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Ercole amante

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Title page of the 1662 libretto

Ercole amante (Hercules in Love, French: Hercule amoureux) is an opera in a prologue and five acts by Francesco Cavalli. Its Italian libretto is by Francesco Buti, based on Sophocles' The Trachiniae and on the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The first performance took place on 7 February 1662 in the Salle des Machines of the Tuileries in Paris.

Background

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Cardinal Mazarin commissioned the opera to celebrate the June 1660 wedding of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain, but preparations for the staging were on a grand scale and caused a twenty-month delay, irritating the composer. Worse for him, eighteen ballet entrées and intermèdes by Isaac de Benserade with music Jean-Baptiste Lully were inserted, mostly at the ends of Cavalli's acts, to cater to French taste. These were not merely diversions but also served to further the plot,[1] and in the event they met with greater approval from the audience than Ercole amante itself, helping boost Lully's position at the French court.

Performance history

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After its premiere the opera was given another seven times: 14 and 18 February; 18, 22, 25, and 29 April; and 6 May. The theatre was built specifically to present the opera, and if the construction costs of the theatre are included, it was the most expensive of the French court's theatrical productions mounted up to that point.[2]

Roles

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Roles, voice type, premiere cast
Role Voice type Premiere cast, 7 February 1662[3]
Cinzia, prologue soprano castrato Giuseppe Meloni
Ercole bass Vincenzo Piccini
Deianira, Ercole's wife soprano Leonora Ballarini
Hyllo, son of Ercole tenor Giuseppe Agostino Poncelli
Iole soprano Anna Bergerotti
La bellezza soprano Anne de La Barre
Giunone soprano castrato (en travesti) Antonio Rivani
Mercurio tenor Signor Tagliavacca
Nettuno bass Paolo Bordigone[4]
Venere soprano Hylaire Dupuis
Tevere bass Signor Beauchamps
Shade of Eutyro bass Paolo Bordigone
Licco contralto castrato Giuseppe Chiarini
Shade of King Laomedonte tenor Signor Vulpio
Shade of Bussiride contralto castrato Signor Zanetto
Shade of Queen Clerica soprano Anne de La Barre
Pasithea soprano Signora Bordoni
Sonno silent actor
Paggio soprano

Recordings

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Audio

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Video

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References

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Notes

  1. ^ Clinkscale 1992; Coeyman 1998, p. 55
  2. ^ Coeyman 1998, p. 55.
  3. ^ Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "Ercole amante, 7 February 1662". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
  4. ^ An alternative spelling is Bordigoni, according to the Großes Sängerlexikon.
  5. ^ Erato CD (1996, 1981) OCLC 954346914.
  6. ^ David Fallows, "Cavalli. Ercole amante [review]", Gramophone, October 1980, p. 533.
  7. ^ Opus Arte Blu-ray (2010) OCLC 658079891.
  8. ^ Mike Ashman, "Cavalli, Ercole amante: An action-packed early French opera that is a riot of colour and creativity", Gramophone, June 2010, pp. 100–101.
  9. ^ Naxos Blu-ray (2020) OCLC 1224482311
  10. ^ David Vickers, "Cavalli, Ercole amante [review of 2019 production by Pygmalion]", Gramophone, May 2021, pp. 74–75.

Sources

  • Clinkscale, Martha Novak (1992). "Ercole amante". In Stanley Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. London. ISBN 0-333-73432-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Coeyman, Barbara (1998). "Opera and Ballet in Seventeenth-Century French Theatres: Case Studies of the Salle des Machines and the Palais Royal Theater". In Radice, Mark A. (ed.). Opera in Context: Essays on Historical Staging from the Late Renaissance to the Time of Puccini. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. pp. 37–71. ISBN 9781574670325.
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