Durazzo, Duni, and the Frontispiece to Orfeo ed Euridice

Durazzo, Duni, and the FrontispiecezyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZY to Orfeo ed Euridice BRUCE ALAN BROWNNMLKJIHGFEDCBA 1 he preeminent position of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) in the mid­ eighteenth-century reform of serious opera is undisputed. While other works — notably by Mattia Verazi and Niccolo Jommelli in Stuttgart, Carlo Frugoni and Tommaso Traetta in Parma (and Traetta in Vienna itself) —may have anticipated it to some degree, Orfeo was the first truly uncompromising answer to the challenge laid down by Francesco Algarotti in his Saggio sopra Fopera in musica of 1755, and even more concretely in the anonymous Lettre sur le mechanisme de Fopera italien, published the following year: to create “un Opera, qui ne sera ni Francois ni Italien, mais un compose de Fun & de l’autre, purge des defauts de tous le deux. . . ’” The artistic success of the opera was due in large measure to the efforts of Count Giacomo Durazzo, theatrical intendant in Vienna, who was able to coordinate the contributions of poet, composer, and choreographer; dancers, chorus, and vocal soloists (drawn from the two companies under his control) without engendering the personal jealou­ sies and imbalances of components that chronically afflicted public opera in Italy.2 The Genoan Count was also responsible for Orfeo's almost immediate recognition, across Europe, as the masterpiece it was. Having already cultivated extensive connections in Paris —chiefly through his theatrical and literary correspondent, the playwright Charles Simon Favart —Durazzo ensured that Gluck’s opera would receive ample 71 72 / BROWN treatment in the press, including Abbe Arnaud’s widely-read fedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONM Journal etranger. These same resources he used also to put Orfeo before the world in a sumptuously engraved score. The first edition of Orfeo has received much attention since its appear­ ance, principally on account of a notorious case of plagiarism that resulted from it. Asked by Favart to proofread the score sent by Durazzo from Vienna, the composer Francois Andre Danican Philidor used the opportunity to pilfer Orpheus’s first solo air, inserting it (retexted) as a romance in his opera-comique Le Sorrier, which was given its premiere in January of 1764. Although this and other Philidor’s larcenies were already known during his lifetime,3 indignant critics dredged up the Sor­ rier scandal in the next century too. The lexicographer Francois-Joseph Fetis, misled by the erroneous indication “Rappresentata in Vienna, nell ’anno 1764” in the Orfeo edition, tried to turn the charge against Gluck.4 Hector Berlioz, armed with the published correspondence of Favart, set matters straight as to priority, but confused them otherwise by, on the one hand, accusing Philidor of intentionally altering the date in the score, and on the other defending his “borrowing.”5 Adolphe Jullien’s definitive words on the matter in 1878 have not prevented the issue of Philidor’s plagiarism from distracting attention from his very real contri­ butions to music, and from the Orfeo score’s significance as cultural propaganda.6 In broaching the subject of Orfeo’s first edition again, my aim is neither to cast blame on, nor to exonerate the opera-comique composer Philidor, but rather to explore the connections — both musical and visual —between this burgeoning Parisian genre and Gluck’s azione teatrale , as well as the motivations behind Durazzo’s publication of the score in Paris. The most telling evidence on these matters is to be found in the music itself, and in a collection (at the Bibliotheque de l’Opera in Paris) of some seventy letters from Durazzo to Favart, which were either omitted from the poet’s Memoires et correspondance (edited by his grandson),7 or printed with substantial deletions. Though mentioned in print in 1894,8 and used occasionally since then,9 these materials —in many ways more illuminating than the published correspondence —have yet to be taken fully into account by students of Viennese and Parisan theatrical life.10 * * * A core of essential facts concerning the process by which the Orfeo edition came about was already to be gleaned from the Favart Memoires. The poet was considerably alarmed when, after two months, the manu­ The Frontispiece tozyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Orfeo ed Euridice / 73 script score Durazzo had alerted him to expect had still not materialized...