One of the unexpected highlights of our visit to Malta was a performance of ‘Zanaida’, an opera by Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian, at the Manoel Theatre, La Valletta.
I had never realized that Malta has one of the finest baroque theatres in the world quite on a par with those at Drottningholm, Prague and Bologna. Every year it holds a festival of baroque (and rococo) music.
To hear an eighteenth century opera in a theatre dating from 1731 on a tiny island in the Mediterranean was absolutely irresistible!
The Manoel theatre was commissioned by Antonio Manoel de Vilhena, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, “for an honest recreation of the people”. This motto was inscribed on the main entrance of the building and it’s still there to this day. In the next half of the century, the theatrical repertoire expanded to include operas by Johann Adolf Hasse, Niccolò Piccini and Baldassare Galuppi.
The theatre suffered a period of decline in the nineteenth century when the new opera house (mentioned in my previous Maltese posts) was built and during the Second World War it became a collection center for the victims of the bombing of the Axis forces.
After the destruction of the Royal Opera House by enemy bombings in 1942, the Manoel Theatre was restored to its ancient splendour. The adjacent 18th century Palazzo Bonnici was added to the theatre and this is where the bar and ticket office are located.
The theatre is not very large. It has 623 seats and an oval-shaped auditorium which is built entirely of gilded wood and with a beautiful painted ceiling. We managed to book seats near the top tier (using the internet facility of my now historic Kindle which actually worked there, unlike Italy and the UK).
Our seats were a little like standing at the edge of a cliff; it was a slightly uneasy experience, but the stage was fully visible and when the opera began I was utterly bowled over by the theatre’s acoustics. They were so clear, so immediate – an absolutely seductive experience.
‘Zanaida’ was premiered in London at the King’s theatre in 1763 and was J. C. Bach’s second opera composed for that city. It was so successful that Johann Christian decided to make his home in London where he is buried in St Pancras old churchyard (see my post on that at https://longoio3.com/2017/12/03/dove-si-fidanzarano-percy-bysshe-e-mary-shelley/).
However, the score of Zanaida was lost until it turned up in someone’s library in 2010. In this respect do check your own library to see if there are any lost opera manuscripts lurking there. I examined my own modest collection and, lo and behold, an ancient libretto of an opera by Piccini (not to be confused with Puccini!) turned up. So there!
Based on political and sentimental intrigues between Persia and Turkey ‘Zanaida’ capitalizes on the vogue for oriental subjects which produced such masterpieces as Mozart’s ‘Abduction for the Seraglio’ and is based on ‘Siface’ by the great opera librettist Pietro Metastasio.
Turkish Princess Zanaida is an ideal of opera seria feminine tolerance who eventually finds herself in the midst of pitiless psychopaths who almost execute her. The music, however, is certainly not violent but beautifully expressive with gorgeous arias and elegant minuets. There is a particularly stunning virtuoso piece called ‘Tortorella abbandonata’ (‘abandoned turtle dove’) specially composed by Johann Christian for soprano Anna de Amicis. It has one of the first obbligato uses of a new instrument in that century, the clarinet. You can hear it here performed by Sara Hershkowitz from the Opera Fuoco production we attended:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHQjKWRVcmo
I found out that Zanaida is also appropriately the name of a dove. The Zanaida dove is native to the West Indies and the Yucatán peninsula. The name, which is attributed to the species by French ornithologist Carlo Luciano Bonaparte, commemorates his wife Zénaïde Bonaparte, daughter of Giuseppe Bonaparte and Julie Clary.
Incidentally, why is the turtle dove described with the word of an animal to which it bears absolutely no resemblance? It’s because that word actually derives from the bird’s soft ‘turr turr’ call (in Italian ‘tortora’). Biblical references, like the ‘Song of Songs’ to turtle doves and the birds’ strong pair bonds have turned them into symbols of devoted love….just like the sentiments expressed in the opera aria ‘Tortorella abbandonata’.
The full performance of ‘Zanaida’ that we heard is recorded live here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEwmNf0Edn8
Parenthetically, Anna de Amicis went on to sing in the sixteen-year-old Mozart’s opera ‘Lucio Silla’ which we too heard in a concert performance at London’s Spitalfields church festival conducted by the late Richard Hickox. When Wolfgang wrote poignantly about Bach’s death in one of his letters it was clearly Johann Christian and not Johann Sebastian he was referring to. How wonderful that Anna was able to premiere works by both J. C. Bach and Mozart!
The performers in Malta were members of ‘Opera Fuoco’, a French lyric ensemble founded by David Stern in 2003 and dedicated to the performance of operatic repertoire from the beginning of the 18th to the end of the 19th centuries. I could not fault them in any way. The production was faithful to eighteenth century practice, including appropriate contemporary costumes and the use of baroque hand gestures to express emotions. I get rather fed up when performances of eighteenth century opera are historically informed as to the use of period instruments and singing but completely philistine as far as pretentious modern costumes and scenery are concerned, just to please the egos of pompous producers.
It was quite an experience, after the excellent performance, to walk out into the mild winter evening of La Valletta and find our way to that hotel which we always had some difficulty in locating. We truly had had an honest recreation.
