| Captivated as we are by symphonies, sonatas, concertos and cantatas, the dominant role of opera during the 18th century is sometimes forgotten. Whether it was in public or courtly theatres, Italian opera was performed from St Petersburg to Lisbon, and privately, in noble and bourgeois homes, collections of arias were sung in arrangements, while librettos, printed separately, were also read. Although there was a long list of female singers and patrons during the epoch, the number of women composers whose operas have been conserved is small. Maria Antonia Walpurgis (1724-1780) was among the most exceptional of these, as we shall see. This short article traces some of the little-known facts about this Saxon princess, whose operas, praised by Johann Adolf Hasse, Pietro Metastasio, Frederick the Great, Johann Cristoph Gottsched and Antonio de Eximeno, have yet to be recorded.
From her birth, celebrated in the court of Munich with a performance of the opera Amadis de Grecia by Pietro Torri, Maria Antonia was destined to be associated with Italian music. As a member of the highest ranks of the aristocracy, Maria Antonia Walpurgis, the daughter of the Elector and later Emperor Karl Albert of Bavaria and the Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, was taught by some of the leading opera composers of her time: Giovanni Ferrandini, Giovanni Porta, Nicola Porpora and Johann Adolf Hasse. That is not to say her education was neglected in other areas: she took painting lessons from Rafael Mengs, and as a poetess wrote the libretto for Hasse’s La conversione di Sant’Agostino (1750), considered one of the best Saxon oratorios. But fundamentally, Walpurgis’s most important facet was her musical activity as a composer, singer, harpsichordist and patron. |
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