Ancient Rome in Early Opera (review)

This book discusses operas based on themes drawn from Roman history over the period from Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643) to c.1800, after which operatic taste moved away from this subject matter. Ketterer demonstrates that "Rome provided early modern Europe with impressive visual and aural presentations of two important myths, which I call the myth of the clement prince and the myth of liberty" (2), because these myths reflected central preoccupations of educated, operagoing audiences during the period before and up to shortly after the French Revolution. The book traces the development of ideas, and therefore of the preoccupations of opera librettists and composers, throughout this period, after which there are virtually no more Roman operas (though Berlioz's midnineteenth century masterpiece Les Troyens should have received at least an honorable mention, even if it is based on epic rather than history).

Ketterer's book is primarily a study in what some scholars refer to as "librettology." He rightly observes that libretti were in this period important in their own right, and the most popular ones were set many times by different composers. As a result, the average contemporary operagoer is likely to have actually seen only three of the many operas discussed here: L'incoronazione di Poppea, Handel's Giulio Cesare, and Mozart's setting of an adapted version of Metastasio's highly popular La clemenza di Tito, as the opera seria to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II as king of Bohemia in 1791. And, as a further result, consideration of the music of opera is comparatively rare in this book, and considerably circumscribed; almost the only aspect of Monteverdi's great opera to be discussed is the use of the stile concertato, and elsewhere, comment on musical settings is largely confined to value judgments on the quality of the settings of particular passages of the text.

However, this limitation is more than adequately compensated for by the quality of Ketterer's consideration of texts. In each case, a concise exposition of the Roman source material and the essence of the original story precedes the discussion of the uses for which operatic librettists employed it to reflect the concerns of their contemporaries. Ketterer deftly separates various aspects of classical thought and the extent to which they influenced the content of opera texts—in particular Neoplatonism, from which the Renaissance gained a sense of yearning to return to "the upper spheres of fire and light" (24), and Stoicism, which influenced the portrayal of Seneca in L'incoronazione di Poppea. (Nonetheless, Ketterer rightly argues that the triumph of Amor in the union of Nerone and Poppea is gloriously celebrated, and is therefore central to the opera.) Stoicism then became a principal theme in operas based on the stories of Scipio Africanus and Cato. An extended and excellent analysis of Minato's text for Scipione affricano (chapter 3) foregrounds the continence of Scipione, and his struggles against his erotic feelings and the temptation to abuse his power.

I am not at all sure about the discussion of the closing scenes of Handel's Agrippina. Ketterer has to juggle complex factors, including the wealth of associations surrounding the character of Ottone, the possibility that Handel's music undermines the final reconciliation of Ottone and Poppea, and the heavy shadow of actual subsequent Roman history, which hangs over the happy ending for the couple; as the author notes, "Agrippina was supposed to have poisoned Claudius, Nero pursued Poppea, exiled Ottone, and killed both Agrippina and Poppea herself " (75).

Scipio returns as the leading character in Zeno's libretto for Scipio nelle Spagne (1710), in which the clement prince myth is first seen fully developed. Ketterer argues that in this libretto (as in Poppea) there is a Stoic character—Luceio as a surrogate Cato, conquering his own desires and able to renounce his passion for Sophonisba, and accept his own death, so his sworn friend Scipione may take her as his wife. Apart from Luceio, this libretto also contains the...