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Home Shop Baroque Opera Productions Whatever Happened to HIP? Regietheater - The Death of Opera Opera: Production and Counter-production More...

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Bernardo Bellotto - Dresden from the right bank of the Elbe with the Augustus Bridge - 1748

Dresden in the Time of Zelenka and Hasse

“Something choice and excellent”“Something choice and excellent”

On the evening of 13 September 1731 a new opera was lavishly performed atDresden. Cleofide was the work of Johann Adolf Hasse, recently appointedKapellmeister to the Saxon court. Hasse, already of Europe-wide fame, was anotable capture for Dresden and the occasion must have provided a glitteringspectacle. It has been suggested that among the audience that night was a visitorfrom nearby Leipzig, the Thomasschule cantor Johann Sebastian Bach, a plausiblescenario given that he was due to give an organ recital in the city’sSophienkirche on the following day. It has been conjectured, too, that Bach washimself anxious to obtain a post in the electoral city. He certainly cast enviousglances at the working conditions enjoyed by musicians there, as is clear from apassage in the famous Memorandum he presented to the Leipzig town council inAugust 1730. Having made the point that many a German musician worked inconditions that forced him to “worry about his bread”, Bach goes on to comparethe situation with Dresden: “To illustrate this statement with an example oneneed only go to Dresden and see how the musicians are paid by His RoyalMajesty [the King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus I, alsoknown as Augustus the Strong]. It cannot fail, since the musicians are relieved ofall concern for their living, free from chagrin and obliged each to master but asingle instrument; it must be something choice and excellent to hear.” Were it true that Bach coveted a post in Dresden, it would hardly have beensurprising. Music in Dresden was indeed “choice and excellent”, since at the timeBach was writing it was artistically one of the most lavishly endowed courts in

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Europe, boasting a roster of musicians and artists that would have been the envyof any in Europe. The foundations of such supremacy stretched far back,although they had been arrived at not without experience of the fluctuatingfortunes of fate. The city that stands on the River Elbe had since the fifteenthcentury been the permanent residence of the Wettin family, rulers of Saxony andone of the oldest dynasties in Europe. During the sixteenth century Saxonybecame the cradle of the Lutheran Reformation, the first Lutheran service inDresden being held on 6 July 1539 at the Kreuzkirche, at the time the city’sprincipal church. Its Kreuzschule performed the same function in Dresden as themore famous Thomasschule in Leipzig. The story of music in Dresden stretchesback almost as far as the history of the city itself and cannot detain us here otherthan pausing to note an earlier golden age that commenced when HeinrichSchütz was appointed to the court in 1615, nominally initially as subordinate toMichael Praetorius, the de facto Kapellmeister, but later in his own right asKapellmeister. In fact Schütz was charged with wide ranging duties, including therebuilding of the Kapelle for a new Elector, Johann Georg I. Schütz succeeded inthis task with spectacular success, building the musical life of the court to apinnacle of excellence that included the arrival of opera in Dresden in the shapeof his Dafne of 1627, a lost work believed to be the first German opera. Thisillustrious era was brought to end when the devastating 30 Years War reachedSaxony in 1631, necessitating a drastic reduction in musical activity. AlthoughSchütz played some part in attempting to revive music to its pre-war eminenceafter the situation improved, he was by that time too old to play more than amarginal role. By the time of his death in 1672, Dresden’s musical life was alreadylargely dominated by Italian composers and musicians, a feature that woulddefine much of its course for the next century. Dresden in the Reign of Frederick Augustus IDresden in the Reign of Frederick Augustus I The most brilliant era of artistic achievement in Dresden opened in 1694, the yearin which Frederick Augustus I succeeded his brother as Elector. In the previousdecade Augustus had twice undertaken the Grand Tour (his first attempt had tobe curtailed because of war), completing a circuit of Europe that had taken him toParis and Versailles, to Madrid and Lisbon, to Vienna, and to Italy, where he visitedFlorence, Venice, Rome and Naples. Augustus had thus at first hand become wellacquainted with the splendour in which great rulers live, above all at Louis XIV’sVersailles, from where he gained a taste for French drama and opéra-ballet. Aman of huge ambition and dynamic energy, Augustus set about transforming theelectoral capital into a centre of artistic and architectural excellence that wouldrival Versailles. In 1697 Augustus’ power was magnified when, despite opposition from much ofthe Polish nobility, he extended his realm eastwards by becoming elected KingFrederick Augustus II of Poland following the death of John III Sobieski. The costof this huge territorial expansion was Augustus’ own conversion to Catholicism.Surprisingly, if diplomatically, he made no attempt to enforce the edictestablished at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 – “Cujus regnum eius religio” (thestate will adopt the religion of the ruler). So while Catholicism became thereligion of the court, the Protestants of Saxony were left without interference andindeed Augustus’ wife Christiane Eberhardine remained a Lutheran, her exampleearning her the devotion of her subjects and a lasting memorial from Bach, whocomposed his Trauerode, BWV198 on the occasion her death in 1727. Soon afterbecoming Polish king, Augustus dissolved the Hofkapelle, which was re-organisedfor the requirements of Protestant music, while a new musical establishment wasformed to cater for the needs of Catholic sacred music and the court. Records for1697 reflect this division, showing that while both institutions numbered a similarnumber of string players (5), only the new Catholic Kapelle, obviously favouredfinancially by Augustus, boasted wind and brass players. Otherwise the Elector’sapparently laissez faire approach to his new religion is well illustrated by the factthat the court had no dedicated chapel for worship until 1708, in which year theformer court theatre was redesigned as a chapel in accordance with his own

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taste and design. The first public Catholic church in the city was opened in thesame year. Meanwhile, Augustus’ dynamic activity was being directed intoinnumerable artistic and architectural projects, surviving plans for many of themshowing how frequently he was personally involved. In the early years of theeighteenth century he ordered a group of expert craftsmen to solve thecenturies-old Chinese mystery of porcelain manufacture, a venture brought to asuccessful conclusion in 1708. The advent of the manufacture of hard porcelainat Meissen rapidly established a highly prestigious luxury export admiredthroughout Europe, bringing further reflected glory to Augustus’ court. 1711 sawthe commencement of the most ambitious of the architectural projects carriedout in Dresden under Augustus, the Zwinger. Designed by Daniel Pöppelmann asa large open space around which were erected galleries interspersed withpavilions, the Zwinger was the ultimate in ostentatious courtly display, itsarchitecture complimented by fountains and arcades, and by the opulence of thedecorative art that adorned its pavilions. Augustus’ taste extended beyond the aesthetic to more hedonistic activities,including a voracious sexual appetite – he is said, perhaps apocryphally, to havesired 365 illegitimate children – and a love of glittering court functions thataccording to the Mémoires (1734) of the traveller Baron Pöllnitz included “plays,masquerades, balls, banquets, tilting at the ring, sleigh-rides, tours and huntingparties”. Many of these fêtes were open to the public, while according to Pöllnitz, “The plays and masquerades were open to anyone who was well dressed”. Giventhat Augustus’ conversion to Catholicism had caused understandable concernamong his Protestant subjects, this encouragement of the Dresden citizenry toparticipate in the wider activities of court life represented astute local politicsthat, if Pöllnitz is to be believed, paid handsome dividends: “All who were presentwere even more delighted with the King’s manners than with loveliness of thescene and the magnificence of the feasts.” Noting that Augustus seemed to enjoyhimself more in Saxony than in Poland, Pöllnitz continued, “It is his hereditarycountry, and he is absolute there; his will is that of his subjects, by whom he isadored rather than beloved.” Music in the First Augustan AgeMusic in the First Augustan Age The splendour of Augustus’ court attracted not only admiring visitors from acrossEurope, but also a distinguished succession of musicians to fill vacancies in therapidly expanding Kapelle, ultimately forming a team of galaticos the like ofwhich has rarely been equalled. In 1709 the Flemish-born J. B. Volumier wasbrought in to lead the orchestra, which at that time in accordance with theElector’s personal taste was modelled on French lines, with five-part strings (atotal of 16) and flutes and oboes, then newly introduced to the orchestra, to playwhich several pioneering French performers were employed. Under Volumier theDresden orchestra achieved an exceptional level of precision doubtless helpedby the arrival of Jan Dismas Zelenka as a bass player about 1710 and two yearslater by Johann Georg Pisendel, an outstanding violinist who would eventually (in1728) succeed Volumier as concert master. Pisendel had been trained at the courtof Ansbach, where he was taught by the Italian virtuoso Giuseppe Torelli. Hisarrival would have far reaching implications not only for Dresden, but music incentral and northern Germany generally. One of Augustus’ policies was to sendhis principal musicians to leading centres in order study the latest developments,an idea that also served the purpose of advertising the excellence of music at theDresden court. In 1715 Volumier, along with Pisendel, Johann Christoph Schmidt,the Kapellmeister and several other performers went to Paris, while visits toBerlin, Venice (1716) and Vienna (1719) were also made by groups of the Elector’smusicians. But it was the trip to Venice, a party that included Zelenka, whichwould prove to have particular prescience. During this stay Pisendel came intocontact with Vivaldi, from whom he received violin lessons, becoming in theprocess a fervent admirer of the Venetian master’s music. Pisendel’s advocacy ofVivaldi, who composed a number of concertos for the Dresden court orchestra,not only had a profound affect on his own compositions, but his introduction of

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Vivaldi’s music to Dresden would also have an influence on many nativecomposers, most notably Bach. Meanwhile other recruits were adding to the roster of luminaries. In 1716 the 19year-old oboist and flautist Johann Joachim Quantz arrived in Dresden, theaccount in his autobiography providing a vivid picture of the remarkable level ofattainment the Kapelle had then reached:

In March of the year 1716 I went to Dresden. Here I soon became aware that themere playing of notes as set down by the composer was far from being thegreatest merit of a musician[…] It [the orchestra] distinguished itself from manyother orchestras by its French evenness of performance, introduced by theconcert master at that time, Volumier. Under the next concert master, HerrPisendel, who introduced a mixed style, it achieved a finesse of performancethat I never heard surpassed in all my later travels[…] I was greatly amazed, andmy zeal for continuing musical studies was doubled. I wanted to preparemyself so that in time I too could become a tolerable member of this excellentcompany.

Quantz’s testimony that the Dresden orchestra was developing “a mixed style” –Italian as well as French – under Pisendel is hardly surprising given the violinist’sItalian training, but is important for illustrating increasing Italian influence inDresden. The following year the trend became a flood when Crown PrinceFrederick Augustus, a fervent admirer of Italian opera who had accompanied themusicians to Venice on the 1716/1717 trip as part of his own Grand Tour,persuaded his father to engage an Italian opera company under the direction ofAntonio Lotti, first organist of St Mark’s. Among the instrumentalists engaged wasJohann David Heinichen, originally appointed as Lotti’s deputy, but who soonassumed other duties and became Kapellmeister, Schmidt having been elevatedto the newly created post of Hofkapellmeister. Although he had worked briefly inLeipzig, Heinichen had spent most of the recent past in Italy, basing himself onVenice, where he had two operas produced. In recent years a number of hishighly inventive orchestral works have been revived, revealing a mastery oforchestration that frequently exploited the renowned Dresden wind players. LikePisendel, he would retain his post in Dresden for the remainder of his life, beingpromoted to the post of Hofkapellmeister on the death of Schmidt in 1728. Amore transient instrumentalist to arrive was the flamboyantly arrogant virtuosoviolinist and composer Francesco Maria Veracini, whose stay in Dresden isprincipally remembered for a bizarre episode involving him throwing himselffrom a first floor window, an incident he survived to return to his native Florencein 1723. The opera singers who came to Dresden with Lotti included a number of famousnames, among them the composer’s wife Santa Stella and the famous altocastrato Francesco Bernardi, better known as Senesino. The first performance bythe new company took place on 25 October 1717, a staging of Lotti’s melodramapastorale Giove in Argo, given in a provisional theatre as a new opera housecommissioned by the Elector had yet to be built. The new opera house was located near the Zwinger to a design by Pöppelmann,the same builder who had designed the lavish complex. Needless to say, noexpense was spared. The 2000-seat building, the largest north of the Alps, waserected at the huge cost of 150,000 thaler and extravagantly decorated by thedesigner Alessandro Mauro, one of the party recruited from Venice. It wascompleted in time for one of the most spectacular events of Augustus’ reign, themonth-long celebrations attending the wedding of the Crown Prince to theHabsburg Archduchess Maria Josepha, the daughter of the late Emperor Joseph I,a powerful union made possible only by the status Augustus now enjoyed asKing of Poland and one with considerable potential political implications. Thenew house opened on 3 September 1719 with a repeat performance of Giove inArgo, Teofane the new opera seria Lotti had composed for the weddingcelebrations not being ready, possibly because of the astonishingly elaborate

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stage sets by Mauro. When Teofane, set to a libretto by the Dresden court poetStefano Benedetto Pallavicino, was given ten days later, it was before an audiencethat in addition to including the cream of European royalty and nobility alsonumbered two music visitors, Telemann and Handel. Teofane was praised byQuantz for “its pure, but sensible Italian taste, from which the Italians have sincestrayed too far”, although modern commentators have been less generous to theopera. More importantly, the plot concerning the marriage of the great SaxonEmperor Otto II provided a perfect analogy in which to set the weddingcelebrations. Musically, it is also of interest for scoring that included a number ofobligato parts, among them an aria with a part for archlute that must have beenintended for Silvius Leopold Weiss, who had joined the musical establishment inDresden the previous year. One of the greatest lutenists of his day, Weiss laterrejected an exceptionally generous offer from Vienna, remaining at the Saxoncourt to become by 1744 its highest paid instrumentalist. Following the celebrations, Lotti returned to Venice, leaving a number of theItalian singers and players in Dresden. Several, among them Senesino, were beingcourted by Handel, who was on a recruitment mission for his new operacompany in London. The great castrato was at the centre of a row over FlavioCrispo, a new opera by Heinichen intended to mark the Elector’s return fromPoland in 1720. According to Quantz, Heinichen was insulted at a rehearsal bySenesino and his fellow castrato Berselli (who also went to London with Handel),an incident that arouses the suspicion that it was purposely engineered to allowthem to break their contracts. Whatever the truth, Augustus, who as we haveseen was no great lover of Italian opera, disbanded the opera company. Most ofthe Italians departed, leaving Flavio Crispo, Heinichen’s only Dresden opera,unperformed. Relieved of the expensive demands of Italian opera, the focus of attention at theDresden court turned to the establishment of a Catholic sacred repertoire, a taskundertaken by Heinichen, Zelenka and the director of the Polish chapel, GiovanniRistori. The increasing ill health of Heinichen during the decade resulted in muchof the burden falling on Zelenka, who by the time of the death of the former in1729 had become de facto Kapellmeister. Following a visit to Prague during 1721and 1722, the industrious Zelenka composed a large body of sacred works for theDresden chapel, particularly during the second half the decade. At the same time,civic Dresden, not to be outdone by the Catholic court, began work in 1726 on areplacement for the old medieval Frauenkirche, which had become so dilapidatedthat it was demolished. Designed by George Bähr as a powerful affirmation ofProtestant faith and civic pride, by the time the Frauenkirche was consecrated in1734 its huge dome dominated the Dresden skyline. Between 1734 and 1736, amagnificent organ built by Gottfried Silbermann was erected in the church andon 1 December 1736 Bach gave a recital on it, attended by representatives of thecourt and civic dignitaries. Destroyed by bombing in 1945, the Frauenkirche wasreopened in 2005 following a painstaking and loving restoration of the originalbuilding. With the death of Heinichen in 1729, Zelenka had a perfectly reasonableanticipation of being promoted in his place. But any expectations he had were tobe thwarted. Spurred once again by the interests of the Crown Prince, Italianmusicians were making a comeback in Dresden. In 1728 the veteran alto castratoand teacher Antonio Campioli was sent to Venice to seek and train new talent,among those arriving as a result being the castrato Domenico Annibali, whowould play a major role in Dresden’s operatic life and also sing for Handel inLondon, and the soprano Maria Rosa Negri, also to pursue a major career inDresden and London. The Hasse EraThe Hasse Era Any hopes Zelenka might have entertained that he would fill Heinichen’s post

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were dashed with the appointment of Hasse as one of the two Kapellmeisters in1730, insult being added to injury when Heinichen’s old position was left unfilled.Hasse’s appointment followed protracted and secret negotiations, the details ofwhich are not known. It is tempting to speculate that Quantz, who had become aclose friend of Hasse’s in Naples earlier in the 1720s and returned to Dresden in1727, may have been involved in some way. By the time Hasse arrived in Dresdenhe had already scored considerable success in Vienna, Naples, at that time underHabsburg rule, and Venice, where in June 1730 he had secretly married thealluring mezzo Faustina Bordoni. The Hasses were engaged at Dresden for acombined salary of 6000 thaler a year, to which were added travel expenses.Some idea of how enormous an income this represented can be gauged from thefact that at this time the average annual salary of a pastor in Saxony was 175thaler. If Hasse was well on the way to superstardom by this time, Faustina hadalready achieved it, having sung all over Europe, including with Handel inLondon, where she received huge fees. Following her marriage to Hasse, shesang mostly in his operas, the pair being described by the great librettist PietroMetastasio some fourteen years after their marriage as “truly an exquisitecouple”. Needless to say, Faustina appeared in Hasse’s first Dresden opera, Cleofide,singing the role of the gentle, but heroic Indian queen Cleofide. It is said sherather more than caught the eye of the Elector. Cleofide is based on a librettoadapted from Metastasio concerned with fictitious events surrounding theconquest of northern India by Alexander the Great in 325 BC. It is in many waysthe paradigmatic court opera seria: immensely long, with spectacular settings,fully developed da capo arias and few ensembles, its plot served the purpose ofsuch operas – the celebration of the generosity and magnanimity as acharacteristic of powerful absolute rulers. No one in the Dresden audience onthat September night would have failed to make the link between Alexander theGreat and Augustus the Strong, another ruler who had greatly extended histerritories to the east, albeit by rather less spectacular means than Alexander. AsT. C. W. Blanning has perceptively noted, the cover of the libretto itself reveals thekind of culture that gave birth to an opera such as Cleofide. The name ofAugustus, who in addition to his official titles is described as “Always Great andInvincible” (the latter by no means true) appears in print twice the size of that ofthe “most illustrious” Johann Adolf Hasse, thus clearly delineating the hierarchicalorder of things, as does the fact that the performance is given “At the commandof his Majesty”. Something under eighteen months after the first performance of Cleofide, thelong reign of Augustus the Strong was brought to an end by his death on 1February 1733. His funeral obsequies were attended by a Requiem in D (ZWV46)and an Invitorium, 3 lectiones and 9 responsoria (ZWV47) by Zelenka. He wassucceeded by the opera-loving Frederick Augustus II, his sole legitimate son, whoalso became King Augustus III of Poland. Augustus II inherited from his father amagnificent cultural centre, and a love of pleasure and the arts. He also inheriteda huge debt. What he did not inherit, it seems, was Friedrich’s charisma. Augustuswas soon challenged for the Polish throne, which was secured only following thesuccessful outcome of the War of Polish Succession (1733-1736), a victory achievedwith the assistance of Russia and Austria. Like his father, Augustus II hadconverted to the Catholic faith and in 1738 work started on an impressive newCatholic church, the Hofkirche, designed in the Italian style by Gaetano Chiaveri.It was completed in 1751. The terms of Hasse’s employment in Dresden did not require him to follow thecourt when it was in Warsaw, an arrangement that allowed he and Faustinafrequent opportunities for travel. Over the course of the next twenty-two yearshe and his wife led a peripatetic existence that took them frequently to Italy,generally Naples or Venice, but also increasingly after the mid-1740s to Berlin,where Frederick the Great had become a fervent admirer of Hasse’s operas.During this period Hasse continued to write an average of at least one,

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sometimes two, operas for Dresden that were staged during the Carnival season.One particularly rich period of production occurred between February 1737 andthe autumn of 1738, during which time Hasse composed now fewer than fiveopere serie, all to librettos by the court poet Pallavicino. Among them wasAlfonso (May 1738), composed to a text on a suitable Spanish subject for thecelebrations surrounding the wedding of Crown Princess Maria Amalia to Carlo,King of the Two Sicilies, an occasion for which the opera house was refurbished.In September 1738 the Hasses went to Venice, where according to the Frenchwriter and traveller Charles de Brosses the popularity of Hasse was at its peak.They did not return until early 1740, a year that was to prove fateful for theDresden court. Following his accession to the Prussian throne in that year,Frederick the Great immediately began a series of military adventures designedto weaken the Habsburg empire by annexing Silesia. In the first of the Silesianwars (1740-1742), Frederick had the support of Saxony, the victory achieved withits assistance helping him on a road to power that would ultimately cost Saxonydearly. When the Prussian monarch visited Dresden for talks about theannexation of Silesia, it is said he broke off to attend a performance of Hasse’snew Lucio Papiro (Jan 1742), almost certainly his first acquaintance with acomplete Hasse opera. This strange amalgamation of extravagant artistic show and dark war cloudswould continue for the next two decades. October 1742 witnessed the firstproduction of one of Hasse’s most successful operas, Didone abbandonata,composed to an outstanding Metastasio libretto, a book set by countlesscomposers during the course of the eighteenth century. It was given not at thecourt theatre by the Zwinger, but at the theatre at Hubertusburg, the electoralsummer residence, which from 1737 had been increasingly used for operaproductions. As with his predecessors, Hasse’s activities in Dresden were by nomeans confined to the opera house. As Kapellmeister (Hofkapellmeister from1750), he also provided music for the Catholic court chapel, having himselfconverted to Catholicism around the time of his marriage to Faustina. Theprincipal onus in fact fell on Hasse, since following an unsuccessful petition in1733 to the new Elector for the post of Kapellmeister, Zelenka had largely givenup composing sacred works that were too old-fashioned to appeal to the Italian-oriented Augustus II. He died in 1745, reputedly a broken and disillusioned man.Lutheran music during this time produced few notable names until the arrival ofBach’s eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, organist of the Sophienkirche between1733 and 1747, and Gottfried August Homilius, a pupil of Bach’s who becameorganist of the Frauenkirche in 1742 and cantor of the Kreuzschule in 1755. Recentrecordings of music by Homilius reveal him to have been have been a fineexponent of the post-Bach cantata. In 1744 Frederick the Great again went to war over Silesia, this time with Saxonyhaving allied itself with Austria. The result was disaster, with a resounding defeatfor the Saxon and Austrian forces. The Elector fled to Warsaw, leaving Frederick toenter Dresden as victor, one of his first acts being to command a performance ofHasse’s latest operas, Arminio (October 1745). Although the Elector returned toDresden early in 1746, Saxony was forced to pay large war indemnities.Notwithstanding such a crippling penalty, the lavish spending continued. In 1748the court theatre was enlarged and again redecorated by the famous GiuseppeGalli-Bibiena, who worked as principal stage designer until 1753. During thecourse of the 1740s and the early 1750s the court orchestra numbered an averageof 45 personnel, a figure that reached a peak of 53 in 1756, the eve of the third,and for Dresden apocalyptic, Silesian War. In that year the orchestra boasted 29string players, disposed as 19 violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, 1 viola da gamba and 2double basses, to which were added 3 flutes 5 oboes, 6 bassoons, 3 horns, 2trumpets and timpani as well as two harpsichords and a panteleon, a dulcimer-like instrument invented by Panteleon Hebenstreit, a former court musician. Atthe same time there were 19 solo singers, some of international repute, on thepay roll of the court, which in total employed a total of 146 musicians. The annualcost of this huge body was a staggering 100,000 thaler.

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With its consecration in 1751, Chiaveri’s Hofkirche gave Dresden not only a newarchitectural adornment, but added another significant musical venue for the city,a number of Hasse’s larger scale sacred works being composed especially for thenew church. For the consecration of the still-incomplete church on 29 June,Hasse composed his Mass in D minor and a Te Deum. When eventuallycompleted, the Hofkirche, with its graceful tower, added yet another landmark tothe Dresden skyline. Like the Frauenkirche, the Hofkirche suffered considerabledamage during World War II, but was restored during the GDR period. In the five years between 1751 and 1756, Hasse composed a further seven operasfor Dresden, the last a setting of another famous Metastasio libretto, L’Olimpiade,produced on 16 February 1756. It would be his last for Dresden. On 29 August,Frederick the Great led his army in a surprise invasion of Saxony, thus startingthe third and most devastating of the Silesian wars, better known today as theSeven Years War. On 14 October the Saxon army surrendered to Frederick, to beimmediately incorporated in his own, while the Elector once again fled to Warsaw,where he remained until the end of the war. Over the period of the war yearsDresden and Saxony became a battleground for opposing armies, sufferingterrible damage and the ruin of the economy. Included in the damage was thedestruction of the Kreuzkirche, destroyed in 1760 by Prussian bombardment. Augustus II returned to Dresden in the aftermath of the war in 1763, as did Hasse,who found his house in ruins. Astonishingly, amid the wreckage of his country,Hasse’s Siroe (an old opera dating from 1733) was given on 3 August, and a newproduction of his Leucippo (October 1747) was planned to celebrate the Elector’sbirthday on 7 October. But two days before the scheduled performance AugustusII died of a stroke; for his funeral Hasse composed one of his finest sacred works,the Requiem in C. One final blow awaited the electorate in this annus horribilis.On 17 December the new Elector, Frederick Christian died after contractingsmallpox, leaving Hasse to perform one final duty for the Wettins by writinganother Requiem, this time in E flat. At the end of February 1764 he and Faustinaleft Dresden for Vienna, bearing with them two-year’s salary. After more than 30years of service it was the last time either would see Dresden. The death of Augustus II was the final act in the magnificent, profligate dramathat was Dresden’s Augustan Age. Henceforth there would be no more lavishlyproduced opera, no more grandiose architectural projects, although records showthat the size of the court orchestra was maintained at much its pre-war size.When the historian Charles Burney visited Dresden in 1772, he found theelectoral family, now divested of its Polish realms, attending a performance at themodest Kleines Kurfürstliches Theater. It is to Burney that we can leave theperfect epitaph for fallen Augustan Dresden, the city that had once earned theepithet “Florence on the Elbe”: Dresden is at present a melancholy residence; from being the seat of the Muses,and a habitation of pleasure, it is now only a dwelling for beggary, theft andwretchedness. No society among the natives can be supported; all must retrench;the court is obliged to abandon genius and talents, and is, in turn abandoned bythem! Select Bibliography T. C. W. Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture (Oxford, 2002).Daniel Hertz, Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720 – 1780 (New York & London,2003).John Spitzer & Neal Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650 – 1825(Oxford, 2002).Janice B. Stockigt, Jan Dismas Zelenka, 1679 – 1745: A Bohemian Musician at the Court ofDresden (Oxford, 2000)

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This article originally appeared in Goldberg Early Music Magazine. Copyright 2016 the author,Brian Robins

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