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Friday, August 30, 2024

Isabella Colbran: The Tragic Story of Rossini’s Composer Wife

by Emily E. Hogstad, Interlude

We want to change that. So consider this a basic overview of her story while we wait for a specialized biographer to tell the full story of Isabella Colbran’s extraordinary life!

Early Childhood

Isabella Colbran

Isabella Colbran

Isabella Colbran was born on February 2, 1785, in Madrid, Spain. Her father was Giovanni Colbran, the head musician in Charles III’s court.

She must have shown musical talent at a very early age because when she was only six years old, she began studying music (specifically, voice and composition) with several of the best-known musicians in Spain, including castrati Carlo Martinelli and Girolamo Crescentini. By the time she was fourteen, she had published a book of songs. 

In 1801, when she was sixteen, she moved to Paris with her father and began working in Napoleon’s court. Later, father and daughter traveled throughout Europe, eventually choosing to settle in Italy.

Throughout her twenties, she was one of the most celebrated singers in the world, a favorite of royalty, the aristocracy, and other powerful people alike.

Life in Italy

In 1807, when Colbran was twenty-two, she made her debut at La Scala in Milan. Italy, she found, agreed with her.

That same year, she gave a concert that scholars believe fifteen-year-old Gioachino Rossini likely attended. He was studying music in Bologna at the time, and he almost certainly wouldn’t have passed up the chance to see her.

French writer Stendhal described her as “a beauty of the most imposing sort; with large features that are superb on the stage, magnificent stature, blazing eyes, à la crircassienne, a forest of the most beautiful jet-black hair, and, finally, an instinct for tragedy. As soon as she appeared [on stage] wearing a diadem on her head, she commanded involuntary respect even from people who had just left her in the foyer.”

Life in Naples

Rossini - Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra - Isabella Colbran as Elisabetta

Rossini – Elisabetta regina d’Inghilterra – Isabella Colbran as Elisabetta

At the height of her creative power, she made a couple of fateful decisions.

First, she signed a seven-year contract with the Theatro di San Carlo in Naples.

She also embarked on a relationship with the powerful Domenico Barbaia, one of the savviest impresarios in Italy. This helped to guarantee her fame…and crush the local competition, which was never going to compete with Barbaia’s mistress.

In 1815, Barbaia, always on the lookout for new talent, hired Rossini to write an opera about Queen Elizabeth I. The decision would have both personal and professional repercussions. Twenty-three-year-old Gioachino Rossini was just beginning his career as an opera composer, and this was an extraordinary opportunity to write for one of the great voices of her generation. Between 1815 and 1823, he wrote eighteen operas for Colbran: an average of one every six months.

Not surprisingly, given how closely they were working together, sparks flew. Colbran broke things off with Barbaia and committed to Rossini instead. His relationship with her would prove life-changing.

Life With Rossini

In 1820, Colbran and Rossini collaborated on his most daring work yet: an opera called Maometto II, about a real-life Ottoman Sultan from the fifteenth century. 

He made some bold artistic and structural choices. One of them was that toward the end of the opera, Colbran sang for over half an hour, never leaving the stage during that time.

The year was a fraught one, both personally and politically.

First, Colbran’s father died. One sign of how close Rossini and Colbran were at this time was that Rossini bought a cemetery plot for her father. This suggests that he thought of Colbran not as a temporary mistress but as a long-term partner, even if they hadn’t legally wed yet. In his will, Colbran’s father left his daughter a villa outside of Bologna. (This would become important later.)

That same year, there was also an attempted coup against the monarchy in Naples. Political instability in Naples, combined with the failure of his 1819 opera Ermione (a production that, of course, Colbran had starred in), convinced the couple it was time to leave.

Marrying Rossini

In November 1821, Rossini wrote to his father that he and Colbran were engaged.

After the first run of his opera Zelmira in February 1822, Rossini and Colbran traveled to Bologna, where, on 16 March 1822, the two were married in a church outside of town. She was thirty-seven, and he was thirty.

From this point on, Rossini began controlling pretty much every major aspect of Colbran’s life: from the money she had earned during her career to the property she had inherited. This legal and financial powerlessness of married women was common, but it must have been stressful for Colbran to feel her agency dwindling.

That season, Domenico Barbaia decided he wanted to bring the Naples opera company to Vienna. So the newlyweds traveled to Vienna together, and they were a great success. Prince Metternich, a powerful conservative statesman, was a big fan of Rossini’s operas, and six were mounted over the course of three months.

The End of Colbran’s Career

Girolamo Crescentini

Girolamo Crescentini

However, storm clouds were brewing. Rossini wrote in his letters that Colbran was experiencing stage fright because she felt as if the quality of her voice was deteriorating.

While his wife worried for her career, Rossini threw himself into the Viennese music scene. He heard Beethoven’s Eroica symphony and met with the composer, who implored him to write more comedy…a genre he had largely ignored because Colbran’s strengths lay in drama.

Within months after their marriage, Rossini got to work on another opera for his wife called Semiramide, which premiered in Venice in February 1823. 

Unfortunately, Colbran got bad reviews. As she feared, her voice was indeed deteriorating, and critics and audiences were noticing that she was having more and more trouble staying in tune.

In 1824, her lost voice forced her to retire from the stage for good.

Colbran’s Final Years

In 1830, Rossini’s widowed father moved into the villa that Colbran had inherited. Neither daughter-in-law nor father-in-law was particularly thrilled about this arrangement, but both grit their teeth and bore it.

Meanwhile, Rossini was gone most of the time in Paris, working and dealing with financial issues. He was unfaithful, cheating on his wife multiple times. Eventually he began seeing Parisian courtesan Olympe Pélissier, who evolved into a long-term partner.

He ended up suffering from a bout of gonorrhea, and at some point, Colbran became sick with it, too. Worse, she developed complications. During her illness, with no career to pursue, she sought distraction in gambling, a habit that quickly turned disastrous.

Needing an artistic outlet, she also returned to composing during this time. By the end of her life, she had composed four books of songs, dedicating them to Maria Luisa of Parma, Louise of Baden, Queen of Naples Julie Clary, and her castrato teacher Girolamo Crescentini.

She and Rossini broke up sometime in the 1830s and made their separation official in 1837. That same year, Colbran met Pélissier for the first time. Rossini scholar Denise Gallo writes that Rossini’s wife and mistress developed “a polite relationship.”

However, for what it’s worth, Rossini didn’t entirely abandon Colbran. He paid her money, and even though he was completely emotionally and physically absent, he apparently ensured she had high-quality medical care.

Meanwhile, according to legend, Colbran never fell out of love with her husband.

Colbran’s Death

In August 1845, Rossini heard that his former wife’s health was dangerously bad. In September, he went to the villa with Pélissier to see her for the final time. He emerged from Colbran’s chambers crying. Nobody knows what they said to each other.

After Colbran died on 7 October 1845, he sold her villa, unwilling to ever return. Although he composed intermittently and privately later on, Isabella Colbran’s death coincided with the ceasing of his heretofore productive creative life.

Niccolò Jommelli: Sinfonia in E-flat major





Niccolò Jommelli: Sinfonia in E-flat major
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Allegro di molto: 0:00
Chaconne: 1:48

Violin: Stéphanie Paulet, Meelis Orgse, Javier Lupiáñez, Saaya Ikenoya, Antonio de Sarlo, Anna Stankiewicz, Camilo Cuellar
Viola: Alice Vaz, Luis Miguel Pinzón Acosta
Violoncello: Néstor Fabián Cortés Garzón, Azzurra Raneri
Double Bass: Juan Díaz
Traverso: Felipe Egaña, Isabelle Raphaelis
Oboe: Olga Marulanda, Paulina Gómez
Bassoon: Jeong-Guk Lee
Horn: Gerard Serrano, Pepe Reche
Lute: Hugo Miguel de Rodas Sánchez
Harpsichord: Nadine Remmert
Percussion: Tobias Hamann

Camera: Tobias Hentze, Hendrik Röhrs
Audio: Elisabeth Kemper www.arcantus-musikproduktion.de
Video: Tobias Hentze www.tobiashentze.de
 
Recorded at “Unser Lieben Frauen Church”, Bremen on November 12th, 2022

Niccolò Jommelli

by Georg Predota

Niccolò Jommelli

Niccolò Jommelli

The above quote originates in a letter from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to his father Leopold. Mozart was in Naples in 1770 and had just seen a performance of Armida abbandonata, judging it beautiful but rather old fashioned. Mozart’s opinion notwithstanding, Jommelli was considered one of the leading operatic composers in Europe in his day.

Born in Naples, Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774) composed roughly 80 operas and a substantial corpus of church music. He worked in Rome, Bologna, and Venice, and visited Vienna to strike up a friendship with the librettist Metastasio. Appointed Kapellmeister to the Duke of Württemberg, he spent over 15 years in Stuttgart before returning to Naples. 

Legacy and Beginnings

An important transitional figure, Jommelli was anticipating the mid-18th-century operatic reforms, gradually abandoning da capo arias and introducing dramatic recitative. According to scholars, his greatest achievements represent “a combination of German complexity, French decorative elements and Italian brio, welded together by an extraordinary gift for dramatic effectiveness.”

Jommelli came from a wealthy merchant family, and having shown early talent for music, began his training under Canon Muzzillo, director of music at the local cathedral. After further studies at the Naples Conservatory, Jommelli began his public career with two comic operas for Naples in 1737 and 1738. A contemporary composer exclaimed, “this young man will claim the astonishment and admiration of all Europe.” 

Early Successes

Teatro italiano. Metatasio . Didone abbandonata, drammi di P.

Teatro italiano. Metatasio . Didone abbandonata, drammi di P.

The resounding success of his first serious opera Il Ricimero, staged in Rome in 1740, brought him to the attention of the seriously wealthy and influential patron, Cardinal Henry Benedict, Duke of York. An early enthusiast wrote, “This young man promises to go far and to equal before long all that was ever done by the great masters. He has strength as well as taste and delicacy; he possesses a basic understanding of harmony, which he displays with astonishing richness.”

But, what really impressed audiences was Jommelli’s handling of the obbligato recitative. At the Conservatory, Jommelli had been a student of Johann Hasse, a composer who experimented with motivic orchestral writing to create an intensified emotional effect at theatrical movement. Jommelli took that idea on board and “the force of the declamation, the variety of the harmony and the sublimity of the accompaniment created a sense of drama greater than the best French recitative and the most beautiful of Italian melody.” 

Bologna and Venice

Libretto of Didone abbandonata

Didone abbandonata’s libretto

After the success of his first opera for Rome, Jommelli moved to Bologna to work with famed librettist Pietro Metastasio on a production of Ezio, and took lessons with “Padre” Martini. For roughly two years, Jommelli wrote operas for a variety of northern Italian cities, including Vencie, Turin, Ferrara, and Padua. He also wrote two widely performed oratorios, Isacco figura del Redentore and La Betulia liberata.

Around 1743, Jommelli received, on Hasse’s recommendation, his first permanent position in Venice. He was appointed musical director of the Ospedale degli Incurabile, one of the city’s conservatories for girls. He composed music for church services and sacred works for women’s voices in a great variety of movement types, keys, choruses, arias and ensembles. 

Rome

In addition, he continued to compose for the theatre, with the characteristics of his mature style emerging. According to scholars, elements of that style include “the incursion of declamatory elements in the aria, audacious harmonic effects, abundant modulations, chromaticism, and the exploration of orchestral resources such as the use of the second violin as an independent textural element, the occasional independent viola parts, the abundant dynamic indications and the development of the crescendo effect.”

Jommelli departed for Rome around 1747 and was soon employed at the Papal Chapel. In this position, he composed a prodigious amount of liturgical music, including sacred works for soloists and chorus in the concertato style. He also received commissions to write a number of cantatas and theatrical pieces for special occasions, and he took advantage of several opportunities to write comic opera.

Vienna

In Rome, Jommelli met Cardinal Albani, which secured him a commission in Vienna. He probably stayed for a year and a half, and his operas were considered “unrivalled in their ability to seize the heart of the listener with delicate and sensitive melodies.” In fact, the early Viennese symphonists, among them Dittersdorf and Wagenseil, later acknowledged Jommelli’s influence on the formation of their symphonic style.

Jommelli returned to Rome and had a demanding schedule of opera composition. Over the next four years, he secured commissions from Rome, Spoleto, Milan, Piacenza and Turin. His “concern for the musical realisation of textual imagery found expression not only in a subtly responsive vocal line but also in orchestral word-painting, in sensitive textural variation suited to the changing moods of the poetry, and in programmatic effects.” 

Stuttgart

Niccolò Jommelli's autograph

Niccolò Jommelli’s autograph

By 1753, Jommelli was at the height of his fame. He had already received offers for positions in Mannheim and Lisbon, but he was hired by the Duke of Württemberg to join the court in Stuttgart. Italian opera was well established, and by 1754, he assumed the duties of Kapellmeister at the Stuttgart court. Stuttgart had spared no expense to attract the best instrumentalists, singers, dancers, and designers.

Jommelli quickly understood the dramatic possibilities of the orchestra, and he built one of the finest ensembles in Europe. In his operas, he radically departed from the traditional succession of recitatives and exit arias. Librettos were based on mythology rather than historical subjects, and the librettos freely “combined obbligato recitative, aria, ensemble, chorus and programmatic orchestral music in dramatic scene complexes and spectacular, French-inspired finales.” 

Historical Position

The Stuttgart operas of Jommelli secured his position as one of the reformers of 18th-century opera. He used music to express the poetry, moving away from the da capo aria as a vehicle of vocal virtuosity. Instruments are used in recitative to interpret the words, and the lines between recitative and aria continue to blur. Equally important, the orchestra is used to advance the dramatic argument.

Jommelli was greatly appreciated by German critics, but Italian voices were less enthusiastic. Once Jommelli returned to Naples in 1768, opera buffa had become extremely popular and Jommelli’s opera seria were not well received. Jommelli suffered a stroke in 1771 and was partially paralysed. He continued to work until his death on 25 August 1774. 

Recognition

Immediately after his death, Jommelli was regarded as one of the greatest composers of his time. As the music journalist and philosopher Schubert wrote, “If richness of thought, glittering fantasy, inexhaustible melody, heavenly harmony, deep understanding of all instruments, and particularly the full magical strength of the human voice—if great art affects entirely each chord of the human heart, if all these—yet combined with the sharpest understanding of musical poetry—constitute a musical genius, then in Jommelli Europe has lost its greatest composer.”