indicated by the publication date of December that year).81 According to Strohm, Marcello’s work could have harmfully affected Vivaldi’s activity in Sant’Angelo as well as in Venice more generally. After his Mantuan years he began to reappear as an opera composer in the city; already in 1721 he had little to do in the carnival season, and thereafter he disappeared entirely from Venice for four years. As Strada might have been one of his protégées, the damage that befell Vivaldi’s reputation most probably impacted her career as well, for she did not return to Venice.
As noted earlier, Strada stood as virtuosa di camera in the service of Count Girolamo Colloredo-Waldsee, the Governor of Milan since the summer of 1720.82 Colloredo himself was also quite fresh in his position; he became governor in spring 1719. Vivaldi might have gotten to know the soprano through his new Venetian patron, Johann Baptist of Colloredo-Waldsee, the imperial ambassador to Venice between 1715 and 1726, who was presumably related to the Milanese Count.83 The composer must have heard Strada in Giuseppe Vignati’s Aquilio in Siracusa, written as part of the annual birthday celebration of the Holy Roman Empress Elisabetta Cristina di Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, wife of Charles VI, and performed at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan on 27 August 1720. This possibility is supported by the fact that the seconda donna, Anna Maria Lodovica d’Ambreville, was one of Vivaldi’s singers who took part in two of his operas in Mantua the previous year: Teuzzone and Tito Manlio. Strada was given the terza donna role, but she had three arias and such fellow singers as the excellent tenor Francesco Borosini and the castrato Carlo Scalzi.84 That passionate, fierce and warrior-like heroic role type, which emerged regularly during her career and seemed to befit her personal and vocal features alike, found Strada at her debut playing princess Merope, who rejects the tyrant’s proposal because she loves the Roman soldier Aquilio, and does not bow to blackmail even with her brother’s execution.
Strada’s voice must have given a very strong impression, considering that Vivaldi hired this seventeen-year-old soprano straightaway for his La verità in ←33 | 34→cimento, premiered on 26 October 1720 at Sant’Angelo.85 Though it is uncertain what kind of relations connected Vivaldi to the theatre in the 1720/21 season, it is well known that he regularly worked not only as a composer but also as an impresario at Venetian opera houses in the previous decade. He used to be the impresario at Sant’Angelo together with his father, between 1713 and 1715. Very likely he was involved into the run of this particular season of 1720/21, managing his own operas financially as well as artistically, just as he did in 1716/17 and at S. Moisè in 1716 and 1717/18 as musical director.86 In the case of La verità, therefore, Vivaldi might have functioned as kind of a producer, his duties including choosing the libretto on the one hand, hiring the cast and coordinating the succession of the performances on the other, meaning that he controlled and composed all the meanwhile inserted numbers, refreshing arias according to the singers’ wishes and revisions to gain the audience’s higher interest and pleasure.87 According to the avvisi, the premiere was successful:
The same Saturday evening went staged for the first time at the S. Angelo theatre the opera entitled La verità in cimento, which has been succeeded with universal applause.88
The summary of the plot is as follows: Sultan Mamud switched the sons of his wife Rustena and of his favourite concubine Damira, born on the same day. As a consequence, Damira’s son Melindo is to be his successor to the throne. In the midst of the preparations for Melindo’s marriage with princess Rosane (played by Strada), Mamud repents and reveals that the actual heir is Zelim, Rustena’s son. Zelim is in love with Rosane, who, therefore, has to decide between her emotions and ambitions of becoming queen.
Because operas, especially Venetian ones, were staged at short notice (generally within one or two months including the compositional process), the first rehearsals were frequently held at the composer’s house. Vivaldi, who until 1722 lived in a house next to Sant’Angelo, seems to have held auditions and coached singers directly at home.89 In light of these circumstances it is easy to imagine how the voice of the young Strada could serve as a guideline for him to accommodate ←34 | 35→his compositional methods to a yet unknown dimension of vocal art, that of a high female soprano, as well as its dramatic context. There must have been a mutual, back-and-forth exchange of inspiration, for nothing could better build up, enlarge and deepen Strada’s vocal, musical and dramatic consciousness, teaching her the appropriate and well balanced use of her skills as tools of expression, than a composer with personal insight. There was enough working time available to make progress together, during which they could become acquainted with each other’s musical habits, reactions and way of thinking.
The creation of Rosane’s role reflects not only on Strada’s unusually high tessitura but her great stamina, too. Though she was a debutant, at least in Venice, and therefore she must have had the rank of the seconda or terza donna, Strada sang no less than five arias ‒ while the other soprano, Chiara Orlandi as Rustena had four, and the contralto Merighi as Damira three. The musico-dramatic versatility and ambiguity of Rosane’s almost cynical character might be an indicator of vocal complexity. Assuming that Strada executed her part with an excellent vocal quality ‒ by right of the fact that her vocal performance never received a negative critique in her entire career (moreover, its brilliancy always came in for praise) ‒ one can take certain marks of the composition as hinting at attributes of a fresh sound and a naturally well-set chiaroscuro technique: a bright and silvery vocal production highlighted by panther-like vocal agility, and fierce passion enabled to be loosed by precise intonation.
Even Strada’s recitatives were set remarkably high, resting many times on eʺ (Ex. 1.1) ‒ especially striking when considering that the contemporary Venetian tuning for opera performances was higher than elsewhere, most probably a′=440 Hz.90
Example 1.1 Vivaldi: La verità in cimento – excerpt from the recitative of Act I scene 3, bars 5–8, vocal part
←35 | 36→
Strada’s first aria of the version of the premiere, ‘Solo quella guancia bella’ (I/3; A major, Allegro, C) refers to a high and vented voice, the freedom of which lies in a rather wide range. Vivaldi’s stirring and shamelessly bold way of composing does not show any limitation in the use of sixth- and octave leaps, hitting aʺ through them regularly – eleven times, to be exact – including da capo (Ex. 1.2). This also shows that her range went even beyond this, and most probably she displayed it at the cadenzas or via ornaments of the recurring section. The ease of her production seems evident in the placement of accents in the text, which can be approached by leap from above or by step from below (see ‘pietà’ in bars 17–18).
Example 1.2 Sections A and B1 of ‘Solo quella guancia bella’, bars 13‒34, vocal part
The rushed interpretation (which the aria requires), the rapidity of fifth-, sixth-, and octave leaps combined with coloratura patterns ‒ besides the pronunciation of the text ‒ makes it clear that Strada’s strongest vocal attributes in her youth were agility, flexibility, and high notes executed with ease and securely with a precise intonation. It is
