JAVS Spring 2013

Example 1a. Gioachino Rossini, Ciro in Babilonia , Act II aria, “Chi disprezza gl’infelici” [Argene], viola solo, mm. 4–11.

Example 1b. Gioachino Rossini, Ciro in Babilonia , Act II aria, “Chi disprezza gl’infelici” [Argene], viola solo, mm. 32–37.

Example 1c. Gioachino Rossini, Ciro in Babilonia , Act II aria, “Chi disprezza gl’infelici” [Argene], viola solo, mm. 57–60.

As you can imagine, discovering this aria made my day (or rather my night)! After the opera was over, I hap pened to run into the orchestra’s principal violist out side the Teatro Rossini, and of course I congratulated him on the solo. “you know,” he said, “I have by now played twenty-four Rossini operas, but this is the first time that a solo has come my way.” I wonder what was going through Rossini’s mind; he had a singer who could sing just one note, and he went and framed this one note within—of all things—a viola solo! Could the aria’s text have prompted Rossini for his inspired choice of instrument? It goes like this:

Those who despise the unhappy, Who don’t listen to their laments Heaven often knows how to punish For their unworthy cruelty.

I am not aware if viola jokes were already circulating in 1812, but whether they did or not, there can be few more subtle than this one.

* * *

As fate would have it, the opera that the ROF presented the following evening also had a violistic connotation. you will search in vain the score of Matilde di Shabran looking for a viola solo, but at the first performance, which took place in Rome on February 24, 1821, one was heard, and it must have been something very special.

Chi disprezza gl’infelici, Chi il suo pianto non ascolta Sa punire il Ciel talvolta Dell’indegna crudeltà.

J OuRNAL OF THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETy 12