common coloratura patterns mechanically.92 However, it did no harm to its real goal, that is, to offer Strada the chance to display more virtuosity (Ex. 1.4). If ‘To sei sol’ was a post-premiere addition, then, given its vocal technical similarity to ←37 | 38→‘Solo quella’, it could have triggered its substitution for ‘Con più diletto’. Though the tessitura of the latter is a third lower than that of ‘Solo quella’, great freedom had been provided for Strada to introduce any kind of coloratura passages, volatine, and embellishments in the da capo as she pleased. She could do that harmonically quite independently, due to the pause for the violins and violas in bars 27‒33 and 58‒63, and also to the silence of the basses in bars 35‒45 and 65‒72. In addition, in the middle section, which has the simple delicacy of modulation to ←38 | 39→the relative minor ‒ a fine act of colouring an aria written in a major key, praised by De Brosses ‒ she could also show her abillities in a messa di voce.93
Example 1.4 Section A of ‘Con più diletto’, bars 19‒84, vocal and bass parts
De Brosses stated that minor-key arias were very rare in Venice. In this light it is very intriguing that the part of Rosane includes two such arias: ‘Amato ben sei la mia speranza’ (I/12; C minor, Andante, 2/4) and ‘Con cento, e cento baci’ (III/7; C minor, Allegro, C). ‘Amato ben’ (Ex. 1.5), although it was first used in Vivaldi’s La Candace (RV 704, performed at the carnival season in Mantua the same year) as ‘Ingannno tu sei la mia speranza’, but not yet heard in Venice; it is in fact the second movement of the violin concerto Il sospetto (‘Suspicion’, RV 199).94 The concerto, also dated 1720, is the first of a group of three pieces; the other two are L’inquietudine (‘Anxiety’, RV 234) and Il riposo (‘Rest’, RV 270).95 The complete and well-balanced melodic structure of Il sospetto’s slow movement makes it more probable that the instrumental version is actually the original, which has than been converted into a da capo aria form with a two-part A section (A1+A2), divided by orchestral ritornelli.
Example 1.5 Section A1 of ‘Amato ben’, bars 22‒39, vocal part
The simple melody and the mezzo carattere style of the text setting in ‘Amato ben’ conceal the high tessitura of the aria. The gʺ-s have to be reached by the singer through fifths, and the a↑ʺ-s through sixth leaps, requiring portamenti, and ←39 | 40→on the top of that the sound is meant to be rather soft – indicated by the meaning of the text, unaccented syllables as well as the character of the aria: ‘my dear beloved, you are my hope’. In Andante, the legato has to be flexibly strong and constant but never hard nor harsh or sharp, which requires a high-level breath control as well as flexible bodily support.
In ‘Con cento, e cento baci’ (Ex. 1.6), the vocal technique just discussed is turned upside down, as it is built up to emphasise top notes, mainly gʺ – placed on main beats and accented syllables – by hitting them several times. Jumping up from an octave or a fifth below meant that the head tones were reached from notes falling in the territory of the chest register.
Example 1.6 Section A1 of ‘Con cento, e cento baci’, bars 7‒24, vocal part
Octave leaps regularly occur in Rosane’s part. ‘Addio caro, tu ben sai’ (II/2; B↑ major, Allegro, C) contains two such occasions in the A section by hitting gʺ and aʺ in succession (b. 26 and 27). Further accented gʺ notes are reached by sixth leaps (Ex. 1.7). In one instance, the melody rides as high as b↑ʺ. A large number of such passages can be found in Strada’s repertoire, making it possible to conclude that her registers were perfectly blended from her debutante years onwards.96 It ←40 | 41→follows that her portamento together with the cantar di sbalzo technique must have been flawless, too.97
Example 1.7 ‘Addio caro, tu ben sai’, bars 26‒34, vocal part
Following the performance series of La verità, Strada immediately had to begin preparations for the next production, Filippo, re di Macedonia (premiered at Sant’Angelo on 27 December 1720). The music is lost, sadly, but the third act is attributed to Vivaldi, and the first two to Giuseppe Boniventi. One aria by Vivaldi sung by Strada seems to have survived. The text proved helpful for the aria’s identification, as it is almost entirely the same as one of the verses of Domenico Lalli’s libretto.98 ‘Scherza di fronda in fronda’ (RV 663), a cantata of Vivaldi’s authorship, is preserved in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden (MUS. 1-J-7,3) as a single manuscript copy by Johann Gottfried Grundig, the Hofkapelle’s copyist.99 Furthermore, an operatic version of the same music (Ex. 1.8) has been found by Francesco Degrada in a large aria collection in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris (F-Pn Vm7 7694, ff.221r–223r) with the superscription ‘Aria del Signor Orlandini’. Degrada, who discovered the similarity of the aria’s text in Filippo, ←41 | 42→assumes that ‘Scherza di fronda in fronda’ is Vivaldi’s composition, also on the grounds of musical analogies. Although the related style of Vivaldi and Orlandini is rather confusing, the attribution to Orlandini appears to be unsafe in any case, because sixteen arias under his name in the collection are of disputed authorship; of these, at least six are by Leonardo Vinci, Domenico Sarro, Gasparini, and Francesco Mancini, and from operas performed throughout Italy in the 1720s.100
The cantata is in E↑ major, and its vocal part is slightly simpler than the Parisian operatic version in F major. According to Michael Talbot, the aria with an orchestral accompaniment (two violins and bass) from Filippo was converted to a continuo aria. In the autograph manuscript of Vivaldi’s chamber concerto RV 103, on the verso of its last folio, a basso continuo sketch for this movement can be found in B↑ major. The complication caused by the key can be resolved by the assumption that this reshaping of the bass served as an exercise for a student of the composer.101 What Strada sang was most likely the F major version (in the Parisian manuscript; III/3, Ex. 1.8). With her later repertoire in mind, this aria assumes a special importance among the works she performed in her early years, foreshadowing some essential features of her mature vocal profile: this galant number is abundant in semiquaver triplets and demisemiquaver rhythms, which require fine technical work, not to mention octave leaps, which are also prominent.
Example 1.8 Section A2 of ‘Scherza di fronda in fronda’ (operatic version), bars 16–29, vocal part
Orlandini’s Antigona, a setting of Benedetto Pasqualigo’s libretto with which he obtained his first critical success in Venice, was premiered in the carnival ←42 | 43→of 1718 at Teatro San Cassiano, with Diana Vico in the title role. Three years later Strada sang Giocasta in this opera, together with Merighi as Antigona. At S. Cassiano, Giocasta’s character was embodied by Antonia Cavazzi, a contralto. Likewise, it was sung by Teresa Peruzzi detta La Denzia, also a contralto, in 1724 at the same theatre. The Sant’Angelo revival of 1721 could be connected to Orlandini’s involvement in that season. Although no score of the 1721 version survives, all of