Madrigali è piucchè necessario alla gioventù dell’arte nostra, perchè un tale esercizio assoda l’intonazione, avvezza il petto alla fatica, e raffine l’orecchio, acciò non vacilli nel tempo’. Mancini, Pensieri, e riflessioni, 182; id., Practical Reflections, 187.
66 Bruce Haynes, ‘Beyond temperament: non keyboard intonation in the 17th and 18th centuries’, Early Music 19/3 (August 1991), 356‒365+367‒370+372‒381: 357‒59.
67 Owen Jander, ‘Solfeggio [Solfège]’, in GMO, accessed 19 November 2014.
68 Naomi Adele André, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti and the Second Woman in Early-Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 37.
69 Isabelle Emerson, Five Centuries of Women Singers. Music Reference Collection 88 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005), 281.
70 André, Voicing Gender, 43.
71 Rodolfo Celletti, Storia del belcanto (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1986), 122.
72 Taylor R. Ferranti, A Historical Approach to Training the Vocal Registers: Can Ancient Practice Foster Contemporary Results?, PhD Dissertation (Louisiana State University, 2004), 27; Celletti, Storia del belcanto, 122.
73 André, Voicing Gender, 30‒31.
74 ‘Chi sa ben respirare e sillabare, saprà ben cantare’. (He who knows how to breathe and pronounce well, will know how to sing well). A quote ascribed to the castrato and teacher Gasparo Pacchierotti (1740‒1821). See Stark, Bel Canto, 91.
75 Pauly, ‘Benedetto Marcello’s Satire on Early 18th‒Century Opera’, 231; Strohm, The Operas of Antonio Vivaldi, 286‒87.
76 Strohm, Venice Opera Market, 3; id., The Operas of Antonio Vivaldi, 286‒89; Selfridge-Field, A New Chronology of Venetian Opera, 351‒32.
77 Josse de Villeneuve, Lettre sur le mécanisme de l’opéra italien (Naples: 1756); see Markstrom, The Operas of Leonardo Vinci, 61.
78 Marcello’s Il teatro was not unique in its topic, though. It is interesting that Buini himself produced several opera buffa libretti about the singer, her mother, and the manager, all speaking and singing in Bolognese dialect, such as Chi non fa non falla (1732) and La Zanina maga per amore (1742). Edward J. Dent pointed out that ‘the Venetians seem to have enjoyed seeing the main plot turn on the absurdities of a prima donna and her admirers’, as opposed to the Neapolitan comic opera. Some divertimenti comici from earlier times also dealt with the figures of opera seria: Francesco Passarini’s La figlia che canta, the main topic of which is the necessity of protection for a young lady who wants to become a professional singer, was introduced during the Carnival 1719 in Venice with the music by Carlo Francesco Pollarolo, ergo prior to Il Teatro. See Edward J. Dent, ‘Giuseppe Maria Buini’, in Sammelbände der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft XIII/2 (January‒March 1912), 329‒36: 331; Francesco Passarini, La figlia che canta. Printed libretto (Venice: 1719), I-Mb Racc.dramm.0945.
79 Dent, ‘Giuseppe Maria Buini’, 329‒36; Wiel, I teatri musicali veneziani del settecento, 46‒63.
80 Wiel, I teatri musicali veneziani del settecento, 46‒63.
81 Strohm, The Operas of Antonio Vivaldi, 288‒89.
82 Ibid., 48; ‘Uomo di virtù, prudenza e giustizia. Signore di genio il più nobile, di sentimenti li più magnanimi, et del tatto più soave’. Gianvittorio Signorotto, L’Italia degli Austrias. Monarchia cattolica e domini italiani nei secoli XVI e XVII, Cheiron 9 (1992), 183‒287.
83 Strohm, Venice Opera Market, 3‒4; Michael Talbot, The Vivaldi Compendium (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2011), Dictionary, 49.
84 Giuseppe Vignati, Aquilio in Siracusa. Printed libretto (Milan: Giuseppe Richino Malatesta, 1720), I-Mb Racc.dramm.0677.
85 Strohm, The Operas of Antonio Vivaldi, 286.
86 Ibid., 30‒31.
87 Ibid., 289.
88 ‘Nella sera detto stesso sabbato andò in scena per la prima volta nel Teatro à S. Angelo l’Opera intitolata La Verità in Cimento, che riesce d’universale sodisfazione’. Francesco Alvisi da Bologna, Avvisi di Venezia, 2 November 1720.
89 Strohm, The Operas of Antonio Vivaldi, 58‒60; Karl Heller, Antonio Vivaldi: The Red Priest of Venice (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1997), 57.
90 The ‘Chorton’ for sacred music used to be even higher in Venice, around 445‒460 Hz = a′, that is, almost a semitone higher than our modern one. Mary Cyr, Performing Baroque Music (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1992), 62‒64; Bruce Haynes, A History of Performing Pitch: The Story of “A” (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), 163‒64.
91 Strohm, The Operas of Antonio Vivaldi, 53‒54.
92 Ibid., 299.
93 ‘Une autre variété nait de la manière dont ils emploient les modulations. Ils ne composent guère dans le mode mineur; presque tous leurs airs sont écrits dans le mode majeur; mais ils y entremêlent, sans qu’on s’y attende, des phrases mineures qui surprennent et saisissent l’oreille jusqu’au point d’affecter le cœur’. (There is another variety in the way they are applying modulations. One hardly ever composes in the minor key for almost all the arias are written in the major key; they are, however, imperceptibly mixed: the minor phrases surprise and catch the ear up to the point that they affect the heart). Colomb (ed.), Le President de Brosses en Italie, vol. ii, 380.
94 Bella Brover-Lubovsky, Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 100; Strohm, The Operas of Antonio Vivaldi,