From ‘insignificant’ bars to significant social relations: Elisabeth Teyber and Laodice's accompagnato in Siroe (1763)

Abstract

Allowedly, singers of Baroque opera could influence the final musical and dramaturgical shape of the work. In our paper, we will focus on a case study of Hasse's compositional process, which will serve as a platform for presenting the digital outputs of the research project ‘Pasticcio. Ways of Arranging Attractive Operas’. The 1763 version of Hasse's opera Siroe, re di Persia featured the novice Elisabeth Teyber in the role of Laodice, whose dramaturgical weight seems to have been reconsidered several times by the composer, particularly in one instance: The seventh scene of Act I was written out twice by Hasse, once as an accompagnato and once in a secco version. In the first part of this article, the background and reasons for such measures, which carry crucial information regarding compositional practices in Hasse's self-pasticcio, will be discussed. Particular emphasis will be placed on the dramaturgical changes and their presentation in the project's synoptical overview of the textual sources of Siroe. The second part enters into detail about Teyber and her vocal peculiarities, which prompted the composer's new concept of this scene. The third section is devoted to another digital humanities tool, namely the database, which serves to visualise relations between sources, singers and composers and to picture the complexity of 18th-century pasticcio practice.

Keywords

• pasticcio
• databases
• johann adolf hasse
• elisabeth teyber
• siroe