Concert performance

La corona,  azione teatrale, in one act, composed 1765
Libretto by Pietro Metastasio, sung in Italian with linking English narration

Tuesday 18 May - St John’s Smith Square, London 7.30pm
Saturday 22 May - University Church, Oxford 7.30pm

Watch our introductory video:

Over the years, Bampton Classical Opera has delighted audiences with its rediscovery of neglected shorter operas by one of the most lyrical of 18th-century stage composers, Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787).  Amongst these, Il Parnaso confuso, which we performed in 2014 to celebrate the tercentenary of his birth, proved particularly appealing, not least for its unusual scoring for four soprano voices.  Parnaso was composed for performance by four young and vocally-talented Austrian Archduchesses, daughters of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and the Empress Maria Theresa.  Metastasio’s libretto of La corona and Gluck’s ravishing music were written for the same aristocratic forces, with a planned première at Schönbrunn Palace on 4 October 1765 to celebrate the name-day of the Emperor; it was intended as a surprise spectacle, commissioned by his wife.  Unfortunately, all the efforts of composition and preparation were to no avail, as the Emperor died unexpectedly on 18 August, and the project was entirely dropped.  Fortunately manuscripts survive and it had a few performances in the later twentieth century.  Bampton’s performance will be the first in this country since 1987.

“I too feel the sparks of valour in my breast;
I too feel that my heart is aflame for glory”  (Asteria’s aria)

The story

In his almost countless libretti, which made him the most popular of operatic poets in the first half of the 18th century, Metastasio plundered the classical myths for stories of valour and love.  The Crown, like many others, derives from a story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  The goddess of the hunt, Diana, feels she is slighted by an absence of respectful sacrifices from the king of Calydonia, a mountainous coastal area of Greece north of the Gulf of Corinth.  As a punishment she sends an enormous and ferocious boar, which ravages the country and causes widespread death and destruction.  The king’s son, Meleagro, resolves to gather a troupe of brave heroes to hunt and slaughter the offending beast.  The opera however is concerned not with masculine prowess and bravery but with the role and ambitions of women.  Atalanta, a feisty lass, is peeved that only men can have the honour of hunting the boar and of gaining the crown of victory from Diana.  She resolves to join the chase but is restrained by her more cautious sister Climene.  Their friend Princess Asteria is also eager for action, but can only sulk when she is told she is too young.  The argument amongst the girls might threaten their close friendship and so they resolve to ask for a judgment from Asteria’s brother, Meleagro.  It is no surprise that their embryonic feminism is not accepted – boar-hunting is men’s work and, besides, these girls are precious adornments of Greece whose lives cannot be put at risk.  The girls are deflated and sulk.

Yet they cannot but help hear the stirring sounds of the chase (which - enthusiastic stage directors, please note! - conveniently happens off-stage), and they climb a tower to get a better view.  Atalanta and Asteria impetuously run off into the thick forest, leaving Climene alone and frightened.  But it only takes the space of her aria before Asteria and then Atalanta rush back in panic – their arrows have hit the fearsome beast which is now intent on their destruction.  “A weapon, any kind of weapon!” shouts Atalanta – and, with a snatched prayer to Diana (whose noble statue overlooks the stage), she runs off again.

In the final scene, all convene, exhausted, sweaty, but triumphant.  Meleagro announces that Atalanta has bravely killed the beast and saved the nation.  However since Meleagro delivered the coup de grâce, Atalanta is adamant that it is he who should receive the honour of Diana’s crown.  A delightful duet charts their debate, each reticent to receive the reward.  In the end, what can be the solution?  They all agree to present the crown instead to their own god – their august patron, Emperor Francis – “for grateful to him are they over whom he rules”.

The music

In the 1760s, Gluck was blazing a trail of operatic reform, notably in a trio of remarkable works composed in collaboration with the poet Raniero de’ Calzabigi – firstly Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), followed by Alceste (1767) and Paride ed Elena (1770).  In these he sought a new sensitivity to text and emotional expression, a “grand simplicity” which eschews formulaic structures and gratuitous ornament and vocal bravura.  However Gluck was too smart a businessman to turn his back entirely on the conventions of popular Italian operatic style.  When he felt the commission suited, and above all for the courtly entertainments in Vienna which were so vital to his career and prestige, he was happy to return to the respected system inherent in Metastasian poetry of dialogue recitatives and da capo arias enabling talented singers to elaborate the vocal line with thrilling embellishment.  The two 1765 operas for the four imperial Archduchesses fall into this category and may therefore be considered slightly out-moded.  However, Gluck’s consummate skill as a composer, his restrained yet always apt harmonic foundations and his instinctive feel for eminently ‘singable’ melody make these little operas a joy to perform and hear.  To twenty-first century audiences who rejoice in the expressive lyricism and elegant orchestration of Handel (the two composers met and collaborated in London in 1745), Gluck’s little-known operas should bring great pleasure.

The Crown opens with a three-movement Overture, followed by six arias of varied colour and character, a duet and a concluding ‘chorus’, all alternating with often lengthy recitatives (replaced in our performance by somewhat shorter English narration).  The two older Archduchesses, Maria Elisabeth and Maria Amalia, who were intended to play Meleagro and Atalanta, are given two arias each and share a duet.  The younger sisters, Maria Josepha (Climene) and Maria Carolina (Asteria) were given only single arias appropriate to their age – they were only 14 and 13 in 1765.

Although Gluck often reused music from his earlier works, all of the music for La corona was composed afresh.  The dynamic Allegro which concludes the overture reappeared in a new guise five years later in the overture for Paris and Helen and as part of the final radiant duet for those love-struck and ill-fated characters.  Our concert on 6 November 2020 was originally planned to be a performance of Paris and Helen, marking the 300th anniversary of the Vienna premiere of that larger-scale opera on 3 November 1770, a project sadly prevented – or, at least, postponed - by the strict distancing requirements necessitated by the coronavirus epidemic.  At least, in the overture to The Crown, you can enjoy a glimpse of the wonderful music of Paris and Helen, and we hope you will return for our full performances in 2021.

There are two recordings of La corona, and excerpts can be found on YouTube.  The first was made in 1983 by Warschauer Kammeroper, conducted by Tomasz Bugaj; it is on the Orfeo label, and is slightly shortened.  A full version conducted by Rudolph Palmer with the Queen’s Chamber Band was recorded in America in 2005.  Atalanta’s thrilling aria Quel chiaro rio has been recorded in compilations by Cecilia Bartoli and the young male soprano Samuel Marino.

Watch Harriet Eyley and Robert Howarth in rehearsal: