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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
The years from 1795 to 1815, which separated the height of Cimarosa's career from the beginning of Rossini's, represent a watershed in the history of Italian opera, for they brought the final stages of the transition from Metastasian opera seria to nineteenth-century melodramma. Such now obscure composers as Simon Mayr, Ferdinando Paer, Niccolò Zingarelli and Stefano Pavesi – and their librettists – shaped this transition, and their works embody the continuities of development which link those very different operatic traditions. Consequently, these works hold the key to understanding the genesis of conventions which have habitually been attributed to Rossini and provide for modern scholars an essential context for assessing Rossini's particular role in establishing the new operatic prototypes.
1 Ritorni, Carlo, Ammaestramenti alla composizione d'ogni poema e d'ogni opera appartenente alla musica (Milan, 1841), 46–7 For modern discussions of the ottocento finale, see Gossett, Philip, ‘The “Candeur virginale” of “Tancredi”’, The Musical Times, 112 (1971), 327–9, Julian Budden, The Operas of Verdi, ii, From Oberto to Rigoletto (London, 1973), 18–20, Robert Anthony Moreen, ‘Integration of Text Forms and Musical Forms in Verdi's Early Operas’ (Ph D dissertation, Princeton University, 1975), 30–3 and 197–205, Scott L Balthazar, ‘Evolving Conventions in Italian Serious Opera Scene Structure in the Works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi, 1810–1850’ (Ph D dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1985), 162–220 and 506–67, and Harold S Powers, ’ “La solita forma” and “The Uses of Convention”’, Acta musicologica, 59 (1987), 73–5 and 87–90 A version of this article was read at the National Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Austin, Texas, in October 1989 My research was funded partly by a grant from the National Endowment for the HumanitiesGoogle Scholar
2 Ritorni, Ammaestramenti, 33–4Google Scholar
3 Platoff, John, ‘Music and Drama in the “Opera Buffa” Finale Mozart and his Contemporaries in Vienna, 1781–1790’ (Ph D dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1984), 31–56, Gossett, ‘The “Candeur virginale” of “Tancredi”’, 327–9Google Scholar
4 In Italian poetics, tronco lines end with an accented syllable, while piano and sdrucciolo lines end with one and two unaccented syllables respectivelyGoogle Scholar
5 Most of these librettos can be found in the Albert Schatz Collection of the Library of Congress I am grateful to Marita McClymonds for sharing with me her microfilms of many additional librettos that would not otherwise have been availableGoogle Scholar
6 Balthazar, ‘Evolving Conventions’, 164–208Google Scholar
