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FROM THE REPERTORY OF QUEEN MARIA KAZIMIERA'S PRIVATE THEATRE IN THE ROMAN PALAZZO ZUCCARI: DRAMMA PER MUSICA 'TOLOMEO ET ALESSANDRO' BY DOMENICO SCARLATTI

100%

Kaminska A.

Muzyka

2005

vol. 50

issue 3(198)

29-55

The paper discusses the only opera by Domenico Scarlatti which has survived in full until today. The opera is 'Tolomeo et Alessandro' composed in 1711 and performed in Rome, at the private theatre of the Polish queen Maria Kazimiera (Marysienka) Sobieska, who resided in the Eternal City during 1699-1714. The three-act libretto shows the influence of ideas originating from a group of writers and poets, the aristocrats of the Roman Accademia dell'Arcadia, of which both Maria Kazimiera and her son, Prince Aleksander, were members. All the musical elements of the work, such as the melody, harmony, rhythmic features, dynamics, agogic patterns and also the forms of the arias are discussed. The analysis of the latter shows that Scarlatti was faithful to the poetic text, and the concise, mainly four-verse arias were transformed into much expanded da capo arias. Within the framework of da capo arias constructed in this way we encounter two arias with a theme, contrasting in tempo and character, an aria of revenge and an aria with a metaphor. The kind and shape of melody depended on the emotions dominant in a given aria. Scarlatti also subordinated the other musical elements to this aim, among them the instrumentation, including the string instruments - first and second violins, viol, violone, cellos (at least two), two traverso flutes, oboe, and in the basso continuo part, apart from the cellos, a harpsichord and a lute, most probably played by Silvius Leopold Weiss. One of the most characteristic features of the score of 'Tolomeo et Alessandro' are the frequent changes in the instrumental cast of particular arias. As a result of this arrangement the vocal line is accompanied by varying orchestral cast, i.e. continuo group only, continuo with oboe, continuo with strings, and also orchestral tutti alternated with the continuo group. It is worth noting that in many arias the singers are accompanied by instruments the whole time, whereas the preceding generation of composers employed instruments mainly in the ritornellos. As yet this continuous accompaniment only rarely constitutes an independent part; more often it imitates vocal parts. 'Tolomeo et Alessandro' is one of seven operas presented at the Polish queen's Palazzo Zuccari; the other six survived in the form of librettos. For the history of Polish Baroque, this one fully preserved score of a work sponsored by Maria Kazimiera and her son provides important and artistically interesting evidence of the presence of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania in the cultural life of Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This is especially true when one remembers that, during the period in question, public theatres in Rome were closed on the orders of the Pope, and Maria Kazimiera's palace was one of the very few places where one could then listen to music and see a new dramma per musica.

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FROM THE REPERTORY OF QUEEN MARIA KAZIMIERA'S PRIVATE THEATRE IN THE ROMAN PALAZZO ZUCCARI: DRAMMA PER MUSICA 'TOLOMEO ET ALESSANDRO' BY DOMENICO SCARLATTI