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)

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)