Outmask
The Singing Turk
Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon
Outmask
The Singing Turk
Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon
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Larry Wolff is Professor of History and Director of the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University. He is the author of Paolina's Innocence: Child Abuse in Casanova's Venice, The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture, Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment, and Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment ¿all published by Stanford University Press. Visit Larry Wolff's website at www.singingturk.com
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Larry Wolff is Professor of History and Director of the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University. He is the author of Paolina's Innocence: Child Abuse in Casanova's Venice, The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture, Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment, and Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment ¿all published by Stanford University Press. Visit Larry Wolff's website at www.singingturk.com
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Hinweis: Dieser Artikel kann nur an eine deutsche Lieferadresse ausgeliefert werden.
Produktdetails
- Produktdetails
- Verlag: Stanford University Press
- Seitenzahl: 504
- Erscheinungstermin: 11. September 2018
- Englisch
- Abmessung: 226mm x 151mm x 32mm
- Gewicht: 736g
- ISBN-13: 9781503608238
- ISBN-10: 1503608239
- Artikelnr.: 52422451
- Herstellerkennzeichnung
- Libri GmbH
- Europaallee 1
- 36244 Bad Hersfeld
- 06621 890
- Verlag: Stanford University Press
- Seitenzahl: 504
- Erscheinungstermin: 11. September 2018
- Englisch
- Abmessung: 226mm x 151mm x 32mm
- Gewicht: 736g
- ISBN-13: 9781503608238
- ISBN-10: 1503608239
- Artikelnr.: 52422451
- Herstellerkennzeichnung
- Libri GmbH
- Europaallee 1
- 36244 Bad Hersfeld
- 06621 890
Larry Wolff is Professor of History and Director of the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University. He is the author of Paolina's Innocence: Child Abuse in Casanova's Venice, The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture, Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment, and Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment -all published by Stanford University Press. Visit Larry Wolff's website at www.singingturk.com
Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction sets the problem of operatic representation in the context
of the Triplex Confinium, the adjacency of the Ottoman, Venetian, and
Habsburg states in the eighteenth century, creating circumstances of war
and hostility, but also coexistence and familiarity. Venice and Vienna were
significant both as capitals of the Triplex Confinium and as operatic
centers for works on Turkish themes. Some familiarity and fascination with
elements of Turkish musical style- Janissary or alla turca style- was one
aspect of this geopolitical situation, and the introduction makes the case
for thinking about musical issues in the context of international relations
and the dynamics of war and peace. Finally, the introduction considers how
the singing Turk on the operatic stage addressed issues of European
identity in the age of Enlightenment, in matters of political theory,
emotional discipline, and the presumption of civilization.
1The Captive Sultan: Operatic Transfigurations of the OttomanMenace after
the Siege of Vienna
chapter abstract
This chapter suggests that, following the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in
1683, a lessening of fear and anxiety in Europe coincided with the
emergence of operas about Turks as European entertainment-even as Ottoman
territorial recession was articulated in the treaties of Karlowitz (1699)
and Passarowitz (1718). The most important subject of such operas,
initially, was Tamerlane's capture of Sultan Bajazet, with the sultan
singing in captivity as the emblem of Ottoman defeat, engaging European
sympathy rather than dread. Such operas appeared first in Venice and
Hamburg in 1689 and 1690, and then found definitive form with the libretto
by Agostino Piovene and music by Francesco Gasparini in Venice in 1711,
revised for Reggio Emilia in 1719. The most celebrated such work was
Handel's Tamerlano, in London in 1724, borrowing Gasparini's tenor
Francesco Borosini for the role of Bajazet. Vivaldi also set the Piovene
libretto as Bajazet in 1735.
2The Generous Turk: Captive Christians and Operatic Comedy in Paris
chapter abstract
This chapter considers Paris as an operatic perspective on the Ottoman
empire, conditioned both by the relative remoteness of Paris from Istanbul
and the longterm French solidarity with the Ottomans against the Habsburgs.
The Paris fairs of the early eighteenth century served as a matrix for the
emergence of new musical comedies on Turkish themes, including the comical
figure of Arlequin (Harlequin). The Ottoman embassy to Paris in 1720-1721
stimulated a fashionable cultural interest in Turquerie, while the
publication of Montesquieu's Persian Letters in 1721 as a foundational work
of the French Enlightenment encouraged a philosophical perspective on the
Muslim world. These new attitudes received their most important and
influential operatic expression in Rameau's Les Indes galantes of 1735,
with one act titled Le Turc généreux. The "generous Turk" was a magnanimous
and sympathetic pasha who ultimately emancipated a female European captive
from his harem.
3The Triumphant Sultana: Suleiman and His Operatic Harem
chapter abstract
This chapter presents the French musical comedy phenomenon of Charles-Simon
Favart's The Three Sultanas (Les Trois Sultanes) of 1761, about Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent and the favorite of his harem, Roxelana, as
performed by Marie-Justine Favart. In this Parisian work the Ottoman sultan
was triumphantly "civilized" by Roxelana, who was fictively imagined as a
Frenchwoman in Suleiman's harem. The work was staged and costumed in the
spirit of cultural Turquerie, and was politically meaningful in relation to
the court of Louis XV and the influence and precedence of his mistress
Madame Pompadour. There was also a roughly concurrent opera seria libretto
concerning Suleiman, titled Solimano, and first composed by Johann Adolph
Hasse for Dresden in 1753. Favart's Three Sultanas was translated,
recomposed, and restaged all over Europe, including notable versions
composed by Joseph Martin Kraus for Stockholm in 1789, and by Franz Xaver
Süssmayr for Vienna in 1799.
4The Turkish Subjects of Gluck and Haydn: Comic Opera in War And Peace
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the 1760s and 1770s, especially in the Habsburg
monarchy, as Gluck and Haydn began to compose comic operas on Turkish
themes making use of Janissary percussion and alla turca style. Cultural
interest in the Ottomans was conditioned by the presence of Ottoman envoys
in Vienna in the age of Maria Theresa and, especially, by the international
circumstances of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768 to 1774. Gluck's and
Haydn's French and Italian versions of the same subject, Les Pèlerins de la
Mecque and L'incontro improvviso, are discussed with reference to the
comical figure of the Kalender. Haydn's comic opera Lo speziale, performed
at Esterháza in 1768, is considered in relation to operatic Turkish
travesty and disguise. The news of the ongoing war between the Turks and
Russians created a climate encouraging for comic operas about Turks,
including works by Niccolò Jommelli and Georg Joseph Vogler.
5Osmin in Vienna: Mozart's Abduction and the Centennial of the Ottoman
Siege
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the creation of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio
in 1781 and 1782 in the context of the approaching centennial of the
Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1783. Mozart turned from a serious Turkish
subject in the unfinished opera Zaide to a comic Turkish subject in the
Abduction, using alla turca musical style. In the Abduction the issue of
Osmin's rage, his inability to master his emotions, was also relevant to
Mozart's own recent conditions of service under Archbishop Colloredo in
Salzburg. Singing in the deepest part of the basso range, Ludwig Fischer in
the role of Osmin offered a representation of Turkish masculinity that
removed all suspicion that Osmin, as overseer of the sultan's harem, might
actually be a eunuch. In fact, eighteenth-century culture kept carefully
distinct the dangerously related discourses concerning harem eunuchs, on
the one hand, and operatic castrati, on the other.
6"To Honor the Emperor": Pasha Selim and Emperor Joseph Ii in the Age of
Enlightened Absolutism
chapter abstract
This chapter considers the political and emotional dynamics of Mozart's
Sultan Soliman in Zaide, and then addresses the dramatic portrait of Pasha
Selim in the Abduction as a very purposeful effort by the composer to bring
himself to the attention of Habsburg Emperor Joseph II. Pasha Selim was
made to appear as a model of Ottoman magnanimity which was intended to
reflect upon the emperor in the audience at the first performance in 1782.
The course of Josephine enlightened absolutism was closely correlated with
Mozart's career in Vienna, and Mozart showed himself a dedicated Josephine
with his musical attentions to Joseph's Turkish war of 1787. This chapter
also considers the enormous and persistent success of Grétry's La Caravane
du Caire as a French counterpart to the Abduction in the 1780s, with
parallel political implications. The Ottoman accession of Sultan Selim III
is discussed in relation to European enlightened absolutism.
7The Ottoman Adventures of Rossini and Napoleon: Kaimacacchi and Missipipi
at La Scala
chapter abstract
This chapter considers Napoleonic Europe as the context for the formation
of the young Rossini as an opera composer, with particular attention to
Napoleon's invasion of Ottoman Egypt, which coincided with the first
Parisian production of Mozart's Abduction in 1798. There were new
attentions to Ottoman themes in Napoleonic Paris during the first decade of
the century, not only at the Paris Opéra, but also in musical comedies and
burlesque satires. In 1812 Rossini brought his own brand of Turkishness to
La Scala in Napoleonic Milan with La pietra del paragone and its immensely
popular comical scene of Turkish disguise. Stendhal, as an ardent admirer
of Rossini, hailed the composer as Napoleon's successor, making his very
own musical conquest of Europe.
8Pappataci and Kaimakan: Reflections in a Mediterranean Mirror
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, considered as a
Venetian triumph for Rossini in 1813, employing Turkish themes that
resonated with Venetian-Ottoman history. The libretto by Angelo Anelli had
been composed earlier by Luigi Mosca. Rossini's opera is considered in the
context of Mediterranean piracy and captivity, and interpreted as an opera
of conquest in which the heroine Isabella executes a successful European
campaign against the Algerian Mustafa Bey- in some sense anticipating the
French invasion of Algeria in 1830. The farce of reciprocal
Ottoman-European honors- Pappataci and Kaimakan- is shown to reflect not
the unbridgeable differences but rather the Mediterranean resemblances
between the Napoleonic Italians and the Ottoman Algerians. Isabella's
famous aria "Pensa alla patria" presented Italian patriotism within an
Ottoman scenario. The basso Filippo Galli sang the role of Mustafa Bey, as
he sang all of Rossini's leading Turkish roles.
9An Ottoman Prince in the Romantic Imagination: The Libertine Adventures of
Rossini's Turkish Traveler
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the Romantic conception of the singing Turk in
Rossini's Il Turco in Italia. After centuries of European warfare with the
Ottomans, Rossini in 1814, working with the librettist Felice Romani,
conjured a traveling Turkish protagonist who not only embraced the beauty
of Italy and the Italians, but also exercised a musical charisma that made
him the conqueror of hearts without resort to any weaponry at all. As the
Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy collapsed in 1814, Prince Selim, played by
Filippo Galli, made his entrance at La Scala, singing a greeting to "Bella
Italia"- which enabled Italians to see their own politically problematic
peninsula reflected in the gaze of an admiring Turk. For the heroine
Fiorilla the libertine Turk was irresistible, and Rossini's music suggested
the transgressive compatibility between the Italian woman and the Turkish
man who both made love in exactly the same Mediterranean way.
10Maometto in Naples and Venice: The Operatic Charisma of the Conqueror
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Rossini's Maometto Secondo, presenting the Ottoman
conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmed II, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples
in 1820. The sultan appeared as a charismatic and romantic singing Turk,
performed by Filippo Galli. Enthusiasm for Rossini is discussed in the
political context of Restoration Europe in the age of Metternich. Rossini's
Maometto Secondo is analyzed in relation to Peter Winter's Maometto at La
Scala in 1817, an opera about Mohammed the Prophet, based on Voltaire's
tragedy Mahomet. Rossini's Maometto Secondo also conjured memories of
Napoleon, the man whose seemingly endless ambitions for conquest were
reflected in the operatic ambitions of Maometto on the operatic stage.
Finally, since the plot of the opera deals with the sultan's specific
conquest of Venetian Negroponte, Rossini's revision of the opera for Venice
in 1822 is considered in relation to the long history of Venetian-Ottoman
relations.
11Rossini's Siege of Paris: Ottoman Subjects in the French Restoration
chapter abstract
This chapter considers the flourishing of operas on Turkish themes in
Restoration France, including Rossini's Turkish operas in Paris- especially
as Rossini became director of the Théâtre-Italien in the 1820s. His most
important contribution to Turkishness in Paris was his refashioning of
Maometto Secondo as Le Siège de Corinthe for the Paris Opéra in 1826, and
this was powerfully shaped by the ongoing Greek War of Independence and the
potency of French Philhellenism. The Venetians of Maometto Secondo were now
made into Greeks, at war with the Ottomans, and the opera was thus made
relevant to contemporary Greece. Public response to Rossinian orchestration
suggested that what was once considered "Janissary" percussion was now
being generally absorbed into the percussion section of the modern
orchestra. In 1824 Beethoven allowed for the brief nostalgic appearance of
a Janissary band playing a Turkish march in the score of the Ninth
Symphony.
12The Decline and Disappearance of the Singing Turk: Ottoman Reform, the
Eastern Question, and the European Operatic Repertory
chapter abstract
This chapter considers European opera after Rossini and the waning presence
of Turkish figures and themes in nineteenth-century opera. Ottoman reform
under Mahmud II and Abdülmecid I (including the reform of Ottoman music,
led by "Donizetti Pasha," the brother of the famous composer), brought
about some cultural convergence with Europe. At the same time the modern
Eastern Question transformed European-Ottoman relations into an unoperatic
calculus of the balance of power, and introduced modern European
colonialism in the Ottoman lands, beginning with the French seizure of
Algeria in 1830. The presence of the singing Turk in the operatic repertory
became less and less viable, as was notably apparent in the cases of
Verdi's I Lombardi and Il Corsaro in the 1840s. The chapter concludes by
observing subliminal traces of Turkishness in the modern operatic repertory
without Turks and the lingering presence of Turkishness in ballet and
operetta.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The conclusion argues that the singing Turk, beginning with the figure of
Bajazet in captivity, participated in a discourse of absolute power and
political abjection, exploring issues of sovereignty that were deeply
relevant for European princes. The singing Turk could also reflect the
magnanimity of princes across Europe, from Rameau in Paris in the 1730s to
Mozart in Vienna in the 1780s, contributing musically to a discourse about
enlightened absolutism as embodied in the figure of the Generous Turk. The
musical expression of extreme emotions- especially rage, as in the case of
Mozart's Osmin- was seen as closely related to the presumptions and
frustrations of absolute power. The musical mastery of operatic emotions
contributed to a discourse on the civilizing process, with Turkishness
posing questions of civilization that were thoroughly relevant to Europe.
The singing Turk must be understood and interpreted in the historical
context of European-Ottoman relations.
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction sets the problem of operatic representation in the context
of the Triplex Confinium, the adjacency of the Ottoman, Venetian, and
Habsburg states in the eighteenth century, creating circumstances of war
and hostility, but also coexistence and familiarity. Venice and Vienna were
significant both as capitals of the Triplex Confinium and as operatic
centers for works on Turkish themes. Some familiarity and fascination with
elements of Turkish musical style- Janissary or alla turca style- was one
aspect of this geopolitical situation, and the introduction makes the case
for thinking about musical issues in the context of international relations
and the dynamics of war and peace. Finally, the introduction considers how
the singing Turk on the operatic stage addressed issues of European
identity in the age of Enlightenment, in matters of political theory,
emotional discipline, and the presumption of civilization.
1The Captive Sultan: Operatic Transfigurations of the OttomanMenace after
the Siege of Vienna
chapter abstract
This chapter suggests that, following the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in
1683, a lessening of fear and anxiety in Europe coincided with the
emergence of operas about Turks as European entertainment-even as Ottoman
territorial recession was articulated in the treaties of Karlowitz (1699)
and Passarowitz (1718). The most important subject of such operas,
initially, was Tamerlane's capture of Sultan Bajazet, with the sultan
singing in captivity as the emblem of Ottoman defeat, engaging European
sympathy rather than dread. Such operas appeared first in Venice and
Hamburg in 1689 and 1690, and then found definitive form with the libretto
by Agostino Piovene and music by Francesco Gasparini in Venice in 1711,
revised for Reggio Emilia in 1719. The most celebrated such work was
Handel's Tamerlano, in London in 1724, borrowing Gasparini's tenor
Francesco Borosini for the role of Bajazet. Vivaldi also set the Piovene
libretto as Bajazet in 1735.
2The Generous Turk: Captive Christians and Operatic Comedy in Paris
chapter abstract
This chapter considers Paris as an operatic perspective on the Ottoman
empire, conditioned both by the relative remoteness of Paris from Istanbul
and the longterm French solidarity with the Ottomans against the Habsburgs.
The Paris fairs of the early eighteenth century served as a matrix for the
emergence of new musical comedies on Turkish themes, including the comical
figure of Arlequin (Harlequin). The Ottoman embassy to Paris in 1720-1721
stimulated a fashionable cultural interest in Turquerie, while the
publication of Montesquieu's Persian Letters in 1721 as a foundational work
of the French Enlightenment encouraged a philosophical perspective on the
Muslim world. These new attitudes received their most important and
influential operatic expression in Rameau's Les Indes galantes of 1735,
with one act titled Le Turc généreux. The "generous Turk" was a magnanimous
and sympathetic pasha who ultimately emancipated a female European captive
from his harem.
3The Triumphant Sultana: Suleiman and His Operatic Harem
chapter abstract
This chapter presents the French musical comedy phenomenon of Charles-Simon
Favart's The Three Sultanas (Les Trois Sultanes) of 1761, about Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent and the favorite of his harem, Roxelana, as
performed by Marie-Justine Favart. In this Parisian work the Ottoman sultan
was triumphantly "civilized" by Roxelana, who was fictively imagined as a
Frenchwoman in Suleiman's harem. The work was staged and costumed in the
spirit of cultural Turquerie, and was politically meaningful in relation to
the court of Louis XV and the influence and precedence of his mistress
Madame Pompadour. There was also a roughly concurrent opera seria libretto
concerning Suleiman, titled Solimano, and first composed by Johann Adolph
Hasse for Dresden in 1753. Favart's Three Sultanas was translated,
recomposed, and restaged all over Europe, including notable versions
composed by Joseph Martin Kraus for Stockholm in 1789, and by Franz Xaver
Süssmayr for Vienna in 1799.
4The Turkish Subjects of Gluck and Haydn: Comic Opera in War And Peace
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the 1760s and 1770s, especially in the Habsburg
monarchy, as Gluck and Haydn began to compose comic operas on Turkish
themes making use of Janissary percussion and alla turca style. Cultural
interest in the Ottomans was conditioned by the presence of Ottoman envoys
in Vienna in the age of Maria Theresa and, especially, by the international
circumstances of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768 to 1774. Gluck's and
Haydn's French and Italian versions of the same subject, Les Pèlerins de la
Mecque and L'incontro improvviso, are discussed with reference to the
comical figure of the Kalender. Haydn's comic opera Lo speziale, performed
at Esterháza in 1768, is considered in relation to operatic Turkish
travesty and disguise. The news of the ongoing war between the Turks and
Russians created a climate encouraging for comic operas about Turks,
including works by Niccolò Jommelli and Georg Joseph Vogler.
5Osmin in Vienna: Mozart's Abduction and the Centennial of the Ottoman
Siege
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the creation of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio
in 1781 and 1782 in the context of the approaching centennial of the
Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1783. Mozart turned from a serious Turkish
subject in the unfinished opera Zaide to a comic Turkish subject in the
Abduction, using alla turca musical style. In the Abduction the issue of
Osmin's rage, his inability to master his emotions, was also relevant to
Mozart's own recent conditions of service under Archbishop Colloredo in
Salzburg. Singing in the deepest part of the basso range, Ludwig Fischer in
the role of Osmin offered a representation of Turkish masculinity that
removed all suspicion that Osmin, as overseer of the sultan's harem, might
actually be a eunuch. In fact, eighteenth-century culture kept carefully
distinct the dangerously related discourses concerning harem eunuchs, on
the one hand, and operatic castrati, on the other.
6"To Honor the Emperor": Pasha Selim and Emperor Joseph Ii in the Age of
Enlightened Absolutism
chapter abstract
This chapter considers the political and emotional dynamics of Mozart's
Sultan Soliman in Zaide, and then addresses the dramatic portrait of Pasha
Selim in the Abduction as a very purposeful effort by the composer to bring
himself to the attention of Habsburg Emperor Joseph II. Pasha Selim was
made to appear as a model of Ottoman magnanimity which was intended to
reflect upon the emperor in the audience at the first performance in 1782.
The course of Josephine enlightened absolutism was closely correlated with
Mozart's career in Vienna, and Mozart showed himself a dedicated Josephine
with his musical attentions to Joseph's Turkish war of 1787. This chapter
also considers the enormous and persistent success of Grétry's La Caravane
du Caire as a French counterpart to the Abduction in the 1780s, with
parallel political implications. The Ottoman accession of Sultan Selim III
is discussed in relation to European enlightened absolutism.
7The Ottoman Adventures of Rossini and Napoleon: Kaimacacchi and Missipipi
at La Scala
chapter abstract
This chapter considers Napoleonic Europe as the context for the formation
of the young Rossini as an opera composer, with particular attention to
Napoleon's invasion of Ottoman Egypt, which coincided with the first
Parisian production of Mozart's Abduction in 1798. There were new
attentions to Ottoman themes in Napoleonic Paris during the first decade of
the century, not only at the Paris Opéra, but also in musical comedies and
burlesque satires. In 1812 Rossini brought his own brand of Turkishness to
La Scala in Napoleonic Milan with La pietra del paragone and its immensely
popular comical scene of Turkish disguise. Stendhal, as an ardent admirer
of Rossini, hailed the composer as Napoleon's successor, making his very
own musical conquest of Europe.
8Pappataci and Kaimakan: Reflections in a Mediterranean Mirror
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, considered as a
Venetian triumph for Rossini in 1813, employing Turkish themes that
resonated with Venetian-Ottoman history. The libretto by Angelo Anelli had
been composed earlier by Luigi Mosca. Rossini's opera is considered in the
context of Mediterranean piracy and captivity, and interpreted as an opera
of conquest in which the heroine Isabella executes a successful European
campaign against the Algerian Mustafa Bey- in some sense anticipating the
French invasion of Algeria in 1830. The farce of reciprocal
Ottoman-European honors- Pappataci and Kaimakan- is shown to reflect not
the unbridgeable differences but rather the Mediterranean resemblances
between the Napoleonic Italians and the Ottoman Algerians. Isabella's
famous aria "Pensa alla patria" presented Italian patriotism within an
Ottoman scenario. The basso Filippo Galli sang the role of Mustafa Bey, as
he sang all of Rossini's leading Turkish roles.
9An Ottoman Prince in the Romantic Imagination: The Libertine Adventures of
Rossini's Turkish Traveler
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the Romantic conception of the singing Turk in
Rossini's Il Turco in Italia. After centuries of European warfare with the
Ottomans, Rossini in 1814, working with the librettist Felice Romani,
conjured a traveling Turkish protagonist who not only embraced the beauty
of Italy and the Italians, but also exercised a musical charisma that made
him the conqueror of hearts without resort to any weaponry at all. As the
Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy collapsed in 1814, Prince Selim, played by
Filippo Galli, made his entrance at La Scala, singing a greeting to "Bella
Italia"- which enabled Italians to see their own politically problematic
peninsula reflected in the gaze of an admiring Turk. For the heroine
Fiorilla the libertine Turk was irresistible, and Rossini's music suggested
the transgressive compatibility between the Italian woman and the Turkish
man who both made love in exactly the same Mediterranean way.
10Maometto in Naples and Venice: The Operatic Charisma of the Conqueror
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Rossini's Maometto Secondo, presenting the Ottoman
conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmed II, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples
in 1820. The sultan appeared as a charismatic and romantic singing Turk,
performed by Filippo Galli. Enthusiasm for Rossini is discussed in the
political context of Restoration Europe in the age of Metternich. Rossini's
Maometto Secondo is analyzed in relation to Peter Winter's Maometto at La
Scala in 1817, an opera about Mohammed the Prophet, based on Voltaire's
tragedy Mahomet. Rossini's Maometto Secondo also conjured memories of
Napoleon, the man whose seemingly endless ambitions for conquest were
reflected in the operatic ambitions of Maometto on the operatic stage.
Finally, since the plot of the opera deals with the sultan's specific
conquest of Venetian Negroponte, Rossini's revision of the opera for Venice
in 1822 is considered in relation to the long history of Venetian-Ottoman
relations.
11Rossini's Siege of Paris: Ottoman Subjects in the French Restoration
chapter abstract
This chapter considers the flourishing of operas on Turkish themes in
Restoration France, including Rossini's Turkish operas in Paris- especially
as Rossini became director of the Théâtre-Italien in the 1820s. His most
important contribution to Turkishness in Paris was his refashioning of
Maometto Secondo as Le Siège de Corinthe for the Paris Opéra in 1826, and
this was powerfully shaped by the ongoing Greek War of Independence and the
potency of French Philhellenism. The Venetians of Maometto Secondo were now
made into Greeks, at war with the Ottomans, and the opera was thus made
relevant to contemporary Greece. Public response to Rossinian orchestration
suggested that what was once considered "Janissary" percussion was now
being generally absorbed into the percussion section of the modern
orchestra. In 1824 Beethoven allowed for the brief nostalgic appearance of
a Janissary band playing a Turkish march in the score of the Ninth
Symphony.
12The Decline and Disappearance of the Singing Turk: Ottoman Reform, the
Eastern Question, and the European Operatic Repertory
chapter abstract
This chapter considers European opera after Rossini and the waning presence
of Turkish figures and themes in nineteenth-century opera. Ottoman reform
under Mahmud II and Abdülmecid I (including the reform of Ottoman music,
led by "Donizetti Pasha," the brother of the famous composer), brought
about some cultural convergence with Europe. At the same time the modern
Eastern Question transformed European-Ottoman relations into an unoperatic
calculus of the balance of power, and introduced modern European
colonialism in the Ottoman lands, beginning with the French seizure of
Algeria in 1830. The presence of the singing Turk in the operatic repertory
became less and less viable, as was notably apparent in the cases of
Verdi's I Lombardi and Il Corsaro in the 1840s. The chapter concludes by
observing subliminal traces of Turkishness in the modern operatic repertory
without Turks and the lingering presence of Turkishness in ballet and
operetta.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The conclusion argues that the singing Turk, beginning with the figure of
Bajazet in captivity, participated in a discourse of absolute power and
political abjection, exploring issues of sovereignty that were deeply
relevant for European princes. The singing Turk could also reflect the
magnanimity of princes across Europe, from Rameau in Paris in the 1730s to
Mozart in Vienna in the 1780s, contributing musically to a discourse about
enlightened absolutism as embodied in the figure of the Generous Turk. The
musical expression of extreme emotions- especially rage, as in the case of
Mozart's Osmin- was seen as closely related to the presumptions and
frustrations of absolute power. The musical mastery of operatic emotions
contributed to a discourse on the civilizing process, with Turkishness
posing questions of civilization that were thoroughly relevant to Europe.
The singing Turk must be understood and interpreted in the historical
context of European-Ottoman relations.
Contents and Abstracts
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction sets the problem of operatic representation in the context
of the Triplex Confinium, the adjacency of the Ottoman, Venetian, and
Habsburg states in the eighteenth century, creating circumstances of war
and hostility, but also coexistence and familiarity. Venice and Vienna were
significant both as capitals of the Triplex Confinium and as operatic
centers for works on Turkish themes. Some familiarity and fascination with
elements of Turkish musical style- Janissary or alla turca style- was one
aspect of this geopolitical situation, and the introduction makes the case
for thinking about musical issues in the context of international relations
and the dynamics of war and peace. Finally, the introduction considers how
the singing Turk on the operatic stage addressed issues of European
identity in the age of Enlightenment, in matters of political theory,
emotional discipline, and the presumption of civilization.
1The Captive Sultan: Operatic Transfigurations of the OttomanMenace after
the Siege of Vienna
chapter abstract
This chapter suggests that, following the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in
1683, a lessening of fear and anxiety in Europe coincided with the
emergence of operas about Turks as European entertainment-even as Ottoman
territorial recession was articulated in the treaties of Karlowitz (1699)
and Passarowitz (1718). The most important subject of such operas,
initially, was Tamerlane's capture of Sultan Bajazet, with the sultan
singing in captivity as the emblem of Ottoman defeat, engaging European
sympathy rather than dread. Such operas appeared first in Venice and
Hamburg in 1689 and 1690, and then found definitive form with the libretto
by Agostino Piovene and music by Francesco Gasparini in Venice in 1711,
revised for Reggio Emilia in 1719. The most celebrated such work was
Handel's Tamerlano, in London in 1724, borrowing Gasparini's tenor
Francesco Borosini for the role of Bajazet. Vivaldi also set the Piovene
libretto as Bajazet in 1735.
2The Generous Turk: Captive Christians and Operatic Comedy in Paris
chapter abstract
This chapter considers Paris as an operatic perspective on the Ottoman
empire, conditioned both by the relative remoteness of Paris from Istanbul
and the longterm French solidarity with the Ottomans against the Habsburgs.
The Paris fairs of the early eighteenth century served as a matrix for the
emergence of new musical comedies on Turkish themes, including the comical
figure of Arlequin (Harlequin). The Ottoman embassy to Paris in 1720-1721
stimulated a fashionable cultural interest in Turquerie, while the
publication of Montesquieu's Persian Letters in 1721 as a foundational work
of the French Enlightenment encouraged a philosophical perspective on the
Muslim world. These new attitudes received their most important and
influential operatic expression in Rameau's Les Indes galantes of 1735,
with one act titled Le Turc généreux. The "generous Turk" was a magnanimous
and sympathetic pasha who ultimately emancipated a female European captive
from his harem.
3The Triumphant Sultana: Suleiman and His Operatic Harem
chapter abstract
This chapter presents the French musical comedy phenomenon of Charles-Simon
Favart's The Three Sultanas (Les Trois Sultanes) of 1761, about Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent and the favorite of his harem, Roxelana, as
performed by Marie-Justine Favart. In this Parisian work the Ottoman sultan
was triumphantly "civilized" by Roxelana, who was fictively imagined as a
Frenchwoman in Suleiman's harem. The work was staged and costumed in the
spirit of cultural Turquerie, and was politically meaningful in relation to
the court of Louis XV and the influence and precedence of his mistress
Madame Pompadour. There was also a roughly concurrent opera seria libretto
concerning Suleiman, titled Solimano, and first composed by Johann Adolph
Hasse for Dresden in 1753. Favart's Three Sultanas was translated,
recomposed, and restaged all over Europe, including notable versions
composed by Joseph Martin Kraus for Stockholm in 1789, and by Franz Xaver
Süssmayr for Vienna in 1799.
4The Turkish Subjects of Gluck and Haydn: Comic Opera in War And Peace
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the 1760s and 1770s, especially in the Habsburg
monarchy, as Gluck and Haydn began to compose comic operas on Turkish
themes making use of Janissary percussion and alla turca style. Cultural
interest in the Ottomans was conditioned by the presence of Ottoman envoys
in Vienna in the age of Maria Theresa and, especially, by the international
circumstances of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768 to 1774. Gluck's and
Haydn's French and Italian versions of the same subject, Les Pèlerins de la
Mecque and L'incontro improvviso, are discussed with reference to the
comical figure of the Kalender. Haydn's comic opera Lo speziale, performed
at Esterháza in 1768, is considered in relation to operatic Turkish
travesty and disguise. The news of the ongoing war between the Turks and
Russians created a climate encouraging for comic operas about Turks,
including works by Niccolò Jommelli and Georg Joseph Vogler.
5Osmin in Vienna: Mozart's Abduction and the Centennial of the Ottoman
Siege
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the creation of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio
in 1781 and 1782 in the context of the approaching centennial of the
Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1783. Mozart turned from a serious Turkish
subject in the unfinished opera Zaide to a comic Turkish subject in the
Abduction, using alla turca musical style. In the Abduction the issue of
Osmin's rage, his inability to master his emotions, was also relevant to
Mozart's own recent conditions of service under Archbishop Colloredo in
Salzburg. Singing in the deepest part of the basso range, Ludwig Fischer in
the role of Osmin offered a representation of Turkish masculinity that
removed all suspicion that Osmin, as overseer of the sultan's harem, might
actually be a eunuch. In fact, eighteenth-century culture kept carefully
distinct the dangerously related discourses concerning harem eunuchs, on
the one hand, and operatic castrati, on the other.
6"To Honor the Emperor": Pasha Selim and Emperor Joseph Ii in the Age of
Enlightened Absolutism
chapter abstract
This chapter considers the political and emotional dynamics of Mozart's
Sultan Soliman in Zaide, and then addresses the dramatic portrait of Pasha
Selim in the Abduction as a very purposeful effort by the composer to bring
himself to the attention of Habsburg Emperor Joseph II. Pasha Selim was
made to appear as a model of Ottoman magnanimity which was intended to
reflect upon the emperor in the audience at the first performance in 1782.
The course of Josephine enlightened absolutism was closely correlated with
Mozart's career in Vienna, and Mozart showed himself a dedicated Josephine
with his musical attentions to Joseph's Turkish war of 1787. This chapter
also considers the enormous and persistent success of Grétry's La Caravane
du Caire as a French counterpart to the Abduction in the 1780s, with
parallel political implications. The Ottoman accession of Sultan Selim III
is discussed in relation to European enlightened absolutism.
7The Ottoman Adventures of Rossini and Napoleon: Kaimacacchi and Missipipi
at La Scala
chapter abstract
This chapter considers Napoleonic Europe as the context for the formation
of the young Rossini as an opera composer, with particular attention to
Napoleon's invasion of Ottoman Egypt, which coincided with the first
Parisian production of Mozart's Abduction in 1798. There were new
attentions to Ottoman themes in Napoleonic Paris during the first decade of
the century, not only at the Paris Opéra, but also in musical comedies and
burlesque satires. In 1812 Rossini brought his own brand of Turkishness to
La Scala in Napoleonic Milan with La pietra del paragone and its immensely
popular comical scene of Turkish disguise. Stendhal, as an ardent admirer
of Rossini, hailed the composer as Napoleon's successor, making his very
own musical conquest of Europe.
8Pappataci and Kaimakan: Reflections in a Mediterranean Mirror
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, considered as a
Venetian triumph for Rossini in 1813, employing Turkish themes that
resonated with Venetian-Ottoman history. The libretto by Angelo Anelli had
been composed earlier by Luigi Mosca. Rossini's opera is considered in the
context of Mediterranean piracy and captivity, and interpreted as an opera
of conquest in which the heroine Isabella executes a successful European
campaign against the Algerian Mustafa Bey- in some sense anticipating the
French invasion of Algeria in 1830. The farce of reciprocal
Ottoman-European honors- Pappataci and Kaimakan- is shown to reflect not
the unbridgeable differences but rather the Mediterranean resemblances
between the Napoleonic Italians and the Ottoman Algerians. Isabella's
famous aria "Pensa alla patria" presented Italian patriotism within an
Ottoman scenario. The basso Filippo Galli sang the role of Mustafa Bey, as
he sang all of Rossini's leading Turkish roles.
9An Ottoman Prince in the Romantic Imagination: The Libertine Adventures of
Rossini's Turkish Traveler
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the Romantic conception of the singing Turk in
Rossini's Il Turco in Italia. After centuries of European warfare with the
Ottomans, Rossini in 1814, working with the librettist Felice Romani,
conjured a traveling Turkish protagonist who not only embraced the beauty
of Italy and the Italians, but also exercised a musical charisma that made
him the conqueror of hearts without resort to any weaponry at all. As the
Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy collapsed in 1814, Prince Selim, played by
Filippo Galli, made his entrance at La Scala, singing a greeting to "Bella
Italia"- which enabled Italians to see their own politically problematic
peninsula reflected in the gaze of an admiring Turk. For the heroine
Fiorilla the libertine Turk was irresistible, and Rossini's music suggested
the transgressive compatibility between the Italian woman and the Turkish
man who both made love in exactly the same Mediterranean way.
10Maometto in Naples and Venice: The Operatic Charisma of the Conqueror
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Rossini's Maometto Secondo, presenting the Ottoman
conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmed II, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples
in 1820. The sultan appeared as a charismatic and romantic singing Turk,
performed by Filippo Galli. Enthusiasm for Rossini is discussed in the
political context of Restoration Europe in the age of Metternich. Rossini's
Maometto Secondo is analyzed in relation to Peter Winter's Maometto at La
Scala in 1817, an opera about Mohammed the Prophet, based on Voltaire's
tragedy Mahomet. Rossini's Maometto Secondo also conjured memories of
Napoleon, the man whose seemingly endless ambitions for conquest were
reflected in the operatic ambitions of Maometto on the operatic stage.
Finally, since the plot of the opera deals with the sultan's specific
conquest of Venetian Negroponte, Rossini's revision of the opera for Venice
in 1822 is considered in relation to the long history of Venetian-Ottoman
relations.
11Rossini's Siege of Paris: Ottoman Subjects in the French Restoration
chapter abstract
This chapter considers the flourishing of operas on Turkish themes in
Restoration France, including Rossini's Turkish operas in Paris- especially
as Rossini became director of the Théâtre-Italien in the 1820s. His most
important contribution to Turkishness in Paris was his refashioning of
Maometto Secondo as Le Siège de Corinthe for the Paris Opéra in 1826, and
this was powerfully shaped by the ongoing Greek War of Independence and the
potency of French Philhellenism. The Venetians of Maometto Secondo were now
made into Greeks, at war with the Ottomans, and the opera was thus made
relevant to contemporary Greece. Public response to Rossinian orchestration
suggested that what was once considered "Janissary" percussion was now
being generally absorbed into the percussion section of the modern
orchestra. In 1824 Beethoven allowed for the brief nostalgic appearance of
a Janissary band playing a Turkish march in the score of the Ninth
Symphony.
12The Decline and Disappearance of the Singing Turk: Ottoman Reform, the
Eastern Question, and the European Operatic Repertory
chapter abstract
This chapter considers European opera after Rossini and the waning presence
of Turkish figures and themes in nineteenth-century opera. Ottoman reform
under Mahmud II and Abdülmecid I (including the reform of Ottoman music,
led by "Donizetti Pasha," the brother of the famous composer), brought
about some cultural convergence with Europe. At the same time the modern
Eastern Question transformed European-Ottoman relations into an unoperatic
calculus of the balance of power, and introduced modern European
colonialism in the Ottoman lands, beginning with the French seizure of
Algeria in 1830. The presence of the singing Turk in the operatic repertory
became less and less viable, as was notably apparent in the cases of
Verdi's I Lombardi and Il Corsaro in the 1840s. The chapter concludes by
observing subliminal traces of Turkishness in the modern operatic repertory
without Turks and the lingering presence of Turkishness in ballet and
operetta.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The conclusion argues that the singing Turk, beginning with the figure of
Bajazet in captivity, participated in a discourse of absolute power and
political abjection, exploring issues of sovereignty that were deeply
relevant for European princes. The singing Turk could also reflect the
magnanimity of princes across Europe, from Rameau in Paris in the 1730s to
Mozart in Vienna in the 1780s, contributing musically to a discourse about
enlightened absolutism as embodied in the figure of the Generous Turk. The
musical expression of extreme emotions- especially rage, as in the case of
Mozart's Osmin- was seen as closely related to the presumptions and
frustrations of absolute power. The musical mastery of operatic emotions
contributed to a discourse on the civilizing process, with Turkishness
posing questions of civilization that were thoroughly relevant to Europe.
The singing Turk must be understood and interpreted in the historical
context of European-Ottoman relations.
Introduction
chapter abstract
The introduction sets the problem of operatic representation in the context
of the Triplex Confinium, the adjacency of the Ottoman, Venetian, and
Habsburg states in the eighteenth century, creating circumstances of war
and hostility, but also coexistence and familiarity. Venice and Vienna were
significant both as capitals of the Triplex Confinium and as operatic
centers for works on Turkish themes. Some familiarity and fascination with
elements of Turkish musical style- Janissary or alla turca style- was one
aspect of this geopolitical situation, and the introduction makes the case
for thinking about musical issues in the context of international relations
and the dynamics of war and peace. Finally, the introduction considers how
the singing Turk on the operatic stage addressed issues of European
identity in the age of Enlightenment, in matters of political theory,
emotional discipline, and the presumption of civilization.
1The Captive Sultan: Operatic Transfigurations of the OttomanMenace after
the Siege of Vienna
chapter abstract
This chapter suggests that, following the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna in
1683, a lessening of fear and anxiety in Europe coincided with the
emergence of operas about Turks as European entertainment-even as Ottoman
territorial recession was articulated in the treaties of Karlowitz (1699)
and Passarowitz (1718). The most important subject of such operas,
initially, was Tamerlane's capture of Sultan Bajazet, with the sultan
singing in captivity as the emblem of Ottoman defeat, engaging European
sympathy rather than dread. Such operas appeared first in Venice and
Hamburg in 1689 and 1690, and then found definitive form with the libretto
by Agostino Piovene and music by Francesco Gasparini in Venice in 1711,
revised for Reggio Emilia in 1719. The most celebrated such work was
Handel's Tamerlano, in London in 1724, borrowing Gasparini's tenor
Francesco Borosini for the role of Bajazet. Vivaldi also set the Piovene
libretto as Bajazet in 1735.
2The Generous Turk: Captive Christians and Operatic Comedy in Paris
chapter abstract
This chapter considers Paris as an operatic perspective on the Ottoman
empire, conditioned both by the relative remoteness of Paris from Istanbul
and the longterm French solidarity with the Ottomans against the Habsburgs.
The Paris fairs of the early eighteenth century served as a matrix for the
emergence of new musical comedies on Turkish themes, including the comical
figure of Arlequin (Harlequin). The Ottoman embassy to Paris in 1720-1721
stimulated a fashionable cultural interest in Turquerie, while the
publication of Montesquieu's Persian Letters in 1721 as a foundational work
of the French Enlightenment encouraged a philosophical perspective on the
Muslim world. These new attitudes received their most important and
influential operatic expression in Rameau's Les Indes galantes of 1735,
with one act titled Le Turc généreux. The "generous Turk" was a magnanimous
and sympathetic pasha who ultimately emancipated a female European captive
from his harem.
3The Triumphant Sultana: Suleiman and His Operatic Harem
chapter abstract
This chapter presents the French musical comedy phenomenon of Charles-Simon
Favart's The Three Sultanas (Les Trois Sultanes) of 1761, about Sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent and the favorite of his harem, Roxelana, as
performed by Marie-Justine Favart. In this Parisian work the Ottoman sultan
was triumphantly "civilized" by Roxelana, who was fictively imagined as a
Frenchwoman in Suleiman's harem. The work was staged and costumed in the
spirit of cultural Turquerie, and was politically meaningful in relation to
the court of Louis XV and the influence and precedence of his mistress
Madame Pompadour. There was also a roughly concurrent opera seria libretto
concerning Suleiman, titled Solimano, and first composed by Johann Adolph
Hasse for Dresden in 1753. Favart's Three Sultanas was translated,
recomposed, and restaged all over Europe, including notable versions
composed by Joseph Martin Kraus for Stockholm in 1789, and by Franz Xaver
Süssmayr for Vienna in 1799.
4The Turkish Subjects of Gluck and Haydn: Comic Opera in War And Peace
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the 1760s and 1770s, especially in the Habsburg
monarchy, as Gluck and Haydn began to compose comic operas on Turkish
themes making use of Janissary percussion and alla turca style. Cultural
interest in the Ottomans was conditioned by the presence of Ottoman envoys
in Vienna in the age of Maria Theresa and, especially, by the international
circumstances of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768 to 1774. Gluck's and
Haydn's French and Italian versions of the same subject, Les Pèlerins de la
Mecque and L'incontro improvviso, are discussed with reference to the
comical figure of the Kalender. Haydn's comic opera Lo speziale, performed
at Esterháza in 1768, is considered in relation to operatic Turkish
travesty and disguise. The news of the ongoing war between the Turks and
Russians created a climate encouraging for comic operas about Turks,
including works by Niccolò Jommelli and Georg Joseph Vogler.
5Osmin in Vienna: Mozart's Abduction and the Centennial of the Ottoman
Siege
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the creation of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio
in 1781 and 1782 in the context of the approaching centennial of the
Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1783. Mozart turned from a serious Turkish
subject in the unfinished opera Zaide to a comic Turkish subject in the
Abduction, using alla turca musical style. In the Abduction the issue of
Osmin's rage, his inability to master his emotions, was also relevant to
Mozart's own recent conditions of service under Archbishop Colloredo in
Salzburg. Singing in the deepest part of the basso range, Ludwig Fischer in
the role of Osmin offered a representation of Turkish masculinity that
removed all suspicion that Osmin, as overseer of the sultan's harem, might
actually be a eunuch. In fact, eighteenth-century culture kept carefully
distinct the dangerously related discourses concerning harem eunuchs, on
the one hand, and operatic castrati, on the other.
6"To Honor the Emperor": Pasha Selim and Emperor Joseph Ii in the Age of
Enlightened Absolutism
chapter abstract
This chapter considers the political and emotional dynamics of Mozart's
Sultan Soliman in Zaide, and then addresses the dramatic portrait of Pasha
Selim in the Abduction as a very purposeful effort by the composer to bring
himself to the attention of Habsburg Emperor Joseph II. Pasha Selim was
made to appear as a model of Ottoman magnanimity which was intended to
reflect upon the emperor in the audience at the first performance in 1782.
The course of Josephine enlightened absolutism was closely correlated with
Mozart's career in Vienna, and Mozart showed himself a dedicated Josephine
with his musical attentions to Joseph's Turkish war of 1787. This chapter
also considers the enormous and persistent success of Grétry's La Caravane
du Caire as a French counterpart to the Abduction in the 1780s, with
parallel political implications. The Ottoman accession of Sultan Selim III
is discussed in relation to European enlightened absolutism.
7The Ottoman Adventures of Rossini and Napoleon: Kaimacacchi and Missipipi
at La Scala
chapter abstract
This chapter considers Napoleonic Europe as the context for the formation
of the young Rossini as an opera composer, with particular attention to
Napoleon's invasion of Ottoman Egypt, which coincided with the first
Parisian production of Mozart's Abduction in 1798. There were new
attentions to Ottoman themes in Napoleonic Paris during the first decade of
the century, not only at the Paris Opéra, but also in musical comedies and
burlesque satires. In 1812 Rossini brought his own brand of Turkishness to
La Scala in Napoleonic Milan with La pietra del paragone and its immensely
popular comical scene of Turkish disguise. Stendhal, as an ardent admirer
of Rossini, hailed the composer as Napoleon's successor, making his very
own musical conquest of Europe.
8Pappataci and Kaimakan: Reflections in a Mediterranean Mirror
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, considered as a
Venetian triumph for Rossini in 1813, employing Turkish themes that
resonated with Venetian-Ottoman history. The libretto by Angelo Anelli had
been composed earlier by Luigi Mosca. Rossini's opera is considered in the
context of Mediterranean piracy and captivity, and interpreted as an opera
of conquest in which the heroine Isabella executes a successful European
campaign against the Algerian Mustafa Bey- in some sense anticipating the
French invasion of Algeria in 1830. The farce of reciprocal
Ottoman-European honors- Pappataci and Kaimakan- is shown to reflect not
the unbridgeable differences but rather the Mediterranean resemblances
between the Napoleonic Italians and the Ottoman Algerians. Isabella's
famous aria "Pensa alla patria" presented Italian patriotism within an
Ottoman scenario. The basso Filippo Galli sang the role of Mustafa Bey, as
he sang all of Rossini's leading Turkish roles.
9An Ottoman Prince in the Romantic Imagination: The Libertine Adventures of
Rossini's Turkish Traveler
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the Romantic conception of the singing Turk in
Rossini's Il Turco in Italia. After centuries of European warfare with the
Ottomans, Rossini in 1814, working with the librettist Felice Romani,
conjured a traveling Turkish protagonist who not only embraced the beauty
of Italy and the Italians, but also exercised a musical charisma that made
him the conqueror of hearts without resort to any weaponry at all. As the
Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy collapsed in 1814, Prince Selim, played by
Filippo Galli, made his entrance at La Scala, singing a greeting to "Bella
Italia"- which enabled Italians to see their own politically problematic
peninsula reflected in the gaze of an admiring Turk. For the heroine
Fiorilla the libertine Turk was irresistible, and Rossini's music suggested
the transgressive compatibility between the Italian woman and the Turkish
man who both made love in exactly the same Mediterranean way.
10Maometto in Naples and Venice: The Operatic Charisma of the Conqueror
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on Rossini's Maometto Secondo, presenting the Ottoman
conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmed II, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples
in 1820. The sultan appeared as a charismatic and romantic singing Turk,
performed by Filippo Galli. Enthusiasm for Rossini is discussed in the
political context of Restoration Europe in the age of Metternich. Rossini's
Maometto Secondo is analyzed in relation to Peter Winter's Maometto at La
Scala in 1817, an opera about Mohammed the Prophet, based on Voltaire's
tragedy Mahomet. Rossini's Maometto Secondo also conjured memories of
Napoleon, the man whose seemingly endless ambitions for conquest were
reflected in the operatic ambitions of Maometto on the operatic stage.
Finally, since the plot of the opera deals with the sultan's specific
conquest of Venetian Negroponte, Rossini's revision of the opera for Venice
in 1822 is considered in relation to the long history of Venetian-Ottoman
relations.
11Rossini's Siege of Paris: Ottoman Subjects in the French Restoration
chapter abstract
This chapter considers the flourishing of operas on Turkish themes in
Restoration France, including Rossini's Turkish operas in Paris- especially
as Rossini became director of the Théâtre-Italien in the 1820s. His most
important contribution to Turkishness in Paris was his refashioning of
Maometto Secondo as Le Siège de Corinthe for the Paris Opéra in 1826, and
this was powerfully shaped by the ongoing Greek War of Independence and the
potency of French Philhellenism. The Venetians of Maometto Secondo were now
made into Greeks, at war with the Ottomans, and the opera was thus made
relevant to contemporary Greece. Public response to Rossinian orchestration
suggested that what was once considered "Janissary" percussion was now
being generally absorbed into the percussion section of the modern
orchestra. In 1824 Beethoven allowed for the brief nostalgic appearance of
a Janissary band playing a Turkish march in the score of the Ninth
Symphony.
12The Decline and Disappearance of the Singing Turk: Ottoman Reform, the
Eastern Question, and the European Operatic Repertory
chapter abstract
This chapter considers European opera after Rossini and the waning presence
of Turkish figures and themes in nineteenth-century opera. Ottoman reform
under Mahmud II and Abdülmecid I (including the reform of Ottoman music,
led by "Donizetti Pasha," the brother of the famous composer), brought
about some cultural convergence with Europe. At the same time the modern
Eastern Question transformed European-Ottoman relations into an unoperatic
calculus of the balance of power, and introduced modern European
colonialism in the Ottoman lands, beginning with the French seizure of
Algeria in 1830. The presence of the singing Turk in the operatic repertory
became less and less viable, as was notably apparent in the cases of
Verdi's I Lombardi and Il Corsaro in the 1840s. The chapter concludes by
observing subliminal traces of Turkishness in the modern operatic repertory
without Turks and the lingering presence of Turkishness in ballet and
operetta.
Conclusion
chapter abstract
The conclusion argues that the singing Turk, beginning with the figure of
Bajazet in captivity, participated in a discourse of absolute power and
political abjection, exploring issues of sovereignty that were deeply
relevant for European princes. The singing Turk could also reflect the
magnanimity of princes across Europe, from Rameau in Paris in the 1730s to
Mozart in Vienna in the 1780s, contributing musically to a discourse about
enlightened absolutism as embodied in the figure of the Generous Turk. The
musical expression of extreme emotions- especially rage, as in the case of
Mozart's Osmin- was seen as closely related to the presumptions and
frustrations of absolute power. The musical mastery of operatic emotions
contributed to a discourse on the civilizing process, with Turkishness
posing questions of civilization that were thoroughly relevant to Europe.
The singing Turk must be understood and interpreted in the historical
context of European-Ottoman relations.