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Berenice (Home Page)

Works of music related to Berenice

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• @2017 Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan

Overview

As a love story, the affair between the Emperor Titus and Berenice for almost two centuries (mid-17th to mid-19th cent.) was a favorite operatic subject and attracted the attention of major composers. No work however reached that level of celebrity as to survive in the contemporary repertoire.

Berenice always appeared in company of Titus, not as an independent character. Her political role was downplayed, to focus solely on her unhappy love.

Berenice was alluded to, but was not present in the most popular libretto, La clemenza di Titus (1734) by Pietro Metastasio, which focused on the life of Titus after the end of his love affair with the Jewish Queen.

In 1793 Tito e Berenice revived the interest on the love affair between Titus and Berenice and a few more operas followed, based on the subject (Berenice in Roma). Even some late versions of La clemenza di Tito" reintroduced Berenice as a singing character.

In 1909 Magnard made a final attempt to relaunch to character of Berenice. His opera is the only one to have been revived in recent years.

• [[Berenice in Roma, dramma in 2 atti (Verona, Teatro Filarmonico, 1805) by Carlo Mellara (1778-1840)

Berenice of Judaea and the other Berenices

Berenice of Judaea is not the only Berenice performed on the musical stage.

(1) Berenice of Cappadocia is the protagonist of a libretto by Giorgio Maria Rapparini, Berenice vendicativa (1680), set to music by Domenico Freschi. She is the mother-in-law of Farnace (Pharnaces II of Pontus), to whom several librettos would be devoted in the 18th century. In some of them, like the one by Antonio Maria Lucchini (set to music by Antonio Vivaldi in 1727 and by many other composers), Berenice remains an important character. In 1728, after the success of his 1725 opera on Berenice of Judaea, Orlandini would title "Berenice" also his setting of Lucchini's libretto.

(2) Berenice II of Egypt was the daughter of Magas of Cyrene and Queen Apama II, and the wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes. According to an ancient legend, celebrated by Callimachus, she dedicated her hair to Aphrodite for the safe return of her husband from war. The goddess took her hair to the heavens and placed among the stars where it became a constellation (Coma Berenices, or Berenice's Hair). Nicolò Minato's libretto La chioma di Berenice, set to music by Antonio Draghi in 1695, commemorates the incident.

(3) Berenice of Syria, daughter of the Egyptian King Ptolemy II Philadelphus and wife of the Syrian King Antiochus II Theos, was the protagonist of a libretto, Laodicea e Berenice, by Matteo Noris. The libretto was set to music by Giacomo Antonio Perti (1695), and Alessandro Scarlatti (1701).

(4) Berenice of Armenia, betrothed with the Parthian King Vologases IV, is a character in the libretto Lucius Verus by Apostolo Zeno. in 1699 Carlo Francesco Pollarolo was the first of more than 50 composers who set to music the libretto. The opera was commonly presented as Lucius Verus or Vologeso, re de' Parti. It was also revived by George Bronnen (1702) and Johann Friedrich Fasch (1711) as Berenice, by Christoph Graupner (1710) as Berenice und Lucilla, by Davide Perez (1762) as La Berenice, and by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli (1811) and Carlo Soliva (1817) as Berenice, regina di Armenia. Bartolomeo Vitturi's libretto Berenice also deals with Berenice of Armenia; it was set to music by Baldassare Galuppi (1741), Ferdinando Bertoni et al. (1748), Nicola Conti (1749), and Salvatore Perillo (1759).

(5) Berenice of Egypt (Berenice III of Egypt), daughter of Ptolemy IX Lathyros and wife of Ptolemy XI Alexander II was the protagonist of another set of operas. Antonio Salvi's libretto Berenice, regina d'Egitto was set to music in 1709 by Giacomo Antonio Perti, in 1718 by Domenico Scarlatti and Nicolò Porpora, and again by Francesco Araja in 1734 and George Frideric Haendel in 1737. These versions were often known under the shorter title of Berenice.

Homonymy created confusion in secondary literature where authors not always were able to distinguish correctly between the various Berenices and often assumed that an opera was based on Racine only because it was titled Berenice. Librettos like Portugal's La clemenza di Titus added to the confusion, as the lover of Titus (clearly, Berenice of Judaea) is there introduced as "Berenice of Egypt. The works presented in this page are exclusively those which deal with Berenice of Judaea.

• @2017 Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan

Performing Berenice (singers)

On some occasions, in the earliest performances, Berenice was played to a male sopranist, like Benedetto Baldassarri in Rome, but already in the 18th century most of the interpreters were sopranos. Among them are two of the most famous primedonne of the time--Faustina Bordoni and Antonia Maria Girelli.

The most celebrated interpreter of Berenice in the 19th century was Clotilde Colombelle in the Naples premiere of Raimondi's Berenice in Rome.

The role of Berenice in Magnard's opera was created by Marguerite Merentié in 1911 and is the only one that has allowed contemporary sopranos the possibility of playing Berenice, from Françoise Pollet to Catherine Hunold.

Performing Berenice (dancers)