Domenico Sarro; also because of the famous costumes of the performers as well as the up-to-date, fashionable scenery, elaborated with perfection, for which no expense has been spared by our impresari. His Princely Serene Highness was present to listen to it together with all the nobility.173
The appreciation of the clothes is not by chance, as it occurs regularly in the avvisi when a theatrical evening comes under discussion. On the other hand, the expression of ‘famous costumes’ ‒ ‘famosi Abiti’ ‒ and mention of the new scenery implies that particular care has been taken with this production; the impresari, Galtieri and Del Pò, surely took this side of the performances seriously, ←70 | 71→considering their background in painting and stage design. It must be noted that the description of the premiere evening of Semiramide regina dell’Assiria, Strada’s debut in Naples, also gave account of the various facets of the whole production:
On Saturday evening the new opera, entitled Semiramide, was performed for the first time at the San Bartolomeo theatre, which succeeded with general satisfaction both for the composition in verse done by a noted man of virtue, and for the music coming from the illustrious Niccolò Porpora, Maestro di Cappella to the Serene Highness of Darmstadt, and above all for the company who performed it, the best one could wish for. To see furthermore the changes of scene all brand new, admirable in every respect, not only for the painting, but also for the architecture, all designed by the celebrated architect, engineer and academician of Milan, Giovanni Battista Oliviero, enriched by several dancers by the choreographer Sebastiano Scio, Maestro di Balli of Serene Elector Palatino. In all these good taste of our impresari was manifested, who did this on their own for the satisfaction of the public. On Sunday evening His Highness the Eminent Viceroy was also present to listen to it.174
The conception of a performance, the costumes, and scenery influence a singer’s imagination of the drama and of the role he or she creates. Contrary to the lavishness of the costumes, scenery, and stage machinery at the first-rank opera houses in Venice; what we see here is a lack of extraordinary machines and exotic animals on stage, but there are artistically painted, ‘well constructed stage sets’ and fair costumes instead. The focus fell on the planning of the scenery, a kind of directing action in service of the drama, and on the clothes which, through their richness and beauty, can magnify the essential features of a certain character. Reading between the lines, one can surmise that these reports bespeak fine taste.
Similar to the previous productions, the dramatic strength of text and music could show itself within a proper visual environment in the following ←71 | 72→opera of the season 1724‒1725, Zenobia in Palmira by Leonardo Leo.175 The plot176 should not be confused with the popular and frequently set libretto of Metastasio’s Zenobia (1738, first performed 1740).177 The present one does not deal with the wife of Radamisto from the first century AD (which can be read in Annals, Book XII by Tacitus) but concerns Zenobia, the Palmyrian Queen, a different person who lived in the third century BC and was married to Odenato.
The date of the Neapolitan premiere fell on 13 May.178 Coincidentally, four days earlier L’amore eroico, a dramma per musica, which is based on the same plot, started its run at S. Samuele in Venice.179 Though the score by Francesco Brusa seems to have been lost, the British impresario Owen Swiney claimed that its musical quality was unacceptably low. A detailed description of its ←72 | 73→compositional shortcomings can be found in Johann Mattheson’s Critica Musica. Nevertheless, Swiney praised the Bolognese contralto Santa Marchesini who played Zenobia.180
Becoming the leading soprano
This special situation, that the main female character (in the drama) was not a soprano but a contralto, occurred, presumably on behalf of Vittoria Tesi, in the majority of the opere serie in which Strada participated in Naples. It follows that, in Leonardo Leo’s Zenobia in Palmira, for example, Strada took the leading soprano role, namely that of Aspasia, while Tesi ‒ whose fame had already spread throughout Europe ‒ was heard as Zenobia.181 The other two stars of this cast-constellation were Diana Vico (as Odenato) and Farinelli (as Decio).182 To sing such a challenging role as Aspasia, surrounded by top-quality colleagues, gave an exceptional scope for Strada to develop, refine, and deepen her vocal and dramatic abilities.
The two leading female figures, Zenobia and Aspasia, are not only princesses, but strong and passionate warrior women. In addition, both of them have to face moral personal and political conflicts throughout the opera.183 Zenobia, the princess of Assiria, is confronted with difficulty in reconciling her Amazon identity with her love for a man who is as strong and as confident as she is. It seems hard for her to make herself dependent on a king and a leader just as herself, and yet also simply on a man who is worthy of her heart, on someone whom she looks up to and honours.
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This noble person is Odenato, the king of Palmyra, who, in spite of the fact that he has never seen Zenobia before, admires her for her heroism and fearlessness according to reports he has been given. For this reason, Odenato refuses the offer coming from Sapore, the Persian King, to take his daughter, Princess Aspasia, in marriage. Sapore, feeling himself affronted, decides to send his general, Farnace, together with Aspasia to take revenge on Odenato. In the battle, Odenato is supported by Decio, the Roman general, who actually loves Aspasia. Odenato gets into a dangerous situation, which would cost him his life, when a mysterious Assirian commander wearing a closed helmet (i.e. Zenobia) saves him and gives him a jewel of gold. Thus, Assiria becomes a federate to Odenato’s empire too. Zenobia, disguising herself as her own captain, then enters Palmyra as victor together with Odenato and Decio, as well as with the defeated and captivated Farnace and Aspasia.
The libretto, by Apostolo Zeno in collaboration with Pietro Pariati, was set to music for the first time by Fortunato Chelleri in Barcelona in 1709 and was also staged in Milan the next year.184 In 1725, the work then seems to have fallen into two different versions according to plot. L’amore eroico, performed in Venice, represents the version of Pariati and emphasises Zenobia as the warrior queen, which is understandable considering the enthusiasm of the Venetians for that kind of figure.185
Concurrently in Naples, what appear to have been a local librettist not only reworked the text of Zenobia to suit the vigorous and energetic musical style of Leo, but also adjusted the story toward the conventions of opera seria, at least as far as the hierarchy of the characters was concerned. Zenobia, the real warrior queen in the physical sense, remains a contralto, but the soprano Aspasia had to dominate. Accordingly, the librettist accentuates the immense mental power with which Aspasia fights to attain her goal at the end. In this sense, she becomes another warrior queen of the opera. Zenobia, in the meantime, turns into a more sensitive and fragile figure. A typical example is the end of Act I when in L’amore eroico Zenobia reveals that she was the one who saved Odenato’s life in a battle previously and reminds him to what she has sworn; she presents herself as a warrior only and not as a lover until Odenato proves that he can win the physical fight against her.186 In the case of Zenobia in Palmira, Zenobia asks Odenato ←74 | 75→to tell her that he loves her. The order of their arias concluding the first act is switched from that of L’amore eroico and their texts completely changed from the warrior to the amorous: Odenato’s aria (‘T’adoro’ instead of ‘Qual inacuto Cacciatore’) comes first, which can be interpreted as the mental paraphrase of the conquest. Instead of ‘Vesta usbergo, cinga Spada’, Zenobia’s