A teatro dai Secco Suardo

Irene Luraschi

In Bergamo, a small city in Northern Italy, in 1687 a new theatre was opened: the Teatro Secco Suardo, the only example of “teatro impresariale” that existed in this city. Its story is full of interest and allows us to observe a glimpse of the musical and cultural life of a provincial city in the period of Venetian domination and the resulting cultural influence. For this reason, I felt the need to narrate the story of this place in my own way, trying to combine the historical narration of facts and the discovery of music that was brought to life in our theatre. The play I wrote includes both real and fictional characters and develops following the path of historical facts but with some dramatic escamotages. The music plays two different roles, on one side accompanying the story as a sort of comment, and on the other, showing a glimpse of the "behind the scenes" of the work of the musicians. All the music is extracted and selected from the five operas that took place in the Teatro by Domenico Gabrielli, Marcantonio Ziani, Antonio Sartorio and Francesco Ballarotti, all composers of the Venetian area. The aim and the message of the play is to show the sometimes difficult attempts of people to bring cultural initiatives and spaces in smaller and provincial cities. And I hope that my play will be an example of this drive toward cultural vibrancy, with a future performance by the connection with local theatre groups.

The choice of the music for the play

The choice of music was not easy. I wanted all the music accompanying the performance to be taken from the five operas we have just discussed. All these operas are hardly ever performed, I could only find very few recordings.
First, I established the criteria of what I would need to accompany my play. The operas considered contain the following types of musical pieces: recitatives, solo arias, arias with instruments, refrains and symphonies.1 Given the spoken word rendering of the script I wrote, I opted to exclude the recitatives and solo arias, in order to try, by including more full orchestral pieces, to have a sound that would be engaging and impactful for the audience. What remained, therefore, from this first skimming, were arias with instruments and instrumental pieces, namely symphonies (usually longer) and ritornelli (very short).

I noted each piece of these two categories in a list, also noting the pages of the score, to find them again more easily, and other interesting features (e.g. indications of instrumentation). During this process, comparing librettos and scores, I also noticed that some parts were very different between the two sources. This was due to the many changes that were made to the score when an opera was re-staged in a different theatre than the one it was originally intended for: by changing the cast of singers, the music was modified to please them and adapt to their vocal needs.2

Later, seeing that the refrains were often very short and in certain cases some of the arias matched them (having the same music, first played by the orchestra and then sung, as, for example, in this case), I added these arias corresponding to the ritornelli to my list. In this way I could have more material to choose from and I could expand the length of the pieces. This preliminary skimming (though still quite broad) helped me get an idea of the content of the works and what to look for.

I also discarded the idea of considering the content and plots of the operas, focusing only on the individual pieces contained and their affects. The only exception is some arias, where the text coincidentally seems to comment on the scene in the script, but still regardless of the plot of the opera from which it is taken. This happens, for example, in Act II, scene 6, where the two brothers are told of possible positive news, to which I associated the aria “No, non mi perdo di speranza” (no, I do not lose hope).

Once I created this list, I went back to my script and decided, scene by scene, the points where I thought the music could be included. In this way, I had an overall vision of where the music should go, and each situation, hence affect, that I was looking for music-wise. For example, I knew that I needed an Overture at the beginning, cheerful and encouraging music for the building of the theatre in scene 3 of the first act, music of tension and apprehension for the waiting in scenes 9 and 10 of the second act, and so on.

Reading through the scores, trying to play the various ritornelli and arias to get an idea of what they sounded like, I then finally chose all twenty-four pieces to accompany the performance. Here you can see in a table the final matching of the music with the scenes in the script.

The role of the music in the play

After completing the script and choosing the music, I noticed that the music in the play has two main different roles.

The first function of the music on stage, of course, is to accompany the story, as a kind of commentary on what is happening in the scene. We can see this very clearly, for example, in scenes such as 5 and 6 of the second Act, where the music comments on the action, sometimes with ritornelli, sometimes with arias (such as the previously mentioned “No, non mi perdo di Speranza”.

The second function is to show a small glimpse of the behind the scenes of musicians' work.
The first scene of the second act, for example, shows a rehearsal in the theatre, with musicians playing, interrupting, resuming from a certain point, discussing the music. In the fourth scene of the same act, we can see the premiere of the opera played in our theatre. This use of music makes it more central, more of a protagonist, in certain scenes. In this way, the musicians take an active part in the performance, to also show their engagement in the creation of operas.

Linked to the first function, there are also two refrains that return more frequently, and they are associated with two characters in particular, the two allegorical characters of the show: La Città and il Sacro Monte.3 These two characters, antagonistic to each other, stand out from the others and represent the conflict between cultural openness on the one hand and religious morality on the other. Each of these two characters has a refrain that accompanies them each time they enter the stage, helping the public to recognise the characters and showing their peculiarities.

THE MUSIC

The operas of the Teatro Secco Suardo

Sources have given us five operas that were performed in the Teatro Secco Suardo. Two of them were managed by impresario Antonio Scappi, a man already interested in expanding Bergamo's opera scene and who, prior to the opening of the Teatro Secco Suardo, had seen several of his proposals rejected by the City of Bergamo, again due to the ecclesiastical and conservative culture of the city and its government.

All the operas are serious and of historical subject and are generally composed in five instrumental parts. Only sometimes we do find specifications regarding the required organ, usually when a specific instrument is required (e.g. "aria con la viola", or "con la tromba.")

About composers

One opera, Ottaviano in Sicilia, is by Francesco Ballarotti (1660-1712), the only one from Bergamo among the four composers of these five operas. He was first vice maestro and later maestro di cappella at Santa Maria Maggiore, a role also held by Legrenzi, among others.

Two operas, Clearco in Negroponte and Il Maurizio, are by Domenico Gabrielli (1659-1690), born in Bologna but active also in Venice, where he had studied with Legrenzi. He was also a cello virtuoso, contributing to the instrumental and repertoire development of the instrument. In addition to a substantial number of operas, he also composed instrumental and vocal music, following both the Emilian and Venetian styles.

The remaining two operas, Tullo Ostilio and Giulio Cesare in Egitto are by two Venetian composers, respectively by Marc'Antonio Ziani and Antonio Sartorio. Ziani (1653-1715) had a brilliant career as an opera composer in Venice. In 1700 he was also vice-Hofkapellmeister in Vienna, composing operas and other dramatic pieces for the imperial family. His music had an excellent reputation both during and after his life. Sartorio (1630-1680) was one of the most important opera composers in Venice in the '60 and '70 of the XVII century. He was appointed Kapellmeister in Hannover in 1666, travelling frequently, however, mainly for the opera productions during Carnival. In 1675, he finally left his position in Hannover to return to Venice, where he was appointed vice maestro di cappella of S. Marco.

the belonging of these four composers to the Venetian opera environment underlines, once again, the Venetian influence and Bergamo's membership of a theatrical circuit of which Venice was the centre.

Scores and librettos