Signs of late seria in Antonio Salieri's opera “Armida”

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to understand the specifics of identifying characters, plots, and means of musical expressiveness in the seria of the post-Neapolitan and post-Venetian era of the genre, considering that it was in the Neapolitan and later Venetian schools that the classic examples of the named opera typology emerged. The methodological basis of the work is the position of the intonation approach of B. Asafyev's school in Ukraine represented by I. Liashenko, I. Kotliarevskyi – and their numerous students who formed their own scientific schools. At the same time, we highlight the hermeneutic-comparative, biographical-descriptive, stylistic-genre methods, as they reflected the discovery of the psychology of creativity in the works of J. Huizinga, M. Eliade, and other art historians. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by the fact that for the first time in Ukrainian musicology the named composition by A. Salieri became the subject of research, the indicators of what is called today "late seria" are formulated for the first time, clarification is given regarding the interpretation of the typology of the traits of characters, typical of seria in general and those that are singled out at the level of the Viennese work of A. Salieri and other his contemporaries. Conclusions. The generalisation of information about the existence of seria from the beginning to the middle of the 18th century indicates significant changes in the conditions of the presentation of this genre in the theatre and the attitude of the public to the typical traits of characters of the classic seria, with a hagiographic shade, while the "late" version is "infected" with psychologism and a mixture of manifestations, up to the frankly pro-demonic presentation of the sorceress Armida in the opera of the same name by A. Salieri. And its very name, which is far from the ideal guidelines of Christian morality (and seria with the etymology literally translated as "serious" corresponds to the indication of the ecclesiastical meaning), is presented as the leading character, while the bearers of Christian virtues – Rinaldo and Ubaldo – according to the stage schedule find themselves "in the shadow" of the actions and expressions of the named main character.