Pasquale Anfossi
Encyclopedia
Bonifacio Domenico Pasquale Anfossi (5 April 1727 – February 1797) was an Italian
opera
composer
. Born in Taggia
, Liguria
, he studied with Niccolò Piccinni
and Antonio Sacchini
, and worked mainly in London
, Venice
and Rome.
He wrote more than 80 operas, both opera seria
and opera buffa
, although he concentrated on church music
, especially oratorio
s, during his last years. Anfossi died in Rome
in 1797.
at the Neapolitan
Loreto Conservatorium from 1744 to 1752, and played in an opera orchestra
for ten years. He then turned to composing, studying with Sacchini and Piccinni. The first performance of his own work, the opera buffa La Serva Spiritosa was at the Rome Carnival in 1763, though his authorship of the work was not clearly established at the time. It appears he preferred to work under his teacher Sacchini, supplementing his tutor's works. Nevertheless he made a breakthrough with his dramma giocoso
L'incognita perseguitata in 1773 in Rome.
By 1782 he had written about 30 operas, performed mainly in Venice and Rome, although on occasion also in other parts of Italy and in Vienna
. His first London performance was Il trionfo della costanza in 1782. He was engaged as musical director in London until 1786, where he performed five of his own operas and alternative versions of work by other composers; for example, Gluck's Orfeo
with supplementary music by Johann Christian Bach
and Händel
. His works were not always well received: one critic wrote "the music suffers obviously from a tiring monotony" about his last opera in London, L'inglese in Italia.
Anfossi returned to Italy, and won back Roman public opinion in 1787 with the farsa
Le pazzie de' gelosi at the Carnival. In 1789, the uninterrupted 20-year stretch of operatic composition stopped, and Anfossi restricted himself to church music. He was appointed Maestro di Capella of San Giovanni in Laterano, and held this position till his death in 1797.
and Italian
. His early work is, understandably, closely related in style to that of his teachers, Piccinni and Sacchini, with diatonic harmony and intermittently inspired melody. His orchestration style changed significantly during the course of his career; he realised more colourful effects through the use of wind instruments. Until the middle of the 1770s his opera buffa showed him to prefer the old-fashioned, pure da capo type of aria, in order to, as in his comic works, proceed to more freely shaped passages. He appeared to prefer longer passages such as finali, and he clearly had a preference for sentimental moments and phrases.
Anfossi's music was fundamentally criticised as inadequately dramatic, and weak in characterisation. His buffo characters are generally not as original as those of some of his contemporaries, such as Cimarosa and Paisiello, while his seria music has a certain stereotypical nature.
As an operatic composer, Anfossi remained forgotten for a long time, despite his great popularity with his contemporaries, because his works were overshadowed by those of Salieri, Rossini and Mozart. Nevertheless, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe staged Anfossi's farsetta La maga Circe (Circe, the Sorceress) in his role as the theatre director of Weimar
. He adapted the libretto
with Christian August Vulpius and also made plans for a continuation, which never came to bear.
Only in the last 20 years has Anfossi's work been appreciated anew, through diverse productions such as Giuseppe riconosciuto. His work was featured at the 2005 Salzburg
Summer Festival.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
. Born in Taggia
Taggia
Taggia is a comune in the Province of Imperia in the Italian region Liguria, located about 110 km southwest of Genoa and about 15 km west of Imperia. It has c...
, Liguria
Liguria
Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...
, he studied with Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni was an Italian composer of symphonies, sacred music, chamber music, and opera. Although he is somewhat obscure, even to music lovers today, Piccinni was one of the most popular composers of opera—particularly the Neapolitan opera buffa—of his day...
and Antonio Sacchini
Antonio Sacchini
Antonio Maria Gasparo Sacchini was an Italian opera composer.Sacchini was born in Florence, but was raised in Naples, where he received his musical education at the San Onofrio conservatory. He wrote his first operas in Naples, thereafter moving to Venice, then London and eventually Paris, where...
, and worked mainly in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and Rome.
He wrote more than 80 operas, both opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
and opera buffa
Opera buffa
Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...
, although he concentrated on church music
Church music
Church music may be defined as music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclestiacal liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. This article covers music in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For sacred music outside this...
, especially oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
s, during his last years. Anfossi died in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in 1797.
Career
Aiming at first to become a performer, he studied violinViolin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
at the Neapolitan
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
Loreto Conservatorium from 1744 to 1752, and played in an opera orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
for ten years. He then turned to composing, studying with Sacchini and Piccinni. The first performance of his own work, the opera buffa La Serva Spiritosa was at the Rome Carnival in 1763, though his authorship of the work was not clearly established at the time. It appears he preferred to work under his teacher Sacchini, supplementing his tutor's works. Nevertheless he made a breakthrough with his dramma giocoso
Dramma giocoso
Dramma giocoso is the name of a genre of opera common in the mid-18th century. The term is a contraction of "dramma giocoso per musica" and is essentially a description of the text rather than the opera as a whole...
L'incognita perseguitata in 1773 in Rome.
By 1782 he had written about 30 operas, performed mainly in Venice and Rome, although on occasion also in other parts of Italy and in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. His first London performance was Il trionfo della costanza in 1782. He was engaged as musical director in London until 1786, where he performed five of his own operas and alternative versions of work by other composers; for example, Gluck's Orfeo
Orfeo
L'Orfeo , sometimes called L'Orfeo, favola in musica, is an early Baroque opera by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and his fruitless attempt to bring his dead bride Eurydice back to...
with supplementary music by Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
and Händel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
. His works were not always well received: one critic wrote "the music suffers obviously from a tiring monotony" about his last opera in London, L'inglese in Italia.
Anfossi returned to Italy, and won back Roman public opinion in 1787 with the farsa
Farsa
Farsa is a genre of opera, associated with Venice in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is also sometimes called farsetta....
Le pazzie de' gelosi at the Carnival. In 1789, the uninterrupted 20-year stretch of operatic composition stopped, and Anfossi restricted himself to church music. He was appointed Maestro di Capella of San Giovanni in Laterano, and held this position till his death in 1797.
Works
The sum of Anfossi's work is not completely known, but he composed at least 60, possibly 70 or more, operas, and at least 20 oratorios in LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
. His early work is, understandably, closely related in style to that of his teachers, Piccinni and Sacchini, with diatonic harmony and intermittently inspired melody. His orchestration style changed significantly during the course of his career; he realised more colourful effects through the use of wind instruments. Until the middle of the 1770s his opera buffa showed him to prefer the old-fashioned, pure da capo type of aria, in order to, as in his comic works, proceed to more freely shaped passages. He appeared to prefer longer passages such as finali, and he clearly had a preference for sentimental moments and phrases.
Anfossi's music was fundamentally criticised as inadequately dramatic, and weak in characterisation. His buffo characters are generally not as original as those of some of his contemporaries, such as Cimarosa and Paisiello, while his seria music has a certain stereotypical nature.
As an operatic composer, Anfossi remained forgotten for a long time, despite his great popularity with his contemporaries, because his works were overshadowed by those of Salieri, Rossini and Mozart. Nevertheless, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe staged Anfossi's farsetta La maga Circe (Circe, the Sorceress) in his role as the theatre director of Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
. He adapted the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
with Christian August Vulpius and also made plans for a continuation, which never came to bear.
Only in the last 20 years has Anfossi's work been appreciated anew, through diverse productions such as Giuseppe riconosciuto. His work was featured at the 2005 Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
Summer Festival.
Cantatas
- I dioscuri (libretto by Saverio Mattei, 1771, Naples)
- L'armonia (libretto by Mattia Butturini, 1790, Venice)
Oratorios
- La madre dei Maccabei (libretto by Giuseppe Barbieri, 1765, Rome)
- Noe sacrificium (1769, Venice or Florence)
- Carmina sacra camenda in nosocomio pauperum derelictorum (1773, Venice)
- Jerusalem eversa (1774, Venice)
- David contra Philisthaeos (1775, Venice)
- Giuseppe riconosciuto (libretto by Pietro Metastasio, 1776, Rome)
- Carmina sacra recinenda a piis virginibus (1776, Venice)
- Samuelis umbra (1777, Venice)
- Virginis assumptae triumphus (1780, Venice)
- La nascita del Redentore (libretto by Giacomo Gregorio, 1780, Rome)
- Esther (1781, Venice)
- La Betulia liberata (libretto by Metastasio, 1781)
- Sedecia (1782, Venice)
- Il sacrificio di Noè uscito dall'arca (1783, Rome)
- Prodigus (1786, Venice)
- Sant'Elena al Calvario (libretto by Metastasio, 1786, Rome)
- Ninive conversa (1787, Venice)
- Il figliuol prodigo (libretto by Carlo Antonio Femi, 1792, Rome)
- La morte di San Filippo Neri (libretto by Carlo Antonio Femi, 1796, Rome)
- Gerico distrutta
- Il convito di Baldassare
- Per la nascita di Nostre Signore Gesù Cristo
Sources
- The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West (1992), 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5
- Some of the content of this article comes from the equivalent German-language Wikipedia article (retrieved June/2007).