ANTONIO SARTORIO (c.1630–1680): DOCUMENTS AND SOURCES OF A CAREER IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY VENETIAN OPERA

References

• I would like to thank the following institutions for the generous financial support which has made possible the research undertaken here: King's College, University of London; Merton College, University of Oxford; Faculty of Music, University of Oxford. Special thanks are due to Dr Reinmar Emans for reading this article and for making helpful suggestions. (All translations are mine, except where noted.)
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• Archivio di Stato, Venezia (I-Vas), Provveditori alla Sanità, Necrologio, Reg. 889 (1680): ‘30 December 1680/Il Signor Antonio Sartorio d'anni 50 circa/da flusso già mesi 7/medici Florio e Marco Bruni/fà sepelir suoi fratelli./S. Gio. Grisostomo.’ An earlier date of birth, 1620, proposed in the ‘Sartorio, Antonio’ entries in the Enciclopedia dello spettacolo and the first edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, is undocumented and stems, most probably, from the older dictionaries by Fétis and Gerber. Edward Tarr has also refuted this earlier date in the preface to his edition of Antonio Sartorio, Salve mi Jesu: Kantate für Sopran, Streichorchester und Generalbass (Stuttgart, 1976), 2n.
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• See Edward H. Tarr, ‘Sartorio, Gasparo’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London, 2001) [henceforth New Grove 2], xxii, 307. There may have been additional siblings, as the entry in the ‘Necrologio’ mentioned above, discusses Sartorio's funeral arrangements with the words ‘fà sepelir suoi fratelli’ (‘being burried by his brothers’), and we know that, by that time, Gasparo Sartorio had already been dead for almost three months (he died on 17 October 1680). The phrase, however, may also mean that Sartorio was a member of one of the religious confraternities of Venice, Scuole Grandi and Scuole Piccole, where one of the most important duties of the ‘brothers’ was to organize and provide for the burial of a defunct member; see Jonathan Glixon, Honoring God and the City: Music at the Venetian Confraternities, 1260–1807 (New York, 2003), 72–5.
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• His professional activities leading to 1661 have not yet been traced. 31 appears to be an average age to begin a career in the theatre bearing in mind that Francesco Cavalli was 37 at the time of his first opera commission, Antonio Cesti 29, Pietro Andrea Ziani 38, Giovanni Legrenzi 36 and Domenico Freschi 41.
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• Faustini managed the theatre for no less than 12 consecutive seasons, c. 1660–72, a rather long period in the oft-changing landscape of the Venetian opera production system; see Ellen Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre (Berkeley, 1991), 185.
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• Venetian theatres of the time were usually named after the parish ('parrocchia') in which they were built: e.g., S. Angelo, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, S. Luca. A number of them were also known by the name of the family who owned them, and, therefore, we have the ‘Teatro Grimani’ (SS. Giovanni e Paolo) and the ‘Teatro Vendramin’ (S. Luca). The S. Luca is a special case having a third name, S. Salvatore, as it happened to be in the proximity of two parishes. Harris Saunders has noticed that the Vendramin ‘is referred to as “di San Salvatore” in libretti, but as “à San Luca” in most musical manuscripts’. He attributes this to the fact that ‘the more prominent church was used in a public document that would be diffused among non-natives’, while in manuscripts ‘the indigenous scribes refer to the closer, albeit less prominent church’; see Harris Sheridan Saunders Jr, ‘The Repertory of a Venetian Opera House (1678–1714): The Teatro Grimani di San Giovanni Grisostomo’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1985), 2n. Here, ‘S. Luca’ is used throughout for consistency.
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• The building itself was a new one as the theatre had burned down in 1653 and was rebuilt. An approximate list of the conduttori (the term used in contemporary documents for the figure of impresario which, as a term, came into use considerably later) associated with S. Luca during Sartorio's career is as follows: Antonio Boldù, Nicoló Minato/Marco Mozzoni, Piero Moretti/Count Marco Montalban, Aurelio Aureli, Alessandro Molin, Bartolomeo Priuli, Marchese Guido Rangoni, Francesco Bembo, Gaspare Torelli; see Franco Mancini, Maria Teresa Muraro and Elena Povoledo, I teatri del Veneto: Venezia (Venice, 1995), 212–14. In the eighteenth century the S. Luca became Goldoni's theatre, and its archives today are housed at the Casa Goldoni.
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• Mario Messinis, ‘Sartorio, Antonio’, Enciclopedia dello spettacolo, ed. Silvio d'Amico, 12 vols (Rome, 1954–68), viii, 1520.
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• Marco Faustini was promoting a revival of his brother's (Giovanni Faustini) libretto Doriclea (1645) with new music by Ziani (original music by Cavalli). Ziani had reservations about the revival of such an old work, and whether it would stand comparison to the other opera of the season, Nicoló Beregan's brand new Tito with music by Cesti; see Remo Giazotto, ‘La guerra dei palchi: Documenti per servire alla storia del teatro musicale a Venezia come istituto sociale e iniziativa privata nei secoli XVII e XVIII’, Nuova rivista musicale italiana, 1 (1967), 245–86, 465–508; 3 (1969), 906–33 (at 503 et seqq.); see also Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice, 187–8, 192–3.
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• The decision to abandon Doriclea seems to have been imposed on Faustini from above, and it involved, according to Ziani, the wish not to have in the same theatre the music of both Ziani and Cesti: ‘per non far sentire in un teatro medemo la musica del Cesti e mia’; see the letter of 30 January 1666, i.e. during the course of the season, in Giazotto, ‘La guerra dei palchi’, 505–6.
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• A. Ziani from Vienna to Faustini, 10 July 1666, I-Vas, Scuola Grande di San Marco, b. 1888, n. 269, quoted from Giazotto, ‘La guerra dei palchi’, 507–8; the letter is also quoted in Heinz Becker ed., Quellentexte zur Konzeption der europäischen Oper im 17. Jahrhundert (Kassel, 1981), 79. The meaning of this passage is not entirely clear as there seems to be some background context that is unknown to us. Ziani seems to be referring to Sartorio's success at the rival theatre of S. Luca, and how this success created problems and losses for Faustini.
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• Peter H. Wilson, German Armies: War and German Politics, 1648–1806 (London, 1998), 163. A family tree of the House of Hanover can be found in Mathilde Knoop, Kurfürstin Sophie von Hannover, Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Niedersachsen, 22 (Hildesheim, 1964), paper fold-out at the end of the book. For concise biographies of Johann Friedrich and his brothers see Rosenmarie Elisabeth Wallbrecht, Das Theater des Barockzeitalters an den welfischen Höfen Hannover und Celle, Quellen und Darstellungen zur Geschichte Niedersachsens, 83 (Hildesheim, 1974), 5–19.
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• Georg Schnath, ‘Johann Friedrich’, Neue deutsche Biographie, ed. Historische Kommission bei der Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin, 1953-), x, 479.
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• She was half Italian as her mother was Anna Gonzaga (1616–84), married in France to Eduard von der Pfalz. A family tree of Benedicta Henriette can by found in Meinrad Schaab, ‘Die Pfalz und Frankreich’, in Pathos, Klatsch und Ehrlichkeit: Liselotte von der Pfalz am Hofe des Sonnenkönings, ed. Klaus J. Mattheier and Paul Valentin (Tübingen, 1990), 21–53 (at 53).
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• On his political proximity to Louis XIV see Annette von Stieglitz, Landesherr und Stände zwischen Konfrontation und Kooperation: Die Innenpolitik Herzog Johann Friedrichs im Fürstentum Calenberg 1665–1679 (Hanover, 1994). On the prominent German women thriving in the French court, and therefore Benedicta Henriette's milieu, see Jean Meyer, ‘Les femmes étrangàres à la cour de Versailles au temps de la Princesse Palatine’, in Pathos, Klatsch und Ehrlichkeit, 55–81. Meyer also tells the story of Benedicte's unfortunate years following Johann Friedrich's death and her continuous wanderings across the courts of Germany, France, Austria and Italy in search of a permanent base.
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• Theodor Abbetmeyer, Zur Geschichte der Musik am Hofe in Hannover vor Agostino Steffani 1636–1689: Ein Bild künstlerischer Kultur im 17. Jahrhundert (Hannover, 1931), 18.
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• John G. Gagliardo, Germany under the Old Regime, 1600–1790 (London and New York, 1991), 289.
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• Wilson, German Armies, 162–3.
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• Gagliardo, Germany under the Old Regime, 290.
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• The data has been culled from the complete catalogue of Venetian libretti in Irene Alm, Catalog of Venetian Librettos at the University of California, Los Angeles (Berkeley, 1993).
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• The ‘theatrical’ side of Ernst August's and his son's, Georg Ludwig (later George I of England), relationship with the Venetian Republic is explored in Colin Timms, ‘George I's Venetian Palace and Theatre Boxes in the 1720s’, in Music and Theatre: Essays in Honour of Winton Dean, ed. Nigel Fortune (Cambridge, 1987), 95–130.
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• The chronicle is by Dottor Piccioli, L'orologio del piacere che mostra l'ore del dilettevole soggiorno hauto dall'Altezza Serenissima d'Ernesto Augusto…nel luoco di Piazzola di S. E. il Signor Marco Contarmi (Piazzola, 1685); for details see Paolo Camerini, Piazzola (Milan, 1925), 265–98; see also Lorenzo Bianconi and Thomas Walker, ‘Production, Consumption and Political Function of Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera’, Early Music History, 4 (1984), 209–96 (269–70 in particular). For a comprehensive discussion of the origins of the Contarmi collection see Thomas Walker,' Uhi Lucius: Thoughts on Reading Medoro', in A. Aureli and F. Lucio, Il Medoro, Drammaturgia Musicale Veneta, 4 (Milan, 1984), cxxxi-clxiv (at clviii).
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• See Rimino, 13 December 1661, quoted from Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Pallade Veneta: Writings on Music in Venetian Society 1650–1750 (Venice, 1985), 336. Rimino was a news-sheet published in Rimini based on avvisi from various cities; see Nevio Matteini, Il ‘Rimino’: Una delle prime ‘gazette’ d'Italia (Bologna, 1967).
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• Heinrich Sievers, Die Musik in Hannover: Die musikalischen Strömungen in Niedersachsen vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Musikgeschichte der Landeshauptstadt Hannover (Hanover, 1961), 47. The court accounts indicate the first entry for Sartorio's salary in ‘Michaelis 1666’ and at the amount of 50 thalers per month; see Fritz Berend, Nicol aus Adam Strungk, 1640–1700: Sein Leben und seine Werke mit Beiträge zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters in Celle, Hannover, Leipzig (Hannover, [1913]), 32. In his article on Sartorio of the first edition of the New Grove, Edward Tarr wrote that Sartorio took up his duties on Trinity Sunday 1666 ('Sartorio, Antonio', The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1980), xvi, 507), but this seems to be incorrect as Sievers has established, in his second book on Hanover, that ‘Trinity 1666’ was the date when Catholic services were first established in the court chapel by Franciscan monks; see Heinrich Sievers, Hannoversche Musikgeschichte: Dokumente, Kritiken und Meinungen, 2 vols (Tutzing, 1979–84), i, 60.
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• I-Vas Notarile: Atti [notary Girolamo Spinelli], b. 12165 [no folio numbers], 18 July 1666. The year of the marriage, 1654, is approximate as the actual wording is: ‘sposata legitimamente secondo il retto di Santa Madre Chiesa già anni dodeci in circa’ (wedded according to the rules of the Holy Mother Church approximately 12 years ago). I wish to thank Dr Beth Glixon for her generosity in providing me with the reference to this document.
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• I-Vas Collegio, Lettere comuni, filza 194, 16 July 1666.
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• Sievers, Die Musik in Hannover, 129–66. For a synoptic view of the singers and instrumentalists entered in the Hanover account books during Sartorio's residence, see Table 1.
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• Axel Fischer, ‘Hannover’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2nd edn, ed. Ludwig Finscher (Kassel, 1994-), Sachteil/iv, 25–7.
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• Circling around the theme of Italian artists in Hanover, one could also mention here the three Venetian architects who built the palace and gardens at the official residence at Herrenhausen: Lorenzo Bedogni, Quirini and Sartorio's brother Hieronymus (Girolamo); see Abbetmeyer, Hannover, 25. Girolamo Sartorio was also the set designer for the Hanover performances of the opera Alceste in 1679 (original music by P.A. Ziani adapted by the court organist Matthio Trento); see Berend, Nicolaus Adam Strungk, 44. Furthermore, Girolamo was involved in designing at least one more opera production, in Amsterdam in 1681; see Bianconi and Walker, ‘Production’, 259. He is known to have been active in Hanover as an architect from at least 1667 onwards: see Joachim Lampe, Aristokratie, Hofadel und Staatspatriziat in Kurhannover: Die Lebenskreise der höheren Beamten an den kurhannoverschen Zentral- und Hofbehördern, 1714–1760, 1: Darstellung Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Niedersachsen, 24 (Göttingen, 1963), 98n. On his involvement in building the Gänsemarkt opera house in Hamburg (opened in 1678), see Jörgen Bracker, ‘Quellenkritische Anmerkungen zur bildlichen Überlieferung des Opernhauses von Girolamo Sartorio’, Beiträge zur deutschen Volks- und Altertumskunde, 18(1979), 31–4.
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• After Johann Friedrich's death in 1679, Leibniz published a poem in his honour, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, An den durchleuchtigsten Fürsten und Herrn, Herrn Johann Fridrichen, Hertzogen zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg (Hanover, 1679).
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• Axel Fischer, ‘Hannover’, 26.
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• Sievers, Die Musik in Hannover, 30.
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• Tarr, New Grove 2, xxii, 304.
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• Reinmar Emans, ‘Die beiden Fassungen von Antonio Sartorios Oper L'Adelaide unter besonderer Berücksichtung des in Hannover verwahrten Autographs’, in Il melodramma italiano in Italia e in Germania nell'età barocca, Atti del V convegno internazionale sulla musica italiana nel secolo XVII, Loveno di Menaggio (Como), 28–30 June 1993, ed. Alberto Colzani, Norbert Dubowy, Andrea Luppi and Maurizio Padoan (Como, 1995), 59–79 (at 60–1).
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• Sievers, Die Musik in Hannover, 47.
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• Sievers, Die Musik in Hannover, 48–9. For a complete list of the music discovered see Sievers, Hannoversche Musikgeschichte, i, 62.
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• Such leaves of absence were particularly important not only for the prestige of a composer, but also for his financial well- being, as the commission for an opera score could be substantial and often exceeded the annual salary of a post at St. Mark's; see Olga Termini, Singers at San Marco in Venice: The Competition between Church and Theatre (c. 1675—c. 1725), Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 17 (1981), 65–96 (at 65).
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• Francesco Maria Massi, Johann Friedrich's secretary in Venice, wrote to the authorities to obtain permission; see I-Vas Collegio, Lettere comuni, filza 195, 3 June 1667.
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• This is explained by Minato in the preface of La prosperità di Elio Seiano (Venice, 1667).
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• [Pietro Dolfin], L'Ermengarda regina de' Longobardi (Venice, 1670).
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• Letter no. 4, Pietro Dolfin to Johann Friedrich, 26 December 1669, Hannover, Niedersächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv (D-HVsa) Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 347–8.
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• The history of the family up to 1923 has been traced by Bortolo Giovanni Dolfin, I Dolfin: Patrizii veneziani nella storia di Venezia dall'anno 452 al 1923 (Milan, 1924).
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• This is the title that Massi uses in official correspondence with the Venetian authorities; see for example I-Vas Collegio, Lettere comuni, filza 198, July 1674. This document contains Massi's application to the authorities for a passport to travel to Ancona. Anecdotally, among the goods he wanted to take with him, and which had to be included in the passport, there was a ‘clavicimballo di Guido Trasuntino, incassato con cristalli’. The most plausible interpretation for the Trasuntino instrument (a well known Venetian cembalaro) would be a harpsichord with its case inlaid with pieces of mirror according to a technique still used today at Murano.
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• The letters are housed in D-HVsa ‘Hannover, Niedersächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv: Korrespondenzen italienischer Kardinäle und anderer Personen, besonders Italiener, an Herzog Johann Friedrich, Cal. Br. 22’. This important archive brings together the letters from Johann Friedrich's Italian correspondents between the years 1667–79. Most pertinent to things musical are the following collections: a) Francesco Maria Massi, 210 letters (1669–76), Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 150–677 b) Pietro Dolfin, 58 letters (1669–78), Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 343–458 c) Antonio Sartorio, 16 (+2) = 18 letters (1672–79), Cal. Br. 22 no. 629, ff. 105–32a (and Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 294 and 526; the two additional letters were misfiled among Massi's papers) d) Nicoló Beregan, 27 letters (1669–78), Cal. Br. 22 no. 624, ff. 144–86 A study and critical edition of the letters is currently under preparation by the author. A preliminary study with a chronologically-established inventory of the letters plus a full index of names and works mentioned can be found in Vassilis Vavoulis, ‘A Venetian World in Letters: The Massi Correspondence at the Hauptstaatsarchiv in Hannover’, Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, 59 (2003), 556–609. This article also traces in detail the letters’ publication history in recent secondary literature. All present bibliographical references to the letters follow the numbering order established in the above article: e.g. Letter no. 4, Dolfin, 26 December 1669, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 347–8.
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• The importance of the palchi for Venetian society is highlighted by the fact that all transactions concerning ownership and rental were made via an official notary act with testimonies; see Giazotto, ‘La guerra dei palchi’, 472.
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• The ‘transmission’ of the current drammi per musica seems to have been a well established ritual between Dolfin and Johann Friedrich, and is frequently mentioned in the correspondence: ‘Con l'occasione dell'annual mia tributaria humilissima trasmissione delli drami che si van rappresentando in questa città’ (with the opportunity of my annual, tributary, most humble transmission of the dramas which are being performed in this city); Letter no. 302, Dolfin, 31 December 1676, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 435–6 (at f. 435r).
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• Letter no. 48, Dolfin, 19 December 1670, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 351–2.
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• ‘Il Signor Pietro [Dolfin] scrive al Signor Antonio e le manda un altro squarcio del suo bel dramma.’ (Signor Pietro writes to Signor Antonio and sends him another chunk of his good drama); Letter no. 51, Massi, 26 December 1670, Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 223–4 (at f. 224r).
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• Indication of this can be found in the following Massi letters: Letter no. 19, 30 May 1670, Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 170–1 (at f. 171v); Letter no. 33, 20 August 1670, Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 197–8 (at f. 198r); Letter no. 35, 5 September 1670, Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 199–200 (at f. 200r).
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• This we understand from a number of Dolfin and Massi letters of March 1672 referring to the Duke's journey back to Hanover; e.g., Letter no. 87, Dolfin, 11 March 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 358–9, and Letter no. 88, Massi, 11 March 1672. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 387–8.
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• Letter no. 94, Dolfin, 6 April 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 360–61 (at f. 361v), postscript addendum in the left margin of the page. The word ‘partr refers to ‘parts’ or ‘roles’ in the modern sense (the word is frequently used in the correspondence in that sense, e.g., ‘Gratianini che fa la parte di Costantino’; Letter no. 168, Nicolò Beregan, 4 February 1673, Cal. Br. 22 no. 624, ff. 174–5, at f. 174r). It is of interest to us to know that the arias of an opera's character could, and would, be assembled together to form a cantata. One of these ‘parti’ is probably the cantata Gissilla unica figlia which survives in München, Germany (D-Mbs), based on Gisilla, the second female lead part in L'Adelaide.
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• Letter no. 97, Dolfin, 15 April 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 362–3, 362r. Acquiring a male heir was a burning issue for Johann Friedrich and the matter is referred to again and again throughout the correspondence a propos of the consecutive births of the four daughters: Anna Sophie (1670–2), Charlotte Felicitas (1671–1710), Henriette Maria Josephe (1672–1737), and Wilhelmine Amalie (1673–1742). Two of the three daughters that survived into adulthood, Charlotte Felicitas and Wilhelmine Amalie, achieved prestigious marriages with Rinaldo III of Modena and Emperor Joseph I respectively.
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• Letter no. 97, Dolfin, 15 April 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 362–3.
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• ‘Anche Giulia si potrebbe havere, non fermata da Grimani […] Ciecolino è di già in parola col Signor Vendramino. Lucretia Sua humilissima serva in tal caso sarebbe pur del partito, il [?] da Livorno, contralto buonissimo in mio potere.’ (One could even have Giulia who has not been hired by the Grimanis […] Ciecolino is already in negotiations with Signor Vendramin. Lucretia, your most humble servant, in such case would also take part, [the singer] from Livorno, excellent contralto, is in my hand); Letter no. 97, Dolfin, 15 April 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 362–3 (at f. 362v). Lucretia was a young singer under Dolfin's patronage and resident in his house. In his letters he repeatedly mentions her engagements and successes as the singer was obviously known to Johann Friedrich. In one of the letters Dolfin calls her ‘mia allieva’ probably referring to his supervision of her general education; see Letter no. 131, Dolfin, 16 September, 1672, ff. 372–3, postscript addendum, margin of f. 373r
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• Letter no. 100, Dolfin, 29 April 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 364–5, and Letter no. 107, 13 May 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 366–7.
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• Letter no. 111, Sartorio to Johann Friedrich, 10 June 1672, Cal. Br. 22 No. 629, ff. 105–6. The term ‘sobbia’ may refer to ‘sabbia’ (sand), probably in the urinary tracts, or it could refer to ‘sobbolire’ and ‘sobbolimento’, meaning ‘coming out in a heat rush’ or ‘boiling blood’ resulting in an increase of blood pressure. The second explanation would probably also tie in with the blood letting that Sartorio had to undergo.
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• Letter no. 114, Dolfin, 24 June 1672, Cal. Br. 22. no. 625, ff. 368–9.
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• Ibid.
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• Letter no. 133, Sartorio, 16 September 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 629, ff. 107–8.
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• Ibid.
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• Ibid.
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• Letter no. 135, Sartorio, 30 September 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 629, ff. 109–10.
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• Letter no. 144, Dolfin, 16 November 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 376–7 (at f. 376r).
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• Letter no. 156, Dolfin, 23 December 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 378–9. Tonina (Antonina Coresi) and the baritone (Gratianini) are also praised by Massi in Letter no. 153, 16 December 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 273–4 (at f. 273v).
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• Letter no. 156, Dolfin, 23 December 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 378–9.
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• Letter no. 159, Dolfin, 30 December 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 380–1 (at f. 380r). The fact that the singers could make or break an opera is understandable, and was also mentioned by the Cristoforo Ivanovich who was lamenting the fact that good libretti may be ruined by bad singers, while ‘alcuni drami ripieni di difetti mostruosissimi […] sono stati favoriti dal concorso, ò per una voce di nuovo sentita, ò per una musica di metro bizzarra, ò per una machina di stravagante invenzione’ (some dramas full of monstruous defects […] have been well attended because of either a new and little-heard voice, or a music of imaginative rhythm/tune, or a machine of extraordinary invention); see Cristoforo Ivanovich, Memorie teatrali di Venezia, published as an appendix to his Minerva al tavolino (2nd edn, Venice, 1688); facsimile reprint, ed. Norbert Dubowy (Lucca, 1993), 425.
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• Lucretia Dolfin had not been singing that season having refused the part offered her at S. Luca, probably because it was not one of the two leading female roles.
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• Letter no. 159, Dolfin, 30 December 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 380–1.
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• Ibid, (at f. 381r).
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• ‘Puó dir di restar solo in materia di compor opere hor ch’è morto il povero Boretti certo in tal facenda esquisito’ (one could say that he [Sartorio] has remained alone [unique] in the business of composing operas now that poor Boretti, undoubtedly excellent in that work, is dead); Letter no. 159, Dolfin, 30 December 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 380–1 (at f. 381v).
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• An indication of that are the many revivals of his operas in Rome, Naples, Mantua and other Italian cities.
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• Letter no. 158, Nicolò Beregan, 30 December 1672, Cal. Br. 22 no. 624, f. 172.
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• This dearth of soloists may also relate to the employment situation at St. Mark's where the onerous conditions and poor pay often forced singers to seek employment elsewhere in Italy and Northern Europe. When the exodus reached alarming proportions in the 1670s, the church officials were forced to reconsider their terms. The changes, which happened during Sartorio's tenure as vice maestro di cappella at St. Mark's, are described in more detail below.
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• Letter no. 168, Nicolò Beregan, 4 February 1673, Cal. Br. 22 no. 624, ff. 174–5 (at f. 174r).
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• Letter no. 163, Dolfin, 20 January 1672 [i.e., 1673], Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 382–3.
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• Letter no. 167, Dolfin, 3 February 1673, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, f. 386.
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• Letter no. 172, Dolfin, ‘Venerdi grasso’ [late February 1673], Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, f. 387 (at f. 387r).
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• Letter no. 169, Massi, 10 February 1673, Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 484–7. The episode is unusual but not unique; in 1652, the soprano Anna Maria Sardelli was both shot and stabbed, on separate occasions, for opera-related reasons; see Lorenzo Bianconi and Thomas Walker, ‘Dalla “Finta pazza” alla “Veremonda”: Storie di Febiarmonici’, Rivista italiana di musicologia, 10 (1975), 379–454 (at 443). Similar incidents are also known from the eighteenth century.
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• Letter no. 173, Dolfin, n.d. [late February 1673], Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, f. 389.
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• Harris S. Saunders, ‘Legrenzi, Giovanni’, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992), ii, 1127. The four operas were: La divisione del mondo (G.C. Corradi, 1674–5), Eteocle e Polinice (T. Fattorini, 1674–5), Adone in Cipro (G.M. Giannini, 1675–6), and Germanico sul Reno (Corradi, 1675–6).
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• Letter no. 208, Dolfin, 23 March 1674, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 417–8.
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• Letter no. 208, Dolfin, 23 March 1674, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, f. 417r-418v for all the quotations in this paragraph.
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• The full details of this intriguing ‘chase’ may be found in my forthcoming study and critical edition of the letters. Another case is Sartorio's second opera Seleuco of 1666; the librettist's name, Minato, was only revealed in the 1668 revival.
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• Letter no. 212, Dolfin, 16 April 1674, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 422–4.
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• His aggressive canvassing continued, however, asking the duke to grant Sartorio permission to travel to Venice only if he comes to compose his libretto: ‘che se lo concedeva, ciò faceva trattandosi d'una mia opera’ (that if you conceded him, you did so in relation to one of mine operas) and ‘per qual teatro più bramo’ (for that theatre that I wish most); Letter no. 212, Dolfin, 16 April 1674, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 422–4.(at f. 423v).
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• 1674 . Memorie teatrali Letter no. 213, Massi, 8 June, Cal. Br. 22 no. 627, ff. 566–9. In this, Massi also echoes Ivanovich's strong reservations about being a librettist in Venice; see Ivanovich, 430–1.
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• Tarr . New Grove 2 xxii, 305. The information stems from the Hanover court accounts; see Berend, Nicolaus Adam Strungk 33n. He was succeeded as Kapellmeister by Vincenzo de' Grandis.
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• Letter no. 236, Dolfin, 28 June 1675, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 432–3 (at f. 432v).
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• 1676 . I-Vas Procuratia di Supra, Chiesa Actorum, reg. 147, 7 May There were twelve voting Procuratori di S. Marco and the yes/no votes were cast as follows: Sartorio, 9/3, Grossi, 6/6.
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• I-Vas The competition was particularly strong with P.A. Ziani, Legrenzi and Monferrato getting the following votes from 13 Procuratori: 4/9, 6/7 and 7/6; see Procuratia di Supra, Chiesa Actorum, reg. 147, 30 April 1676.
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• Tarr . ‘Sartorio, Gasparo’ . New Grove , 2 xxii, 307.
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• Stieglitz . Landesherr und Stände 29.
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• Surian , Elvidio , ed. Storia della musica nella già cappella ducale di S. Marco in Venezia (dal 1318 al 1797) Caffi devotes the least possible space to Sartorio, mentioning that his efforts were mainly dedicated to the theatre; see Francesco Caffi, 2 vols (Venice, 1853); modem edn in 1 vol., ed. Studi di musica Veneta, 10 (Florence, 1987), 243–4.
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• Caffi . Storia della musica 22.
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• Moore , James H. 1981 . Vespers at St. Mark's: Music of Alessandro Grandi, Giovani Rovetta and Francesco Cavalli 2 vols (Ann Arbor, Michigan, i, 95–6. Moore is also indispensable for his discussion of the I-Vas holdings of documents relating to music (see especially 59 et seqq.).
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• I-Vas 269 – 70 . Procuratori di San Marco de Supra, Seria Chiesa, b. 91, Processo 208, fascicolo 2, f. 11r. The document lists the singers who have left St Mark's to seek employment elsewhere since the year 1665. Moore's transcription of this document (pp.) is not taken from I-Vas but from the second series of copies held at the Civico Museo Correr (Codice Cicogna 3118, fascicoli 44–50) and it contains a number of small discrepancies; e.g. Mutio's departure is mistakenly given as ‘Aprile 1677’ rather than’1667’.
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• 1676 . Giocasta regina d'Armenia (Gio. Andrea Moniglia, ‘riformata all'uso di Venetia’ by Giacomo Castoreo), ded. 16 December (Venice, 1677); Il Nicomede in Bitinia (Gio. Matteo Giannini), ded. 4 February 1677 (Venice, 1677). Il Nicomede also survives in a ‘seconda impressione’ with a ded. date of 18 February 1677.
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• Letter no. 302, Dolfin, 31 December 1676, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 435–6 (at f. 435r-v). One of the three singers from Hanover was the bass Gratianini; see Letter no. 306, Dolfin, 12 March 1677, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, f. 440.
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• Letter no. 303, Dolfin, 16 January 1677, Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 437–8.
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• Letter no. 304, Giacomo Francesco Bussani, 12 February 1677, Cal. Br. 22 no. 624, ff. 260–1.
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• Letter no. 310, Dolfin, n.d. [November or December 1677], Cal. Br. 22 no. 625, ff. 445–7.
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• Letter no. 313, Sartorio, 10 December 1677, Cal. Br. 22 no. 629, ff. 127–8. ‘Gioseppino’ is the singer known as Giuseppin di Baviera who together with ‘Siface’ (Giovanni Francesco Grossi) where among the best-known castrati of their time.
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• Sadie , Stanley , ed. 1992 . Sesto Tarquinio London For the other opera of the season the Vendramins seem to have relied for sponsorship on Ferdinando Carlo, Duke of Mantua, who was the dedicatee of Camillo Badovero's set to music by the duke's own maestro di cappella di camera Giovanni Battista Tornasi, who in his lifetime was the author of only two operas both dedicated to Ferdinando Carlo; see Thomas Walker, ‘Tomasi, Giovanni Battista’, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ed. (, iv, 752.
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• 1679 . Le Mercure Galant See, issue of April, quoted from Selfridge-Field, Pallade Veneta 341.
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• Passadore , Francesco and Rossi , Franco , eds. 1994 . La cappella musicale di San Marco nell'età moderna For some additional information on this collection of sacred music see John Bettley, ‘Psalm-Texts and the Polyphonic Vespers Repertory of St Mark's, Venice’, in, ed. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Venice, 5–7 September (Venice, 1998), 103–17 (at 108–9).
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• I-Vas Provveditori alla Sanità, Necrologio, Reg. 889 (1680), ‘30 December 1680/Il Signor Antonio Sartorio d'anni 50 circa/da flusso già mesi 7/medici Florio e Marco Bruni/fà sepelir suoi fratelli./S. Gio. Grisostomo.’
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• Necrologio The entry mentions that his body was brought to Venice from Padua and that he died, similarly to Sartorio, from dysentery; see I-Vas Provveditori alla Sanità, Necrologio, Reg. 889 (1680), 17 October 1680.
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• La Flora With the current evidence available to us, it is not possible to establish the extent of Ziani's involvement. The libretto preface only mentions briefly: ‘L'armonia delli Signori Antonio Sartorio, e Marcantonio Ziani’; see N. Bonis, (Venice, 1681).
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• 1680 . I-Vas Procuratia di Supra, Chiesa Actorum, reg. 147, 5 January [1681], There was no competition as Legrenzi was the only candidate. P.A. Ziani who might have applied was not in Venice at the time. Legrenzi also succeeded Sartorio as the house composer at S. Luca; see Saunders, ‘Legrenzi, Giovanni’, 1127.
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• Rinaldo Ciallis , D. 1681 . L'Oloferne (Parma,.
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• I libretti italiani a stampa dalle origini al 1800: Catalogo analitico con 16 indici The information on revival-libretti has been mainly culled from Claudio Sartori, 7 vols (Cuneo, 1990–4).
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• Concina , Giovanni , ed. 1914 . Catalogo delle opere musicali…Museo Correr On the collection, donated by Count Leopardo Martinengo to the Museo Correr, see (Parma,.
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• Walker, ‘Ubi Lucius’, cxlvi.
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• This section groups together the performance indications that are occasionally found in manuscripts of the period. All transcriptions should be read as [sic].
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• The British Library catalogue of music manuscripts lists these arias as anonymous but also suggests a possible attribution to Bernardo Pasquini; see Augustus Hughes-Hughes, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, 2: Secular Vocal Music (London, 1908); repr. (1966), 234. This attribution must stem from an interesting comment made in the eighteenth century by the first cataloguer of the Harleian manuscripts: ‘Part of an opera entituled Seleuco, which my Friend Mr. Nicolino Haim told me he believed was made by Bernardo Pasquini. […] Whether it be so, or not, I cannot say; But the Style, is, as I think, more Easy than His’; see [Humphrey Wanley], A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts, 2 vols (1759), i, no. 1267. The Harley manuscripts were collected in the first half of the eighteenth century by the earls of Oxford, Robert Harley and Edward Harley.
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• Only one other of Sartorio's operas, L'Orfeo, survives in as many as three scores. Furthermore, a fourth score of Prosperità is now lost: ‘Prosperità di Elio Seiano’ was among the Sartorio scores that are known to have existed in Venice around 1681, probably as part of the Contarini library, but have since disappeared; see Walker, ‘Ubi Lucius’, cxliv-cxlv.
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• Enrico Careri, Catalogo dei manoscritti musicali dell' Archivio Generale delle Scuole Pie a San Pantaleo (Rome, 1987), 56–7.
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• Careri, Catalogo, 7.
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• Walker, ‘Ubi Lucius’, cxlii.
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• The variant ‘Gessilla’ appears quite a few times in the course of the libretto.
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• Walker, ‘Ubi Lucius’, cxlii.
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• Norbert Dubowy, Arie und Konzert: Zur Entwicklung der Ritornellanlage im 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1991), 83; Reinmar Emans, ‘Die beiden Fassungen’, 59–79.
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• Emans, ‘Die beiden Fassungen’, 69.
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• Theodor Abbetmeyer, Zur Geschichte der Musik am Hofe in Hannover vor Agostino Steffani 1636–1689: Ein Bild künstlerischer Kultur im 17. Jahrhundert (Hannover, 1931), 53.
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• William Algernon Churchill, Watermarks in Paper in Holland, England, France, etc. (Amsterdam, 1935); Edward Heawood, Watermarks: Mainly of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Monumenta chartae papyraceae historiam illustrantia, 1 (Hilversum, 1950). The watermark of the fly-leaf, however, used at the beginning of the ‘Adelaide’ score, can be identified as Heawood no. 1785–85a which is of Dutch origin of c. 1670–3. This watermark has two parts: one is an elaborate version of the fleur-de-lis, and the other a watermark with letters, probably the maker's initials. The letter section on its own can also be found in an end-paper of a 1683 source (Heawood, no. 2965).
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• Ellen Rosand, ‘L'Ovidio trasformato’, preface to Aurelio Aureli and Antonio Sartorio, Orfeo, ed. Ellen Rosand, Drammaturgia Musicale Veneta, 6 (Milan, 1983), ix-liv (at xxxiii-xxxiv).
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• Reinmar Emans, ‘Antonio Sartorios Orfeo—Versuch einer Quellenbewertung’, in Il teatro musicale italiano nel Sacro Romano Impero nei secoli XVII e XVIII, Atti del VII convegno internazionale sulla musica italiana nei secoli XVII-XVIII, Loveno di Menaggio (Como), 15–17 July 1997, ed. Alberto Colzani, Norbert Dubowy, Andrea Luppi and Maurizio Padoan (Como, 1999), 67–103.
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• Emans, ‘Antonio Sartorios Orfeo’, 75–8.
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• Emans, ‘Antonio Sartorios Orfeo’, 86.
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• See Ellen Rosand, ‘L'Ovidio trasformato’, xxxiv.
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• Walker, ‘Ubi Lucius’, cxliii.
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• On the score see also Åke Davidsson, ‘En “Christina-opera” på Carolina Rediviva’, Nordisk tidskrift for bok-och biblioteksväsen, 54 (1967), 9–19.
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• This must be one of the earliest appearances of the characterisation ‘melodramma’.
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• See Craig Monson, preface to Antonio Sartorio, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, ed. Craig Monson, Collegium Musicum: Yale University, 2nd series, 12 (Madison, 1991), xv.
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• For more details on the collection see the preface to Franco Rossi, Le opere musicali della Fondazione Querini-Stampalia di Venezia (Turin, 1984), ix-xvii. For an in-depth examination of the volumes and their relation to the Contarini collection see Reinmar Emans, ‘Venezianische Ariensammlungen des 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Musik und Szene: Festschrift für Werner Braun zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Vernhard R. Appel, Karl W. Geck and Herbert Schneider, Saarbrücker Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, new ser., 9 (Saarbrücken, 2001), 487–505. Emans also corrects a number of mistakes contained in the Rossi catalogue.
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• Gustav Friedrich Schmidt, Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Herzoglichen Hofe zu Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (Munich, 1929); Renate Brockpähler, Handbuch zur Geschichte der Barockoper in Deutschland (Emsdetten, Westf, 1964); Eberhard Thiel, Kataloge der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel. Die Neue Reihe. Libretti. Verzeichnis der bis 1800 erschienenen Textbücher (Frankfurt am Main, 1970); Sartori, Catalogo.
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• See Heawood, Watermarks, nos. 863–73.
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• Eduard Bodemann, Die Handschriften der Königlichen öffentlichen Bibliothek zu Hannover (Hanover, 1867), 71.
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• Renato de' Grandis, ‘Musik in Hannover zur Leibniz-Zeit’, in Leibniz: Sein Leben, sein Wirken, seine Welt, ed. Wilhelm Totok and Carl Haase (Hanover, 1966), 117–27.
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• De' Grandis, ‘Musik in Hannover zur Leibniz-Zeit’, 121.
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• See Julia Ann Griffin, ‘De Grandis, Vincenzo’, New Grove 2, vii, 137–8. Renato de' Grandis' unsupported claims have already been rejected by Gloria Rose in her article ‘Two Operas by Scarlatti Recovered’, Musical Quarterly, 58 (1972), 420–35 (at 423n and 425n). The article examines the Hanover ‘Antonino’ in the context of Comodo Antonino, a reworking of Bussani's libretto by Francesco Maria Paglia for Alessandro Scarlatti (Naples, 1696).
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• A characteristic example of these cuts is one of Marzia's arias which was placed by Bussani, appropriately, after her exclamation ‘A Dio Patria, a Dio Roma, io parto, a Dio’ (I:xx). The aria was composed by Sartorio, but it was later found that it would not function dramatically, or technically, and it was cut (the aria is in D minor and highly virtuosic with rapid semiquavers reaching up to a“). Sartorio's setting of the line ‘Addio Patria, etc.’ which remained in the text, is in arioso style in D minor. Both the melody and the bass of the last two bars of the arioso were modified by Sartorio into a new version with an ornamented cadence (f. 43r), presumably so that the passage would be more complete on its own without the aria that followed it.
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• They were used at least once before (1671), and in numerous librettos after 1680. Before the 1670s, Ismeno was used only once in 1663, but more frequently thereafter; see Aim, Catalog of Venetian Librettos, Index xvii: Roles. Another example of a character's change of name in the course of the opera is the Contarini score of Flora (see sources below).
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• This is not the first time that Sartorio has written with clef oscillations. In the Vienna manuscript of Orfeo, which also contains autograph corrections, the role of the young shepherd Orillo alternates between the Alto and the Soprano clefs; see Emans, ‘Antonio Sartorios Orfeo’, 76–7. Clef changes also occur in a number of Cavalli autographs where there are instances of bass-alto oscillation in more than one operas; see Jane Glover, Cavalli (London, 1978), 73–4. A similar case is also recorded in Saunders, ‘The Repertory of a Venetian Opera House’, 133.
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• The original music survives at the Querini-Stampalia collection in Venice (see below).
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• Rudolf Ewerhart, ‘Santini, Fortunato’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Friedrich Blume et al., 16 vols (Kassel, 1949–79), xi, 1381–3.
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• See Sartori, no. 1869.
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• La Statira, ed. William C. Holmes, vol. 9 of The Operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, ed. D.J. Grout (Cambridge, MA, 1985); II Pompeo, ed. John H. Roberts, Handel Sources: Materials for the study of Handel's Borrowing, 6 (New York, 1986).
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• Malcolm Boyd, ‘Scarlatti, Alessandro’, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992), iv, 201. However, it is not certain whether the revisions were by Scarlatti or by a local maestro di cappella. According to Reinhard Strohm the extent of Scarlatti's role in adapting Venetian revivals has been overestimated; see R. Strohm, ‘Alessandro Scarlatti and the Eighteenth Century’, in Essays on Handel and Italian Opera (Cambridge, 1985) 15–33 (at 18). The attribution of the Münster score also puzzled earlier Scarlatti scholars who found the style of the music rather ‘archaic’; see Roberto Pagano and Lino Bianchi, Alessandro Scarlatti (Turin, 1972), 53 and 103.
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• See Franco Rossi, La Fondazione Levi di Venezia: Catalogo del fondo musicale (Venice, 1986), 115–16.
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