Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca

Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca

Portrait of Migliavacca by Bartolomeo Nazari
Born c. 1718
Milan, Italy
Died c. 1795
Occupation Poet and librettist

Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca[lower-alpha 1] (c. 1718 – c. 1795) was an Italian poet and librettist. A student and protégé of Metastasio, he was primarily active in the court theaters of Dresden and Vienna. His most successful work was the libretto for the opera Solimano, first set by Johann Adolph Hasse in 1753 and subsequently set by 18 other composers in the course of the next 50 years.

Life and career

Migliavacca was born in Milan around 1718, but the exact date of his birth as well as his parentage and early life are unknown. Much of the information about his life has come from Metastasio's letters.[1] Migliavacca's first appearance as a literary figure was in Milan in 1736, when at the age 18 he edited a collection of poetic tributes dedicated to the Duke of Noailles. Soon after he became a member of the Accademia dei Filodossi and was active in the intellectual milieu of the Enlightenment in Milan. He initially opted for a career as a diplomat, working as the imperial secretary of the Italian legation to the court of Charles VII where he became a favourite of the emperor. After the death of Charles VII in 1745, Migliavacca saw little future in a diplomatic career and instead returned to his literary pursuits[2]

He moved to Vienna where between 1748 and 1752 he worked for Metastasio as a secretary, copyist, and later a collaborator on some of his texts. At the time, Metastasio was the court poet to Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa. One of his duties was to supervise opera rehearsals and give directions to the singers. When Jommelli's Merope was to be performed in 1749, Metastasio delegated his directorial duties to Migliavacca. Tensions between two of the opera's star singers, Migliavacca's close friend Vittoria Tesi and the castrato singer Caffarelli, as well as Cafarelli's refusal to attend rehearsals reached a climax when Migliavacca and Cafferelli fought a duel at Tesi's house. However, her entreaties to the combatants ended the incipient sword fight before anyone was hurt.[3]

Migliavacca made his debut as a librettist in his own right (albeit closely supervised by Metastasio) in 1750 with Armida placata, composed by Giovanni Battista Mele and performed in Madrid to celebrate the marriage of Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain and Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia. It was performed again in Vienna later that year in a pastiche version with music by several composers including Luca Antonio Predieri and Johann Adolf Hasse.[4]. Through Metastasio, Migliavacca had also become acquainted with Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria. The wife of Frederick Christian heir to the thrones of Saxony and Poland, Maria Antonia was a patron of the arts as well as gifted composer, singer, and harpsichordist. Two of her operas, Il trionfo della fedeltà and Talestri, regina delle amazoni, have survived, but according to Bruno Brunelli,[lower-alpha 2] she had earlier composed a short opera (now lost) to a libretto by Migliavacca entitled Giove fulminatore dei giganti.[5]

In 1752, through the intervention of Metastasio, Migliavacca was appointed poet to the Dresden court of Frederick Christian's father Frederick Augustus II.[2] The following year, he produced what was to prove his most enduring work, the libretto for Hasse's opera Solimano. It premiered at the court theatre in Dresden in a spectacular production that included hundreds of extras in addition to the seven main singers as well as live elephants and camels. His libretto was subsequently set by 18 other composers, including Fischietti (1755), Pescetti (1756), Perez (1757), and Galuppi (1760), and saw 36 separate productions over the next 50 years.[2][6] In 1754 he produced the libretto for Hasse's next opera Artemsia and in 1755 adapted Metastasio's libretto for Hasse's Ezio. Like Solimano, Ezio was a lavish spectacle involving a procession of 400 soldiers and over 100 horses from the royal stable.[7] When the invasion of Dresden by the Prussians in 1756 severely curtailed the musical life of the court, Migliavacca worked in Vienna and then returned to Milan in 1765. He was re-engaged in Dresden in 1780 and was paid there regularly through 1795. The cessation of payments after that time without their conversion to a pension suggests that he died shortly after the end of that year. There are no records of the exact date or place of his death.[2]

Notes

  1. ↑ Migliavacca's first name is sometimes rendered as Giannambrogio or Gianambrogio.
  2. ↑ Bruno Brunelli Bonetti (1885-1958) was an Italian literary scholar and historian. Amongst his works were the curation of the five-volume collection of Metastasio's complete works published in 1951 and a biography of Giustiniana Wynne.

References

  1. ↑ Hansell, Sven (2001). "Migliavacca, Giovanni Ambrogio". Grove Music Online. Retrieved 3 December 2016 (Subscription required for full access).
  2. 1 2 3 4 Caprioli, Leonella Grasso (2010). "Migliavacca, Giovanni Ambrogio". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 74. Treccani. Online version retrieved 3 December 2016 (Italian).
  3. ↑ Guccini, Gerardo (2002). "Directing Opera" in L. Bianconi; G. Pestelli; K. Singleton (eds). Opera on Stage, p. 141. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226045919
  4. ↑ Casaglia, Gherardo (2005). "Migliavacca". Almanacco Amadeus. Retrieved 4 December 2016 (Italian).
  5. ↑ Brunelli, Bruno (1951). Pietro Metastasio, Tutte le opere, Vol. 3 Lettere, p. 1225 (note). Mondadori
  6. ↑ Wolff, Larry (2016). The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon, pp. 79–107. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804799652
  7. ↑ Yorke-Long, Alan (1954). Music at Court: Four Eighteenth Century Studies, p. 84. Weidenfeld and Nicolson

Further reading

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