresden.
Background and performance history
Calandro premiered on September 2, 1726 in the court theatre at the Schloss Pillnitz (Pillnitz CastlePillnitz Castle
Pillnitz Castle is a restored Baroque castle at the eastern end of the city of Dresden in the German state of Saxony. It is located on the bank of the River Elbe in the former village of Pillnitz...
) near Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
at the request of Maria Josepha of Austria
Maria Josepha of Austria
Maria Josepha of Austria was born an Archduchess of Austria, and from 1711 to 1713 was heiress presumptive to the Habsburg Empire...
to celebrate the return of her husband, Crown Prince Frederick Augustus
Augustus III of Poland
Augustus III, known as the Saxon ; ; also Prince-elector Friedrich August II was the Elector of Saxony in 1733-1763, as Frederick Augustus II , King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1734-1763.-Biography:Augustus was the only legitimate son of Augustus II the Strong, Imperial Prince-Elector...
from Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. It was probably Germany's first opera buffa, and after hearing a performance during the 1728 Carnival season in Dresden, Frederick Augustus' father August II
Augustus II the Strong
Frederick Augustus I or Augustus II the Strong was Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania ....
asked for a copy of the score. Three years later, in 1731, it became the first Italian opera presented in Russia. There it was given in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
for the celebration of the coronation of Empress Anna. It was produced under his and his father's direction with thirteen actors and nine singers including Ludovica Seyfried, Margherita Ermini and Rosalia Fantasia.
Like most of Ristori's operas Calandro eventually fell into oblivion. However, it was revived in a recording by the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle in 2004, and will have a fully staged performance in June 2011 as part of the Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival.
Synopsis
- Calandro, disillusioned with mankind and wanting to return to nature, spends his days in a forest with his tame bears. There, Alceste, leader of the shepherds, engages him as the tutor for his son, Nearco. Through a series of twists and turns, the unruly Nearco contrives to get rid of his tutor and in the process sort out the problems of his friend Licisco who is in love with Clizia.
Recordings
- Giovanni Alberto RistoriGiovanni Alberto RistoriGiovanni Alberto Ristori was an Italian opera composer and conductor. He was the son of Tommaso Ristori, the leader of an opera troupe belonging to the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony August II the Strong...
: Calandro, commedia per musica. Batzdorfer Hofkapelle; Tobias Schade and Stefan Rath (conductors). Label: KammerTon (KT 22005) Audio CD, 2004.- Egbert Junghanns (Calandro) - baritoneBaritoneBaritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
- Jan KobowJan KobowJan Kobow is a German classical tenor in concert, Lied and Baroque opera.-Professional career:Jan Kobow was born and raised in Berlin. He was a singer and soloist of the Staats- und Domchor, Berlin with Christian Grube. He studied the organ at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and graduated in church...
(Alceste) - tenorTenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... - Martin Wölfel (Nearco) - countertenorCountertenorA countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or far more rarely than normal, modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
- Maria Jonas (Agide) – mezzo-sopranoMezzo-sopranoA mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
- Britta Schwarz (Clizia) - contraltoContraltoContralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
- Egbert Junghanns (Calandro) - baritone
Operas set to the same story
- Antonio SacchiniAntonio SacchiniAntonio Maria Gasparo Sacchini was an Italian opera composer.Sacchini was born in Florence, but was raised in Naples, where he received his musical education at the San Onofrio conservatory. He wrote his first operas in Naples, thereafter moving to Venice, then London and eventually Paris, where...
, L'avaro deluso, o Don Calandrino, premiered November 24, 1778 London - Johann Georg SchürerJohann Georg SchürerJohann Georg Schürer was a German baroque composer.Operas* Astrea placata ovvero La felicità della terra, , 7 October 1746 Warsaw; 29. Oct. 1746 Dresden, Mingottisches Theater...
, Calandro, premiered January 20, 1748, Dresden - Giuseppe GazzanigaGiuseppe GazzanigaGiuseppe Gazzaniga was a member of the Neapolitan school of opera composers. He composed fifty-one operas and is considered to be one of the last Italian opera buffa composers.-Biography:...
, Il Calandrino (Il Calandrano), premiered 1771, Venice
Sources
- Buelow, George J. (2004). A History of Baroque Music. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253343658
- Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "2 Settembre 1726". Almanacco Amadeus
- Mengelberg, Rudolf (1916). Giovanni Alberto Ristori. Universitat Leipzig
- Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival (2011). Programme
- Sadie, Julie Anne (1998). "Ristori, Giovanni Alberto". Companion to Baroque Music. University of California Press, pp. 200-201. ISBN 0520214145
- Zórawska-Witkowska, Alina (2007). "Giovanni Alberto Ristori and his Serenate at the Polish Court of Augustus III, 1735-1746" in Music as Social and Cultural Practice: Essays in honour of Reinhard Strohm (Melania Bucciarelli and Berta Joncus eds). Boydell & Brewer, pp. 139-158. ISBN 1843833174