La «Merope» di Apostolo Zeno nelle versioni di Jommelli e Terradellas: libretti e fonti musicali manoscritte

Abstract

Apostolo Zeno’s Merope in the versions of Jommelli and Terradellas: libretti and manuscript musical sources

This paper examines the sources relative to two intonations of the opera Merope, realized at no great distance the one from the other (respectively 1742, Venice and 1743, Rome) by two of the principal composers of the mid-eighteenth century: Niccolò Jommelli and Domingo Terradellas. An essential requisite for this discussion is the reconstruction of the original text of Apostolo Zeno’s drama and of the vicissitudes connected with its first performance in 1712 at Teatro S. Cassiano, Venice with music by Francesco Gasparini. The printed libretti pertaining to the first performance of the versions of Jommelli and Terradellas and to the subsequent repeats are then considered, evidencing the alterations made in the various productions; in addition, there is a detailed discussion of some libretti of Merope which lack the name of the composer and of which the attribution to Jommelli and Terradellas is open to doubt.
Comparison between the scores and libretti of the first performances has made it possible to observe the existence of considerable divergences. Extremely interesting results have come to light in connection with Jommelli’s opera: the existence of the autograph has in fact made it possible to establish the original version of the composer who (probably prior to the drafting of the definitive text of the drama and to the finalization of the cast) had foreseen at certain moments of the opera a choice of alternative arias for one particular character or of different musical solutions for the same text. The definitive choices effected for such moments are evident in the copies, which however do not appear to stem from a single common revised original. Comparative analysis between the text of the drama as originally written by Zeno and those of the first performances of the Jommelli and Terradellas versions has evidenced the extent of the transformations carried out, with especially interesting results relative to the definition of new hierarchies of the characters and to delineation of the psychological profile of some of these. Finally, some stylistic-formal aspects of the two intonations are discussed so as to throw light on the principal peculiarities of the compositional style of Jommelli and Terradellas.