Classical Opera’s Mozart 250 project forges into the second half of the 1760s with their concert performance of Niccolò Jommelli’s Vologeso, first performed at the palace of Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart in 1766. While the links between this particular opera and Mozart were not made as clear as with last year’s Adriano in Siria of J.C. Bach, Jommelli’s music, as one of the leading operatic composers in Europe, was certainly known to the young prodigy. Indeed, in a letter home, he writes about seeing the elder composer’s Armida abbandonata of 1770 while in Naples, saying that “[the music] is beautiful, but too clever and old fashioned (viel zu gescheid und zu altvätterisch) for the theatre” (Postscript to Leopold Mozart’s letter of 5 June 1770 to Anna Maria Mozart). Despite this, Jommelli is usually claimed as one of the foremost reformers of serious opera in the eighteenth century.
While Mozart may have claimed Jommelli’s musical style to be passé by the 1770s, Vologeso itself is a reworking of an already antiquated libretto by Apostolo Zeno, originally called Lucio Vero and first set by Carlo Pollarolo for Venice in 1700. Moreover, the version set by Jommelli and performed here by Classical opera is in fact a modification of a modified libretto. The new librettist Mattia Verazi had revised the by then popular version produced by Guido Lucarelli for Rinaldo di Capua’s setting of 1739 rather than Zeno’s original. The story is a familiar one, mingling political intrigue with love both unrequited and true. In the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, Lucio Vero (Stuart Jackson) is victorious in battle and captures Berenice (Gemma Summerfield), wife of the Parthian king Vologeso (Rachel Kelly). Captivated by her beauty, Lucio Vero makes every effort to win her with the assistance of his minister Aniceto (Tom Verney). Meanwhile, Vologeso attempts to assassinate Lucio Vero but is recognised by Berenice, causing him too to be taken prisoner. Further complicating matters, Lucio Vero’s betrothed, Lucilla (Angela Simkin), has arrived in Ephesus with Flavio (Jennifer France), an ambassador from Lucio Vero’s co-emperor, Marcus Aurelius. After many separations of the faithful Vologeso and Berenice, increasingly cruel plots on Lucio Vero’s part to attain the latter, and the threat of civil war from Marcus Aurelius, all is resolved and the various couples are reunited without any blood being shed.
Although Zeno’s libretto is not remotely like those produced by later poets and composers interested in reforming operatic conventions, the play’s enduring appeal might well be attributed to its strong sense of spectacle, which coincided neatly with the objectives for reform. Indeed, the play contains on-stage depictions of Lucio Vero’s attempted assassination, Vologeso’s fight with a lion in the arena, and at least one ‘mad scene’ for Berenice in addition to traditional opera seria ingredients of triumphal marches, grand armies, and the obligatory chorus announcing a lieto fine. Sometimes I felt that this element of spectacle was lost in the context of a concert performance. Though that is of course an unavoidable casualty of this mode of presentation, it was further compounded by Jommelli’s own reluctance to capitalise on these aspects of the play as did other contemporaries. Furthermore, artistic director Ian Page writes in the introduction to the programme that besides the expected editing of the recitative, he chose to cut not only a number of pieces in their entirety, but also some arias’ middle-sections and their reprises in the interests of ‘maximising our potential to appreciate and enjoy the opera’. Of these, one was the opening chorus, which might have helped to restore some of this sense of grandeur, if indeed Page’s goal was to get a feeling of ‘[experiencing] what a typical eighteenth-century opera was like’.
Jommelli’s musical style in this opera has clearly moved on from the grand and expansive show pieces we find in his earlier operas, such as Didone abbandonata of 1747 (performed in London in 2014 and also reviewed here). With the exception of one or two numbers which might be said to respond to a more traditional heroic opera seria style, such Crede sol che a nuovi ardori, Flavio’s only aria, the focus in Vologeso is instead on creating a more declamatory mode and ‘realistic’ rendering of the dramatic and emotional content of the text. As such, the use of coloratura is generally much reduced and arias very often feel more like ariosos, often to the point that it feels like accompanied recitative intrudes upon melodic lines. The music is nevertheless still imbued with grace and lyricism, and is marked by sometimes fussy, yet fine, delicate and lace-like accompaniments. And there are some really good and interesting numbers too: the quartet Quel silenzio, Lucio Vero’s Se tra ceppi, Lucilla’s first aria Tutti di speme al core, the already mentioned Crede sol, as well as some very effective and attractive accompagnatos.
In spite of the title, this version (or at least as it has been presented to us with the cuts) nevertheless still focuses greatly on the character of Lucio Vero and his relationship with Berenice. Stuart Jackson’s performance came across as something of a slow burning affair, only really coming fully into the character after interval and reaching the apogee of dramatic intensity in his final aria. And yet it felt largely like Lucio Vero was being interpreted as being the youthful hero, the primo uomo role usually reserved for a castrato. This may well be due to Verazi’s redaction of the opera, which seems to me to result in a somewhat schizophrenic character, vacillating between tyrannical, or rather psychopathic, conqueror and lovelorn hero. This is effectively underlined by the kind of music with which Jommelli furnishes the character: languid arias with long, plangent melodic lines, such as his opening Luci belle and the cavatina Che farò? in Act 2, and a handful of arias which verge on aria di furia territory. To my mind, Lucio Vero’s actions are not driven by real love for Berenice but rather an overwhelming desire for power: not only in and of itself, but also power over others. To this end, his rejection of Lucilla is not merely an amorous choice, but a rejection of the power of Rome and the authority of his co-emperor Marcus Aurelius altogether. So too the psychological manipulation of Berenice in an attempt to bend her to his will. Thus, Stuart Jackson’s characterisation of Lucio Vero as the amorous lead did not always sit quite well for me, in spite of a good voice and elegant execution.
The performance otherwise had much working in its favour. I very much enjoyed Gemma Sutherfield’s portrayal of Berenice, and there was some excellently judged acting from Rachel Kelly. I have already mentioned Jennifer France, whose delightful aria was executed with all the charm and grace that the butterfly described in her text required. One did feel slightly for Tom Verney, his solid performance in his lone aria aside: his role of Aniceto was decidedly minor in this version of Zeno’s play, with the character’s love for Lucilla never really explored (again a shortcoming of the libretto). And, of course, the orchestra itself was as sharp and on-point as we have come to expect from Classical Opera.
My overall impression from the programme notes, however, is that Vologeso in and of itself was perhaps somewhat unconvincing to the artistic team in the first instance. Indeed, Page writes further in his introduction that ‘Jommelli does not belong among the truly great composers, to be sure…’. While undoubtedly there are countless flops littering the battlefields of eighteenth-century opera, and works that are best left to languish in obscurity, credit must be given where credit is due. And Jommelli’s legacy is by far too monumental to ignore. The assertion that ‘…much of the music of contemporaneous composers… sounds quite like Mozart for much of the time’ should rather be inverted: it is Mozart, his uniqueness notwithstanding, who is effectively a product of his time!
A final note: a future Classical Opera concert this year is to feature some arias from Semiramide by Josef Mysliveček, another figure well known to the Mozart family and whose work has occasionally been misattributed to the young Wolfgang in the past. A full opera of his at some point, further showing how Mozart was fully integrated into the existing musical landscape, would be most welcome indeed!
Classical Opera’s performance of Il Vologeso took place at Cadogan Hall on 28th April 2016.