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METASTASIO (1698-1782)
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See also:METASTASIO (1698-1782) . Pietro Trapassi, the See also:Italian poet who is better known by his assumed name of Metastasio, was See also:born in See also:Rome on the 13th of See also:January 1698. His See also:father, Felice Trapassi, a native of See also:Assisi, came to Rome and took service in the Corsican See also:regiment of the papal forces. He subsequently married a Bolognese woman, called Francesca Galasti, and established himself in business as a See also:grocer in the Via dei Cappellari. Two sons and two daughters were the See also:fruit of this See also:marriage. The eldest son, Leopoldo, must be mentioned, since he played a See also:part of some importance in the poet's See also:life. Pietro, while quite a See also:child, often held a See also:crowd attentive in the streets while he recited See also:impromptu verses on a given subject. It sohappened that, while he was thus engaged one evening in the See also:year 1709, two men of distinction in See also:Roman society stopped to listen to his declamation. These were Gian Vincenzo See also:Gravina, famous for legal and See also:literary erudition, famous no less for his dictatorship of the Arcadian See also:Academy, and Lorenzini, a critic of some See also:note. Gravina was at once attracted by the boy's poetical See also:talent and See also:charm of See also:person, interested himself in the See also:genius he had accidentally discovered, made Pietro his protege, and in the course of a few See also:weeks adopted him. Felice Trapassi was glad enough to give his son the See also:chance of a See also:good See also:education and introduction into the See also:world under auspices so favourable. Gravina hellenized the boy's name Trapassi into Metastasio; and intended his adopted son to be a jurist like himself. He there-fore made the boy learn Latin and begin the study of See also:law. At the same See also:time he cultivated his literary gifts, and displayed the youthful See also:prodigy both at his own See also:house and in the Roman coteries. Metastasio soon found himself competing with the most celebrated improvisatori of his time in See also:Italy. Days spent in severe studies, evenings devoted to the task of improvising eighty stanzas at a single session, were fast ruining Pietro's See also:health and overstraining his poetic See also:faculty. At this juncture Gravina had to See also:journey into See also:Calabria on business. He took Metastasio with him, exhibited him in the literary circles of See also:Naples, and then placed him under the care of his kinsman Gregorio Caroprese at a little See also:place called Scalea. In See also:country See also:air and the quiet of the See also:southern seashore Metastasio's health revived. It was decreed by Gravina that he should never improvise again, but should be reserved for nobler efforts, when, having completed his education, he might enter into competition with the greatest poets. Metastasio responded to his See also:patron's wishes. At the See also:age of twelve he translated the Iliad into See also:octave stanzas; and two years later he composed a tragedy in the manner of See also:Seneca upon a subject chosen from Trissino's Italia liberata — Gravina's favourite epic. It was called Giustino. Gravina had it printed in 1713; but the See also:play is lifeless; and See also:forty-two years afterwards we find Metastasio See also:writing to his publisher, Calsabigi, that he would willingly suppress it. Caroprese died in 1714, leaving Gravina his See also:heir; and in 1718 Gravina also died. Metastasio inherited house, See also:plate, See also:furniture and See also:money, which amounted to 15,000 scudi, or about X4000. At a See also:meeting of the Arcadian Academy, he recited an See also:elegy on his patron, and then settled down, not it seems without real sorrow for his loss, to enjoy what was no inconsiderable See also:fortune at that See also:period. Metastasio was now twenty. During the last four years he had worn the See also:costume of See also:abbe, having taken the See also:minor orders without which it' was then useless to expect See also:advancement in Rome. His romantic See also:history, See also:personal beauty, charming See also:manners and distinguished talents made him fashionable. That before two years were out he had spent his money and increased his reputation for wit will surprise no one. He now very sensibly deter-See also:mined to quit a mode of life for which he was not born, and to apply himself seriously to the See also:work of his profession. Accordingly he went to Naples, and entered the See also:office of an eminent lawyer named Castagnola. It would appear that he articled himself as clerk, for Castagnola exercised severe See also:control over his time and energies. While slaving at the law, Metastasio in 1721 composed an See also:epithalamium, and probably also his first musical See also:serenade, Endimione, on the occasion of the marriage of his patroness the Princess Pinelli di Sangro to the Marchese Belmonte Pignatelli. But the event which fixed his destisry,. was the following. In 1722 the birthday of the empress had to be celebrated with more than See also:ordinary honours, and the See also:viceroy applied to Metastasio to compose a serenata for the occasion. He accepted this invitation, but it was arranged that his author-See also:ship should be kept See also:secret. Under these conditions Metastasio prodaced Gli orti esperidi. Set to See also:music by See also:Porpora, it won the most extraordinary See also:applause. The See also:great Roman prima donna, Marianna Bulgarelli, called La Romanina from her See also:birth-place, who had played the part of See also:Venus in this See also:drama, spared no pains until she had discovered its author. La Romanina forthwith took See also:possession of him, induced him to quit his lawyer's office, and promised to secure for him. fame and See also:independence, if he would devote his talents to the musical drama. In La Romanina's house Metastasio became acquainted with the greatest composers of the See also:day—with Porpora, from whom he took lessons in music; with See also:Hasse, Pergolese, See also:Scarlatti, See also:Vinci, See also:Leo, See also:Durante, See also:Marcello, all of whom were destined in the future to set his plays to See also:melody. Here too he studied the See also:art of singing, and learned to appreciate the See also:style. of such men as . See also:Farinelli. Gifted himself with extraordinary facility in See also:composition, and with a true poetic feeling, he found no difficulty in producing plays which, while beautiful in themselves, . judged merely as See also:works of literary art, became masterpieces as soon as their words were set to music, and rendered by the' singers of the greatest school of vocal art the world has ever seen. See also:Reading Metastasio in the study, it is impossible to do him See also:justice. But the conventionality of all his. plots, the absurdities of Many of his situations, the violence he does to history in the persons of some leading characters, his " damnable iteration " of the theme of love in all its phases, are explained and justified by music. Metastasio resided with La Romanina and her See also:husband in Rome.. The generous woman, moved by an See also:affection See also:half maternal half romantic, and by a true artist's admiration for so rare a talent, adopted him more passionately even than Gravina had done. She took the whole Trapassi See also:family—father, See also:mother, See also:brother, sisters—into her own house. She fostered the poet's genius and pampered his caprices. Under her See also:influence he wrote in rapid See also:succession the Didone abbaizdonata, Catone in See also:Utica, Ezio, Alessandro nell' Indie, Semiramide riconosciula, Siroe and Artaserse. These dramas were set to music by the See also:chief composers of the day, and performed in the chief towns of Italy. But meanwhile La Romanina was growing older; she had ceased to sing in public; and the poet See also:felt himself more and more dependent in an irksome sense upon her kindness. He gained 300 scudi (about £6o) for each See also:opera; this pay, though good, was See also:precarious, and he longed for some fixed engagement. In See also:September 1729 he received the offer of the See also:post of See also:court poet to the See also:theatre at See also:Vienna, with a See also:stipend of 3000 florins. This he at once accepted. La Romanina unselfishly sped him. on his way to See also:glory. She took the See also:charge of his family in Rome; and he set off for See also:Austria. In the See also:early summer of 1730 Metastasio settled at Vienna in the house of a See also:Spanish Neapolitan, Niccolo Martinez, where he resided until his See also:death. This date marks a new period in his See also:artistic activity. Between the years 1730 and 1740 his finest dramas, Adriano, Demetrio, Issipile, Demofoonte, Olimpiade, Clemenza di Tito, Achille in Sciro, Temistocle and Attilio. Regolo, were produced for the imperial theatre. Some of them had to be composed for See also:special occasions, with almost incredible rapidity—the Achille in eighteen days, the Ipermnestra in nine. Poet, composer, musical copyist and See also:singer did their work together in frantic haste. Metastasio understood the technique of his See also:peculiar art in its minutest details. The experience gained at Naples and Rome, quickened by the excitement of his new career at Vienna, enabled him almost instinctively, and as it were by See also:inspiration, to See also:hit the exact See also:mark aimed at in the opera. At Vienna Metastasio met with no marked social success. His plebeian birth excluded him from aristocratic circles. But, to make up in some measure for this See also:comparative failure, he enjoyed the intimacy of a great See also:lady, the Countess Althann, See also:sister-in-law of his old patroness the Princess Belmonte Pignatelli. She had lost her husband, and had some while occupied the post of chief favourite to the See also:emperor. Metastasio's liaison with her became so See also:close that it was even believed they had been privately married. The even See also:tenor of his existence was broken in the year 1734 by the one dark and tragic incident of his See also:biography. It appears that La Romanina had at last got tired of his See also:absence. Could not Metastasio get her an engagement at the court theatre? The poet at this juncture revealed his own essential feebleness of See also:character. To La Romanina he owed almost everything as a See also:man and as an artist. But he was ashamed of her and tired of her. He vowed she should not come to Vienna, and wrote dissuading her from the projected Visit. The See also:tone of his letters alarmed and irritated her. It is probable that she set out from Rome, but died suddenly upon the road. All we know is that she See also:left him her fortune after her husband's life See also:interest in it had expired, and that Metastasio, overwhelmed with grief and remorse, immediately renounced the See also:legacy. This disinterested See also:act plunged the Bulgarelli-Metastasio house-hold at Rome into confusion. La Romanina's widower married again. . Leopoldo Trapassi, and his father and sister, were thrown upon their own resources.
As time advanced the life which Metastasio led at Vienna, together with the See also:climate, told upon his health and See also:spirits. From about the year 1745 onward he wrote but little, though the cantatas which belong to this period, and the canzonet Ecco quel fiero istante, which he sent to his friend Farinelli, See also:rank among the most popular of his productions. It was clear, as See also:Vernon See also: They had been sung by the best virtuosi in every See also:capital, and there was not a literary academy of note which had not conferred on him the honour of membership. Strangers of distinction passing through Vienna made a point of paying their respects to the old poet at his lodgings in the Kohlmarkt Gasse. But his See also:poetry was intended for a certain style of music—for the music of omnipotent vocalists, of thaumaturgical soprani. With the changes effected in the musical drama by See also:Gluck and See also:Mozart, with the development of orchestration and the rapid growth of the German manner, a new type of libretto came into See also:request. Metastasio's plays See also:fell into undeserved neglect, together with the music to which he had linked them. Farinelli, whom he styled " twin-brother," was the true exponent of his poetry; and, with the abolition of the class of singers to which Farinelli belonged, Metastasio's music suffered See also:eclipse. It was indeed a just symbolic See also:instinct which made the poet dub this unique See also:soprano his twin-brother. The musical drama for which Metastasio composed, and in working for which his genius found its proper See also:sphere, has so wholly passed away that it is now difficult to assign his true place to the poet in Italian literary history. His inspiration was essentially emotional and lyrical. The chief dramatic situations are expressed by lyrics for two or three voices, embodying the several contending passions of the agents brought into conflict by the circumstances of the See also:plot. The See also:total result is not pure literature, but literature supremely See also:fit for musical effect. See also:Language in Metastasio's hands is exquisitely pure and limpid. Of the Italian poets, he professed a special admiration for See also:Tasso and for See also:Marini. But he avoided the conceits of the latter, and was no See also:master over the refined richness of the former's diction. His own style reveals the See also:improvisatore's facility. Of the Latin poets he studied See also:Ovid with the greatest See also:pleasure, and from this predilection some of his own literary qualities may be derived. For sweetness of versification, for limpidity of diction, for delicacy of sentiment, for romantic situations exquisitely rendered in the simplest style, and for a certain delicate beauty of imagery sometimes soaring to ideal sublimity, he deserves to be appreciated so long as the Italian language lasts. There are numerous editions of Metastasio's works. That by Calsabigi (See also:Paris, 1755, zj vols. 8vo) published under his own superintendence, was the poets favourite. Another of See also:Turin (1757) and a third of Paris (1780) deserve mention. The See also:posthumous works were printed at Vienna, 1795. The collected editions of See also:Genoa (1802) and See also:Padua (18i1) will probably be found most useful by the See also:general student. An edition of the letters, by Cardacci, was published at Bologne in 1883. Metastasio's life was written by Aluigi (Assisi, 1783); by See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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