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Little enough has been written on the Venetian operas of the second half of the seventeenth century, and to all save a few, familiar perhaps with Hellmuth Christian Wolff's pioneering work on that subject, or with Simon Towneley Worsthorne's more recent study, Carlo Pallavicino can hardly be more than a name. Indeed, doubts have been raised about the name itself. The libretti to three of his operas name the composer as Pallavicini, and perhaps following these, or impressed by his prolific output, Burney and others since have also pluralised the composer. However, there is good authority for the spelling which I adopt for this paper, for two documents preserved in the Venetian archives bear the composer's signature, and without doubt he signs himself, in a neat and confident hand, Carlo Pallavicino.
1 Die Venezianischer Oper in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts, Berlin' 1937.Google Scholar
2 Venetian Opera in the Seventeenth Century, Oxford, 1954 (and edn. 1968).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Demetrio (1666), L'Amazone Corsara (1686) and La Gierusalemme Liberata (1687).Google Scholar
4 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Scuola Grande di S. Marco, B. 194, ff. 46, 47.Google Scholar
5 Delle Opere del Signer Stefano Benedetto Pallavicini, ed. Francesco Algarotti, 4 vols., Venice, 1744, i. [xi].Google Scholar
6 First by Carlo Schmidt, Dizionario Universale dei Musicisti, Milan, [1888], p. 364.Google Scholar
7 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Scuola Grande di S. Marco, B. 188, ff. 129, 130: ‘Il Signor Pallavicino a fatto bene a star ascoso perchè se i musici lo sapevano bisognava per quella sera suonasse un cimbalo; adesso và un pocho meglio perche la sanno a mente; che del resto non ho mai sentito suonar peggio, ne cantato, in consequenza mai peggio, dovendo in luogho d'essere io accompagnato, mi conviene accompagnar loro con la voce.’Google Scholar
8 Padua, Archivio dell'Area, Reg. 20 [XIX delle Parti], f. 34. I am grateful to Oscar Mischiati for providing me with all details connecting Pallavicino with Padua.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., f. 63v.Google Scholar
10 ‘Mi console [wrote dall'Angelo], che le mie debolezze resteranno coperte dall'impareggiabile virtù del Sig. Carlo Pallavicini [sic] compositore della musica, che con la dolcezza delle sue note, e nelle loro soavità, incatenando i spiriti rende glorioso il suo nome, ed eterno ad onta della voracità del tempo.’Google Scholar
11 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Scuola Grande di S. Marco, B. 194, f. 47. The opera was subtitled Il Meraspe.Google Scholar
12 Ibid., f. 23.Google Scholar
13 Ibid., f. 50.Google Scholar
14 Ibid., B. 188, f. 165,Google Scholar
15 Ibid., f. 168.Google Scholar
16 M. Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe eu Dresden, 2 vols., Dresden, 1861–2, i. 147.Google Scholar
17 Ibid.Google Scholar
18 Padua, Archivio dell'Arca, Reg. 22 [XXI], f. 24.Google Scholar
19 Ibid., f. 52v.Google Scholar
20 Zorzi, M. A., ‘Saggio di Bibliografia sugli Oratorii Sacri Eseguiti a Venezia’, Accademie e Biblioteche d'Italia, vii (1932–3), 316–41.Google Scholar
21 The libretto was by Camillo Badouero (cf. Zorzi, op. cit).Google Scholar
22 Grout, D. J., A Short History of Opera, 2nd edn., New York and London, 1965, p. 79.Google Scholar
23 Wellesz, E., Essays on Opera, tr. Patricia Kean, London, 1950, p. 37.Google Scholar
24 Ibid.Google Scholar
25 Cf. D. Sella, ‘Crisis and Transformation in Venetian Trade’, Crisis and Change in the Venetian Economy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. B. Pullan, London, 1968, pp. 100–101.Google Scholar
26 In 1621–2 and 1628–9; Pullan, ‘Wage-Earners and the Venetian. Economy, 1550–1630’, Crisis and Change, p. 163.Google Scholar
27 British Museum, Add. MS 10130, p. 86; quoted by Sella in Crisis and Change, p. 98.Google Scholar
28 Ibid.Google Scholar
29 Wolff, Die Venezianischer Oper, p. 21.Google Scholar
30 Not in 1678, as Towneley Worsthorne states (Venetian Opera, p. 34).Google Scholar
31 Le Nouveau Mercure Galant, April 1679, pp. 66–67: ‘C'est un des plus sçavans Maistres qu'il y ait en ce Paīs-là. Sa maniere est aussi galante que spirituelle, & on ne peut trop louer l'adresse qu'il a de dormer admirablement ce qui convient à cbacun de ceux qui servent d'Acteurs dans un Opéra.’Google Scholar
32 Modena, Biblioteca Estense, MS Mus. F. 896.Google Scholar
33 The libretto, by Matteo Noris, was also set by Alessandro Scarlatti and performed in Naples in 1694.Google Scholar
34 Modena, Biblioteca Estense, MS Mus. F. 896, ff. 122–4.Google Scholar
35 Ibid., ff. 13–14.Google Scholar
36 Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, i. 291.Google Scholar
37 Ibid., i. 299.Google Scholar
38 Cigogna, E. A., Delle Inscrizioni Veruziane, Venice, 1842, v. 323.Google Scholar
39 Valentini, A., I Musicisti Bresciani ed il Teatro Grande, Brescia, 1894, p. 75.Google Scholar
40 Cigogna, loc. cit.Google Scholar
41 Op. cit., p. 117.Google Scholar
42 ‘Il presente Drama fù lasciato imperfetto dal già Signor Giovanni Faustini, mentre nè composte solamente due Atti, mà scarsi d'ariette, & la maggior parte in stille recitativo, come s'accostumava in quel tempo onde per ridurlo all'uso corrente è stato neccessario che vi s'affatichi più d'una penna.’Google Scholar
43 ‘Per incontrare la sodisfattione de molti, hò pregiudicato alla mia; è l'uso corrente della moltiplicità delle arie, hà fatto correr in aria le sostenze del più buono recitativo.’Google Scholar
