Davide Perez - Operas

Operas

Perez composed more than 44 dramatic works between 1735 and 1777, 22 operas between 1744 and 1755, the period when he almost exclusively concentrated on the genre. Excerpts from Arminio, La Didone abbandonata, Ezio, Farnace, Solimano and Vologeso were published in London by John Walsh, and at least 24 exist in manuscript.

In the opere serie written before 1752 Perez was often bound by the forms of Metastasian opera. Il Siroe, Andromaca and Alessandro nell’Indie (1744 version) are prime examples: 20 or more full da capo arias (more than half accompanied by strings alone) are consistently used, with between one and four accompanied recitatives, usually a single duet, a perfunctory three-movement sinfonia and a simple choral finale for the principals. The arias are usually written in the Baroque concerto idiom, with extravagant word-painting in the orchestra and extensive vocal bravura passages. Adhering to Metastasio’s prescription of character definition as the sum of a pattern of dramatic reversals, each aria usually depicts a single affect, with few exceptions: Artaserse and Alessandro each contain a scene complex of related arias and accompanied recitatives.

With Demofoonte in 1752, as Perez began his lengthy residence in Lisbon, the monumental idiom declined and a sentimental style gained increasing prominence, with a resultant clarity of texture, greater symmetry of phrase, frequent rhythmic motives and emphasis on the pathetic. Formal modifications include the frequent absence of ritornellos, truncated da capo arias, between five and nine accompanied recitatives and several small ensembles. Perez’s operas of the 1750s frequently display an orchestral mastery superior to that of the contemporary Italian opera school, incorporating features that during the 1740s he could only use in his church music. The strings are in three to five parts, the wind are often used for solo passages, and there is less doubling of the vocal parts and an increase in concertante passages. Among the better examples of this later manner are Olimpiade, Demofoonte, Ipermestra and Alessandro nell’Indie (1755 version).

Demetrio (1766 version) represents a transitional aesthetic, in which Perez combined a modified Baroque dramaturgy with a more up-to-date musical style: he eliminated 14 Metastasio aria texts, used eight accompanied recitatives and two duets for moments of personal reflection, and gave the da capo aria more musical and dramatic coherence. Solimano (1768) is his acknowledged masterpiece. It contains 14 dal segno arias, one cavatina and six accompanied recitatives, the scope and procedures of which are exceptional; several times the individual numbers are integrated into large-scale scene complexes. Kretzschmar (1919) claimed that Solimano ‘belongs under the heading of masterworks … richness of invention and of feeling, originality of means and of form, everything is therein, which makes an art great’ and ‘if all opera composers of the Neapolitan school had been of his stamp, there would have been no need of a Gluck’.