"La serva padrona" by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was first performed in Naples in 1733, as an intermezzo in the middle of the drama per musica "Il prigionier superbo". The little play soon became very popular, also because it was one of the first comedies (opera buffa) to combine opera with the commedia dell'arte. Pergolesi died very young in 1736, but his operas and sacred music became very popular. "Serva Padrona" is one of his most famous pieces along with "Stabat Mater". At a performance in Paris in 1752 at the Académie Royale with Lully's "Acis & Galatea" she even caused a political uproar: the Buffonist dispute over the question of whether the opera should be so funny and light or remain tragic. Jean Jaques Rousseau defended it energetically: he found the piece so brilliant that he soon sat down and composed a small opera for three singers "Le devin du village" himself. Thus the basis in France for the Opéra-comique settled.
The little comedy certainly found many fans among the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Very understandable: It's about a smart, confident servant who manages to marry an old aristocrat and so the servant becomes a mistress. Emancipation, demolition of social constructs, types of people no longer as heroes and gods as in opera seria, but taken from everyday life. Voltaire and Diderot would certainly like that too. We know that both used similar themes for plays.
It is well known that many philosophers of the Enlightenment idealized women and their connection to nature - the best example is the role of Rosina in Beaumarchais's "Figaro Trilogy".
I find it interesting that the German composer with the Italian name Johann Friedrich Agricola wrote several intermezzi with similar themes at the same time as Rousseau: like the "Il filosofo convinto in amore" (Potsdam 1750) similar for a baritone and a soprano and similar to the Theme of a cunning simple woman who manages to make a mysoginist philosopher man fall in love.
So Pergolesi was one of the first to stage this new idea with his intermezzo in Naples. Born in Jesi in Le Marche in 1710 and studied and composed mainly in Naples, he died there of tuberculosis at the age of only 26. His few operas, the famous Stabat Mater, but also masses, cantatas and concerts achieved great fame. Today he is considered one of the most famous composers of the Italian Baroque.
This Neapolitan story, which resonated in France and the rest of Europe during the Enlightenment, inspired me not to stage a classical-style "commedia dell'arte". On the contrary, I would like to focus on the philosophical, psychological and political dimension of the text: as felt by Rousseau and by Enlightenment thinkers. The victory of female lightness over the heaviness of the male world. And I really want to immerse myself in the two characters, as if it weren't just an interlude to relax from the opera seria, but really a small opera, complete in itself. The text is beautiful, brilliant, funny and tells side stories on more parallel levels. It would be a pity to reduce this little story to a quarrel between the capricious servant and her fleecy master. Uberto tells us at the beginning that he raised this girl with love since she was a child. In his last recitative and aria he gives another strange piece of information: "He knows the story of her birth".
All of these are reasons for him to change his mind and marry this servant, who may not really be one: he is connected to the girl in ways unknown to us. She may have been the illegitimate child of a friend whom he took in and raised out of kindness. The fact is that after many years (Serpina says "You should understand me: many days have passed since we have known each other"), a feeling has developed between the two. There is no other way to explain why the young, emancipated girl wants to marry the old man. And why, despite his anger, he's finally considering marrying the girl (whom he so often calls "poverina") and wondering if he feels love or pity. So it's a "love story" and the most interesting thing about the little opera, in my opinion, is not seeing funny situations, but the development of that relationship over the 40 minutes of the plot. How the two of them don't get along at all in the beginning, how they act out their frustration and inability to admit their feelings on the servant and how they then overcome this blockade. Who takes the first step, how does the other react, how does a small catastrophe happen and how cleverly does Serpina manage to turn the situation around.
The relationship of the simple, uneducated girl to the old noble man reminded me from the first moment images of the play "Pygmalion", which Bernard Shaw premiered in Vienna in 1919. Shaw had also worshiped a type of woman in his theater: emancipated and self-confident - it was called "the new woman". In fact, the theme of emancipation returned to art and the political scene at the beginning of the 20th century. The Venetian Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari wrote around 1909 a modern opera-buffa "Il segreto di Susanna" with characters similar to "Serva padrona" soprano-baritone-mim. Topic: a woman who smokes. But back in England, what performers showed on the stage were manifested in the streets (with the suffragettes).
Shaw's plays often dealt with socialist themes and relationships between people of different classes. So the character of Professor Higgins immediately came to mind when I read Uberto's text, and the Serpina - if she were in England - would certainly resemble Eliza Doolittle. He, the professor from the aristocracy, conservative, no understanding for the lower class. But just like in Gennaro Antonio Federico's libretto, Higgins takes Eliza off the streets and educates her, trying to transform her from a vulgar street vendor into a lady of the aristocracy. Uberto is also phlegmatic, but nowhere does one read that he has contempt for the lower class. Still, I find Shaw and Federico equally fascinating as they describe the transformation process of Uberto and Higgins. Shaw masterfully describes a man who is totally committed to his science and has no time for feelings and women! That's why he remains a bachelor until old age. Like Uberto. Eliza is of course a more beautiful woman than the comedienne Serpina, but she also has some points of contact with the Italian: that perhaps because of her social status she is not perceived as a human being.
But the most interesting point of contact between the two plays is the reversal moment in the story. Also in Shaw, when he learns that Eliza is leaving, and even with another man, the professor begins to reflect on his feelings and his cruelty. The fear of loss allows him to understand that he is still able to have feelings for the street girl: Shaw then describes in a fascinating way the struggle between the Higgins people and the Higgins professor, to overcome his pride and misogyny . ("something inside me tells me: Uberto think of you")
It is precisely this fascinating psychological development that turns a simple stage play into real theater and that's what I want to do. I also have a soft spot for acting. A look that lasts some seconds, a sophisticated gesture, the magic of portraying human characters on stage: it has to be. I find everything else boring.
Someone would ask if the music allows for that. It's a comedy score, after all. My answer is yes. "Pygmalion" is also a comedy. And the beauty of theater is when you put a little bit of comedy into tragedy and vice versa, you put a little bit of tragedy into comedy. Humor makes life's big problems easier to deal with, while drama brings beauty to the shallowness of comedy. How more interesting is a buffa aria with a sophisticated interpretation? Then we have the beautiful recitatives that you can play with a lot theatrically. And finally, the situation of women in the period before the French Revolution is not a funny subject.
Since we would like to have Susan Joseph play the same evening, we will integrate a concerto for recorder by Vivaldi into the program. This should work like this:
Uberto and Serpina are on stage at the beginning of the opera. Uberto teaches Serpina how to read. Like an English enlightener to a young wise girl he took in at home - like Jean Valjean with Cosette in Hugo's Les Miserables (also a story from the French Revolution). It could also be a music lesson, but of course reading is a better symbol of enlightenment. Serpina gets praise for the successful lesson - why not a kiss on the forehead - and feels valued and happy. Feelings of affection for the paternal figure may be slow to develop - but Uberto goes out and Vespone comes to remind the young girl that she is a servant and that she now has chores to do. At this moment the music begins - Vivaldi's "Gardellino" first part (Allegro)
During this boring occupation, the music of the little bird sounds and the longing for nature and freedom is awakened. We see the emancipated woman awakening in the "Daughter and Servant". When Vespone reminds to her she has to clean or cook, we see defiance, impatience, perhaps anger waking up in her: this is how the sweet girl is turned into a stubborn one. That explains why Serpina is really mad at Vespone at the beginning of the opera. Because she no longer wants to serve, but to be an equal mistress. So Vespone is an "enemy" and "obstacle" in the beginning. But in the second part they become allies and she even promises him "liberation" - he will also become a "master" if he helps her.
In fact, the situation is reversed between the first and second parts of the opera. Serpina and especially Vespone, if treated badly at the beginning, they take action in the second part. Vespone is constantly being verbally abused and slapped - a viewer can really feel sorry for that. I see him as really naive and likeable, like a handicapped young man. He is mute and communicates with gestures. He gets between the two, and in their argument their frustration is unleashed on his skin. But in the second part, disguised as Capitan Tempesta (the "tempest" symbol of every revolutionary upheaval in the opera), he has the opportunity to rise up and act out his anger, albeit through acting. He succeeds in the role so well that Uberto gets really scared. Serpina will actually end up celebrating both men: "Viva il padrone e viva ancor Vespone". She manages to "free" both men and bring about the happy ending.
Therefore I would like for the finale, the third part of the Vivaldi concerto: there will be celebrations, dancing, drinking and eating. Uberto and his servants are all seated at the table - no masters, no servants. Bogdan Nowak's pantomime group fits in very well. All these people with their white costumes are like the new happy company of Serpina, Uberto, Vespone and friends. It also has to be a really happy carnival atmosphere of Venice and bring joy to the audience.
But the slow part of Vivaldi's concerto, the beautiful "Cantabile", becomes a lyrical pantomime recitative, integrated between the first and second parts of the Intermezzo. We then see a pensive Serpina, hurt by Uberto's rejection, perhaps thinking about her lot, and then Vespone comes to comfort her: together they decide to become allies and plan the "conspiracy". This fits perfectly with the change of mood in the second part. Here is this beautiful cantabile featuring Susan on recorder and Szczepan on cello.
In the next post I would like to introduce the three characters and how I would like to adapt them to the personalities of my three protagonists. That is, the personality of the three actors becomes fundamental to the creation of the three roles: "they have to find the role within themselves" (as the great Max Reinhardt said). My Uberto is a baritone who bears similarities to Higgings (like Leslie Howard in the 1938 film), an excellent performer. Serpina is a witty and definitely talented theatrical soprano and above all Vespone a brilliant pantomime, Bogdan Nowak who brings a lot with him from his French culture (worked with Marcel Marceau in Paris, an intelligent humanist and intellectual in Boleslawiec).
