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Did Vivaldi really write 94 operas, or was he lyin'? And how are his operas like jukebox musicals? Tune in this week to find out!
Howdy, howdy, howdy! I’m Solomon Reynolds, and this is: Saturday Morning Car Tunes! This morning, I’m here, you’re here…
Vivaldi wasn’t just a concerto writing machine. While teaching violin at the Ospedale della Pietà, a girls’ orphanage in Venice, he also wrote church music. His Gloria is still popular today.
After Venice beat the Ottoman Empire in a battle, some were reminded of Judith, a biblical woman who saved her people. To celebrate, Vivaldi was asked to write an oratorio about her triumph—an oratorio’s like a religious opera.
Italian cantatas began as simple songs but grew into big, opera-like pieces. Vivaldi wrote lots of cantatas, usually for one singer and a small group of players, like this one.
For the nobility, Vivaldi composed serenatas, which are longer than cantatas but shorter and less expensive than operas. They were usually performed during the evening for a special event. Do you like this serenata by Vivaldi?
Opera was the most popular type of music in Venice, and Vivaldi made a lot of money writing them. This is the first one he wrote, Ottone in villa.
The Carnival season, or the time between Christmas and Lent, was the main season for opera in Italy. Vivaldi said he wrote more than 90 operas, many for Carnival, each one as creative as any music he composed. In his opera Armida, he shows off an obbligato, or important, violin part. In his carnival opera Il Giustino, he uses an obbligato psaltery, which is like a flat harp.
Vivaldi would often reuse arias for different operas, so a lot of them can’t be tied to a single production. Here’s the mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, known for singing Vivaldi, performing an aria from La Silvia.
Along with writing operas, Vivaldi was an impresario, someone who managed opera seasons at a theater. He sometimes arranged pastiche operas, where he’d adapt operas and arias by other famous composers. One of his last operas, Rosmira, was a pastiche.
Pastiche operas are like today’s jukebox musicals, where most of the music was already written. Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mýa, and P!nk all performed “Lady Marmalade” for the soundtrack of the jukebox musical Moulin Rouge!
Mamma Mia! Vivaldi was ahead of his time.
I’m Solomon Reynolds. I write and produce Saturday Morning Car Tunes, with research assistant Carolina Correa and audio engineer Stephen Page, only on Classical California. Tune in—or out of your car—next Saturday morning!
