Category:Berenice--music (subject)

Works of music related to Berenice

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 enter the contemporary repertoire.

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

Berenice is alluded to, but is not present in the most popular libretto, La clemenza di Titus (1734) by Pietro Metastasio, which focuses 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.

Berenice of Armenia, wife of Vologeso, is a character in the 1699 libretto Lucius Verus by Apostolo Zeno. The opera was more commonly set to music as Lucius Verus or Vologeso, re de' Parti. In 1702 the opera was revived by George Bronnen as Berenice, in 1762 by Davide Perez as La Berenice, and in 1811 by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli as Berenice, regina di Armenia.

Other operas have as their protagonist Berenice of Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy, with a completely different plot. Antonio Salvi's 1709 libretto Berenice, regina d'Egitto was set to music 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 performed under the simple title of Berenice.

Librettos like Portugal's La clemenza di Titus adds to the confusion, as the lover of Titus (clearly, Berenice of Judaea) is there introduced as "Berenice of Egypt.

Homonymy creates some confusion even in secondary literature where authors not always are able to distinguish correctly between the various Berenices and often assume that an opera titled Berenice was based on Racine. The works presented in this page are exclusively those which deal with Berenice of Judaea.

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)