L'Arianna

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L'Arianna
Opera by Claudio Monteverdi

Titian's depiction, painted 152023,

ofBacchus's arrival on Naxos. This scene forms
the climax of the opera.
Librettist Ottavio Rinuccini
Languag Italian
e
Based on Ariadne's abandonment by
Theseus
Premiere 28 May 1608
Mantua
L'Arianna (English: Ariadne) (SV 291), composed in 16071608, was the
second opera by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi. One of the earliest
operas, it was first performed on 28 May 1608, as part of the musical festivities
for a royal wedding at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua. All the
music is lost apart from the extended recitative known as "Lamento d'Arianna"
("Ariadne's Lament"). The libretto, which survives complete, was written in eight
scenes by Ottavio Rinuccini, who usedOvid's Heroides and other classical sources
to relate the story of Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus on the island
of Naxos and her subsequent elevation as bride to the god Bacchus.
The opera was composed under severe pressure of time; the composer later said
that the effort of creating it almost killed him. The initial performance, produced
with lavish and innovative special effects, was highly praised, and the work was
equally well received in Venice when it was revived under the composer's
direction in 1640 as the inaugural work for the Teatro San Mois.

Rinuccini's libretto is available in a number of editions. The music of the

"Lamento" survives because it was published by Monteverdi, in several different
versions, independently from the opera. This fragment became a highly
influential musical work and was widely imitated; the "expressive lament"
became an integral feature of Italian opera for much of the 17th century. In
recent years the "Lamento" has become popular as a concert and recital piece
and has been frequently recorded. A new completion of the "Lamento", which
includes a setting of the surviving texts of the choruses to new music by Scottish
composer Gareth Wilson (b. 1976), was performed at King's College, London
University, on 29 November 2013, the 370th anniversary of Monteverdi's death.
In about 1590 Claudio Monteverdi, born in Cremona in 1567, secured a position
as a viol player at the Mantuan court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga.[1] Over the
following ten years he advanced to become the duke's maestro della musica.[2]
[3]
During that time, significant developments were taking place in the world of
musical theatre; in 1598 the work generally recognised as the first in the new
genre of "opera"Jacopo Peri's Dafnewas performed in Florence.[4] The duke
was quick to recognise the potential of this new musical form, and its potential
for bringing prestige to those willing to sponsor it. [5]
As part of his duties to the Gonzaga court, Monteverdi was often required to
compose or arrange music for staged performances. These works included a
fully-fledged opera, L'Orfeo, written to a libretto by Alessandro Striggio the
Younger and presented before the court on 24 February 1607. This performance
pleased the duke, who ordered a repeat showing for 1 March. [6] A contemporary
account records that the piece "could not have been done better ... The music,
observing due propriety, serves the poetry so well that nothing more beautiful is
to be heard anywhere".[7] Monteverdi was then required to write several pieces
for performance at the wedding of the duke's son and heir Francesco, planned for
early May 1608.[8] These included a musical prologue for Battista Guarini's
play L'idropica and a setting of the dramatic ballet Il ballo delle ingrate ("Dance
of the Ungrateful Ladies"), with a text by Ottavio Rinuccini. There was also to be
an opera, though it was not initially certain that Monteverdi would provide this.
Other works under consideration were Peri's Le nozze di Peleo e Titede ("The
marriage of Peleus and Thetis") with a libretto by Francesco Cini, and a new
setting of Dafne by Marco da Gagliano. In the event, the former was rejected and
the latter designated for performance at the 160708 Carnival. The duke decreed
that the wedding opera should be based on the myth of Arianna (Ariadne), and
that Rinuccini should write the text. Monteverdi was instructed to provide the
music.[9]
Composition[edit]
Monteverdi probably began composing in late October or early November 1607,
since Rinuccini's arrival in Mantua can be dated to 23 October. With rehearsals
due to begin in the new year, Monteverdi composed the work in a hurry and
under considerable pressure; [n 1] nearly 20 years later he was still complaining, in
a letter to Striggio, of the hardships he had been made to suffer: "It was the
shortness of time that brought me almost to death's door in writing L'Arianna".[17]
Monteverdi had apparently completed the score by early January, and rehearsals
began. However, his work was not over as he was required to write further music

when the work was extended after Rossi's intervention. Among the material
added or lengthened were the early scene between Venus and Cupid, and
Jupiter's blessing from heaven at the end of the opera. [14][15] In March 1608, well
into the rehearsal period, the opera's scheduled performance was jeopardised by
the death, from smallpox, of the leading soprano Caterina Martinelli.
[14]
Fortunately a replacement was to hand, a renowned actress and
singer, Virginia Ramponi-Andreini, known professionally as "La Florinda", who
was performing in Mantua. A courtier, Antonio Costantini, later reported that she
learned the part of Arianna in six days.[18] The musicologist Tim Carter suggests
that Arianna's lament may have been added to the opera at this late stage, to
exploit La Florinda's well-known vocal capabilities. [19]
Baptised: 15 May 1567
Died: 29 November 1643
Biography
Monteverdi's compositional career spans sixty years from the end of the
Renaissance to the early Baroque: like Beethoven two centuries later he was the
major transitional figure between two distinct musical eras.
He was the first composer to realise the potential of opera for expressing
powerful emotions, and he brought to his church music the musical innovations
of his madrigal and instrumental style that he continued to refine throughout his
lifetime.
Claudio (Giovanni Antonio) Monteverdi was born in Cremona in 1567, and
baptised probably at an age of several days on the 15th of May. Monteverdis
father Baldassare was a chemist and also practiced medicine; his mother
Maddalena (ne Zignani) died young, and Baldassare married twice more.
Claudio had one elder sister, a younger brother Giulio Cesare who also pursued a
musical career, and three more half-siblings from his fathers second marriage.
Both Claudio and Giulio Cesare received a good musical education
from MarcAntonio Ingegneri, who was maestro di cappella of Cremona
Cathedral, and whom Monteverdi would acknowledge as his teacher on the title
page of his first book of madrigals. Claudio was clearly a precociously gifted boy,
at the age of 15 sending a collection of three-part motets to be published in
Venice by the printing house of Gardane, and following these with two further
publications before he reached the age of 18, the latter of which, the volume of
three-part canzonets, was published by Ricciardo Amadino, whose printing firm
would go on to publish much of Monteverdis subsequent work.
By the time Monteverdi was ready to publish his second book of five-part
madrigals, he had evidently outstripped his teacher and was looking for a
musical posting outside Cremona; he visited Milan to obtain patronage, and
within three years he was in full-time employment as a violinist or gamba player
at the court of the Gonzaga family in Mantua. The third book of madrigals that
was published soon after show the influence of the Mantuan maestro di
cappella, Giaches de Wert, but Monteverdi's fame quickly spread and he became
one of the leading court musicians. After the death of de Wert in 1596 he was
succeeded by a more senior musician, Pallavicino, but upon his death in 1601
came Monteverdi's opportunity as musical director of the Mantuan court. In the

meantime, Monteverdi had married one of the court singers, Claudia de

Cattaneis, on 20 May 1599, who would bear him three children; Francesco
(1601?1677/78), Leonora (1603), and Massimiliano (160461).
In 1600 Monteverdi was the subject of an attack by the musical theorist Artusi,
who criticised certain of Monteverdis harmonic practices and his modern style of
word-painting, concerning works which were yet to appear in print but must have
been circulating in manuscript. In 1603 and 1605 Monteverdi published the
fourth and fifth books of madrigals, including much of the secular music he had
worked on in the previous decade at Mantua that had attracted the ire of Artusi.
The fifth book includes a brief reply to the criticism, which was amplified two
years later by Monteverdis younger brother Giulio Cesare in the introduction to
the Scherzi musicali of 1607; this only served to further popularise Monteverdis
music and enhance his fame.
Monteverdis final years at Mantua were dominated by the composition of a
series of dramatic works and unhappiness in his personal life, while the star of
his fame ascended ever further. His first opera, L'Orfeo received its successful
premiere at the beginning of 1607 during Carnival, and was followed by
commissions for a second opera, L'Arianna, and several other smaller dramatic
works including the balletto Il ballo delle ingrate. In the middle of the year
Monteverdi returned to Cremona with his wife, who having been seriously ill for
some time, was to be cared for by Monteverdis apothecary father. Claudia died
on September 10; after little more than a fortnight he was recalled to Mantua.
The inherent amount of overwork during the next year precipitated a nervous
collapse; Claudio for a time again returned to his fathers house in Cremona to
recuperate, before an angry exchange of letters resulted in a pay rise from the
Gonzagas, more or less obliging him to return to court duties. However,
Monteverdis desire to remain any longer in Mantua was effectively at an end.
The subsequent publication of the Vespro della beata Vergine in 1610 has been
sometimes interpreted by music historians as being nothing less than an
elaborate curriculum vitae, or job application for a church posting elsewhere: it
was the first sizeable collection of church music published since the motets of his
youth. The volume includes a learned six-part parody mass based on a motet
of Nicolas Gombert, written in the Renaissance polyphonic style which he
described as the prima prattica, or first practice, which strongly leans to the
Roman school of church music dominated in the previous century by Palestrina;
in August he travelled to Rome to obtain permission to dedicate the volume to
Pope Paul V. On the other hand, the Vespers music inventively fuses traditional
plainsong psalmody with the new technical innovations from Monteverdis
dramatic music, described as the seconda prattica (second practice),
interspersed with more intimate motets designed for princely chapels or
apartments, thus lending itself to the elaborate instrumental and choral
resources of Venice under the long line of maestri di cappella culminating
in Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli; following the latters death in 1611, Monteverdi
was invited to perform for the procurators of the Basilica of San Marco.
Monteverdi succeeded, and in 1613 moved to Venice, where he would remain
as maestro di cappella for the rest of his life.