Operation Terradellas at the Liceu

BarcelonaDomènec Terradellas (Barcelona, ​​​​1713 - Rome, 1751) was "the most celebrated Catalan composer of his time," says Victor Garcia de Gomar, the artistic director of the Liceu, without mincing words. The Rambla theatre has launched an operation Terradellas promoting the recovery of opera The Merope, which will be performed in concert version this Thursday at 7.30 pm by the Akademie für Alte Musik in Berlin under the direction of Francesco Corti. "We have one of the Ferraris of early music," says Garcia de Gomar, sitting next to Corti in the Tenor Viñas hall of the Liceu. Also worth mentioning are the soloists who will be taking part: Emőke Baráth, Valerio Contaldo, Francisco Pia Vitale, Sunhae Im, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, Thomas Hobbs and Margherita Maria Sala.The Merope It is a series of impressive arias, and there are few human beings who can sing these notes. They are very specific roles, especially those of Mérope and Epit [written in 1743 for castrated]", Corti recalls. Catalan singers accustomed to the old repertoire such as Núria Rial and Xavier Sabata could have participated, but, according to García de Gomar, their respective "schedules" have prevented this.

"It is the festival of the castrated", says the Swiss tenor Valerio Contaldo, who adds that in Terradellas' opera "the noble characters and heroes have very virtuous writing" but that in his case, which plays "bad", the writing is "very trivial and almost baritone, very simple, almost syllabic". "Your character is 120% evil", says Corti about Polyphon, indeed the villain of Apostolo Zeno's libretto, who revisits an episode of Greek mythology: Polyphon, after massacring the family of King Cresphontes, wants to marry the widowed queen, Mrope, who resists waiting. "A rather complicated story of family and political tensions", warns Corti.

The legend of death in the Tiber

Trained in the heart of the Barcelona cathedral, later a leading representative of the Neapolitan school ("Sometimes he seems like Pergolesi or Hasse," says Corti) and author of "very virtuosic" music, Terradellas had a life worthy of being fictionalized, with stays in Naples, Rome, London, Brussels and Paris. Following his death at the age of 38, legends spread (fake news, as they would call it today) according to which he was murdered and his body thrown into the Tiber river; even the bellowing that had killed him was spread by the composer Niccolò Jommelli, envious of his success. However, after the 18th century he has had little presence in concert halls and opera houses; he has not yet been sufficiently studied by the vindicators of early music, and he has not had a career as a character in popular culture.

"The recovery of early music in the 20th century has not been systematic. It did not begin with stage music, but with sacred music, especially with Bach. Later the operas of Monteverdi and Vivaldi were recovered, but there are many things that are between the great names of the Baroque and those of classicism, such as Tierra himself. zarzuela," explains Corti, who still adds another nuance: composers assigned to two countries like Terradelles, "Catalan but with Neapolitan training, need large institutions behind them." Now it is the Liceo that leads the rescue of The Merope with the Akademie für Alte Musik in Berlin, which will also take place in Madrid, Vienna and Berlin. In 2023 it was the Torrella Festival premiered the recovery of the oratorio Giuseppe recognized, by Vísperas de Arnadí and Dani Espasa, who also made at the Palau de la Música and at the National Auditorium in Madrid, and of which there is a recording. Previously, in 2010, L'Auditori had programmed a concert version Sestri, king of Egypt (1751), the last opera by the "Catalan Handel", which was performed in 1754 at the Teatro de la Santa Cruz in Barcelona.

The Merope, an opera in three acts, is not known to have been performed since the 18th century, and there is no recording of the complete opera. There is, however, a critical edition written by Robert Gerhard in 1951, but Corti has worked on its recovery from two manuscripts and has slimmed down some fragments of the opera (especially in the recited parts) to adapt it to the three-hour-and-ten-minute concert version (with a half-hour break). In this process, he had the complicity of the musicians of the Berlin ensemble when making decisions about the use of historical instruments. "In this intense drama, Terradellas uses many wind instruments, including the transverse flute, something quite exceptional for the time," says Corti.

"The Merope "It is a very exuberant music by a composer who wanted to succeed in Rome," explains Contaldo. Certainly, it was a success. He had already premiered Astarte (1739), and his later operatic production, "agile and efficient" according to Corti, was very prolific especially in Italy (but also in London), with titles such as To be artful (1744), Mithridates (1746), Bellerophon (1747) and Sestri, king of Egypt (1751). "When you hear The Merope "You can understand why it was so successful at the time," says Corti.