Behind the Musik: Samuel Mariño

Tafelmusik Orchestra, on period instruments

Samuel Mariño, soprano
Directed by Julia Wedman

Performances:
May 23–25, 2025 at Koerner Hall, TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning

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Program

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Tafelmusik Orchestra, on period instruments

Access full bios for core orchestra members at tafelmusik.org/orchestra

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Program Notes

by Christopher Verrette

The glory of the soprano voice can emanate from the bodies of both children and adults, male and female. The naturally occurring mature male soprano is a relative rarity that we celebrate in these concerts. In the 18th century, the barbaric practice of performing surgery on boys in order to preserve their high vocal range into adulthood (castrato) was an accepted practice; mercifully, not an “original instrument” to be revived in our time. In opera of the period, one might encounter roles and genders seemingly at odds with each other which, together with elements of costume and disguise, can still entertain today.

The true life of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de St George, could be the subject of an opera, abundant with triumph, tragedy, and intrigue, and has been fictionalized in literature and on screen. His many skills, artistic and athletic, were legendary, while his identity as a biracial man could be used against him. As a musician, he was best known as a virtuoso violinist, and we include a lyrical movement from one of his violin concertos, recast as a dialogue for two violins. His interests eventually turned toward opera, despite the indignity of being rejected for the leadership of the Paris Opera (on partially racist grounds). He found instead an operatic position at the private theater of Mme de Montesson (wife of the influential Duc d’Orléans,) where the standards were of the highest order, and he may have found a kindred spirit in his patroness, who was forbidden from using the title Duchess due to her low birth.

L’amant anonyme is the only surviving opera of the six he is known to have written. The opening of Act 2 finds the heroine of the opera, a young widow, in an exasperated state, as she is being courted simultaneously by a platonic friend and an “Anonymous One” (who turns out to be the same person). Dramatic recitative is used at this moment, with lots of turbulent notes in the violins, even though there is spoken dialogue throughout the opera.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Il re pastore was composed in 1775 for a visit to Salzburg by Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria, younger brother of Marie Antoinette, newly crowned Queen of France. While Mozart normally wrote for female singers in Salzburg, in this case the lead role went to a visiting castrato, Tommaso Consoli. The overture segues directly into a pastoral aria, in which the title character, heir to the throne of Sidon, is in the guise of a shepherd, singing to a river about his lover.

The libretto was by Pietro Metastasio, the go-to author of Italian operas whose texts were set over and over again by many composers. He lived for many years in the Vienna home of the Martines family. At one point, the young Haydn was living in the leaky attic of the building and gave keyboard lessons to the young Marianna Martines. The aged opera composer Nicola Porpora was also living in the building and instructed her in singing while employing Haydn as accompanist.

Marianna Martines herself went on to host salons that attracted the finest of musicians, including Mozart, with whom she played piano duets. Her gifts as a composer were recognized early and were nurtured by her housemates and other illustrious composers. She wrote large-scale oratorios and masses, as well as cantatas and keyboard works. The Andantino on this week’s program is the middle movement of her Overture in C Major, composed in 1770, and considered by some to be the first symphonic work written by a woman.

Mozart’s Symphony no. 10 was probably written the same year, during his first sojourn to Italy, where he was introduced to Padre Martini and other mentors, and began to write his first operas in Italian.

In 1785, Mozart embarked on a new collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte: an adaptation of Beaumarchais’ scandalous play Le Mariage de Figaro, which had recently received its Paris premiere after a three-year ban. The role of the Countess Almaviva was originated by Luisa Laschi, a rising star in the Viennese operatic scene. In her third act soliloquy, she catalogues the frustrations and humiliations she has endured at the hand her lecherous husband. The aria “Dove sono” initially captures her nostalgia for happier times, but makes a dramatic change of character and tempo as she sings of her desire to win him back.

Maximilian Joseph III, Elector of Bavaria, inaugurated a tradition of operas set to Metastasio at the Munich Carnival celebrations. Antonio Salieri wrote Semiramide for this event in 1782, one year after Mozart premiered Idomeneo there. The title role was taken by Elisabeth Wendling (who had appeared as Elettra in Idomeneo). At the start of the drama, Semiramide is ruling Babylon disguised as her own son. “Sente l’amica speme” comes at a point where she has rekindled her love for a man who had previously left her for dead. Solo flute, oboe, and bassoon are featured prominently, notably in an extended cadenza with the soprano soloist.

Armida was a major stepping stone in the career of Salieri. Its overture has a distinctive form: a slow opening using a great deal of unison and pauses, followed by a vigorous fast section, and finally, a relaxed pastoral movement.

In 1755, while Kapellmeister in Vienna, Christoph Willibald Gluck was invited to write Antigono for the Teatro Argentina in Rome (his only premiere there) to a libretto by Metastasio. Local regulation demanded an all-male cast, which included no fewer than five castrati. The extended scene for Berenice, an Egyptian princess and love interest of Antigono, is unlike anything else in the opera, displaying a wide array of accompanimental textures, and passing through many keys and emotional states. Gluck was awarded the Order of the Golden Spur (which Mozart would later receive at the age of 14) by the pope shortly after this production.

Maria Antonia Walpurgis of Bavaria (older sister of the aforementioned Elector) became by marriage Electress of Saxony. The court in Dresden was a fitting place for someone so educated in the arts. Her talents were such that she not only wrote the music and libretto for her opera Talestri, but performed the title role as well. She even managed to get it published, albeit under a pseudonym, unusual for a female composer at that time. The Dresden court orchestra was perhaps the finest in Europe at this time, and we have reimagined the aria “Da me ti dividi” as a solo for cello and orchestra.

“Che faro senza Euridice” remains a favourite aria to this day from one of Gluck’s most famous operas, Orfeo ed Euridice. It was originally sung by a castrato in the Italian version for Vienna; when it was revived in French for Paris, the role of Orpheus went to an haute-contre (high tenor).

Joseph Haydn is not particularly noted for his operatic output (easily overshadowed by his symphonies and quartets, for example), but the production and composition of opera was, in fact, a major part of his employment with the Esterházy family. Armida was his last and (as he said himself) best work in the genre, and one that enjoyed some success beyond the remote Hungarian court. The libretto is an amalgam of texts derived from Tasso’s 1591 poem “Jerusalem Delivered,” telling the tale of a sorceress who falls in love with her enemy, the Crusader Rinaldo. In the closing recitative and aria of Act II, scene 1, she builds herself into a rage when he abandons her for his mission.