Classical Tragedy in the History of Early Opera in Rome

Author(s): Margaret Murata

Source: Early Music History, Vol. 4 (1984), pp. 101-134
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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 MARGARET MURATA

CLASSICAL TRAGEDY IN THE

HISTORY OF EARLY OPERA
IN ROME

The earliest operas are few, and their history is a history of

particulars: of the interests of individual Renaissance humanists;'of
the ways in which certain musicians sang;2of the development of
Italian poetry for music;3and of the theatrical traditions within
which the new genre was accepted and propagated.4Recent music
history has tended to stress the sixteenth-century antecedents for
these aspects of opera, without forgetting, however, that the com-
mon inspiration for Dafne,Animae Corpoand Euridice- as well as for
As studied by Nino Pirrotta and Claude Palisca (see bibliographies in TheNew Grove
Dictionaryof MusicandMusicians,ed. S. Sadie, 20 vols., London, 1980), Barbara Hanning
and more recently Gary Tomlinson (see n. 3 below). See, for example, B. Hanning,
'Pathos, Homeopathy and Theories of the Affections', in Of Poetryand Music's Power:
Humanismand the Creationof Opera(Ann Arbor, 1980), chap. 2. A recent summary of the
pertinent bibliography is inJ. Peri: Euridice,ed. H. Brown (Madison, 1981), pp. xiv-xv.
2 The rivalry between Giulio Caccini andJacopo Peri has entered most studies of the early
Florentine operas, although musical comparisons outside the operas is made difficult by
the relative scarcity of compositions by Peri. Musical comparisons are in N. Pirrotta,Li due
Orfei:daPolizianoa Monteverdi (Turin, 1975, pp. 220, 225-9, 276-95; Eng. trans., 1982) and
H. Brown, 'Music - How Opera Began: an Introduction toJacopo Peri's Euridice (1600)',
TheLate Italian Renaissance,1525-1630,ed. E. Cochrane (London, 1970), pp. 421-43. See
also T. Carter, 'Jacopo Peri (1561-1633), his Life and Works' (Ph.D. thesis, University of
Birmingham, 1980).
3 See especially G. Tomlinson, 'Rinuccini, Peri, Monteverdi, and the Humanist Heritage of
Opera' (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1979), chaps. 1-2.
4 For the most part as intermedio, pastoral, tragicomedy andfesta [Link] Pirrotta,Li due
Orfei,pp. 45-90, 201-75; W. Osthoff, Theatergesang unddarstellende Musikin deritalienischen
Renaissance (Tutzing, 1969), chap. 8; F. W. Sternfeld, 'The Birth of Opera: Ovid, Poliziano,
and the Lieto fine', AnalectaMusicologica,19 (1979), pp. 30-51; L. Bianconi, II Seicento
(Turin, 1982), pp. 216-18, a summary of his unpublished lecture of 1977 on the history of
the lament; and M. Murata, 'The Recitative Soliloquy',Journalof theAmerican Musicological
Society,32 (1979), pp. 45-52. For a general bibliography on the theatre in Florence, see II
poteree lo spazio: La scenadelprincipe,exhibition catalogue for 'Firenze e la Toscana dei
Medici nell'Europa del Cinquecento' ([Florence], 1980), pp. 403-4.

101
 Margaret Murata
some earlier Florentine intermedi5- was the desire to emulate the
effects of the music of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In Florence
this was realised at the granducal court with the help of its satellite
circles of educated nobles.6 In Rome, knowledge of the ancients was
the province of professional scholars, the priests and religious who
taught in the seminaries and colleges, and for whom Seneca and
Terence would have been more familiar fare than Tasso and
Guarini. Thus after Cavalieri staged his Rappresentatione di Anima et di
Corpounder the auspices of the Oratorians, it is not surprising that
the next Roman musical drama is a carnival school play given by
boys and composed by their professor.7 In Rome, furthermore, the
princes and prelates of the Church exercised their tastes for fine
literature with transformations of Pindar and Horace designed to
inspire Christian devotion. It is from this literary environment that
we have several Roman experiments in continuously sung drama
after the style of the ancients. Although no music remains for them,
the surviving texts show that the new music in Rome, as in Florence,
was provided with a new 'poetry for music'.
The most astonishing of these dramas is David musicus,an opera in
three acts written and performed in 1613, with a libretto in Latin by
Alessandro Donati (1584-1640), a Jesuit professor of rhetoric. It
was set to music by Ottavio Catalani (d. 1644 or later), a composer
whose importance for dramatic monody is just becoming
recognised.8 He wrote this opera, as we shall see, in the line of his
5 Hanning, Of Poetry,pp. 9-12. Pirrotta, in his extended discussion of the 1589 Florentine
intermedi in Li dueOrfei(p. 235), points out that altogether 'they cannot be interpretedas a
formulation or allegory intended to assert a musical esthetics and poetics'.
6 See C. Palisca, 'The "Camerata Fiorentina": a Reappraisal', StudiMusicali,1 (1972), pp.
203-36, and his 'The Alterati of Florence, Pioneers in the Theory of Dramatic Music', New
Looksat ItalianOpera,ed. W. Austin (Ithaca, NY, 1968), pp. 9-38; Pirrotta,Li dueOrfei,pp.
280-2 (also in English in New Looks,pp. 46-50); and W. Kirkendale, 'Emilio de' Cavalieri,
a Roman Gentleman at the Florentine Court', Quadrivium, 12 (1971), pp. 9-21.
7 [A. Agazzari], Eumelio,dramma pastorale(Venice, 1606). The most recent consideration of
this score, which recapitulates its brief bibliography, is C. Gianturco, 'Nuove con-
siderazioni su il tediodel recitativodelle prime opere romane', RivistaItalianadi Musicologia,
18 (1982), pp. 226-9.
8 Two solo compositions of his were printed in a Roman anthology (listed as 16212in E.
Vogel, ed., Bibliothekdergedruckten weltlichenVocalmusik Italiensaus denJahren1500-1700,
Berlin, 1892, ed. A. Einstein, Hildesheim, 1962; and listed as 162115in F. Lesure, ed.,
Recueils imprimisXVIV-XVIIesiecles, Repertoire International des Sources Musicales
(hereafter RISM). B/1, Munich and Duisburg, 1960). John W. Hill has found a solo
lament by Catalani, apparently from a Roman theatrical production given before 1620
(personal communication). To the short list of Catalani's works in TheNew Grovecan be
added two motets, AbstergetDeusomnemlacrymam, for alto, tenor, bass and basso continuo,
and DulceJesuChristi,pectustuo,for alto, tenor and basso continuo, in Sceltadi motettidediversi

102
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

duties as maestrodi cappellaof the Collegio Germanico in Rome. The

school plays performed there, as at all the Jesuit colleges at that time,
were in Latin. It will be seen later how David musicus differs from
traditional neo-Latin plays in Donati's reworking of classical dra-
matic elements for a modern music composition.
The other Roman works to be examined, by the Florentine prelate
Giovanni Ciampoli (1590-1643), are in Italian. These borrow forms
from Greek tragedy, but not in the manner of the Florentine operatic
libretti that followed the spirit but not the letter of Greek drama.
Throughout the sixteenth century Greek had remained much less
well known than Latin, and the Greek tragedies less well understood
than the classical Latin plays.9 The influence of Greek tragedy on
Italian drama first appeared around 1515-33 in the work of Gian-
giorgio Trissino and playwrights associated with him. But the
creators of Italian tragedy did not write to construct academic
imitations, and, largely through the influence of the mid-sixteenth-
century plays of Giraldi Cinzio, they developed language and forms
for literary tragedy in which modern critics see no difference between
self-professed 'Grecians' and 'Senecans'.'o
Musicians, of course, for lack of examples from classical drama,
could not even attempt a reconstruction of tragic or comic musical
styles. They turned to the abstract and often contradictory state-
ments in ancient Greek literary and musical theory only to face the
gap (which still exists) between knowledge of the ancient Greek
musical system and knowledge of its idioms and how they were used.
The Italians did understand that the variety and force of expression

autori. . raccoltidaAntonioPoggioli(Rome, 1647). The six partbooks from the

eccellentissimi
collection of H. Prunieres are now Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Res. Vmc. 157. In the
three-part motet Catalani is identified as 'gia M. di Cappella dell'Illustr. Senato di
Messina', which still does not conclusively provide us with the year of his death.
9 Between 1495 and 1546 the seven tragedies of Sophocles and the nineteen of Euripides
appeared in print in Italy, with translations into Latin as well. The seven of Aeschylus
were issued between 1518 and 1557.
10 See H. B. Charlton, 'The Senecan Tradition in Renaissance
Tragedy' (Manchester, 1921;
repr. Folcroft, Penn., 1969), pp. xxix-lvii; and L. Bergel, 'The Rise of Cinquecento
Tragedy', Renaissance Drama,8 (1965), pp. 197-217, esp. pp. 201-16, where earlier studies
of Greek dramatic models are reported. Bergel concludes that 'essential features of
[Aristotle's] Poeticswere disregarded, and that the Greek plays that served as models were
greatly transformed. The real classical influence was that of Seneca' (p. 216). His article
attempts to explain why Cinquecento tragedy became what it did, without measuring it
against a preconceived conception of what the tragic is - the critical stance taken by Leo
Schrade in 'Music Drama Reborn', Tragedyin theArt of Music(Cambridge, Mass., 1964),
chap. 3.

103
 Margaret Murata
attributed to Greek music had been closely tied to the melody and
rhythm of text declamation." But no-one in the sixteenth century
seems to have proposed a re-creation of the experience either by
imitating the complex lyric metres of tragedy or by adopting the
poetic structures of Greek dramatic form.'2 Girolamo Mei, the
scholar who impressively supplied the Florentines with translations
and interpretations of ancient music theory, had been editing and
translating Greek tragedies since the 1540s. But in his research into
Greek music he was interested in the whole of it, not just in the
special nature and function of music for drama. Furthermore, music
for drama was not at first the principal focus of the Mei-Bardi-
Galilei-Caccini group.'" Barbara Hanning, moreover, has sum-
marised Mei's own theory of how Italian poetic metre moves the
'affections' - a numeric theory that measures distances between
stressed syllables, discusses the resultant proportions, and has
nothing to do with an appreciation of the movement of poetic
rhythm, an essential and musical aspect of Greek tragic poetry.14 It
was perhaps an omen of the future marriage of music and drama that
when Ottavio Rinuccini chose to represent a Greek myth in the third
intermedio of the Florentine festivities of 1589, his Greek model was
neither epic nor lyric, but a purely instrumental composition!15

I See K. G. Fellerer, 'Zur Erforschungder antiken Musik im 16.-18. Jahrhundert',Jahrbuch

derMusikbibliothekPetersfiir1935,22 (1936), pp. 84-95; E. P6hlmann, 'Antikenverstindnis
und Antikenmissverstiindnis in der Operntheorie der Florentiner Camerata', Die Musik-
forschung,22 (1969), pp. 5-13; D. P. Walker, 'Musical Humanism in the 16th and Early
17th Centuries', MusicReview,2 (1941), 3 (1942) [in 5 instalments; published in German
(Kassel and Basle, 1949)], reviewed by E. Lowinsky, TheMusicalQuarterly, 37 (1951), pp.
285-9; G. de' Bardi, 'Discorso sopra la musica antica e '1cantar bene' (Rome, Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. lat., MS 3990, fols. 4-13v), discussed by Palisca in 'The
"Camerata Florentina" ', pp. 215-17; and Hanning, Of Poetry,p. 240, n. 70.
12 Charlton, 'The Senecan Tradition', p. xlii, observes Trissino's use of the Petrarchan
canzona for choral odes. The recognition of the Greek antistrophic forms occurred in the
1570s. The Italian translation of Sophocles' Oedipus,however, performed in Vicenza in
1585 (with music for the choruses by Andrea Gabrieli), follows Trissino's practice; cf. the
introduction to L. Schrade, ed., La representation d'EdipoTirannoau TeatroOlimpico(Paris,
1960), pp. 20-32, 35-9.
13 N. Pirrotta, 'Tragedie et comedie dans la Camerata fiorentina', Musiqueetpoesieau XVIe
siecle[conferenceof the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1953], [Link]
(Paris, 1954), pp. 287-8; Palisca, 'The "Camerata Fiorentina" ', passim.
14 Hanning, Of Poetry,pp. 31-3.
15 The sections of the Greek Pythian nome for aulos were described by Pollux and Strabo as

phases in Apollo's mythical battle with the serpent. Hanning gives Strabo's description in
Of Poetry,p. 189, n. 61; Strabo's account of the five parts of the story, and thereforeof the
music, differs from that of Pollux, described by M. Pintacuda, La musicanellatragediagreca
(Cefalui, 1978), p. 40. The discrepancy could indicate that the nome was in fact not

104
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

The Florentines' choice of a vehicle other than tragedy as the first

means of reproducing the ancient power of music is perhaps best
explained by Angelo Ingegneri. Writing around 1598, he observed
that written comedies were no longer appreciated without elaborate
intermedi and that tragedies were hardly read and had become
unstageable. Tragedies were melancholy, unamusing and too
expensive to costume and provide sets for. After this apology
Ingegneri listed all the reasons why pastorals were the perfect and
most popular entertainments, an assessment verified by the genre of
the first operas.'16 In terms of Greek dramatic models, then, the
development of opera recalls that of the Italian tragedy, with
Guarini filling the role of Giraldi Cinzio and leading the libretto
away from the Greeks. Between the time of Mei's apprenticeship as a
philologist and G. B. Doni's musicological Trattato della musica
scenica'7of around 1635 there were nearly a hundred years of
scholarly research into Greek tragedies and their music. But by this
time opera was on the brink of a new destiny.
In 1625 and 1626, however, Giovanni Ciampoli wrote two poetic
texts for musical representations that deliberately avoided the
dominant serious theatrical styles: Senecan, pastoral and allegori-
cal. He adapted Greek forms and procedures to create solemn
musical works that clearly could not be confused with comedies or
tragicomedies. The subject of the first, La vittoriadel Principe Vladislao
in Vallachia, reflects, unexpectedly, a contemporary event - the
victory of the Poles over the Turks at Khotin in the autumn of 1621.
Il canticodelle benedizioniof 1626 dramatises the Babylonian captivity
of the Hebrews and the miracle of Shadrach, Mischach and Abed-
nego in the burning fiery furnace. Both compositions were per-
formed in the presence of Pope Urban viii, who by policy never
attended secular events. The official nature of both occasions gave
Ciampoli the unusual opportunity to emulate Greek drama in order
to approach the monumentality and elevated moral tone of the
tragedians.
programmatic, but that the narrative 'stages' were explanations of Hellenistic instrumen-
tal practice, possibly improvisatory.
16 A. Ingegneri, Della poesiarappresentativa
e del mododi rappresentare
lefavolesceniche(Ferrara,
1598), pp. 10-11; quoted in M. Ariani, La tragediadel Cinquecento, I (Turin, 1977), pp.
LXII-LXIII.
17 Published in LyraBarberinaamphichordos ii, ed. A. F. Gori (Florence, 1763; repr. 1975), pp.
1-144; excerpts appear in A. Solerti, Leoriginidelmelodramma (Turin, 1903;repr. 1969), pp.
186-221.

105
 Margaret Murata
All three works by Donati and Ciampoli, as well as some others in
this neo-classical Roman orbit, are not only out of the ordinary, they
are out of what became the mainstream of the history of musical
drama." This is not because their authors were less concerned with
re-creating the expressive style of the ancients than Mei, Rinuccini
or Peri, but rather because opera, born in pastoral glades, quickly
lost its uncertain connection with tragedy. The Roman works,
though later than the Florentine by nearly a generation, still show no
discomfort with their tragic elements, because the strong Jesuit play
tradition in Rome had already Christianised Senecan drama, just as
Bramante and Michelangelo had Christianised pagan architecture.
Ciampoli's use of Greek models exemplifies the common force
behind different expressions of neo-classicism in Rome, namely the
desire to perfect it, to place St Peter in triumph atop the Egyptian
obelisk. The main purpose of this essay, however, is not to present
examples of Christian classicism, but to show how the Roman
musical representations are first cousins of the earliest Florentine
operas. In order to see the contributions of Donati and Ciampoli in
perspective, it is necessary first to look briefly at some aspects of
music in ancient tragedy and the use of music in Renaissance plays.

It is generally recognised, following Aristotle, that four parts of a

Greek tragedy could be in song with musical accompaniment. Three
of these were choral: the initial entrance piece for the chorus
(parodos);its responses after each episode (stasima); and, often, duets
between chorus and actors (kommoi).The fourth category was music
sung by the masked actors (apo tes skenes,from the stage) in passages
nowadays called monodies. These monodies can be identified by
their formal organisation into strophes with matching antistrophes,
or, if they lack such forms, by changes in metric character. The
sections for chorus in general also employ an antistrophic form in
which a series of pairs (aa bb cc, etc., where a, b and c have different
metric profiles) may conclude with a single non-strophic,
unmatched epode (n, in yet another metric form). Antistrophes do
not always immediately follow their strophes and can frame con-
trasting lines and speakers. All four types of musical passage are also
identifiable by their metrical characteristics, which sharply contrast
with the prevailing metre of dialogue. Neither specific metres nor
18 The mainstream flowed out of Venice; see L. Bianconi, II Seicento,pp. 162-81.

106
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

metric schemes for the strophes or odes were prescribed for these
musical sections. They were rhapsodic in the sense that the rhythms
were irregular, in highly varied lines of differing length that often
used 'compound' metres such as the ionic, aeolic, dochmaic (found
only in tragedy) and dactylo-epitrite. Frequently such metres were
mixed in a single passage.19 Monodies could occur anywhere; the
choral stasima concluded each episode and, without a break, moved
continuously into the next episode.20
Roman verse tragedy adapted and simplified Greek practice. The
plays of Seneca - probably written to be recited and not performed in
the real theatre by masked actors - retain the Greek distinction
between dialogue metre and lyric metres. Seneca's repertory of lyric
metres, however, is small, being largely anapestic dimeters and
aeolic verse. His lyric passages on the whole are isometric (unlike the
Greek), and he dropped Greek strophic responsion21 (which was not
necessary to him, given the regularity of his lyric verse).
Seneca's verse characteristics were retained in the earliest neo-
Latin tragedies. In fact the names and constituent feet of the metres
were often carefully noted, as they are in the Codex Etruscus, an
eleventh-century Italian source for Seneca's plays.22 Thus in the
Ecerinis by Albertino Mussato (1314), the chorus of medieval citizens
suffer tyranny in Senecan rhythms. Mussato strongly felt that it was
19 One handbook, for example, analyses lo's monody from the third episode of Aeschylus'
Prometheus as: anapestic entrance, dochmaics mingled with iambics, occasional cretics and
'a run of bacchii' (D. S. Raven, GreekMetre, an Introduction, London, 1962, p. 108;
'Uniformity of rhythm is not on the whole characteristic of Greek chorus', ibid., p. 123).
(Greek Old Comedy also had a high degree of metric structure, different from that of
tragedy, but Aristophanes seems to have had no influence on Baroque opera and is not
relevant here.) For Greek dramatic music in general, see the bibliography in Pintacuda, La
musicanellatragediagreca.T. B. L. Webster, TheGreekChorus(London, 1970), attempts to
match metric analysis to dance movement and types of dances via visual sources. For an
examination of the poetic-dramatic functions of the choral odes see H. Parry, TheLyric
Poemsof GreekTragedy(Toronto and Sarasota, 1978).
20 W. Beare, The RomanStage (rev. ed., London, 1964), p. 217: 'Continuous performance,
which is the negation of act-division, was the rule for ancient drama from Aeschylus to
Terence'.
21 Metric analyses of Seneca are in D. S. Raven, LatinMetre,an Introduction (London, 1965),
pp. 178-80. A wide-ranging and detailed guide is the introduction in E. Fantham, Seneca's
Troades(Princeton, 1982), which also provides up-to-date referencesfor 'Seneca's Prede-
cessors and Contemporaries', pp. 3-9. Pintacuda, La musicanellatragediagreca,pp. 72-3,
summarises the history of the triadic choral form, which is more the rule in Aeschylus and
possibly begins to dissolve in Euripides' time. This history is relevant to Renaissance
literature in that the Greek dramatists become known in reverse historical order, from
Hellenistic descriptions backwards through Euripides to Aeschylus.
22 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, MS Plut. Lat. 37.13. Fantham, Seneca's
Troades,pp. 116-22, reviews the manuscript tradition.

107
 Margaret Murata
Seneca's metric variety that rendered his narratives expressive,
producing 'groans, wailing, laments, melodies, and other passions
by means of distinct metres in different feet, so that each metre suited
the situation'.23
The immediate development of Latin drama after Mussato,
however, did not depend on Seneca entirely. In the fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century school tradition that fostered Latin drama as
living theatre, Seneca's influence joined that of Terence and
Plautus.24 Moreover, the new Latin drama did not escape the
influence of contemporary vernacular theatre, for example with
respect to construction, staging and the use of music, intermedi and
even mime. Procedures known about ancient drama - such as the
unities of time and place, or the restriction in the number of actors in
a scene - were neglected in Latin as in the vernacular. Evidence from
the plays themselves - such as the lack of choruses in comedies -
were simply ignored. As a result, many Renaissance Latin plays up
to the 1580s were seen, or are today regarded generically, as
tragicomedies.
The association of the chorus with tragedy persisted nonetheless,
despite the cross-breeding of dramatic types, as did the recognition
that it is musical. This is true for plays both in Italian and in Latin.
Nino Pirrotta has brought to light evidence of singing in Renaissance
Italian plays. He has noted sung choruses in the two conversions at
the end of the fifteenth century of Poliziano's Orfeointo tragedies.25
He has also described an Italian tragedy performed in Reggio Emilia
in 1568 which had music 'with such a variety of exquisite instru-
23 'gemitus, eiulatus, planctus, melodias, ceterosque mentis affectus per metra diversis
distincta pedibus edit, ut materie singula metra conveniant' (A. Mussato, Evidentia
tragediarum Senece,quoted in M. Pastore-Stocchi, 'Un chapitre d'histoire litteraire aux xIve
et xve siecles: "Seneca poeta tragicus" ', Les tragidiesdeSeniqueet la thedtredela Renaissance,
ed. J. Jacquot and M. Oddon, Paris, 1964, pp. 29-30). The author points out that the
observations of Mussato and his commentators (of 1317) 'not only . .. established a new
relationship between the polymetre of tragedy and the variety of its styles, but they also
gave to this variety its true significance, essential for the poetry of drama' (n. 58). Pastore-
Stocchi connects the Laurenziana manuscript (see n. 22 above) to Mussato via the scholar
Lovato Lovati, but Fantham, Seneca'sTroades,p. 117, reports the currentuncertain opinion
about this.
24 L. Bradner, 'The Latin Drama of the Renaissance
(1340-1640)', Studiesin theRenaissance,4
(1957), pp. 31-70, surveys the repertory by type and includes a handlist of original neo-
Latin plays published before 1650. None of the collections in Italy, however, seems to have
been included except for that of the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. Nor have the major
Jesuit bibliographies been collated, notably C. Sommervogel, Bibliotheque desecrivainsdela
Compagnie dejsus (Liege, 1869-76).
25
Pirrotta, Li dueOrfei,pp. 50-3.

108
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

ments and elect voices, that, imitating from passage to passage the
alternations of the tragedy, they moved from one contrasting affec-
tion to another, perhaps with greater force than that which one reads
the music of Alexander had in his time'.26 After reporting on the
choruses, the anonymous observer (whom Pirrotta suspects might
have been the author of the play) says:
I know that choruses have been recited up till now in different ways in our
age: some have had one person from the group speak in a certain constant
tone, serious and splendid. But I don't like this; it seems to me exactly the
hypodorian way of singing, which, as the Problemsof [pseudo-]Aristotle
attest, is as unsuitable for choral song because of its heroic majesty, as the
hypophrygian wouldn't suit, because of its weak and dissolute character.
Others have had one person sing without the addition of any other
concertising part. But what delight can a song sung by itself give, if
harmony, which in the end is nothing but relationships, is created only by
putting together high and low [notes]? Others have preferred that the
[choral] group sing together, which ... wouldn't be displeasing, if ever so
many voices wouldn't get mixed up and totally prevent understanding the
ideas and the words, which in choruses, by their nature, are for the most
part obscure .... I for my part believe that the ancients performed [one or
the other way] equally.27
In the performance in question the choruses were sung by the leader
(or coryphaeus) to instrumental accompaniment, with the
26 'con tanta varieth di strumenti esquisiti, e di voci elette, ch'imitando a parte a parte
l'alterazioni della tragedia commovevano da un contrario all'altro gli affetti dell'animo,
forse con maggior forza di quella che si legge aver fatto la musica d'Alessandro a' suoi
tempi'. This passage, which precedes the description of the intermedi, is found on p. 992 of
the modern edition of Il successodell'Alidoro(Reggio Emilia, 1568) in Ariani, La tragediadel
Cinquecento, ii, pp. 984-1008. Pirrotta describes the choruses to Alidoroin Li dueOrfei,pp.
224-5.
27 'So ch'in diverse maniere si sono fin qui recitati i cori all'eth nostra: alcuni hanno fatto
parlare un solo della moltitudine con un certo tuono costante, grave e magnifico: ma
questo non mi pu6 piacere, parendomi a punto quel modo di cantare ipodorio, il quale
(come attesta ne' Problemi Aristotele) altrettanto al canto de' cori disconveniva per la sua
eroica maesta, quanto si disconvenisse l'ipofrigioper la sua troppa mollizie e dissoluzione.
Altri hanno fatto cantare un solo senza unione d'alcun altro concerto: ma qual diletto pub
venir dal canto d'un solo, se l'armonia, la quale insomma non e altro che relazione, si
genera solamente dalla composizione del grave e dell'acuto? Ad alcuni altri 'epiaciuto che
tutta la moltitudine canti unitamente, la qual maniera (lasciando da parte la difficolth di
ritrovar tanti musici istrioni a proposito, che non e picciola) non sarebbe da dispiacere,
ogni volta che tante voci non confondessero e non impedissero totalmente l'intelligenza de'
concetti e delle parole, le quali ne' cori di sua natura sono per lo pifi molto oscure: ma con
tutto ci6 ancora questo modo non Zeda essere dannato a fatto, perche non vi essendo regola,
ne osservazione alcuna che ci astringa pid a far cantare un solo, che tutti insieme ... parmi
che debba esser permesso cosi l'un modo, come l'altro. E io per me credo che gli antichi ci6
facessero indifferentemente, secondo che tornava lo meglio' (Ariani, La tragediadel
Cinquecento,ii, pp. 1000-1).

109
 Margaret Murata
instrumentalists playing from different locations, some in view of the
audience, others hidden.
With thejoining of the live and literary traditions in performances
of Latin dramas, it came to be that Senecan lyrical prosody,
probably not sung in Seneca's day, was heard in the sixteenth
century in musical settings of the kind described above. Little of this
music has been found or documented. In the last century Liliencron
assembled a small collection of Latin music for German school plays
that demonstrates both monophonic and polyphonic choral
strophes.28 His earliest examples are from Reuchlin's Scenica pro-
gymnasmataof 1498, which were published in several editions up to
1534. The choral settings for Macropedius' plays carefully imitate
the ancient Latin metres, in the German tradition of setting
Horatian odes.29 In one play, there are solo monodies for the main
character.30 These first publications from Liliencron's list (which
continues to 1620) are important not only in themselves but also
because they document a practice that predates the founding of the
Jesuit order and its schools. Somewhat later is the performance of the
play Saul Gelboeusby the Jesuit Miguel Venegas, staged in Coimbra
in 1559 for Jodo ini of Portugal. The manuscript source of the play
notes the glyconic, sapphic and asclepiad metres of its choruses, just
as the Codex Etruscus had annotated Seneca's plays. A witness to
the performance wrote that 'in each act there was a chorus with very
devout words, and very restrained as to the organ music and eight or
nine musicians who sang them very well'.3"The later Latin dramas
ofStefano Tuccio and Francesco Benci staged in the 1570s and 1580s
at the Collegio Romano (which certainly did not invent a theatrical
style ex novo) all included music.
One Roman Latin tragedy whose performance history extends
28 R. von Liliencron, 'Die Chorgesiinge des lateinischen-deutschen Schuldramas im XVI.
Musikwissenschaft,
Jahrhundert', Vierteljahrsschriftfir 6 (1890), pp. 309-87.
29 The plays are surveyed in Bradner, 'The Latin Drama', pp. 45-7. The Horatian settings
are discussed in R. von Liliencron, 'Die horazischen Metren in deutschen Kompositionen
des [Link]', Vierteljahrsschriftfrir
Musikwissenschaft,3 (1887), pp. 26-91.
30 From Asotus, first published in 1537; the music, published in 1552, is available in
Liliencron, 'Die Chorgesdinge',p. 368. Another solo is from Hypomene, in Liliencron, ibid.,
p. 375.
31 The composer is not known. The description is from one of the Jesuit quarterly reports for
1559, quoted in C.-H. Freches, Le theitreneo-Latinau Portugal(1550-1745) (Paris and
Lisbon, 1964), p. 187: 'Avia en cada acto un choro de letra muy devota, y muy bien
compuesto en puncto de canto de 6rgano, y 8 o nueve mfisicos que los cantavan muy bien
... Unos dezian que en media de Grecia no se pudiera representar mejor'. Freches also
gives a detailed description of the play, pp. 175-80.
110
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

well into the seventeenth century represents an attempt to remove

some of the hybrid dramatic traits that had accumulated in Latin
drama during the sixteenth century. Reasserting some of the pre-
cepts of Aristotelian theory, Bernardino Stefonio's Crispusof 1597 in
effect returned to Seneca for form, poetic metres, tone, location and
even for one character. The ghost of Seneca's Phaedra and an evil
spirit open the play. They appear in Rome to predict an attempt at
incest and the consequent disruption of the household of the
Emperor Constantine. A manuscript of the play that refers to the
1597 production says that the music was composed by Francesco
Soriano, Anerio (probably Felice) and Asprilio Pacelli.32 In addi-
tion to the music for the chorus, whose speeches are not restricted to
the ends of acts, there is at least one solo song sung by a Terentian
fidicina in an interlude scene. Although these few examples hardly
document a performance history, they illustrate the point that
music's place in the Latin tragedy around 1600 was the same as in
Italian pastoral, tragedy or comedy - namely, in choruses and solo
song. The Latin metric tradition, furthermore, extended back to the
first century.

In January 1613 Johann Gottfried von Aschhausen, Bishop of

Bamberg, having the year before founded aJesuit college in that city,
came to Rome as an extraordinary ambassador to Paul v. He was
received as a guest of honour at the Collegio Germanico, which had
prepared a special entertainment for him:
Tuesday morning [29 January] the same imperial ambassador was given a
banquet by Cardinal Bellarmino together with the Father General of the
Jesuits, and Wednesday morning he dined at the Collegio Germanico at
Sant'Apollinare, where a very beautiful play was staged with continuous
music and other compositions .... Wednesday evening [13 February] for
spiritual recreation, the play of David and Saul was recited again at the
32 Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (hereafter I-Rvat), MS Barb. lat. 1658, fol. [1]
names 'Musici praestantissimi Sorianus, Nerius, Asprilius'. The play was published in
several editions and was translated into Italian as early as 1609 by Padre Cristofaro
Virgilio (Rome, Biblioteca Corsiniana (hereafter I-Rli) MS 640). The Jesuit rector of the
Collegio Greco in Rome discussed the play in T. Gallucci, Rinovazione dell'anticatragedia,e
difesadelCrispo:discorsoall'[Link] [Link]. Card.[Francesco] Barberino (Rome, 1633).
At least six different seventeenth-century Roman performances are known from printed
scenarios; see L. Cairo and P. Quilici, Bibliotecateatraledal '500 al '700: La raccoltadella
BibliotecaCasanatense, I-ul (Rome, 1981), nos. 1163-8 (Casanatense holdings hereafter I-
Rc). The music in 1628 was by Virgilio Mazzocchi, in 1644 by Carlo Cecchelli. Different
productions have different prologues and intermedi.

111
 Margaret Murata

Collegio Germanico, the one already mentioned in Latin and in music, at

which were present the lords the Prince of Sulmona and the Marquis of
Mentana.33
This notice from the Avvisi di Roma identifies the play as David
musicus,the text preserved in a unique source, MS Barb. lat. 1819 in
the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome. The twelve-folio manu-
script in a tiny, crabbed hand presents a dedicatory poem 'Ad
Illustrissimum Principem Joannem Godefridum Episcopum Bam-
bergensem Caesareum Legatum', followed by a list of twelve charac-
ters and two choruses, the prologue sung by Music and three acts of
five scenes each. The later annals of the Seminario Romano identify
the author as Alessandro Donati and the composer as Ottavio
Catalani,34 as mentioned earlier. Catalani, who had been maestrodi
cappellaat Sant'Apollinare since 1601. apparently undertook to write
the music with great reluctance, as the rector of the college later
complained to Cardinal Borghese.35 The rector noted that the work
was 'the first extraordinary thing' the college had asked of its maestro,
a comment that implies both that project was unusual and that more
was involved than composing incidental music. The libretto has no
rubrics indicating musical styles, such as arias, ritornelli or reci-
tation. But besides the phrase from the Avvisi referring to 'continuous
music', additional evidence for a continuous musical setting emerges
from the text itself.
33 'Martedi mattina il medesimo Ambasciatore Cesareo fu banchettato dal Cardinale
Bellarmino insieme col Padre Generale de' Gesuiti, et mercordi mattina fu a desinare nel
Collegio Germanico a Santo Appollinare dove fu fatta una rappresentationebellissima con
continue musiche et altre compositioni ... Mercordi sera per ricreatione spirituale nel
Collegio Germanico fu di nuovo recitata la rappresentatione di David et Saul gia scritta
latina et in musica alla quale intervennero li Signori Principe di Sulmona et Marchese
della Mentana' (I-Rvat Urb. lat. 1081, Avvisidi Roma,2 February 1613, fol. 29r-29v; 16
romano
February, fol. 49r. The later notice is partially cited in F. Clementi, II carnevale nelle
cronache contemporanee,2nd ed., Citti di Castello, 1939, p. 395).
34 Rome, Universith Gregoriana,Archivi, MS 2800, G. Nappi, AnnalidelSeminario Romano,II,
p. 621; cited in R. Casimiri, ' "Disciplina musicae" e "mastri di capella" dopo il Concilio
di Trento', Noted'Archivio,19 (1942), p. 114. For Donati's other writings, see Sommervo-
gel, Bibliothique,under 'Donati'. I have not been able to consult N. Nessler, 'Dramaturgie
derJesuiten Pontanus, Donatus, und Masenius', Programm derkk. Gymnasiums zu Brixen,55
(1905), pp. 1-48, which probably deals with Donati's published play La Sveviaof 1629 (see
n. 53 below).
35 T. Culley, JesuitsandMusic,I (Rome and St Louis, 1970), p. 123. Catalani may very well
have balked at the problem of setting Latin quantitative, unrhymed verse. The metric
problems do not arise in the setting of the Latin prose of the liturgy or the Latin oratorios
later written for the same college. For a survey of music in the college, see T. Culley, 'The
German College in Rome: a Center for Baroque Music', BaroqueArt: theJesuit Contribution,
ed. R. Wittkower and I. B. Jaffe (New York, 1972), pp. 111-28.

112
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

Melopeia, the personification of music, presents the prologue in

seven strophes of minor sapphic stanzas, a form favoured by Horace
but also used by Seneca in his plays. This stanzaic form recurs
Four of these recurrences- a
prominently in all three acts of David.36
duet and three choruses - are clearly tuneful set-pieces, so, by
example, the other solo stanzas such as those of the prologue may
also have been song-like. Melopeia addresses the Prince-Bishop with
the words 'I begin these strains, Prince, in song intended for you':

Ordi'r Prin'cEpstibl des'tinit6

carminiPrologue,11.3-4
caitu.
In the third stanza she brings 'new music as specially prepared,
charming gifts of song' ('vocalis linguae'):

Hinc InaudifVsmedit~it' cantis

bl~nd~ v6cMis linguae. 11.9-10
f•er6d6oni
The figure of music announces music's power and her participation
in this drama. Furthermore, 'David the Musician' immediately
brings to mind the operatic figure of Orpheus. As Orpheus' Judeo-
Christian parallel, David cures Saul's madness in the climax of the
last act by his singing. Also like the two Roman musical dramas that
preceded it, David has a three-act form, not the traditional five of
spoken or literary Renaissance drama.
As the first act begins, David and one of his brothers are alone in
the plains near Bethlehem. They exchange twenty-one lines of
dialogue, closing with a duet in minor sapphic stanzas. Their
dialogue has been carefully constructed. Most noticeably it avoids
the standard iambic trimeters (senari for comedy) of dramatic
dialogue from Seneca and his Renaissance imitators. The seven-
teenth century did not change this tradition; for instance the Latin
Sigismundus given at the Seminario Romano in 1617 is composed of
36 Sapphic stanzas occur in:
(1) three stanzas in the first duet between David and his brother
(Act I, scene 1); (2) four stanzas between a metrically contrasting refrain in the choral set
that closes Act I; (3) six stanzas as the first part of the choral set that closes Act 11;(4)
David's answer (one stanza) to an angel (Act iii, scene 2), echoed in the next scene; (5)
Jonathan's plea for David to sing to Saul (Act iii, scene 3); and (6) two stanzas in the first
part of the choral set that closes Act [Link] following analyses of Davidmusicusand of the
works by Ciampoli were first presented in a paper given for the American Musicological
Society in Denver in November 1980.

113
 Margaret Murata
such trimeters.37 This metric pattern for speech does not appear in
David. Everywhere instead are the classical lyric metres: Horatian
stanzas for the 'arias' and, for the rest, metres from lyric, mainly
choral passages in Seneca. David's four opening lines of dialogue
form a minor asclepiad stanza, and his two other couplets in the
conversation retain the same metric pattern. This metre has a strong
caesura after the sixth syllable:

i. 1
Iam co-elTmedijs"arduiusr'bibis
David's brother's speeches, on the other hand, are entirely in a
shorter lyric line:
Omnfs'hic ibTr5s'cida
m5rdt' gramin~ riviulis
fiisi'membr~ s5b arbore. 11.14-15

Example I shows the three lyric metres used in the scene, along with
hypothetical rhythmic settings. Later in Act I, scene 2, the prophet
Samuel recites in slow, weighty anapestic dimeters, mostly in
spondees. In the third scene Donati used prominent dactyls for an

Example 1 David musicus, Act I, scene 1 (I-Rvat Barb. lat. 1819, fol. 164v)

(a) Lesser asclepiads, hypothetical 'reciting' rhythm

I
r I FJ
I
I l
I
P I

Iam coe -li me-di-js ar -du-us or - bi-

- bus sol a - to ra - di-ans sy - de-re ful - gu - rat.

-bus sol al - to ra-di-ans sy -de-re ful - gu-rat.

37 Printed scenario in I-Rc Vol. misc. 2013.3; the text is found in I-Rli MS 643, fols. 135'-
196v,'Sigismundus, tragoedia habita in Seminario Romano'. It does not have a chorus to
close each of the five acts; instead, the chorus does not enter until Act Iv, scene 1. A hand
different from that of the principal copyist added a text for four choruses after the last act,
'Italam diro properata ferro'.

114
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

(b) Glyconics, hypothetical 'reciting' rhythm

Om - nes hic u -bi ro - sci- da mor - det

gra - mi - na ri - vu - lus,

(c) Minor sapphicstanza, hypotheticalrhythmicskeletonfor the closingduet

O pa - rens mun -di do-mi-tor - que re - gum,

0 fa -ve coep -[tis...]si-ne la - be so - les,

du - ci - mus an - nos.

exchange between two demons. An angel in Act IIIsings in dactylic

tetrameters. An anapestic monody from Seneca's Phaedra is even
alluded to, as David addresses his shepherd friends in Act I, scene 4,
in a parody of Hippolytus' lyrical opening greeting to the Grecian
countryside. In short, Donati used only the musical metres of
classical drama in David, clearly making them conform to their
destiny as poetry for music.
Another aspect of the metric style in David can be associated with
musical performance. This is the fluid changing of metric patterns in
short groups of lines. In Plautus and Seneca such groups are known
115
 Margaret Murata
as mutatis modis cantica, which, as in Greek plays, characterise lyric
passages. A demon who appears in Act II, scenes 3-4, expresses his
anger in long lines of mixed dactyls and trochees. Another example is
the 'mad scene' of King Saul (Act III, scene 4) which shifts metres
almost every two lines (see Text 1). Saul's mixed metres are unified
by the use of double-breve feet, with the exception of the contrast of
the two exclamatory iambic lines. This passage of changing metres
might have been set in a free, affective monodic style. The use of
'metric modulation' in Plautus and Seneca was only a technique; the
metres used and their mixture differed in comedy and tragedy and
from canticum to canticum. Donati's metres are those from Senecan
choruses, but the declamation here is new and is his own.

Text 1
(from I-Rvat Barb. Lat. 1819, fol. 170', 11.313-24)
Saul: Pastibuis'inf-er'nis dc'ts fiir lJsquem lignis dactylic hexameter
imptitensque
Humptsrq' trzs' mbra-e Siil'dsim. s, j.
Sibdhm"nstraI' dactylic tetrameters
Hau miser,'dtrfs'sibdite'manstris,
im d~ti~s:
dibis: ]
d~ciman'ti
regiblis'~5l1m anapesticdimeters
etim'ra g s vexat
lrynnis.
Umbrainim videi'nacte %olan%'tim,
viltais'Ignifer6s,' raque tristvi, lesser asclepiads
intdn'tisque fracEs,ldaraque ?erdera.
D~hisc .
D'e'hiscet0'15s nfimd!
tel'lfs infim•i ] iambicdimeters
co-e•alm
DEmnitte falmin.!
NTd6c'tuscjyth~rdpiiir
s
plectr6'pect6ri tem'peret.

(Driven by infernal plagues, evil furies and impatient of delay, here I am,
Saul. Alas, wretch, beset by dark monsters, you will provide an example to
kings: the Furies pursue even kings. By night I see the fiery faces of flying
shades, their gloomy mouths, eager torches and harsh whips. Open, bowels
of the earth! Let heaven send down its bolts! The boy skilled with his cithara
cannot soothe this breast with his plectrum.)

There is also slightly later evidence for the writing of such mixed
metres specifically for musical settings. One of Donati's fellowJesuit
dramatists, Padre Leone Santi, published eight melodramas in 1636
that had been given as intermedi at the Seminario Romano between
116
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

1629 and 1632.38In a short essay following the plays, Santi discussed
'De metris horum melodramatum':
Since in these melodramas we had to consider not only the stage action but
also Italian music along with Latin poetry, it was a laborious business to
obey so many masters so different from each other. Indeed because of this,
first by means of novel situations and brevity in the text, we took the trouble
to avoid tedium for the listeners, to free the singers from effort, and to
convey to everybody the enjoyment proper to someone free from vice. Then
we arranged the ideas in an extensive variety of odes. For we noticed that
Latin metres expressed in our own types of harmony bring a great deal of
satisfaction in drama, if they go along for some time on such a course.39
Two of these melodramas, printed earlier, in 1634, appeared with
the subtitle 'Metris confusaneis ad harmoniam' (that is, 'in mixed
metres for music')."4 The difference here between seventeenth-
century and ancient practice is that Donati and Santi, in writing
texts to be completely set to music, used only ancient melic metres
and avoided dialogue metres even if they believed that dialogue had
originally been sung (for example, intoned, or in 'recitative').4 The
reason for Santi's explanation of his new practice reveals a truth
about musical rhythm: that regular metre without rhythmic move-
ment created by resolution, substitution and variety is tedious. The
(Rome, 1634) as 'Carmina melodrammatica action-
38 Published in L. Santi, Eroparthenica
ibus harmonice interjecta' and in his Floridorum libersecundus(Rome, 1636) as 'Dramatica
ad nostratem potissimum harmoniam accomodata'. The performances are dated in
Nappi, Annali as published by Casimiri, ' "Disciplina musicae" e "mastri di capella" ',
Noted'Archivio,15 (1938), pp. 242-4. These will be listed with dates and locations of sources
in the forthcoming chronology of Roman operatic performancesedited by L. Bianconi, L.
Lindgren, M. Murata and T. Walker. P. Bjurstrom'sassessment of these melodramas, in
'Baroque Theater and the Jesuits', BaroqueArt, ed. R. Wittkower, pp. 101-2, as represent-
ing 'the dominant trends in Jesuit drama' is quite off the mark. Aside from being sung
throughout, which is untypical of school plays, Santi called them only 'opuscula varia'
(1636), and Nappi's notes show that at least three were sets of intermedi, not proper
dramas. Fully-fledged RomanJesuit plays were quite different,including Santi's II Gigante
of 1632 (argomento in I-Rc Vol. misc. 2013.18; copy in I-Rvat [Link].I.14), Somniator of
1648 (copy in I-Rvat Barb. [Link].13) and his Philippusof 1656 (argomento in I-Rc Vol.
misc. 2214.15: copy in I-Rvat Barb. [Link].59).
39 Santi, Floridorumlibersecundus,p. 197: 'Quoniam in hisce Melodramatis non scaenicae
Actionis modo, sed Italicae Musicae pariter, ac Latinae Poeseos rationem habere
debuimus: morem gerere tam multis, & a se diversis dominis, laboriosa provincia fuit.
Propterea primum quidem rerum novitate, ac brevitate verborum, amoliri auditoribus
taedium, Cantoribus laborem adimere, omnibus verb delectationem homine a vitijs libero
dignam afferre curavimus: tum multiplici carminum varietate sententias disposuimus:
animadvertimus enim metra Latina expressa nostratis harmoniae modis multum afferre
satietatis in Dramate, si tenore simili diutius cadant'.
40 Santi, Eroparthenica,pp. 16, 42.
41 A. Donati, Ars poetica(Rome, 1631), p. 274: 'Caeterum non modo cantibus intermissa
recitatio, sed etiam integrae tragoediae decantatae'.

117
 MargaretMurata
implication is that long stichic series of dialogue trimeters would
have been musically insupportable. As in the case of Italian opera,
the nature of music demanded lyrical poetry or, at least, non-lyrical
music demanded lyric poetry.
The passages of 'recitation' in David, however, are not very
extensive. Its solo and dialogue scenes are fairly short vignettes,
almost bits of background information that lead to the action, which
in each act finally takes place before the chorus. The two solo scenes
in David are both for secondary characters and amount to only
fourteen lines. The eight dialogue scenes unfold in only 137 lines, a
total that includes strophic repetitions in arias. The number of
choral lines (including strophic repetitions) is more than double this.
In the choral scenes, which are concentrated at the ends of the acts,
the chorus sings first as a participant in the action and then, with a
separate rubric, in a formal closing number (stasimum).
Text 2 summarises the last scenes of each of the three acts of David
(brackets show the two-part form of the choral finales). In both Acts
I and iii the choral forces participate as in classical tragedy, not only
amplifying the emotion of the moment, but also directly addressing
the principals (see Act I, scene 5a, or Act III,scenes 4a-5b):

ChorusHaebraeorum: Heu, Saul, Saul!

Heu, miser, miser!
Tu nocte gemis,
Tu die gemis!

Cane, puer
dirae fugient.
Feraducis
cedet rabies
numerisque conquiescet.
11.325-8, 337-4142

These short, agitated choral lines, together with Saul's irregular

outbursts seen above in Text 1, prepareDavid's two important solos,
which in contrast are both strophic and metrically regular. In scene 4
42 'Alas, Saul, Saul! Alas, wretch, wretch! You groan by night, you groan by day. ... Sing,
boy, the Furies will flee, the wild rage of our chief will subside and will cease with music.'
As a choral exclamation, this compares with the chorus from Act v, scene 4, from
Stefonio's Crispus:'Patris heu, moeror patris, heu, heu! Puer infelix, miserande puer! Pius,
heu, frustra puer infelix! Pudor, heu, fortis sacer, heu, frustra. Heu, heu, heu, heu (eight
times), Puer infelix, puer infelix, Miser heu, reditus ducis invictj' (I-RvatBarb. lat. 1658).

118
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

Text 2
Act I, scenes 4-5
David and Chorus of Hebrew boys
General praise to God
scene 4a. David solo, with echo and 4-line refrain.
b. Double chorus in mixed metres.
David saves all from a lion
scene 5a. Quick 1- and 2-line exchanges between both choruses, David
and his brother.
b. Choraldance in minorsapphicstanzas:Refrain(R)-strophe
(S) I-R-Sii-R-Siii-Siv
c. Both choruses together with 19 non-strophic lines, in
glyconics with a middle section of short lines.

Act ii, scene 5

Samuel chooses David king from among the sons of Isaiah
scene 5a. Samuel, Isaiah, messenger, brothers call David from the fields;
they hear a voice from heaven: dialogue with 1- and 2-line
exchanges.
b. Chorus in 6 stanzas of minor sapphics.
c. Chorus: 23 non-strophic lines in irregular metres with inter-
nal repetitions.

Act Ili, scenes 4-5

Saul, David, Jonathan, etc.
Chorus bewails Saul's madness; David urged to sing
scene 4a. Exchange between Saul (Text 1) and chorus (see n. 42).
b. Exchange between David (Text 3) and chorus, with inter-
jections from Jonathan and demons.
c. Exchange between Saul and chorus (includes repetition of
lines from 4a).
scene 5a. Continues from 4c
b. Exchange between David and chorus (with lines from 4b).
Saul recovered; general rejoicing
c. Saul (3 lines) and chorus (Refrain)
d. Saul (same 3 lines) and David with chorus of armed warriors
in Refrain and non-Horatian stanzas (D=David; c=chorus):

Refrain-strophe I (3+ 2+1 lines)

D-c-D

Refrain-strophe 11 (2 + 3+ 1 lines)
D-c-D
Refrain-strophe 111(2 + 2 + 1 + 1 lines)
D-cl -c2-D
Refrain

119
 Margaret Murata
he sings an 'aria' of four stanzas in the third asclepiad form (Text 3).
In scene 5, his solo divides into two contrasting parts. The first eight
lines establish once again a classical choral metre, the iambic
dimeter catalectic, with a brief middle section of short lines. The
second part consists of three stanzas in the fourth asclepiad form.
David's art as a singer is well shown by Donati's skill in Latin verse.
As David concludes his last stanza, the demons leave Saul, exclaim-
ing 'Fuggiam, fuggiam, satis iste puer', and the chorus begins its
victory cry.
In all three acts, the concluding choral portion consists of two
parts, which are bracketed together in Text 2. This is a practice also
Text 3
(from I-Rvat Barb. Lat. 1819, fol. 170v,11.342-53, 355-8)
David: au'dflEs
,Altis'6mnipotans"5rcibits
cai gupEr"targa v6ldn'tium
statpn'nnta se-raphim
sEdIs sipErram,"flammbe
lis'~6rategrn'tibis.
Tu cingens humeris arma potentibus
ar leva clypeo fulmine dexteram
armatus valido, desuper hostibus
telum sparge fugacibus.
Fugit praecipitem pulvis ut Africum
sic cedat superis ille furoribus
humanis fugiet cedere nescius
caeli viribus impotens.
Infernis, celeres, ite sub ignibus
dat poenas solio rex ubi ferreo!
Experti toties fulgura, vulnera
dextram discite vindicem!

(You who are the omnipotent on high, for whom stands a dwelling place
above the winged backs of angels, you will hear the flaming mouths of the
seraphim with sheltering wings. Taking up weapons on your mighty
shoulders and armed with a strong shield, raise your right hand in power,
hurl your spear above the fleeing hosts. Just as the sand flees before the
precipitous African wind, so let him [Saul] submit his human rages to those
above; for he who knows not how to yield flees powerless before the forces of
heaven. Go down to the fires of hell, rash ones, where your king pays his
penalty on the iron throne! You will come many times to know the
thunderbolts and wounds from the right arm of the avenger!)
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 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

found in Roman Italian operas in the 1630s.43The two-part form

seems to derive from Senecan tragedy, seen for example in the
second stasimum of Hercules furens (11. 830-74, 875-94, sapphics
followed by glyconics) or in the choral parodosof Phaedra (11.274-324,
325-57, sapphics followed by anapests). Neither Seneca nor Donati
modelled his choruses on the Greek pattern of strophic responsion.
Donati's use of refrain forms, however, reflects the idea of Greek
choral dancing. Act I, section 5b, is marked for two half-choruses in
Greek fashion and bears the rubric 'Rhythmicae saltateo'. Its
'rondo' form is used again at the close of the opera (see Act III, scene
5d) decades before Lully's chaconnesa rondeau,and in much more
monumental style than the two earlier instances in Rinuccini's
Euridice and Arianna.44
David Mitisin arma!
Chorus armigerorum Victor ab armis!
Age choros!
Age modos!
Cane gradere, sequere ducem,
Levis armiger Davidem
Rite canora voce fugates;
Furiisque pestibusque
Regis honori, regis amori!
Decet ire dissoluto
Pede ludere, quatere, flectere, fugere, sistere!
David (1) Hostiles umbras
Nova fulmine dextera tangit.
Hostiles iras
Chor. Nova carmine vocula frangit.
David aureus opprimit iras.
David Saul arduus opprimit umbras.
[Tutti] Mitis in arma, etc.
David (2) Fregens Haebraeis
Saul aerior intonet armis.
Chor. PulcherJessaeis
Cithara David intonet arvis.
Lyra voxque remulcent arva.
David Saul hostibus inferat arma.
[Tutti] Mitis in arma, etc.
11.464-88

43 See M. Murata, Operas for thePapal Court,1631-1668(Ann Arbor, 1981), pp. 219-20, n. 6.
44 The close of 'scene 1' in Euridiceand the close of scene 3 in Arianna(although there survives
no musical setting for the eight-line stanza in the latter chorus, which alternates with a
four-line refrain).

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 MargaretMurata
In the Latin complex, David the protagonist takes on the role of
coryphaeus, or chorus-leader. He always sings the first and last lines
of the stanzas (marked by a capital D in Text 2), but these group
with different lines within the six of the strophe, in alternation with
the choral forces. After each such exchange the eleven-line refrain
returns. Even without a note of Catalani's score, it is possible to
imagine the festive and vivacious effect of this ensemble finale,
especially as it succeeds the choral weeping and pleading of the scene
before. In Davidthe choral scenes contain the core of the drama, and
the choral exchanges with the soloists provide an effective way to
present both the motivation and emotions of the characters.
David musicus,then, for being the first (and possibly the last)
example of its kind, has nothing tentatively experimental about it.
Its prosody, absolutely new in style, reaches back to classical lyrical
metres. Its dramatic treatment of its subject also depends on several
classical procedures as well as on long-standing traditions in school
plays, such as the lack of female characters and a romantic theme, or
the presence of demons. Notably, the text suggests no scene-changes
and no stage machinery, only pure music in poetry.

The historical lacuna between the three earliest Roman operas -

Animae Corpo,Eumelioand David- and the Barberini operas of the
1630s is only beginning to seem less empty. All three early operas
were staged in association with a religious institution. Three courtly
productions followed these. The first two, Amorpudicoof 1614 and
Aretusaof 1620, were elaborate, festive productions, linked to Floren-
tine circles. The third opera is the Aldobrandini's Catenad'Adoneof
1626. These three turn on the fantastic and supernatural, presenting
characters from Greek and Roman mythology but in the contempor-
ary mode of pastoral and [Link] further musical represen-
tations without surviving music exist in prints and manuscripts,
most of which are concentrated in the years beginning with the
papacy of Urban [Link] by Ottavio Tronsarelli, author of

Table 1 Textsfor largermusicalworksby GiovanniCiampoli

1 Pastori di Betthelem, sulla notte di natale. Alla Santith di N. S. Papa Urbano 8.o:
Per sentierostellato
December 1624; pub. 1648, 1662; 5 MS sourcesa
In 3 parts, all choral
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 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

2 La vittoria del Principe Vladislao in Vallacchia: Nella reggiafamosa

January 1625; pub. 1666; 7 MS sources
In 3 parts: Macometto, Speranza, choral soloists; choruses of Turks, Polish
virgins and soldiers, Romans
Music attrib. to G. G. Kapsberger
3 I cinque cigni nel giorno della coronazione di Papa Urbano vIIm,29 settembre.
Dedicato a San Michele arcangelo I'anno 1625: Saziodifieleepianto
September 1625; pub. 1969; 2 MS sources
In 2 cantos: I 'Cappella pontificia', Convito (bass), tenor soloist, Poesia (alto);
II Girandola, S Michele.
4 Il cantico delle benedizioni nel giorno della coronazione di N.S. Papa Urbano 8.o
alli 29 settembre nel principio del suo anno 4.o 1626: Ovetrai campiassiri
September 1626; pub. 1648, 1662; 2 MS sourcesb
In 3 parts: 6 choral soloists, Adulatione, Misael, Nabucdonosor, God, 3
children; choruses of warriors, maidens, virgins, Levites, angels
5 Coro musicale nelle nozze dell'[Link] Sig. D. Taddeo Barberinoe Anna Colonna
Nepote di N.S. Papa Urbano 8.o: Ai conviti,alle nozze,ai balli, ai canti
October 1627: pub. 1629; 2 MS sources (for text)
Music by G. G. Kapsberger, score pub. Rome 1627 (Vogel 1359)c
In 2 parts: tenor, soprano and bass soloists, Gloria, Diletto; 1st and 2nd
choruses
6 Le nozze di Bacco e della Neve, festa carnevalesca all'[Link] e [Link] Sig.
Cardinale Antonio Barberini: Marte,implacabile Marte
1628-32; 7 MS sources (4 without prologue)
Not divided into acts or scenes: Carnovale, Bacco, Borea, Neve, choral soloists;
chorus of Bacchants
7 Coro de' Profeti, per la solennith della Santissima Annunziata, cantato
nell'Oratorio della Chiesa Nuova: Dall'abbissoprofondo
Before 1632; pub. 1648, 1662; 2 MS sources (for text)d
Music by Domenico Mazzocchi, excerpts pub. Rome 1638 and 1640 (Vogel 1777
and 1779)c
In 2 parts: tenor, soprano and bass soloists; choruses of sopranos, basses,
angels, prophets (with soloists from each)
8 Le vendemmie di Castel Gandolfo, rappresentazione musicale: Eccogia d'ostroe
d'oro
Before 1632; pub. 1969; 3 MS sourcese
In 4 scenes: choral soloists, Diogenes, Capitano Spavento, Bacco; chorus of
Bacchants, satyrs
9 Il Ferragosto di Iesi. Dialogo musicale di Mons. Ciampoli dell'anno 1642: Alla
caccia,pastori,alla caccia
August 1642; pub. 1969; 2 MS sources
In 2 parts: choral soloists, Ferragosto (bass); chorus of hunters, gamblers

a Printedand MS sources,unlessotherwisenoted,arelistedin Costanzo,Inediti,pp. 10-65.

b FA2in Costanzoand [Link]. MS 3767.
c E. Vogel and others, eds., Bibliografiadella musicaitalianavocaleprofanapubblicatadal 1500 al
1700, 3 vols. (Pomezia, 1977).
d Bal0in Costanzo and I-RvatBarb. lat. MS 3768, fols. 85r-100r.
e Baloin Costanzo and I-RvatBarb. lat. MS 3741, fols. 109r-124v.

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 MargaretMurata
Catenad'Adone,were staged in Rome between 1623 and 1630 for
patrons such as the Ludovisi, Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy and the
Barberini. Another group of quite different style came from the pen
of Giovanni Ciampoli, who was secretary of the Brevis first for Pope
Gregory xv (Ludovisi) and then for his successor, Urban vmII
(Barberini), until the latter banished him fromRome in 1632. Table 1
lists Ciampoli's larger musical works, two of which (nos. 2 and 4), as
mentioned earlier, are relevant here. Ciampoli's high position in the
papal household and his subsequent exile explain why his poetry
was suppressed and edited only after his death in 1643.45
Ciampoli's first long text that would have required solo singing is
La VittoriadelPrincipeVladislaoin Vallacchia of 1625. None of its several
manuscript sources mentions music with the title, although the
presence of choruses implies some musical composition. Once again,
the Avvisidi Romaprovide indispensable information:
At the academyof the Cardinalof Savoy that was held on Thursday
evening,SignorSforza,son of the MarchesePallavicino,gave a learned
lecture,discoursingfromallfieldsofknowledgeonwhetherIntellectorWill
is the morenoble power;and in this vein SignorGiulioMazzarinoand a
baron from Piedmont spoke on the problem of which was more important
fora captain,the valourof his armor of his [Link],in
additionto the Cardinalof Savoy, the cardinalsBorghese,Leni, Savelli,
Bentivoglio and S Giorgio, the Prince of Sulmona and other nobility, for
whose entertainment was recited in music the defeat that the Polish
recently inflicted on the Turks, which was sung, as was written last week in
the presenceof the pope and the Princeof Poland.4
Confirmation of the musical performancecomes from an unexpected
but important source, uncovered by Silke Leopold's examination of
a discourse by Gabriello Chiabrera. Without giving a title,
Chiabrera refers to a poem by Ciampoli 'da recitar cantando', given
for Prince Wiadyslaw and the pope, which had 'some songs in the
manner of tragic choruses and composed of lines varied and diverse
from each other, from ancient practice just like the ones we are
45 For biographical details and bibliography, see Dizionariobiografico degli italiani (Rome,
1960-), under 'Ciampoli'.
46 '... sendovi intervenuti oltr'il medesimo Cardinal di Savoia, li Cardinali Borghese ... et
altra nobilitY, per trattenimento de' quali fu recitata in musica la rotta, che li Polacchi
diedero ultimamente a' Turchi, qual si cant6, come si scrisse la settimana passata alla
presenza del Pontefice, e del Principe di Polonia' (I-Rvat Urb. lat. 1095, Avviidi Roma,1
February 1625, fol. 63r). Mazzarino is the futureCardinal Mazarin. Although no notice for
'last week' appears in the Avvisi, the academy performancewas probably the second. For

124
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

investigating'.47 The evidence for attributing the music to Stefano

Landi includes a letter of 1638 by the pope's secretary Giulio
Rospigliosi, who explained to his brother the unavailability of the
work that was given for the King of Poland (the Prince in 1625, now
Wiadyslaw Iv):
the papers have disappeared into several hands, and the one who composed
it now only has the firstsketch, fromwhich he says even he would have trouble
extracting a copy. But if you want, he'll do it when he recovers from his ill-
ness, which has kept him in bed many months ... In exchange for this, I am
sending Your Lordship another printed one, also by Monsignor Ciampoli.
It's spiritual and was given in the same manner as the one for Poland.48

Rospigliosi's letter points to Landi first, because after an illness of

about three years' duration Landi died in 1639, the year after this
letter. Secondly, Rospigliosi knew Landi well, having written the
libretto for his opera Sant'Alessioand the poems for four arias printed
in 1637 and 1638. Lastly, between 1624 and 1627, Landi had many
connections with Maurizio of Savoy, who had sponsored the
academy at which La vittoriawas performed in 1625.49
In these letters La vittoriais referred to as a 'poemetto', or 'work'.
Nor do the Avvisi use the word 'rappresentatione'. Indeed, it fits no
conventional dramatic category and causes us to consider the term
'musical representation' in a broad sense. Aside from the fact that
there is no evidence that a stage or costumes were used, the text has
several untypical, untheatrical aspects: (1) it has no prologue, which
later contemporary references to the first performanceafter a public banquet in the pope's
chambers, see K. Targosz-Kretowa,TeatrdworskiWiadyslawa IV (Krak6w, 1965), pp. 243-5.
47 S. Leopold, 'Chiabrera und die Monodie: die Entwicklung der Arie', StudiMusicali, 10
(1981), p. 79.
48 I-Rvat Vat. lat. 13363, letter from Giulio to Camillo Rospigliosi, Rome, 6 March 1638, fol.
9'-9v; the original Italian is given in Murata, Operas,p. 260, document 6.
49 See Targosz-Kretowa, Teatr,p. 243, document (g). I am indebted to Anna Szweykowska
for information establishing the status of Targosz-Kretowa's source: a manuscript relazione
in Polish, edited in 1854, and missing from Berlin since World War II (personal
communication). Szweykowska draws attention to Kapsberger's authorship in her review
of Targosz-Kretowa in Muzyka,9 (1966), p. 163. (Her statement is misinterpreted in W.
Sandelewski's review of Targosz-Kretowa in RivistaItalianadi Musicologia,4 (1969), p.
152.) One hundred scudi paid to Kapsberger at the time by Cardinal Francesco Barberini
were for musicians' services at Sant'Agata and are not connected with Ciampoli's work
(see I-Rvat, Archivio Barberini, Card. Francesco, sr., Registrode' mandati,item 477, 4
February 1625). That Ciampoli's text was set by Sigismondo d'India is a remote
possibility, if Rospigliosi's letter cited in note 48 above does not referto La vittoria(d'India
would have been dead). G. Rua noted expenses in Cardinal Maurizio di Savoia's house-
hold accounts (which I have not seen) for a representation set by d'India, presumably
in 1625; Rua's suggestion that this was for a S. Eustachioby L. d'Aglie cannot be confirmed
(see G. Rua, Poeti della cortedi CarloEmmanuele I di Savoia,i, Turin, 1899, p. 46).

125
 Margaret Murata
in the seventeenth century was a common theatrical device; (2) the
subject is contemporary; (3) little action is represented, that is, the
story is largely (though not entirely) conveyed in narration by
soloists from the chorus; and (4) though divided into three parts,
these are episodes in the Greek and Senecan manner and are not
further divided into scenes.
There are also reasons why the text is a dramatic one. (1) In the
first place, the text is long, hardly a 'little poem'; at 865 lines it is
longer than the 678 lines of Striggio's five-act Orfeo, longer than the
length recommended by G. B. Doni for an opera libretto and far
longer than contemporary sacred dialogues (Seneca's tragedies are
somewhat over 1000 lines). (2) Each of its three parts proceeds from
soloists' dialogue to a choral conclusion; although Chiabrera de-
scribed it as being 'in the manner of tragic choruses', there are twice
as many soloists' lines as lines for the chorus. (3) The choral finales
follow traditional formal patterns from drama; in Acts I and ii
refrains alternate with soloists' strophes; Act iii specifies the Greek
form of strophe alternating with antistrophe followed by epode.
Ciampoli's use of the triadic choral form represents a new foray
into Greek practice. Another Greek element of La vittoria is its
restriction of soloists to three per episode. In fact only two have
names: Macometto (Mohammed) in Act I and Speranza (Hope) in
Act III. The narrative is presented by choral soloists in dialogue each
leading a half-chorus, in roles known as parastates from the time of
Sophocles on. The result is a strongly severe, archaic flavour. Part I
unfolds, for example, dialogue - solo apparition - chorus:
The chorus of Turks is disposed in two halves. The leaders of each, in
dialogue, describe the uneasy, lascivious life of the young sultan Osman,
and one of his nightmares (nine speeches). An apparition from this dream
materialises, the prophet Mohammed himself, who in a long solo urges
Osman to fight for his power, kingdom and religion against the Christians.
The first coryphaeus then introduces the aroused Turkish warriors in the
closing chorus. (330 lines)
These Greek elements of La vittoriaare more strongly and success-
fully present in Ciampoli's libretto for 1626, Il cantico delle bene-
dizioni.50 Like La vittoria, it is extremely long, and in three parts
with
50 Ciampoli's choral work for the pope's anniversary of the previous year is not narrative. I
cinquecigni, however (see Table 1), describes some of the musical forces that might have
been used again in II [Link] earlier text mentions bass, alto and tenor soloists,
'sonorous strings', 'the celebrated harp', an 'Apolline lute', 'resounding harpsichords',
126
 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

no scene divisions. Part I alone has 412 lines of dialogue before its
closing double chorus between Babylonian warriors and maidens
worshipping their idol. This chorus extends Ciampoli's use of
strophic responsion, having four different sets of strophe-anti-
strophe pairs and a closing tutti epode (see Text 4). As in David and
La vittoria, the choruses are reserved for the ends of the 'acts'. Also as
TEXT 4

(from I-RvatBarb. lat. 3767, fols. 68-70)

[Strophe I]
Choro di Guerrieri Viva l'asta inespugnabile
del gran Re, che l'Asia affrena!
La sua destra oggi incatena
della sorte il piede instabile.
[Antistrophe i]
[Choro] di Donzelle Viva il Re, che l'alme adorano!
Nuovo Apollo in Oriente,
scendi, o Sol, dal carro ardente,
lascia i rai, ch'il mondo indorano!
[Strophe II]
[Choro] di Guerrieri Felicita'non chiedasi
del sole o della luna
dall'influenza ignota.
Il Re s'adori, e credasi
ch'ei Sol della Fortuna
gira tra noi la ruota.
[Antistrophe ii]
[Choro] di Donzelle Non pidi,non piuilamentisi,
e sempre in sen l'Aurora
tenga Titon geloso;
sol di rider contentisi
quel Re, che ci innamora,
ch'avrem di piuigioioso.
[Strophe iII]
[Choro] di Guerrieri Qui di Babelle
la torre s'inalzb,
scale alle stelle.
Or dentro al regno
trovar gloria io potr6
d'un Ciel pididegno:
che dove e il Re, le stelle e i numi havrb.
'golden flutes', 'acute violins' and a 'long-stringed tiorba', all of which are in a modern
style to increase 'i vanti dell'Aonio coro'. The text is published in M. Costanzo, Ineditidi
GiovanniCiampoli(1590-1643)(Rome, 1969), pp. 156-74.

127
 Margaret Murata

[Antistrophe in]
[Choro] di Donzelle D'agnelli e tori
il sacerdote offri
sacrati ardori,
ostie votive;
offriam noi notte e di
beltat lascive,
che dove e il Re, d'Amore il tempio e qui.
[Strophe Iv]
[Choro] di Guerrieri Su, dunque, il Re s'adori;
I'Asia prostrata impari
dentro animati altari
offrir vittime i cuori.
Tendiam le palme e domandiam merc&:
invitto Dio delle battaglia e il Re.
[Antistrophe Iv]
[Choro] di Donzelle Su, dunque, il Re s'esalti,
e con lieto costume
trionfi il nuovo nume
negli amorosi assalti.
Sveliamo i petti, offriamo amore e f6!
Vezzoso Iddio delle bellezze e il Re!
[Epode]
Guerrieri e Donzelle insieme Viva, regni e trionfi
fra guerrieri e donzelle
il gran Re di Babelle!
Or di nemico sangue i fiumi gonfi,
or con amabil dardi,
occhi arsi e cuor trafitti
sian palme ogn'or novelle
dell'asta irata e de'spropizi sguardi!
D'essercizi sconfitti
fulmini in guerra il tergo!
Ma dentro di regio albergo,
festoso arcier saetti
di verginelle i petti.
Regni per lui vittoria
fra gli Amori e fra l'armi;
scherzino al suon de i carmi
con tamburi e con cetre
uniti ai sguardi e risi archi e faretre!
Con trionfal memoria
vinca gli anni e l'oblio,
e intorno al nuovo Dio
stia vita, trionfo e gloria!
eternit.,
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 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

in La vittoria, the narrative dialogue of II canticois presented by two

parastates. In Part ii, for example, the Hebrews are bewailing their
captivity in Babylon:
The two leaders of the chorus of virgins and the chorus of Levites each curse
and condemn the Babylonians. Misael (Mischach) appears, scorning the
heathen priests and idols. Nabucdonosor (Nebuchadnezar) addresses
Misael, berating his refusal to worship the idol. Misael defies the king and
the three Hebrew 'fanciulli' stand together defiant. Nebuchadnezar orders
them to be thrown into the fiery furnace. Here the coryphaeus takes over as
messenger, describing his horror and the tearful reaction of the Hebrews.
The act closes as the two choruses express their despair and hope in six
strophes framed by quatrains. (525 lines)
The tone here is tragic and with the messenger scene, unmistak-
ably dramatic. Being statuesque and spare, the episode is Greek in
its directness and simplicity.
The universal struggle between the forces of evil and good forms
the basis of both La vittoriaand Il [Link] appears (before
the pope!) as would the Devil in a school play or a sacra rappresen-
tazione. The first part ofll canticopresents only the heathens. But to be
sure, the resolutions in these stories are not tragic but speak of
Christian hope:
Pongasi freno al pianto:
non piuisospiri, no, non pii dolori!
Coronate di allori,
o schiere afflitte, il lacerato crine;
cangisi il lutto in canto:
di tragedia si mesta e lieto il fine.51
For Ciampoli these choral dramas represented a continuation of
his literary interest in working up a Greek style. In 1610 Chiabrera
mentioned Ciampoli in reference to a 'nuova poesia encomiastica
grecizzante'. In 1618 Galileo Galilei received some of Ciampoli's
poems 'ornati della novith e vaghezze greche'. The connection again
with Chiabrera is underscored by the fact that both Ciampoli and
the poet were members of the Florentine Accademia degli Alterati,
which Urban viii had belonged to in his younger days. (In 1623
Urban honoured Chiabrera in a brief drafted and signed by
51 'Now cease all your weeping: no more sighs, no, no more horrors. Place a crown of laurels
O suffring hosts, upon your heads, turn to song your grieving:of tragedy so bleak, happy is
the end' (from I-Rvat Barb. lat. 3767, fol. 86r; this manuscript is not listed in Costanzo,
Inediti.

129
 Margaret Murata

Ciampoli.) Rinuccini and G. B. Doni were also Alterati, as was

Ciampoli's maecenas, G. B. Strozzi. In the second half of 1625
Ciampoli praised the Latin poetry of Urban viii as combining the
strings of David with the Argive harp.52 With similar aesthetic
leanings, those in the north pursued the lyric muse, while the
Florentines in Rome, like Urban and Ciampoli, had their style
transmuted by the insistent image of the Eternal City. Characteristi-
cally, both the canzonette of Chiabrera and the odes of Ciampoli
found new inspiration in Greek verse.
Ciampoli's attempt at large-scale choral form does not seem to
have influenced Italian opera in Rome. The most direct heirs of his
works from 1625-6 are the Latin melodramas of Santi mentioned
earlier. These have the same simple format of a few soloists and a
split chorus in each 'act'. Santi's characters, though classical, recall
Virgil more than Sophocles or Euripides: Daphnis, Amyntas,
Menalca and a chorus of gardeners and fruit-pickers sang in 1631.
Subject as well as style in these melodramas are consciously classis-
istic in accordance with their academic setting. The three parts of
Lustratio, for example, with Damaetas, Alcon, Mopsus and a chorus
of farmers and shepherds, were performed between three student
orations in Latin and Greek.
The seventeenth-century Romans, in sum, were more literal
imitators of the ancients than the earliest Florentine librettists had
been. Yet in Donati, Ciampoli and Santi, the imitation is not
superficial but in each case required an alteration of a technique in
order to recapture a different essence of ancient drama. Donati and
Santi evoked the lyric mood of the past and its means of varied
expression, but did so with modern changes on classical metric
technique. Ciampoli attempted to re-create the noble and
52 These literary aspects of Ciampoli's life are mentioned in Costanzo, Inediti,p. 71, and
brought forward in M. Guglielminetti and M. Masoero, 'Lettere e prose inedite (o
parzialmente edite) di Giovanni Ciampoli', StudiSecenteschi, 19 (1978), pp. 141-4. From the
correspondence it appears that Ciampoli was writing theatrical pieces as early as 1616:
'From him [G. B. Strozzi] Your most Illustrious Lordship will also receive a little book of
dramatic trifles I did this summer, while I stayed at Civitanuova with Don Virginio
Cesarini' (Ciampoli to Cardinal Federico Borromeo, Florence, 24 October 1616;
Guglielminetti and Masoero, p. 161). E. Raimondi paints an image of the Counter-
Reformation poets rejecting Hellenistic models for more archaic ones, both grand and
picturesque, in his 'Di alcuni aspetti del classicismo nella letteraturaitaliana del Seicento',
LettereItaliane,15 (1963), pp. 269-78. The DBI entry for Ciampoli (see n. 45 above) notes
that Ciampoli joined the Alterati after 1608. On the musical interests of the Alterati in the
late sixteenth century, see Palisca, 'The Alterati'.

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 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

ceremonial form of early classic tragedy, letting the emotional

narrative be carried by the chorus, who sing, however, in modern,
mellifluous Italian. The transformation in each case - into biblical
opera or operatic encomium - is more important than the imitation.

Some time after 1630 such use of tragic models for the stage or for
music was abandoned in Rome as in Florence. The old rules
continued to be studied in Rome but not necessarily as ideals to be
applied to modern works. Donati, as mentioned, published an Ars
poetica in 1631, dedicated to Cardinal Francesco Barberini. It is
permeated with Aristotle and interpretations of him by sixteenth-
century critics. Aeschylus and Sophocles receive their due, via
Aristotle, but Seneca, who had the misfortune to live after Aristotle,
is nowhere mentioned. Donati's book is a handbook for study,
though, not a set of prescriptions for modern composition. His third
known drama, La Svevia, staged at the Seminario Romano in 1629,53
is a five-act Latin history play on the fall of the Hohenstaufen
dynasty. It is set in thirteenth-century Naples, worlds away from
David musicus or Sophocles or Ciampoli. The dramas of Santi (see
n. 38) move away even from the sixteenth-century Senecan mould.
In a treatise from around 1635, the Roman writer Pier Francesco
Valentini illustrated twenty-eight classical poetic metres with syl-
la-bic musical settings.54 He pointed out, however, that this pro-
53 After David musicus,the second drama was II Pirimalo,attributed to Donati in R. G.
Villoslada, Storiadel CollegioRomano(Rome, 1954), p. 285. The argomento for the 1623
performance is in Cairo and Quilici, Bibliotecateatrale,no. 3201. II Pirimalo,more than
David, was a special, festive production, part of the Jesuit celebrations in honour of St
Francis Xavier. The play, set in Indonesia, had extraordinarilylavish sets and machines.
The chorus was composed of both students and non-students. In it 'si rinova l'antico
numero di cinquanta, che avanti Eschilo compariva su le scene'. It first entered in five lines
of ten, representing 'il choro delle tragedie antiche' (copy of argomento in I-Rvat Loreto
Iv.3.2, p. [6]). The production was highly appreciated, and Pope Gregory xv was
dissuaded from attending with great difficulty (I-Rvat Urb. lat. 1093, Avvisidi Roma,25
February 1623; quoted in Clementi, II carnevale, i, p. 427). A copy of the 1629 argomento of
La Sveviais I-Rc Vol. misc. 2013.4; of the 1629 edition of the play, Rome, Biblioteca
Nazionale, MS 6.21.G.23. The text was published in Cologne (1630) and again in
Antwerp (1634). The attionetragicacalled Licinianogiven in the 1629 season at the Collegio
Romano had only three acts (argomento in Cairo and Quilici, Bibliotecateatrale,no. 2480).
54 Rome, Archivio di Stato, Biblioteca, MS 368, fols. 1-83. ['Discorso secondo di Pier
Francesco Valentini romano dove si tratta dell'origine della nostra battuta e del modo col
quale gli antichi poeti cantavano i versi loro']. The autograph, in a highly deteriorated
state, is on paper with a watermark from the mid-1630s. Another, non-Roman, treatise
from around 1628-37 also demonstrates this historical self-consciousness of ancient
practice and of its influence in the early Florentine operas, in the context of criticising and
producing opera in the current style See Bianconi, II Seicento,pp. 176-81, and P. Fabbri

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 Margaret Murata
cedure does not recapture ancient rhythm, as the patterns of long
and short syllables can be expressed in different musical rhythms.
Meta can be set as c•. J as well as cJ J .Valentini's treatise,
like Donati's, is not prescriptive. He stressed that he did not write the
discourse in order to advocate a return to syllabic, metric music,
which he observes is simple and grave and therefore appropriate to
the ancients. Modern music is much more ornamented and also has
more affetti. Ancient music did not have a regular beat, because the
rhythm followed that of the poetry. Modern recitative music is also
sung without a beat, but for a different reason: to 'allungare,
abbreviare, proferire et esprimere a gusto gli affetti delle parole' (fol.
19). Valentini, in short, presents a clear understanding of historical
musical style in a historical context.
This kind of theatrical historicism bore fruit in 1640. Guided by
G. B. Doni andJ.J. Bouchard, Cardinal Francesco Barberini's long-
standing interest in ancient drama (apart from its descendants in
modern opera) culminated in his sponsoring two large projects, one
practical and one theoretical. In 1640 Bouchard produced not a
Greek drama but Seneca's Troades, following Doni's notion that
tragedy had not been sung throughout, only the passages in lyric
metres.55The second project, also to be executed by Bouchard, was a
book on ancient theatrical practice. (Doni's Trattato on the same
subject was not published in his lifetime.) Bouchard died before he
could complete this book, but his notes, citations and references from
Latin, Greek, Spanish and French authors have been preserved in
the miscellany in Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. lat.
MS 640, fols. 231-320. Among the authors Bouchard copied are
Francesco Salinas (who had read the Vatican manuscripts on Greek
music early in the sixteenth century), Scaliger, Del Rio and Mer-
senne, in addition to the run of Hellenistic to Patristic scholars.
Bouchard described both projects in a letter written shortly after the
performance of Troades:
The most eminent Lord Cardinal [Francesco] Barberino, my patron, has
and A. Pompilio, eds., II Corago,o veroalcuneosservazioni permetterbenein scenale composizioni
drammatiche (Florence, 1983).
55 Doni, Trattato,pp. 8-10. Doni's position in this matter is discussed in C. Gallico, 'Discorso
di G. B. Doni sul recitare in scena', RivistaItalianadi Musicologia,3 (1968), pp. 286-302. See
also Doni's DiscorsodellaRitmopeia de'versilatinie dellamelodiade'coritragici,al Sig. [Link]
Buccardi,published in LyraBarberina,ii, pp. 203-25, written 'con occasione della Troade di
Seneca, che si rappresenta in questo carnevale in gran parte al modo antico d'ordine
dell'Eminentissimo Sig. Cardinal [Francesco] Barberino'. Buccardi is Bouchard.

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 Classical tragedy in the history of early opera in Rome

ordered me to do a book On the Theatricalor the way of staging theatrical

works used by the ancients. It will be a huge volume and full of new things;
and wanting to accustom people to them, I had them see several in practice
this carnival by staging the Troadesof Seneca in the ancient way, as much as
in the scenography, costumes and gestures of the actors as for the music,
which we only used in some passages of the tragedy (the others being
recited in ordinary voices). And the style of the music was entirely new,
keeping within the rules of ancient rhythm, something which has never
been practised in our time. The production altogether pleased so much that
I think it will be redone after Easter for the third time. And it seemed
worthy of being celebrated by several virtuosi with their poetry, of which
I'm sending some to Lord Abbot Boisrobert, together with a more detailed
account of this tragedy.56
The Barberini Troadeswas not only a return to the first century but
also a return to the Senecan performances of the fifteenth century in
Rome, to the metric style of choral music seen in the early German
settings and to the spirit of the Italian Oedipus staged in 1585 in
Vicenza. It may have been one of the most historically accurate
revivals of ancient tragedy up until that time but, as Valentini would
have understood, it was not related to modern opera.
Finally, Ciampoli himself did not maintain his lofty poetic style in
his later two musical representations for Rome. Both Le nozze di Bacco
e della Neve and Le vendemmiedi Castel Gandolfo represent a turn to
another part of the classical heritage and incorporate the language of
Plautus and the spirit of the ancient satyr play.57 In the Barberini
circle, Ottaviano Castelli took up this new lead with his musical
dramaditirambicoof 1636, Il trionfodell'[Link] claimed that 'up to
the present day, there hasn't appeared an entire dithyrambic drama,
much less one suitable for music, but only a few lines of blank verse of
Signor Chiabrera in his Rime and the end of an idyll by Marino'.58
This, too, reflected a general dramatic trend in the 1630s.59As more
and more types of tragicomedy and comedy were set to music, with
more and more characters and multiple plots, opera passed
56
J.J. Bouchard to (?) Giulio Mazzarino, Rome, 8 March 1640;Paris, Ministere des Affaires
Etrangeres, Archives, Correspondance Politique, Rome, vol. 71, fol. 248. Barberini's
expenses are noted in F. Hammond, 'Girolamo Frescobaldi and a Decade of Music in Casa
Barberini, 1634-1643', AnalectaMusicologica,19 (1980), pp. 121-2. The music was by
Virgilio Mazzocchi.
57 Le vendemmieis published in Costanzo, Inediti,pp. 127-47.
58 I-Rvat Ferraioli MS 897: '11trionfo dell'autunno, drama ditirambico col
gareggiamento
morale ... del [Link] Ottaviano Castelli, posto in musica dal Sig.r Angelo Cecchini ...
quale si doveva rappresentare ... il di 28. d'ottobre ... del presente anno 1636' (fol. 3).
59 Murata, 'The Recitative Soliloquy', pp. 45-56.

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 Margaret Murata

definitively out of its incunabular stage. For, in addition to their

transformations of the ancients, what links Rinuccini, Chiabrera,
Striggio, Donati, Andrea Salvadori, Ottavio Corsini, Ciampoli and
the earliest libretti of Giulio Rospigliosi is a simplicity of dramatic
construction and a resultant singleness of effect. They belong to a
seculumaureumof the libretto, before the entrances of sex, defiance and
buffoonery.
University of California at Irvine

134