Ascanio in Alba

• 1. Introduction

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  Ascanio in Alba, K. 111, arrived in Milan not as a concert or a chamber recital, but as a political gesture wrapped in silk. Empress Maria Theresa of Austria commissioned it for the wedding of her son, Archduke Ferdinand Karl, to Maria Beatrice d'Este on the 15th of October 1771. Two days later, on the 17th of October, the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan presented it to the world. The composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was fifteen years old.

  What does it mean for a fifteen-year-old to receive a commission from one of Europe's most powerful monarchs? What kind of opera do you write when the subject is a dynastic wedding and the mythology is the founding of Rome itself? And how do you build a work lasting dozens of musical numbers, scored for a full orchestra, performed by some of the finest singers of the age? Those are the questions this opera quietly asks.

• 2. A Commission and a Celebration

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  Maria Theresa's choice of subject was deliberate. Ascanio in Alba draws on ancient mythology to frame the Habsburg occasion in the grandest possible light. The libretto, written by the Italian poet Giuseppe Parini, sets the action at the mythical site of Alba Longa, the future city near Rome that the Romans traced back to the line of Aeneas. In the story, Venus herself sends her son Ascanio to rule there.

  Parini shaped the text as a Festa teatrale, a theatrical celebration in two parts, which was a form purpose-built for exactly this kind of court occasion. It was not the rough drama of opera seria, with its tragic reversals. It was pageantry with a divine sanction, designed to reflect glory onto the wedding guests watching from their seats.

  The poet gave the libretto an Italian text, which was the standard language for opera across European courts at the time, regardless of where the production took place or who the patron was.

• 3. Singers and Voices

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  Giovanni Manzuoli sang the title role of Ascanio at the premiere on the 17th of October 1771. His voice type was listed as mezzo-soprano castrato, which places him in a tradition of male singers whose voices had been preserved at a high pitch through surgery in childhood. This was not unusual at the time; the castrato voice was considered the ideal for heroic operatic roles.

  Geltrude Falcini took the role of Venere, Venus herself. Antonia Maria Girelli Aguilar sang Silvia, the nymph whose virtue the entire plot sets out to test. Giuseppe Tibaldi sang Aceste, the priest of Venus. The shepherd Fauno was played by Adamo Solzi, also a soprano castrato.

  The opera includes a large choral presence of Genii, Shepherds, and Shepherdesses, which gave the Festa teatrale some of its ceremonial scale. Venus descends on a chariot surrounded by clouds in the final scenes, a piece of theatrical machinery that a court production of this era could supply in full.

• 4. The Plot and Its Moral

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  Venus opens the opera by praising the beauty of Alba and urging her son Ascanio to go and rule there. Her instruction carries a condition: he must approach Silvia, his betrothed, in disguise, concealing his true identity in order to test her faithfulness and virtue.

  Silvia complicates matters immediately. She tells Aceste the priest that she is already in love with a young man she has seen in a dream. Aceste reassures her that this dream-figure can only be Ascanio himself. The audience knows what Silvia does not: the foreigner now walking among the shepherds is exactly that man.

  In Part 2, Silvia recognizes Ascanio from her dreams the moment she sees him, but Fauno the shepherd intervenes and sends the supposed foreigner away to announce the founding of Alba elsewhere. Left believing the foreigner is not Ascanio, Silvia falls into grief. She resolves to accept her fate but declares she will never love anyone other than Ascanio, a declaration of constancy that is the moral hinge of the opera.

  Venus descends at the end to unite the two lovers and explains to Ascanio that her purpose was always to reveal the quality of his bride's character. Aceste then pronounces an oath of fidelity and loyalty to Venus before she withdraws, leaving Ascanio to fulfill his destiny by guiding the city of Alba to prosperity.

• 5. The Orchestra and the Score

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  Mozart scored Ascanio in Alba for pairs of flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpets, and horns, with timpani, a string section, and a basso continuo performed by harpsichord and cello. This is a full court orchestra for 1771, capable of ceremonial weight as well as pastoral delicacy.

  The list of musical numbers in the opera is extensive. There are thirty-three numbered items between the overture and the closing chorus, ranging from solo arias and ensemble terzets to repeated choral refrains. The shepherd chorus beginning with the words "Venga, de' sommi Eroi" appears multiple times across both parts, functioning almost like a refrain that anchors the pastoral world between the dramatic scenes.

  One additional curiosity attaches to the work. A manuscript of nine untitled pieces in keyboard reduction has been proposed as a ballet suite intended for Ascanio in Alba. This group was catalogued in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe under the number K. Anh. 207. It was first published in the critical edition of the opera edited by Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini in 1956, placed in an appendix. The ballet linked the two acts in the original production, and the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra in Boston performed this ballet music twice in 2006.

• 6. Later Performances and Recordings

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  The opera returned to the stage at La Scala, Milan, in October 2006, in a production marking the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. Giovanni Antonini conducted that performance, connecting the work to the same city where it had premiered more than two centuries earlier.

  Four commercial recordings document the opera's modern performance history. The earliest dates from 1959, with the Coro e Orchestra dell'Angelicum di Milano conducted by Carlo Felice Cillario; Ilva Ligabue sang Venus and Emilia Cundari took the role of Silvia. A 1976 recording made at the Mozarteum in Salzburg featured Agnes Baltsa as Ascanio, Edith Mathis as Silvia, and Peter Schreier as Aceste, with Leopold Hager conducting the Mozarteum-Orchester Salzburg; that recording was released on CD in 1991. A 1990 recording issued on Naxos used the Choeur de l'Universite de Paris-Sorbonne with Jacques Grimbert conducting, featuring Michael Chance as Ascanio, Jill Feldman as Silvia, and Rosa Mannion as Fauno. A 2002 recording on Brilliant Classics brought the cast list up to date with Maaike Beekman as Ascanio, Nicola Wemyss as Silvia, Claron McFadden as Fauno, and Tom Allen as Aceste.

  The critical edition edited by Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini remains the scholarly anchor for any modern production or recording of the work.