in musical composition, however, has been relativised more recently by researchers such as Helmut Hucke, Daniel Heartz, Francesco Degrada, and Reinhard Strohm, who agree that stylistic innovation in that period was achieved elsewhere in Italy, too.139 The typical features of this modern compositional manner lie partly in the handling of the instruments: the violins frequently play unison while the violas col basso play at the octave, or providing a solely harmonic accompaniment pulsating in quavers, crochets, or semiquavers.140 Colla parte sections are also usual for the violins, while the basses take pauses.141 But more attention should be paid to innovation in singing styles and vocal composition, especially the new prominence given to cadenzas. Michael F. Robinson writes that by the second decade of the eighteenth century, cadenzas were not merely stretched and embellished (as was common ←56 | 57→in the seventeenth century). But as Johann Joachim Quantz noted, on the basis of observations made by Tosi in his Opinioni de’ cantori, a new custom had been established between 1710 and 1716: the whole musical process in the orchestra halted (especially in the case of final cadenzas), so that during the pause singers could ‘execute passages of I know not how many bars together: they’ll have echoes on the same passages and swellings of a prodigious length, and then, with a chuckle in the throat, exactly like that of a nightingale, they’ll conclude with cadences of an equal length, and all this in the same breath’.142
In September 1721, Nicola Galtieri and Aurelio del Pò (1698‒1773), former musicians of the Real Capella, were signed up to a four-year contract as new impresari of S. Bartolomeo after the elderly Nicola Serino had died that year. Because running of the theatre was intrinsically costly, and because the budget of another applicant, Salvatore Caputo, was too large to deliver (in spite of different sources of financial support), these candidates, both former conservatorists of Neapolitan churches, were finally chosen. Both were related: Nicola the maternal uncle of Aurelio’s father, Andrea del Pò, a painter and stage designer who himself also used to be the impresario of S. Bartolomeo.143
The Galtieri‒Del Pò duo achieved notable results within a short time. Among other things, they were the first in S. Bartolomeo’s history to collaborate with Pietro Metastasio (by staging Francesco Feoʼs Siface in May 1723) and with additional librettists such as Pietro Pariati, Agostino Piovene, Bernardo Saddumene, Antonio Salvi, Silvio Stampiglia, Nino Zanelli, and Apostolo Zeno.144 Likewise, they could enlist the best composers of the ‘Neapolitan school’; the music of Leo, Porpora, Sarro, Alessandro Scarlatti, and Vinci was heard during the years of their activity, not to mention the greatest star singers of those days, among them Faustina Bordoni, Merighi, Benti-Bulgarelli, Tesi, Vico, Farinelli, Grimaldi, and Annibale Pio Fabri.145 This must have been a glorious period in the life of ←57 | 58→the S. Bartolomeo and of the Neapolitan musical culture alike. Not surprisingly, when the contract came to an end in September 1725, it finished with a huge deficit.
According to Benedetto Croce, Aurelio del Pò owed Strada 2,000 ducats, most probably the total sum of her fees from 1724 onwards, which he could compensate only by marrying her that year (he was twenty-seven, Strada twenty-two).146 Regardless of this, we may assume they were already in a relationship; otherwise, how would it be imaginable that Strada could let these debts grow and sing without payment for years? On the other hand, why did Aurelio not pay the wages even of Strada? Presumably he and Nicola could pay the other members of the company, at their own expense at least, but withheld that of Strada’s, as she was to be part of their family soon anyway. Nonetheless, it seems to have been a good marriage. Certainly, Aurelio remained passionately interested in Strada’s career, not only from an artistic and financial aspect, but from a moral one as well, as some incidents that happened in London during the 1730s will reveal.
Although Del Pò and Galtieri were originally supposed to leave by October 1725, and be succeeded by the next impresario, Angelo Carasale ‒ who was in the viceroy Cardinal D’Althann’s favour ‒ as Croce states, the libretti of S. Bartolomeo’s performances up to the carnival season of 1726 show names of Galtieri and Del Pò as dedicators.147 In fact, Carasale worked at the Teatro Nuovo eretto di sopra Toledo in the carnival of 1726. It follows that Aurelio and Strada left the theatre together afterwards, and that Carasale took over S. Bartolomeo after Easter, beginning with the run of Hasse’s Sesostrate (from 13 May).148 Strada was not the only singer whose contract was terminated: basically the whole company was replaced.
Interestingly enough, there is no information about either Strada or Aurelio for the next three years until Handel engaged her for the Second Royal Academy in London. Libretti from those years bearing her name have not been found. One plausible explanation for her absence from the stage is that she fell pregnant.
Table 2.1 Strada’s Neapolitan repertoire, 1724‒1726
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Strada on the stage
Strada’s first opera in Naples (Table 2.1) was Porpora’s Semiramide, regina dell’Assiria. The opera is lost, but one aria written for and sung by her, ‘Se d’aquilon’ (I/5; G major, Allegro, C), survived: (1) Porpora reused it for his Siface (Viriate, I/2), performed in Milan and at S. Giovanni Grisostomo Venice simultaneously during the carnival season of 1726, from 26 December 1725 onwards; and (2) it was sung again by Strada in London, in one of Handel’s Italian pasticci, Ormisda in 1730. It is very informative that whereas in Milan, ‘Se d’Aquilon’ was ←59 | 60→performed at the Lombard pitch (i.e. a whole tone higher) by Marianna Lorenzani Conti, in Venice it was omitted by Marianna Benti-Bulgarelli (as Viriate) and replaced with the aria ‘Non lascia il ben che brama’. Benti evidently was not a virtuoso singer and her range went only up to aʺ. While ‘Se d’Aquilon’ has a very high tessitura and requires gʺ and aʺ too frequently; moreover, these notes are placed on accented beats, and therefore they call for a powerful vocal production. As far as Lorenzani is concerned, Jean-Benjamin de la Borde described her as an ‘excellente et célèbre musicienne’ (‘excellent and celebrated musician’), while he only noted Benti’s beauty and fine acting skills.
The case of ‘Se d’Aquilon’ serves to classify Strada’s vocal calibre (Ex. 2.1). Marked with the characteristics of a castrato aria, it musters arpeggiation, coloratura patterns, descending volatine semplici, syncopation, accented gʺ (thirty-one times) and aʺ (six times) notes, trills, repeated notes (note ribattute), and violin idioms (in the B section) – all of this above a continuous drumming bass accompaniment. The aria displays an increasing limitlessness and freedom of the vocal toolbox.
Example 2.1 Porpora: Semiramide, regina dell’Assiria – vocal part of ‘Se d’Aquilon’
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In Semiramide, regina dell’Assiria the aria belongs to Zomira, the Bactrian Princess who is held captive in Babylon with her beloved Idaspe.149 The text of the recitative introducing the aria in Act I, scene 5 makes clear how deeply she loves Idaspe, and that his loss would ruin her forever: ‘Idaspe, Idaspe, you alone are the sweet support to my afflicted soul; you, dear subject of all my thoughts. Being far from you, I am deprived and diminished, descending from the golden throne. Without my beloved Idaspe I do not want to live’.150 After such words one would