Metastasio On Setting Dramatic Recitative To Music

Abstract

Abstract Attilio Regolo was Metastasio’s eighteenth dramma per musica, a relatively late work. Written in 1740, it was withdrawn shortly before the premiere, owing to the sudden death of Emperor Charles VI. Ten years passed before it finally appeared, not in Vienna but at the Saxon court theater in Dresden, and set to new music by Johann Adolf Hasse. It was Metastasio’s favorite among all his dramas; and indeed it enjoyed a career of its own as a spoken tragedy, remaining high in the estimate of critics down to the present. Perhaps because of its uncompromisingly elevated tone, its lack of spectacle, and, not least, its tragic ending, it failed to attract the swarm of composers who invariably reset the other Metastasio dramas over and over again; Attilio Regolo was set to music only four times in all. It tells the story of Atilius Regulus, the legendary Roman hero in the first Punic War; twice consul, then victorious general against the Carthaginians, he fell prisoner to them at last and was sent back to Rome to negotiate peace on condition that, should he fail, he would surrender again to his captors. Regulus appeared before the Roman senate with the Carthaginian Hamilcar by his side. After conveying the enemy’s peace terms, he delivered an impassioned speech, urging the Romans to reject the offer and fight Carthage to the end. Then, true to his word, and disdaining pleas that he remain, he surrendered once more, was taken back to Carthage, and suffered a horrible death.