Filial Enchaînements Metastasio, ‘Per quel paterno amplesso’ (Arbace), Artaserse, Act II

Abstract

In the case of miniatures, in contrast to what happens when we try to understand an object or living creature of real dimensions, knowledge of the whole precedes knowledge of the parts. And even if this is an illusion, the point of the procedure is to create or sustain the illusion, which gratifies the intelligence and gives rise to a sense of pleasure which can already be called aesthetic on these grounds alone. Claude Lévi-Strauss, 'The Science of the Concrete' Whether we think of an aria as a 'miniature' or not, the analyst's temptation to synecdoche is ever-present: great arias can, at times, stand for great operas or their composers, just as great composers have stood for their epochs. While monumentalising the composer is now passé, the lapidary quality of a muchloved aria still invites singular attentiveness. When the arias and operas are not canonic familiars, however, their distillatory comfort is denied us-we must instead view the piece from less customary perspectives. In the eighteenth century, the Italian operatic canon was, it seems, literary rather than musical: it was Metastasio. Thus while Rousseau advised young composers seeking inspiration to 'take up Metastasio and set to work', Charles Burney felt his 'musical annals' were completed only by study of Metastasio's letters. 1 But the narrative of literature's pre-eminence over music is, of course, not so simple, as the story of an aria from Metastasio's most celebrated opera, Artaserse, might show. Here I want to discuss not that invitation to virtuosity, 'Vò solcando un mar crudele', Leonardo Vinci's original setting of which (for Rome in 1730) was still admired at the end of the century. 2 If 'Vò solcando' might suggest that aria settings-and indeed operas-could achieve something like canonic status in the period, another from the opera offers a more complicated view. Metastasio's 'Per quel paterno amplesso', set by Vinci (like 'Vò solcando') for his primo uomo, Giovanni Carestini, in the role of Arbace, was heavily altered for Johann Adolf Hasse's setting of the opera, which premiered in Venice less than two weeks later with Metastasio's dear friend, Farinelli, as the primo uomo: Metastasio, set by Vinci, Rome 1730 Per quel paterno amplesso Per questo estremo addio, Conservami te stesso, Placami l'idol mio, Difendimi il mio Rè. Vado a morir beato, Se della Persia il fato Tutto si sfoga in me.