FRANCESCO ALGAROTTI

Preface

The middle decades of the eighteenth century saw a lively debate over the principles and practice of opera. The origins of the debate lay in the recent invention of comic opera, which, in all its national manifestations as opera buffa, opéra comique, Ballad Opera and Singspiel, revealed a new approach to plot, expression and production. Critics began to measure heroic opera (which existed both as opera seria and tragédie lyrique) against the characteristics of the comic genre, and advocated the adoption of a simple narrative, uncluttered by sub-plots and minor characters, a more “natural” vocal expression, that placed more emphasis on communicating the meaning of the words rather than displaying the virtuosity of the singers, and stage movement, both for singers and dancers, that derived from the gestures of everyday life rather than from classical statuary.

There were many notable contributors to the debate. Some of these were philosophers of the arts: Antonio Planelli¹ and Esteban de Arteaga² in Italy, John Brown³ and James Beattie⁴ in England, and Charles de Blainville⁵ and Denis Diderot⁶ in France. Others were creative artists, able to put theory into practice: the librettists Ranieri de’ Calzabigi⁷ and François Louis du Roullet,⁸ the choreographer Gasparo Angiolini,⁹ the stage designer Fabrizio Galliari,¹⁰ and a succession of bold and innovative composers, ←ix | x→including Tommaso Traetta,¹¹ Christoph Gluck¹² and Mozart.¹³ Algarotti’s Saggio is central to the debate: it deals with all the major issues; it was the most widely quoted of all the texts; and it addresses opera both as a philosophical conundrum and as a living theatrical experience. Although he was concerned with the theory of each constituent part of opera, Algarotti’s writing reveals much practical experience in the opera house. He is knowledgeable about voices and orchestras. His advice on theatre construction from the point of view of design, acoustics and sight-lines is still valid. And he supports his criticism of contemporary librettos by offering two models (neither of which was ever set): a detailed scenario for Enea in Troia and a complete libretto (in French) for Iphigénie en Aulide.

At the heart of the debate on opera was the often expressed desire to return opera to its inspirational origins – the simplicity and power of ancient Greek drama. Algarotti in particular was seized by this neo-classical agenda. It must, of course, be pure coincidence that the first edition of the Saggio was published in the same year that the pioneer of neo-classicism, the art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, undertook his momentous journey to Rome. Algarotti’s essay is, however, infused by the same passionate rediscovery of the noble simplicity, balance and order of classical art. Like Winckelmann, Algarotti might well have said that it was only after contemplating examples of classical beauty that he learned what it was to be alive.

Although the various editions of Algarotti’s essay in the original Italian have recently been published in facsimile (see bibliography) the English translation of the 1763 edition has never been reprinted, and copies are rare outside the big research libraries. It deserves to be better known. It is essential reading for anyone investigating currents in Enlightenment philosophy that relate to opera, and moreover the translation, tantalisingly anonymous, is an especially engaging one, evoking at times the vigorous expression of a Fielding or a Smollett, at others the appealing directness of a Goldsmith (whom the editor cautiously proposes as the identity of the ←x | xi→translator). I particularly welcome this carefully edited edition. Algarotti peopled his text with many references to eighteenth century personalities, some celebrated, some obscure: it is good to have these explained in the editorial footnotes, together with the additional resource of Algarotti’s footnotes from the edition of 1764. Heroic opera is still a misunderstood genre. Commentaries such as Algarotti’s can only deepen our knowledge of its reception in its own time and our understanding of how one acutely sensitive contemporary enthusiast could find in it that ‘combination of a thousand pleasures … so extraordinary <that> our world has nothing to equal it’ [from the Conclusion to the Essay].