Alessandro Stradella 1639–1682 La Susanna Oratorio in two parts · Libretto by Giovanni Battista Giardini Narrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MARTIN ORO Susanna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GEMMA BERTAGNOLLI First Judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SERGIO FORESTI Second Judge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MIRKO GUADAGNINI Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ISABEL ALVAREZ
Harmonices Mundi Hedwig Raffeiner, Rossella Croce violin Alessandro Palmeri cello · Nicola Dal Maso violone Maurizio Piantelli theorbo · Simone Ori organ Claudio Astronio harpsichord
Claudio Astronio
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Sinfonia avanti l’oratorio
48’27 5’26
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Prima Parte Recitativo Dove bagna l’Eufrate Coro a tre Se dall’Erebo si scatenò Recitativo Covò nel cor sepolta Aria Ma folle è ben chi crede Recitativo Un dì ch’erano I vegli Aria Freddo cielo e fiamma interna Recitativo Arde il mio seno, oh Dio Aria Ancor io d’Amor fui colto Recitativo Or sì ch’io respiro Duetto Chi dama non ama Recitativo Gran bene e gran bellezza Aria Voglio amare e che sarà Recitativo Ma qual fu la bellezza Coro a tre La bellezza è un puro saggio Recitativo Giunta la donna ove svenato un sasso Aria Quanto invidio il vostro stato Recitativo Gran Dio, poiché dal grembo Aria Zeffiretti che spiegate Recitativo Al terminar l’incanto Aria No no, non va Recitativo Ma dove non s’avanza Duetto Susanna non temer Recitativo Così d’Elcia la figlia Duetto Non esser, no, ritrosa Recitativo Qui non ci vede alcun Coro a cinque Fu sempre letale impuro amor
1’21 1’33 0’43 1’50 0’54 3’45 1’49 3’24 0’30 1’21 0’27 1’12 1’58 1’09 1’21 5’07 1’03 1’59 1’52 1’40 0’40 0’47 0’41 1’06 2’08 2’25
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Compact Disc 2
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Seconda Parte Aria Voi donzelle Recitativo Venite meco ove in ferrate grotte Aria Da chi spero aita, o Cieli Recitativo Ah sì, pur troppo è vero Aria Ma costanza, miei fidi pensieri Recitativo Così l’afflitta donna Duetto Dell’opra nefanda Recitativo Volse parlar la donna Aria Sventurata! E sarà vero Recitativo Signor che tutto vedi Aria Così va, turbe insane, così va Recitativo Io vi deploro, sudditi infelici! Aria Vecchio nefando, io so Recitativo Sotto frondoso mirto Aria Collegata col potere Recitativo E tu, spirto maligno Terzetto Infelici il Ciel irato Recitativo Voi ch’in trono d’Astrea Coro a tre Belle figlie d’Israelle Coro a cinque Chi contro all’innocenza
41’33
2’07 1’07 8’05 0’52 1’45 1’32 1’10 1’45 2’27 2’12 1’36 1’17 1’19 0’23 2’27 2’32 3’48 1’32 1’34 1’51
Italian harpsichord by Tony Chinnery (Vicchio, Italy), modelled on an instrument by Grimaldi Positive Organ by Giorgio Carli (Pescantina, Italy) Critical edition of La Susanna by Victor Crowther, published in the Edizione Nazionale dell'Opera Omnia di Alessandro Stradella (Edizioni ETS, Pisa 2002; Serie III, Vol.1) – General Editor: Carolyn Gianturco Claudio Astronio would like to thank Michael Talbot for his kind assistance
Sung texts available on www.brilliantclassics.com
Live recording: 10 & 11 August 2011, Schloss Maretsch, Bolzano, Italy Sound engineer & Mastering: Matteo Costa · Editing: Gabriele Robotti Instrumental care and technical assistance: Romano Danesi Logistics and production management: Andrea Gallesi & Ugo Orrigo Artistic direction: Pamela Lucciarini Cover image: Susanna and the Elders by Jacques Blanchard (1600–38). Photograph: Agnew’s, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library Booklet photographs: Gregor Khuen Belasi & 2012 Brilliant Classics
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‘Impure love was ever lethal’: Baroque eroticism hiding under the cloak of moral instruction During the final quarter of the 17th century, the oratorio genre flourished with unprecedented vigour in Modena, the capital of a petty but affluent statelet in Italy’s Po Valley. Several leading Italian composers participated in this wave of creativity, leaving a legacy of about 100 remarkable scores. The commissions did not come from churches, religious brotherhoods and noble families, as would have been the case in larger centres like Rome, Florence, Venice and Naples; instead, they came from the local ruler, the music-loving Duke Francesco II of Este. Oratorio productions occurred principally during Lent, and in a single venue: the Oratorio di San Carlo Rotondo, which still stands today. The number of performances rose steadily from three in 1680 to thirteen in 1689, although Duke Francesco passed away in late 1684 and was succeeded by his less lavishly inclined son Rinaldo. Alessandro Stradella (1639, Nepi, near Viterbo – 1682, Genoa) was neither the respected head of a large cappella nor a renowned singer or instrumentalist; he was, rather, a freelance musiciancum-businessman who led an adventurous, and at times scandalous, life. Nevertheless, he was an extremely influential composer during his lifetime, and his significance was felt long after his death. Handel found it worthwhile to study and transcribe his music during his Italian sojourn some three decades later, even borrowing from it for his English oratorio Israel in Egypt (1739). Duke Francesco’s appreciation of Stradella’s art is evidenced by the fact that the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria in Modena (once the library of the Este court) holds more than half of his surviving output, including operas, prologues, cantatas, oratorios, serenatas, intermezzos and instrumental works. La Susanna, specially commissioned by the Duke and dedicated to him on the title page of the libretto, was something of a swan song for Stradella, since the composer was stabbed to death the following year in Genoa – reportedly because of an affair with a married woman from the noble Lomellini family. It is ironic that this flamboyant oratorio should deal precisely with the perils of unrestrained lust, as expressed in the final chorus of its first part: ‘Fu sempre letale impuro amor’ (‘Impure love was ever lethal’). Far from being the only work of its kind, La Susanna belongs to a subgenre that Howard E. Smither has termed the ‘erotic oratorio’. This odd-sounding appellation describes sacred music dramas of the 17th and 18th centuries that take their plots, which feature a heavy sexual content,
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from the Bible, the Apocrypha or the lives of the Saints – thereby giving the audience moral instruction in an attractive and quasi-operatic, albeit usually unstaged, form. Judith, Esther, Delilah, Bathsheba, Saints Mary Magdalene, Cecilia, Agatha and their companions are the favoured heroines of these stories, and their feminine charms, which exert a dangerous influence on men’s behaviour, are graphically depicted in the librettos. Even by modern standards, the plot of La Susanna, drawn from chapter 13 of the Book of Daniel, is compelling. Martin Luther translated it separately from his German Bible text, placing it in the Apocrypha, which he nevertheless characterised as ‘books that do not exactly contain Holy Scripture, but are useful and good to read’. His argument that the story of Susanna (as transmitted by the Greek Septuagint Bible) is a simple political creation originating from the Hellenistic diaspora, since Jewish Bibles do not include it, is as old as Julius Africanus (3rd century AD), but was already being challenged during the same period by Hippolytus and Origen on the grounds that the rabbis who established the Jewish biblical canon would hardly have looked favourably on a narrative that turned the Elders of Israel into villains. At any rate, both the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches include Daniel 13 in their Bibles as a ‘deuterocanonical’ text, one belonging to the ‘second canon’. Before the most recent liturgical reforms, the Roman rite had the story of Susanna recited during Mass on the Saturday after the third Sunday in Lent, thus relating it to the Gospel of the day: John 8: 1–11, which concerns the adulteress who Jesus saved from being stoned. Since, in 1681, the ‘Susanna Mass’ was due for celebration on 15 March, it is tempting to date to this point the Duke’s idea to commission an oratorio on the same subject from Stradella, whose comic opera Il Trespolo tutore he had just received in score from the Genoese nobleman Goffredo Marino. Stradella seems to have reacted with considerable speed. The dedication on the printed libretto is dated 16 April, so the premiere must have occurred shortly afterwards. The Duke’s secretary, Giovanni Battista Giardini, a poet of some distinction, served as librettist. Giardini’s legal training surfaces in certain witty innuendos concerning the misdeeds of judges and attorneys in every age, yet the general level is serious and not lacking in high drama. The libretto – even though filled to the brim with pearls of Baroque rhetoric involving wordplay, metaphor and anachronistic allusion to Classical antiquity and contemporary Italian custom alike – remains true to the biblical narrative. It includes ingredients of a detective story, accurately describes the submission of women in a patriarchal society and contrasts the virtuous moral behaviour of young people with the sexual
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rapacity of aged dignitaries who misuse their power under a cloak of feigned respectability. Susanna, a married lady of outstanding beauty and honesty, arouses the desire of two elders appointed as judges by the Jewish community in Babylon. Having revealed to each other their lustful passion by accident, they conspire to seduce her. When they surprise her alone, bathing in her husband’s garden, she refuses to yield to them, whereupon they accuse her of committing adultery with an unidentified man who has escaped. On the basis of their own testimony, they sentence Susanna to be stoned to death. However, as Susanna is being led to execution, the prophet Daniel, a wise young man of rare wisdom, pleads for the case to be reopened and asks each of the judges under what kind of tree the alleged affair took place. As their stories do not tally, they are executed in the same manner, and Susanna’s honour is restored. Stradella scored Giardini’s text for two sopranos (Susanna and Daniel), a contralto (‘Testo’, or the Narrator), a tenor (Second Judge) and a bass (First Judge), while all the characters join forces in the ensembles assigned to a commenting and moralising ‘coro’ for three or five voices in madrigal style. The two parts of the oratorio proceed as a series of recitatives, ariosos, arias and ensembles (duets plus one trio). The recitatives are flexible and finely wrought, written in the style of Monteverdi and Cavalli’s operas, as opposed to the rather formulaic patterns of ‘recitativo secco’ that predominated during the next decades. Even in the closed numbers most of the vocal lines are syllabic and avoid elaborate coloratura (which contemporary singers were nevertheless expected to provide extempore). Rapid divisions are called for in just a few places – notably in Susanna’s ‘Quanto invidio il vostro stato’, where explicit reference to singing, both by birds and by the delightful woman herself, is made in the libretto. Otherwise, the musical discourse is terse, aiming more for dramatic credibility and the rendering of psychological nuances than for virtuosic display. One such instance is the climactic ‘Da chi spero aita, o Cieli’, once again for Susanna, which is structured as a chaconne-like lament, given emphasis by lacerating dissonances in the strings. Similarly, in Daniel’s ‘Così va, turbe insane, così va’ the prophet’s disdainful attitude towards the madding crowd is depicted through wide leaps and an aggressive, march-like gait in steady tempo. The instruments, two violins plus a continuo section, are employed either in direct accompaniment to the voices or independently in ritornellos, brief introductions and postludes that develop the themes of the vocal sections imitatively. The drama is introduced by a four-movement Sinfonia that displays Stradella’s skill in counterpoint. Carlo Vitali, 2012
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Clockwise from top left: Isabel Alvarez, Martin Oro, Gemma Bertagnolli, Sergio Foresti, Mirko Guadagnini
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