The Queen as King: Refashioning "Semiramide" for Seicento Venice

Author(s): Wendy Heller

Source: Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jul., 1993), pp. 93-114
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Cambridge Opera Journal, 5,2, 93-114

The queen as king: Refashioning Semiramide

for Seicento Venice
WENDY HELLER

'From Nino and Semiramide, rulers of Assyria, was born a

name of his father, and so resembled his mother that the peo
them only by means of masculine and feminine clothing.' Thu
mento to the libretto La Semiramide, produced in Venice at th
e Paolo for the 1670-71 season. The gender ambiguity describe
is evident in the portrait of Semiramide from the frontisp
(see Fig. 1). She sits alone at her dressing table, adorning h
in anticipation of her lover's arrival. She admires herself in th
symbol of female vanity.1 Her bare breasts and navel cont
the metal shield that girds her chest. A high-topped military
prominently beneath the folds of her skirt. Prior to assuming
that she will wear for much of the opera, Semiramide is al
manner that is warlike and sexually dangerous, challenging
mixture of male and female attributes is critical to her new g
heroine.
La Semiramide was the result of librettist Matteo Noris's
of an earlier work: Giovanni Andrea Moniglia's La Semiram

An earlier version of this paper was read at the annual meeting of the Amer
Society in Chicago in 1991. Research was carried out with the assistance of a
from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. I would like to thank Laurie B
Beth Glixon, Susan McClary, Ellen Rosand and Gregory E. Smith for their
suggestions on earlier drafts.

The association of the mirror with vanity and the unfaithful woman can b
seventeenth-century allegorical depictions. For example, in Cesare Ripa's
Descrittione di diverse imagine cavate dall'antichita, e dipropria inventione
the mirror is used for the allegorical representation of 'Falseness in love or
'Lasciviousness' is also represented as a richly clad young woman, a mirror
beautifying herself with her right hand (p. 289). Karen Newman points out
in English Renaissance literature of 'mirrors wherein readers could learn p
behaviour or lessons about improper forms.... The ideological texts writt
how to behave continually allude to the mirror, often in their title'; see Fa
and English Renaissance Drama (Chicago, 1991), 7-8. Semiramide's self-ad
mirror thus alludes not only to her vanity and lasciviousness, but may also
as an exemplum of feminine behaviour.

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94 Wendy Heller

Fig. 1. Frontispiece to La Semiramid

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 95

Vienna court in 1667.2 Since exportation of Venetian operas to other locales

was the more common occurrence, instances in which a foreign-born work was
revised for Venice afford a rare glimpse into the web of literary, dramatic and
musical conventions of which Venetian opera is comprised. For his revision of
this libretto for a new audience, Noris refashioned Semiramide herself, aligning
her with numerous Venetian heroines, many of whom played an important role
in the debate about women that raged in seventeenth-century Venice. Thus, a
comparative reading of the refashioned La Semiramide and its model discloses
critical aspects of Venetian attitudes towards women and gender. It was through
opera - more than any other art form - that Venice projected its self-image and
protected its interests.3 The developing genre of opera was also uniquely suited
to pursue questions concerning the worthiness of women and their relationships
to men, and to instruct on their appropriate position in society.

That seventeenth-century men (and some women) were concerned with the nature
of women and their role in society is shown by the outpouring of books arguing the
virtues and defects of the female sex. These writings were part of a virulent debate,
much of which was waged in the form of catalogues of historical and legendary
heroines used as exempla of either desirable or undesirable feminine traits.4

2 Moniglia's libretto was originally written for a Medici-Habsburg wedding in 1665 in

Innsbruck. Owing to the untimely death of groom Sigmund Franz, the work was never
performed; but it travelled with the composer Antonio Cesti to Vienna, where it was
produced for the Emperor's birthday in 1667. The version printed for the Vienna production
most closely matches Cesti's score. A somewhat longer version, minus the ballet, is included
in volume two of Dellepoesie drammatiche di Gio. Andrea Moniglia (Florence, 1690) under
the title La Semiramide. Moniglia's preface indicates that this was the version originally
intended for the cancelled Innsbruck performance. Noris's version was published in two
editions, both from December 1670. The preface by Venetian publisher Nicolini mentions
Moniglia as the author of the original work, yet does not name Noris as reviser. This
attribution is found in Ivanovich's chronological listing of the repertoire of the Venetian
stage in the appendix to his Minerva al tavolino (Venice, 1681; 2nd edn., 1688), 441. Noris
apparently used the 1667 Vienna libretto as the basis of his revision, as none of his borrowings
draws upon material unique to the later Florence print.
On opera as a projection of Venice's civic glory, see Ellen Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth-
Century Venice (Berkeley, 1991), especially 125-53. On the ways in which opera in Venice
was used as a tool of the upper classes, see for example Lorenzo Bianconi and Thomas Walker,
'Production, Consumption and Political Function of Seventeenth-Century Opera', Early
Music History, 4 (1984), 211-99. On the use of cultural products to influence Baroque society,
see Jose Antonio Maravall, Culture of the Baroque: A nalysis of a Historical Structure. Theory
and History of Literature, trans. Terry Cochran (Minneapolis, 1986).
While catalogues of the lives of illustrious male heroes had long existed, those of women
did not emerge until the fourteenth century, with Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris. See
Constance Jordan, Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models (Ithaca, 1990).
The practice of using female figures to represent abstract ideas or attributes had a strong
historical tradition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but waned in the eighteenth
century; in the revision of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (1758-60) many of the original allegorical
women were replaced by male figures. See Cesare Ripa, Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery:
The 1758-60 Hertel Edition ofRipa's Iconologia with 200 Engraved Illustrations (New York,
1971).

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96 Wendy Heller

These books are also a major source for understanding the Venetian opera libretto,
for they feature many of the same heroines that populate librettos. Semiramide
and her operatic sisters were, in other words, participants in the discourse about
gender in seventeenth-century Italy, a discourse that took the form of a passionate
dispute about the fundamental nature of women.
The intensification of misogynistic attitudes in seventeenth-century Italy - Venice
in particular - is illustrated by the publication of works such as Giuseppe Passi's
I donneschi difetti.5 As its title suggests, Passi's book is an encyclopedia of the
various defects of women (containing chapters such as 'Of lustful women, and
their inordinate appetite for lechery' and 'How suspect is the beautiful woman,
how dangerous and ephemeral is her beauty that is but the cause of arrogance
and other ills'). Passi's primary obsessions were with the dangers of female sexuality,
women's lack of trustworthiness and the need for men to control and prevent
them from gaining power. He defended his arguments with examples from the
lives of legendary and historical heroines, with supporting citations from an array
of ancienf and modern writers. His views were evidently shared by others: four
editions of I donneschi difetti appeared between 1598 and 1618, prefaced by letters
from his many supporters, and it was used as a model by many subsequent anti-
female writers.6
For some writers, such rampant misogyny posed a threat to the established
order. Giulio Cesare Capaccio argued, for example, that abused and unhappy
wives will rebel against their husbands, thus threatening the stability of the family.7
Using an approach similar to Passi, Pietro Paolo Ribera defended women
in his Le glorie immortali di trionfi et heroiche imprese (Venice, 1619), a collection
of biographies of 844 illustrious heroines. Women's biographies were also offered
in their defence in Francesco Agostino della Chiesa's Discorso sulla preminenza
del sesso donnesco (Mondovi, 1620).
Although writings for and against women were published throughout Europe
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was only in seventeenth-century
Venice that the debate engaged female writers. Arguments for the superiority
of women are presented in Moderata Fonte's II merito delle donne (Venice, 1600),
published posthumously by her family as a response to the misogynist climate
created by Passi and his supporters. Lucrezia Marinelli also defended her sex by
citing the heroines of legend and history. The second portion of her La nobilta

5 I donneschi difetti. Nuovamenteformati, eposti in luce (Venice, 1599). Many of the views
are also reflected in his marriage manual, Dello stato maritale (Venice, 1602).
Books of this nature were published throughout the century, for example, Bonaventura
Tondi, Lafemina origine d'ogni male, overo Frine rimproverata (Venice, 1687) and P. D.
Paolo Botti, La donna di poche parole commendata (Padua, 1661). While Botti's only concern
is to urge women to 'be seen and not heard', he also argues his case by citing such legendary
women as Poppea and Dido. For further discussion on some of these writings, see Ginevra
Conte Odorosio, Donna e societa nel Seicento (Rome, 1979), and Fiorenza Taricone and
Susanna Bucci, La condizione della donna nel XVII e XVIII secoli, part II (Rome, 1983).
7 Giulio Cesare Capaccio, Ilprincipe... tratto de gli emblemi delle Alciato, con duecento epiu
avvertimenti politici e morali (Naples, 1592; Venice, 1620). Cited by Jordan, Renaissance
Feminism (see n. 4), 252-3.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 97

e l'eccellenza delle donne (Venice, 1601) was actually modelled on Passi's I donneschi
difetti, citing the activities of figures such as Nero and Alexander the Great as
evidence of the numerous defects of the male sex. By mid-century the dispute
had apparently become even more virulent. The Venetian nun Arcangela Tarabotti
railed against patriarchal control in Venice, decrying the fate of its women and
disputing a popular theory that claimed women had no souls and thus should
not be considered 'human'.8 Tarabotti's most substantial statement of women's
rights, La semplicita ingannata ovvero La tirannia paterna, was not published until
1654, nearly two years after her death; nevertheless, she was well known in Venice
for her feminist views. The publication of her Antisatira - a response to Francesco
Buoninsegni's misogynistic Contro il lusso donnesco, satira menippea (Venice, 1644)
- propelled Tarabotti into a lengthy literary battle involving many of the leading
intellectuals of Venice.9 Thus, it would seem that the unique political and social
climate of Venice not only allowed men to express misogynistic views more overtly,
but also permitted women to formulate a response.
Of fundamental importance to writers in Venice (and elsewhere) was the right
of women to control or inherit property. Tarabotti argued for women's prerogative
to determine the course of their lives, and she attacked the patriarchy that domi-
nated both private and public life in the Venetian Republic. But fear of women's
power was even expressed in writings that were not overtly political. In Passi's
marriage manual, for example, the intrinsic right of the husband to rule over
his wife is presented as a paradigm for the appropriate distribution of power
in society. In Cardinal De Luca's II cavaliere e la dama - a comportment guide
- several chapters are devoted to a detailed history of women rulers. De Luca
summarises the various practices concerning female inheritance in both the ancient
and modern world in order to argue against the succession of women in Italy;
he includes the deeds of the legendary queens Semiramide and Messalina as examples

8 For a thorough discussion of Tarabotti's life and works, see Francesca Medioli, L' 'Inferno
monacale'di Arcangela Tarabotti (Turin, 1990), Emilio Zanette, Suor Arcangela monaca del
Seicento veneziano (Rome, 1963) and Odorosio, Donna e societa (n. 6), 79-111 and 199-239.
On Lucrezia Marinelli, Moderata Fonte and the feminist polemic in the early years of the
seventeenth century in Venice, see Odorosio, Donna e societa, 47-78, and Zanette, Suor
Arcangela, 214-20.
9 On Tarabotti's literary battles, see Zanette, SuorArcangela, 239-87. Both Tarabotti's
supporters and enemies were members of the Accademia degli Incogniti, who not only
dominated literary life in Venice, but were also involved in the opera industry. See Rosand,
Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (n. 3), 37-40. The intrinsic nature of women and their
role in society was evidently a topic of concern to Incogniti members, who wrote about
the issue from both sides of the polemic. Incogniti founder Francesco Loredano became
Tarabotti's literary protector, and it was largely through his influence that her works were
published. Nevertheless, other Incogniti members were bitter enemies of Tarabotti, as was,
for example, the notorious Ferrante Pallavicino, whose novelle demonstrate a distinct anti-
female bias. The apparently ambivalent attitudes of the Incogniti towards women are of
particular importance for the study of gender representation in the operas, as so many of
the so-called conventions developed under their influence. See also Ellen Rosand, 'Barbara
Strozzi, virtuosissima cantatrice: The Composer's Voice', Journal of the American
Musicological Society, 31 (1978), 241-81.

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98 Wendy Heller

of the dreadful consequences that can occur when women are allowed to abandon
their traditional roles and rule over men.10
The heroines of myth and history were thus important witnesses in contempor-
ary disputes regarding women and power. Semiramide, whose legend is an often-
contradictory combination of stories concerning a warlike Assyrian Queen and
a Semitic fertility goddess, played a particularly ambivalent role in these debates.11
The most detailed account of the legend, by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus,
presented a highly complimentary portrait of the Assyrian Queen, but included
a version in which Semiramide uses her sexuality to wrest power from her husband
and murder him. Justinius (and later St Augustine) further developed Semiramide's
association with illicit sexuality by accusing her of attempting an incestuous rela-
tionship with her son. In Boccaccio's version, Semiramide's accomplishments were
'great even for a man'; her inordinate sexual appetite and incestuous desire for
her son were the sole blot on an otherwise admirable character.12 Although Semira-
mide accomplished great deeds, her military exploits were usually linked with
sexual ones. She attained power, but almost always through the elimination or
feminisation of the men that surrounded her. Boccaccio notes, for example, that
while Semiramide was at war, her son Nino rotted away in bed 'as if he had
changed sex with his mother'. Indeed, the androgynous nature of both mother
and son was such that they were said to resemble each other physically.
It is thus not surprising that Semiramide received contradictory treatment at
the hands of writers involved in the polemic about women. Passi's I donneschi
difetti uses Semiramide as an example of excessive ambition:

Who does not scorn the ambitious Semiramide, wife of Nino? She was conquered by
ambition and desire to reign, with sweet enticements and with cunning charms gained
from her husband the power to be queen with full authority for five days, during which

10 Giovanni Battista De Luca, II cavaliere e la dama (Rome, 1675; 2nd edn, 1700), 563-602,
on the history of female rule. De Luca recommends spiritual books as appropriate reading
for all young women, yet he also declares that if women wish to read profane books to
'learn of the school of honesty', they should be those of history, in order 'to see how much
the Semiramides, Cleopatras, Messalinas, Faustinas, and Giovannas, and similar ones were
cursed and condemned to perpetual damnation for their dishonesty, even though they were
rulers and great queens' (pp. 559-60).
In addition to Diodorus Siculus, whose twenty-one chapters on Semiramide were published
extensively throughout Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, other important
ancient sources include Justinius (reporting the version recounted by Latin historian
Pompeius Trogus), Plutarch and Aelinus. For further details on the ancient and modern
sources of the Semiramide legend, see Anna Maria G. Capomacchia, Semiramide. Una
femminilita ribaltata (Rome, 1986); Gwynne Edwards, 'La Hija delAire in the Light of Its
Sources', Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 43 (1966), 177-96; Lienhard Bergel, 'Semiramis in the
Italian and Spanish Baroque', Forum italicum, 7 (1973), 227-49; and Cesare Questa,
Semiramide redenta: A rchetipi, fonti classiche, censure antropologiche nel melodramma (Turin,
1991).
12 Giovanni Boccaccio, Concerning Famous Women, trans. Guido A. Guarino (New Brunswick,
1963), 4-7. On Boccaccio's ambivalent attitude towards his women see Jordan, who notes
that they are not only 'poor examples of virtue', but also 'condemned, however covertly,
for venturing into a world reserved for men'; Renaissance Feminism (n. 4), 37.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 99

time she used the royal power to have her husband killed and to occupy the throne
herself.13

Passi also uses Semiramide as an illustration of woman's insatiable lust, an issue

with which he was much preoccupied: he cites the version of the legend in which
Semiramide attempts an incestuous liaison with her son Nino, and even accuses
her of having had relations with a horse.14
There were also reports from the other side of the polemic. Pietro Paolo Ribera
praises Semiramide for her heroic accomplishments as Queen of Assyria, noting
that she used her power to 'govern justly and for the peace of the Empire'.15
In La nobilita e l'eccellenza delle donne, Lucrezia Marinelli uses Semiramide to
illustrate a variety of attributes, emphasising those conventionally associated with
men. Semiramide exemplifies wisdom in Chapter 4 ('Semiramide was wise and
prudent; thus Nino, knowing her virtue, did nothing without her counsel'). In
Chapter 7 she is 'an illustrious woman in the military arts and the making of
war' whose triumphs were due both to her ingenuity and to the power of her
army. Marinelli also cites her in Chapter 6 as a 'magnificent and courteous woman',
describing in detail how Semiramide oversaw the construction of the walls of
Babylon along with a magnificent temple from whose tower the stars could be
observed.
Francesco Pona, a member of the Accademia degli Incogniti, discusses Semira-
mide extensively in his popular catalogue of women's vices and virtues, La galleria
delle donne celebri (Venice, 1628). His gallery contains literary portraits of twelve
women, four of whom are saintly, four chaste and four lasvicious. Semiramide
is included in the last category, but her lasciviousness does not exclude her from
receiving praise for various accomplishments. Indeed, Pona's characterisation of
Semiramide, in which intelligence and resourcefulness are associated with promis-
cuity and the suppression of the men that surround her, is typical of the represen-
tation of powerful women in many Venetian opera librettos:

[Semiramide] was superior to the husband. With the diminishing of Nino's power and
reputation, she became increasingly esteemed by the people for her experience, for her
unsurpassed valour, so that she was reputed to be the most famous woman in the world.
She had such an acute sense of justice, such tenacious memory and such profound intellect,
that she could discourse, discriminate and deliberate at the same time; and always with
such acuteness and with such prudence that her councils were marvellous and her works
without error in political government.16

13 Passi, Idonneschi difetti (see n. 5), 60.

14 Passi, 35. Semiramide was not, however, Passi's most depraved heroine. He notes that she
was not nearly as lascivious as Glaucippe, who apparently struck up with an elephant.
15 Ribera, Le glorie immortali di trionfi et heroiche imprese (Venice, 1619), 206.
16 Incogniti member Francesco Busenello's portrait of Poppea in L 'incoronazione di Poppea
should also be considered in this context, though this type of character seems to appear
with greater frequency in later operas. For a provocative hypothesis on Poppea and the
Incogniti, see Susan McClary, 'Constructions of Gender in Monteverdi's Dramatic Music',
in Feminine Endings (Minneapolis, 1991), 48-52. See also Iain Fenlon and Peter Miller, The
Song of the Soul: Understanding Poppea (London, 1992).

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100 Wendy Heller

Pona continues with a description of Semiramide's lasciviousness, which proves

deadly to both lover and husband:

She passed the nights not only in the arms of her husband, but with many, many brave
adulterers in lascivious entertainments and obscene games with unchecked and unprece-
dented wantonness. ... And still warm from her embraces, as they left with their chests
bared after lovemaking, she would have them killed.... She had the audacity to consider
an evil thought such as killing Nino; and quickly and violently she resorted to the instru-
ments of death and in the very same marital embrace she killed him with a sword. Vixen!
Evil Monster! Even hell has not heard of such cruelties!17

Thus, Semiramide was used by writers on both sides of the debate. For Marinelli
and other early feminists, her skill in the male-dominated realms of war and politics
supported arguments that biological sex was not restrictive and that conventional
gender characteristics were culturally derived and politically reinforced.18 For
those wary of feminine strength, the legend provided ample evidence of the conse-
quences of women's power and the ever-present danger of their sexuality. While
Semiramide was recognised as a skilled warrior and just ruler, she was scorned
for the ambitious usurpation of her husband's power, unbridled lust and incestuous
desires.

Semiramide's first appearance on the Italian stage occurred in Muzio Manfredi's

popular tragedy La Semiramis (Bergamo, 1593), which deals with Semiramide's
widowhood and her incestuous overtures to her son Nino, highlighting the sexual
jealousy between mother and son explicit in the legend.19 Semiramide claims
that her desire to marry Nino is born not of lasciviousness, but rather is necessary
to protect herself, her son and country. Only after having exchanged identities
with this son who so strongly resembled her, she explains, was she able to conquer
neighbouring lands and expand the realm. Now that all know her to be a woman,
she must marry her son or risk losing the throne through his marriage to another
woman or her own forced marriage to a neighbouring king (who would assuredly
kill Nino). After Semiramide murders Nino's wife and children, her death at
his hands is inevitable.

17 Pona, La galleria, 58-9.

18 On the importance of the concept of the androgynous female for feminist arguments in
the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Jordan, Renaissance Feminism (n. 4), especially
Chapter 3, 134-247. Jordan notes (p. 137) that the virile woman can also be seen as 'reinforcing
patriarchal values' at the expense of feminine values, as in Boccaccio's characterisation of
Semiramide's feats, in which Semiramide's excellence resides in her masculinity - that is,
her rationality, courage and physical strength.
9 Manfredi must also have been under the spell of Semiramide's dual nature; he immediately
followed this play with a second work, La Semiramis: Boscareccia (Bergamo, 1593), which
takes a lighthearted pastoral approach to Semiramide's courtship by her first husband,
Mennone.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 101

Accademia degli Incogniti member Maiolino Bisaccioni was the first to use the
Semiramide legend as the basis of an opera libretto.20 In his Semiramide in India
(Venice, 1648), Assyria is at war and Semiramide has exchanged identities with
Nino to protect him from the dangers of battle. Nino eventually rebels: he discards
his queenly disguise and abandons his kingdom to frolic with a beautiful shepher-
dess. Semiramide struggles between her desire for power and her newly acquired
love for an enemy king - to whom she eventually surrenders willingly. Thus
her power and sexual desire are safely neutralised; the opera celebrates the maturity
of the son Nino, who boldly reclaims his power, manhood and kingdom.
In adapting the Semiramide legend as an opera in celebration of a Medici-Habs-
burg wedding, Giovanni Andrea Moniglia uses Semiramide's usurpation of her
son's identity, his eventual assertion of power and her marriage to the enemy
as a quasi-allegory in praise of royal marriage. The plot can be summarised as
follows: Queen Semiramide of Assyria and her son Nino look so alike that they
can be distinguished only by their clothing. The vassal-king of Babylonia, Creonte
(who has long been in love with Semiramide), rebels against Assyrian rule. Semira-
mide suggests that she and Nino exchange identities so that she may go to war
in his place. Nino, in female dress, is left in charge of the realm, with his counsellor
Eliso for guidance. The travesty, however, creates considerable complications,
as both Semiramide and Nino have been maintaining secret lovers. Semiramide's
lover is Ireo, a general in command in the Suez, while Nino loves the slave-girl
Iside, who is none other than Princess Elvida, the daughter of the enemy King
Creonte. On learning of each other's illicit relationships, Nino and Semiramide
are angered, and attempt to discourage one another from continuing the liaison.
The war does not go well for the Assyrians; Semiramide (still in disguise) is captured
by Creonte. Iside/Elvida escapes to her father's camp. As she believes that it
is Nino who is held prisoner by her father, she unknowingly releases the disguised
Semiramide. The conflicts are resolved with two royal weddings: Nino marries
Iside/Elvida and Semiramide marries Creonte. As with the planned Habsburg-
Medici wedding, two kingdoms are united and peace is assured.
For his revision of Moniglia's libretto for the Venetian stage, Matteo Noris
retained many of the basic features of his model; yet, as the publisher Nicolini
informs us, the work was changed in 'qualche parte' to confirm to what he described

20 Seventeenth-century Venetian authors were also fascinated by the period in Semiramide's

life when she first meets her husband Nino. In Nicolo Bertini's La Semiramide (Venice,
1649), a translation of a French novella, Semiramide attempts to defeat Nino in war by
donning male attire and challenging him to a duel. This same episode is treated in a play
by Carlo Rota, Sciagure venturose overo Le nozze di Semiramide (Venice, 1653). Both versions
made much of Semiramide's sexual ambiguity while celebrating her eventual surrender to
love.

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102 Wendy Heller

as 'Venetian use' - a phrase not infrequently employed to describe such revisions.21

It is difficult to determine what is meant by the phrase 'Venetian use' in any
given instance: in some cases, structural and technical changes were necessary;
in others, librettists shortened lengthy monologues and added or eliminated comic
characters. However, for Noris it was the actual content of the work - elements
such as plot and characterisation - that came under the closest scrutiny. In terms
of overall design, Noris followed Moniglia's arrangement of scenes rather closely
in Act I, but made major structural changes in Acts II and III. This revised structure
not only reflected the Venetian preference for contrast and variety, but also demon-
strated a far more casual attitude towards the unity of place, allowing Noris to
introduce new plot elements that profoundly altered the meaning of the drama.22
In editing individual scenes, Noris often retained the dramatic situation while
adding new dialogue. In other instances, he used a combination of direct quotation
and free paraphrase, at times diverging from his model abruptly in order to make
substantial alterations in plot or characterisation. This was by no means a haphazard
process; rather, the clarity of Noris's dramatic vision and his sense of character
and plot are evident in the intricacy of his editorial procedures.

It is not surprising that both Moniglia and Noris begin their settings with a dramati-
sation of what is probably the most famous single episode of the Semiramide
legend. Boccaccio recounts the incident as follows:

After Semiramide had pacified her domains and was resting at leisure, she had her maids
comb her hair with feminine care into braids, as was the custom of the country. Her
hair was only half combed when the news that Babylon had rebelled was brought to
her. This so angered her that she threw aside her comb and immediately abandoned
womanly pursuits. She arose in anger, took up arms, and led her forces to a siege of

21 La Semiramide, 6. On the question of libretto revisions and 'Venetian use' see Rosand, Opera
in Seventeenth-Century Venice (n. 3), 155-69, especially 157n; Paolo Fabbri, II secolo cantante:
Per una storia del libretto d'opera nel Seicento (Bologna, 1988), 259-60; and Lorenzo Bianconi,
'Ercole in Rialto', Venezia e il melodramma nel Seicento, ed. Maria Teresa Muraro (Florence,
1976), 259-67. Bianconi compares the 1661 Ercole in Tebe - a five-act Florentine court
entertainment - to the three-act Venetian version which, like La Semiramide, was performed
during the 1670-71 season. The most important change in content involved a reduction in
the role of the deities, resulting in what Bianconi describes as a sort of 'Venetian civic realism'.
However, as the original of La Semirami was similar in style and structure to the typical
Venetian libretto of the 1660s and 1670s and there were no gods to eliminate, it would
seem that Noris had something rather different in mind. Our most valuable contemporary
witness, Cristoforo Ivanovich, notes the variable nature of 'Venetian use': his repertoire list
describes the revision of La Semiramide as a mascherata, but the reworking of Ercole in Tebe
from the same year is referred to merely as a ritoccata or retouching.
22 While Moniglia places each act in a single locale, Noris's lack of concern with the unity
of place allows him to juxtapose disparate events, thereby increasing audience suspense. For
example, Moniglia includes all Babylonian actions in Act II, concluding this act with
Semiramide's escape from prison and an intermedio-style frolic with simple fishermen on
the shores of the Tiber. Noris eliminates this trivialisation; he postpones Semiramide's escape
until Act III, concluding his second act with the male-clad Semiramide denouncing her fate
in the Babylonian prison.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 103

that powerful city. She did not finish combing her hair until she had the city back into
her power by force of arms. A huge bronze statue of a woman with her hair braided
on one side and loose on the other long stood in Babylon to bear witness to this brave
deed.23

The story crystalises Semiramide's legendary dualism. She abruptly sacrifices the
passive, feminine world of the vanity table for military action. The contrast
between the tightly bound and loosely falling hair represents the conflict between
the feminine, manageable Semiramide, and her more masculine, uncontrollable
and seductive other self.
Moniglia's recounting of this incident seats Semiramide at a dressing table adorn-
ing her hair, attended by ladies-in-waiting and a servant, Lucrino, who teasingly
calls Semiramide 'to arms, to arms' - a false alarm, since Lucrino refers only
to the war of love. Semiramide is unconcerned; she celebrates Assyria's newfound
peace and adorns her breast with 'innocent blossoms'. As Moniglia gives her no
aria texts within this first scene, we know little else about her. There is no sign
of warlike tendencies, no hint of aggression or lasciviousness.
Noris, however, borrowed none of Moniglia's text for his version of this scene.
Semiramide sits alone at her dressing table in front of the mirror, as shown in
Figure 1. While she contemplates Assyria's peaceful state, her thoughts stray to
her lover Ireo, for whom she is adorning herself and whose anticipated arrival
will 'cure all her ills'. In this very brief scene, Noris also provides the heroine
with two arias. The images evoked in the second reveal much about the lascivious
nature of the Venetian Semiramide:
Or infioratemi
Le chiome lucide
Rose, che a Venere
Pungeste'l pie.
Poi con la cenere
Di mille amanti,
Sian biancheggianti,
Qual porto candida
Nel sen la fe.24

[O roses that pierced the foot of Venus, adorn my shining hair. Then may they be whitened
with the ashes of a thousand lovers, whose pure faith I carry in my breast.]

These are not the 'innocent blossoms' of Moniglia's heroine. This queen adorns
herself with roses, the flower of the goddess Venus, who is herself associated
with lascivious acts in many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century representations.25
23 Concerning Famous Women (see n. 12), 5.
24 Noris further evokes Semiramide's association with women of power, creating the ritualistic
quality of an incantation using sdrucciolo or antepenultimate accent for this aria. This would
have been immediately recognisable to seventeenth-century audiences from Medea's
incantation from Cicognini's and Cavalli's Giasone, probably the most famous scene from
the most frequently performed opera of the century. On the incantation convention, see
Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (n. 3), 342-6.
25 For instance, Passi cites Venus as the first adulterous woman in I donneschi difetti (see n.
5), 99.

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104 Wendy Heller

The pricking of Venus by the thorn of the rose is traditionally a symbol for
deflowering; the white roses are turned red from the blood produced by the act
of love.26 Semiramide's invocation reverses this image. She vows that the already-
red roses will instead be whitened by the ashes of her thousand lovers, thus inverting
the traditional power structure of the sexual act. She is not to be the victim;
on the contrary, her sexual power reduces her lovers to ashes, which then become
part of her adornment.27
Noris's distinctive conception is reinforced in the ensuing scene, in which Semira-
mide declares her intention to assume Nino's identity. The scene begins with
an extensive borrowing from Moniglia's original:
MONIGLIA NORIS

NINO: NINO:

Invitta genitrice Invitta genitrice

Spira con pompa altera Spira con pompa altera
Per le vicine spiagge aura guerriera. Per le spiagge vicine aura guerriera.
Con formidabile suono
Babilonica tromba SEMIRAMIDE:
Strage minaccia, e dell'assiro trono
La caduta mortale eco rimbomba. Qual temerario Marte
Sfida l'Assira a l'armi?

ELISO:

Babilonica tromba!

SEMIRAMIDE: SEMIRAMIDE:

O quanto ardisce in vano Scior ilpie che gli strinse

II tiranno inumano Del tuo gran Genitor destra ultrice
Scior ilpie che gli strinse Aspira in vano il perfido Creonte.
Del tuo gran genitor la destra ultrice!

[Moniglia version: NINO: Unconquerable Mother, a warlike breeze breathes from neigh-
bouring shores with highest splendour; with formidable sound the Babylonian trumpets
threaten disaster and the echo resounds with the fall of the Assyrian throne. SEMIRAMIDE:
Oh, how the inhuman tyrant tries in vain to break the bonds that tied his foot to the
right hand of your great father.]

[Noris version: NINO: Unconquerable Mother, a warlike breeze breathes from neighbouring
shores with highest splendour. SEMIRAMIDE: What reckless Mars challenges Assyria to

26 Arthur Henkel, Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts
(Stuttgart, 1967), contains numerous examples of allegorical depictions containing roses, such
as the one representing 'defloratio', cited from a sixteenth-century allegory book by Anulus
Barptolemaeus (G6ttingen, 1652).
27 The significance of this was apparently not lost on Ziani the composer. This comparatively
brief text is given uncharacteristically grandiose treatment, with accompanying treble
instruments and both external and internal ritornelli. It is also unusually modern-sounding
in its use of tonality, with strong and unambiguous modulations to the relative major and
dominant. Pietro Ziani, La Semiramide (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Ms. It. IV. 455
[=9978]), f. 4r-5r.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 105

arms? ELISO: Babylonian trumpets! SEMIRAMIDE: The perfidious Creonte aspires in vain
to break the bond that tied his foot to the right hand of your great father.]

After beginning with an exact quotation of Moniglia's text, Noris abbreviates

Nino's monologue from seven lines to three, subtly undercutting his power. Essen-
tial material is then paraphrased and redistributed among the other characters:
Eliso announces Babylon's war-call and Semiramide demands to know who threa-
tens Assyria.28
When Semiramide suggests to her son that they exchange identities, Noris aban-
dons his model and rewrites the dialogue, significantly altering this crucial exchange
between mother and son. Moniglia's Semiramide seeks to reassure and protect
Nino, using his youth as an excuse:
In tua si verde etade
Scorgo ben, si, che gelido timore
Al nativo valore
La destinata reggia, o figlio, ingombra;
Gli dei
Mi diedo anima forte
Dell'estinto consorte
Mi fe la gloria ereditar trofei.

[At your tender age, I see well that cold fear inhibits your native valour towards your
destined throne. The gods gave me a strong soul and the glory to inherit the trophies
of my late consort.]

After considerable protest, Nino agrees to obey his mother. Noris's Semiramide,
however, pushes Nino aside, believing herself a more capable warrior than her
son:

Figlio
Non puo tenera mano
Frenar un Campo.
Io ch'a domar falangi
Ho alma avezza; a l'inimico audace
Rintuzzero l'orgoglio.
[Son, a young hand cannot control a legion. I who have the soul accustomed to dominate
troops will handle the pride of the audacious enemy.]

Nino is not merely afraid; he is incompetent. Semiramide's strength and power

are entirely her own; she credits neither the gods nor her late husband. Noris
eliminates much of Nino's angry protestation, and he stands helplessly by while
his mother and his adviser devise their battle plan.
The problem for Nino is not that he must forego war - this seems to distress
him very little; rather, he fears that disguise will interrupt his relationship with
his beloved Iside. Noris adds two scenes to the Venetian version that exaggerate
28 In many instances, Noris not only breaks monologues into rapid-fire dialogue, but also uses
shorter lines, with few internal clauses and adjectives. This is one source of the differences
in the musical setting of these works. Another important result, however, is that Noris's
royal characters employ a far less formal style of speech than Moniglia's. In the Venetian
version there is less difference between master and servant in both speech and deed.

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106 Wendy Heller

Nino's obsession with his beloved, emphasising his cowardice and the cross-dressing
situation.29 In Act I scene 4, as Nino pretends to be leaving for war, he sings
a poignant farewell with the slave-girl Iside. The audience sees this scene on two
levels. While the apparent sincerity of the farewell enlists their sympathy, they
are also well aware that Nino - disguised as his mother - will be in constant
contact with Iside. In Act I scene 16, Noris exploits this situation: the now queenly
Nino converses provocatively with Iside while constant interjections from Eliso
exhort him to remember his responsibilities as monarch.
By exaggerating Nino's cowardice, his preoccupation with love and the gender
confusion inherent in his disguise, Noris not only compromises Nino's heroic
stature but aligns him with numerous other monarchs of Venetian opera who
neglect their heroic responsibilities, exchange Mars for Venus, and become - in
the words of the librettists - effeminato.30 The frequent use of effeminato to describe
weak heroes did not carry the modern inference of mannerism and sexual prefer-
ence, but rather referred to a preoccupation with women and love rather than
war or politics. 'Effeminate' heroes are often associated with strong, 'virile' women;
thus it would seem that an important part of the strategy in these works is to
scramble - in a variety of configurations - culturally assigned gender characteristics
with biological sex. In assuming Nino's identity, Semiramide appropriates his
power and masculinity, leaving him to such 'feminine' pursuits as making love.
The exchange of both gender and power is literally played out in cross-dressing,
as the queen becomes king and the king is feminised.31

29 While it might seem that the use of a castrato for the role of Nino would minimise the
gender incongruity, I would argue that the mere availability of castrati does not explain
the Venetian delight in plots involving transvestism; rather, the acceptance of castrati is but
another symptom of contemporary questioning about gender. On castrati, see McClary,
'Constructions of Gender' (n. 16), 181 n. 31. Indeed, as the surviving cast lists for other
operas indicate, castrati were generally assigned only to male roles. This Venetian preference
for casting with 'correct' gender assignments differs from the widespread use of transvestism
in English Renaissance drama, in which all parts were played by boys and men, and the
men were often said to make better women than women themselves. See Marjorie Garber,
'The Transvestite's Progress', in Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New
York, 1992), 67-9, for more on transvestism in Shakespeare and bibliography on the extensive
recent work in this area.
30 Garber notes a similar use of the word 'effeminate' in Renaissance England, where effeminacy
was 'generated by sexual voluptuousness towards women, not towards men'. She adds that
'historically, then, effeminacy is misogynistic as well as homophobic ... since what is being
protected here is a notion of manhood and manliness as a society norm', Vested Interests
(see n. 29), 138-9. On the relationship between effeminacy and rhetorical power, see McClary,
'Constructions of Gender' (n. 16), 35-52. There is no consistent or direct connection between
the re effeminati and the frequent cross-dressing plots; these weak men do not necessarily
don female attire. In La Semiramide, Nino's womanly disguise may well have been perceived
as a sort of double entendre on the idea of effeminacy.
31 While transvestism is one of the devices through which the contemporary crisis concerning
women and power was enacted in La Semiramide, it would be wrong to assume that the
very frequent use of transvestism in other operas always carries the same meaning. Garber
has recently pointed out that transvestism is not necessarily about either male or female;
this most basic cultural phenomenon represents a 'crisis of category' that may reflect a crisis
or crises on numerous different levels: economic, racial or gender-based. See Vested Interests
(n. 29), 1-17.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 107

Nino is not the only male who is weakened in the Venetian libretto. In Moniglia's
version, Semiramide's lover Ireo is an admirable hero. In Act I scene 4 he speaks
longingly of his desire to achieve military success and glorify himself in Semira-
mide's eyes, while his servant Clitarco, with all the bravado of a quaking Leporello,
agonises over his fear of war. In the parallel scene in the Venetian version, Noris
reverses the stances of master and servant. It is Ireo who shakes with fear as
the brave servant Clitarco warns his master of the approach of Creonte's army.
It is no coincidence that Noris eliminates virtually all of Clitarco's buffoonery:
Clitarco with Figaro-like cleverness devises all of Ireo's plans, and 'caring not
for risk', crosses enemy lines to deliver a letter to Semiramide. Like the feminised
Nino, Ireo prefers love to war. His lack of heroism has other consequences as
well. Where Moniglia's Semiramide explicitly states her intention to have her
lover Ireo crowned consort, the Venetian queen makes no such plans, protecting
her power by cultivating sexual relationships with men of lesser power and social
rank.
Noris further diminishes the heroic stature of mother and son through the
addition of subplots that evoke Semiramide's legendary association with incest.
Furiously jealous about his mother's affair, Nino orders his counsellor Eliso to
murder the cowardly Ireo. Similarly, Semiramide's jealousy of her son is so extreme
that she also orders Eliso to murder her son's lover Iside. Eliso refuses to carry
out either of these orders, denouncing Semiramide's desire for murder as a 'capric-
cio amoroso'. Instead, he risks the charge of treason by helping Iside escape, all
the while affirming his own moral superiority: 'tradimento non e salvar il giusto'
(it is not treason to save the righteous). Eliso, like the servant Clitarco, claims
a higher moral ground than his royal betters. When mother and son thus fail
to eliminate their 'competition', Noris increases the level of sexual innuendo -
perhaps providing another outlet for their incestuous desires - by complicating
the plot so that mother and son each make love - or pretend to make love -
to the other's lover. As part of an elaborate plot to trick Ireo into arranging
'his' (Semiramide's) marriage to Creonte (so that he can marry Iside), the disguised
Nino flirts with the impassioned Ireo. Ireo, still fooled by Nino's womanly disguise,
fears that 'she' will actually marry the enemy Creonte. In their subsequent dialogue,
Noris playfully calls attention to the absurdity of the situation, teasing the audience
with the homoerotic implications:32
IREO: T'havra Creonte?
NINO: No.

IREO: Ti godra come sposa?

32 The Venetians were particularly fond of scenes involving homoerotic innuendo. For example,
Noris's other very elaborate revision of a libretto for Venice, Giovanni Apolloni's Amor
per vendetta (Rome, 1673), as Astiage (Venice, 1677), adds a new character, who unknowingly
falls in love with another man disguised as a woman. Noris also expands the role of the
male-disguised warrior, making her of Assyrian origin so as to align her implicitly with the
other great Assyrian warrior, Semiramide. My comparison of these two libretti was inspired
by Thomas Walker's suggestion in 'Giovanni Apolloni', New Grove Dictionary ofMusic and
Musicians (London, 1981), I, 540.

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108 Wendy Heller

NINO: Esser non puo.

I R E : Esser non puo, se apportator io sono
De le richieste nozze?
NINO: Dubiti di mia fe?
IREO: Temo sventure.
NINO: Dammi la destra; io giuro
Se possibil pur sia d'esserti moglie.

[IREO: Will Creonte have you? NINO: No. IREO: Will he enjoy you as wife? NINO: He
cannot. IREO: He cannot, if it is I who will bring about the desired marriage? NINO:
Do you doubt my faith? IREo: I fear misfortune. NINO: Give me your right hand, I swear
that if it is at all possible, I will be your wife.]

Semiramide also submits to Iside's overtures in order to obtain her freedom from
the Babylonian prison. The queen is less coy than her son, and the two women
sing an ardent love duet as they leave prison together. In both versions, the essence
of the plot remains the same - Semiramide, disguised as her son, escapes from
prison with the help of her son's lover. Yet the dramatisation of Semiramide's
and Iside's love scene is unique to the Venetian version. Only Noris chose to
titillate the audience by dwelling on this sexual complication, arousing curiosity
about the goings on between the two women.
The differences between the two librettos are most striking in their conclusions.
First of all, both works resolve in a manner incompatible with the various versions
of the legend: Semiramide actually loses the war, gives up power and marries
an enemy king. Resolution depends on mother and son returning to their proper
identities, and on the son's assumption of power. This alters the initial symmetry:
Nino marries his lover but Semiramide must reject hers. In Moniglia's version,
the resolution is clear and unambiguous. Nino challenges Semiramide directly,
reclaiming his power and masculinity in a single heroic move:

Della gonna mi spoglio,

Mentre stringo lo scettro, impugno il brando.
Donna mi finsi solo
Per obbedirti; oh dio,
I1 coraggio natio
A viva forza rinegar convenne:
Degl'affari di guerra
Trattero con Creonte;
E se'l tuo Cuor disciolto
Da ingiustissimo nodo
Spegne l'impura face,
Potro d'Assiria stabilir la pace.
Ma se da me ribelle
Rivolgi il tuo consiglio,
Ti saro re, non figlio.

[I take off this skirt while I clasp the sceptre, I take up the sword. I pretended to be
a woman only to obey you; o god, I had to deny my native courage with great effort.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 109

In the affairs of war, I will deal with Creonte; and if your heart released from the most
unjust bond can extinguish the impure flame, I will establish peace in Assyria. But if
you rebelliously turn your council away from me, I will be to you no longer son, but
king.]

When Semiramide agrees to marry Creonte, she gives up all pretension to power.
As Creonte asks for her hand, she urges her soul to 'be strong'. Turning to Creonte,
she replies submissively: 'Se a Nino cosi piace, ti son serva, e consorte' (If it
pleases Nino, I will be your servant and consort). Order is restored; the war
is ended. All four sing together of love, happiness and the union of their kingdoms
through the bonds of marriage. Nino emerges unambiguously as the hero entering
into manhood. His masculinity has been compromised only temporarily and he
reclaims it in a highly public fashion. Semiramide is subdued, patriarchal order
restored. The monarchy and royal marriage are exalted.33
In the Venice libretto, however, the conflict between patriarchal and matriarchal
power is never resolved. Nino returns to his own clothing in an earlier, non-
confrontational context, and his final challenge to Semiramide is far less threaten-
ing:

Madre,
Che qui t'annodi al vincitor regnante,
Ch'io sia sposa ad Elvida oggi e destino,
Segua la pace, e non s'opponga a Nino.

[Mother, it is destined today that you bind yourself here to the ruling conqueror, that
I marry Elvida. Let peace follow and do not oppose Nino.]

When Creonte comes to claim Semiramide's hand, she boldly rebuffs his advances:

CREONTE: Tu caderai dal soglio.

SEMIRAMIDE: Non temo.
CREONTE: Sei mia sposa!
SEMIRAMIDE: Io non ti voglio.

[CREONTE: You will fall from the throne. SEMIRAMIDE: I am not afraid. CREONTE: Yo
are my wife. SEMIRAMIDE: I do not want you.]

When she finally relents, her reply is anything but submissive: 'S'io fabric
mie ruine /Per non svelar l'inganno/Deggio arrider al nodo' (If I alone construc

33 The Viennese seem to have held a more benign view of the legendary Queen Semiramide.
For example, a brief cantata entitled La Semiramide, presented for the birthday of Marianna
of Austria in December 1673 (music by Antonio Draghi; lost), is a dramatisation of
Semiramide's famous flight from the dressing table, presenting a complimentary and heroic
view of Semiramide with a concluding chorus praising 'Semiramide Innocente' and comparing
her to the illustrious Marianna.

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110 Wendy Heller

my ruin, I must smile on this union in order that my deceptions not be revealed).
Noris eliminates any suggestion of a formal submission; Semiramide is merely
outmanceuvered. There is no lyric expression at the prospect of the union, no
duets with her husband-to-be. Her participation in the conventional lieto fine
is striking by its absence; she never abdicates and there is no indication that Nino
has gained the upper hand. The ultimate distribution of power remains ambiguous.
This is an opera of anti-heroes, not heroes.34 Not an allegory in praise of the
monarchy and royal marriage, it questions the very elements that the original
version sought to glorify: the nobility of the monarchy, the importance of royal
marriage and the inevitability of patriarchal rule. That Venice, with its sense of
superiority engendered by pride in a unique form of government, would have
had little interest in the glorification of government by monarchy should not
be surprising. Yet, in adjusting this work for Venetian use, Noris did more than
represent Venice's more cynical attitude towards monarchy; his portrayal of
Semiramide and the men that surround her focuses on the consequences of female
power.
In both versions, matriarchal power represents disorder; the exchange of identi-
ties and gender heightens this disorder, which only the unambiguous restoration
of patriarchal power along with the 'correct' gender categories can resolve. In
the Venetian version, however, this complete resolution is denied. The more
powerful, more lascivious Semiramide is less easily subjugated and more damaging
to the men around her. As in the catalogues of women heroines and villainesses,
Semiramide is once again an exemplum of female behaviour, and as such offers
the lesson that female rule is a dangerous and uncontrollable threat to the proper
order. In Venice, where rampant misogyny was challenged by what we might
anachronistically call 'feminist writings', Noris makes Semiramide more powerful,
but balances this greater strength by exaggerating her moral weakness and potential
threat to men. What better medium than opera to present such emblematic female
characters, good or evil, to express the growing insecurity about women's roles

34 The term 'anti-heroic' has been associated with the Venetian libretto by a number of writers:
Winton Dean, Handel and the Opera Seria (Berkeley, 1967), 100-32; see also John Walter
Hill, 'Vivaldi's "Ottone in villa": A Study in Musical Drama', in Domenico Lalli and Antonio
Vivaldi, Ottone in villa, ed. John Walter Hill, Drammaturgia musicale veneta, 12 (Milan,
1983), IX-XXXVI. An important, previously unrecognised feature of anti-heroism in the
Venetian libretto is the reversal of traditional gender roles. The men - i.e., the heroes -
are weakened and the women are strengthened. Rosand notes, for example, that in Aureli's
L' Orfeo of 1673 (music by Sartorio), the one-time operatic hero Orfeo is 'de-mythified'
- transformed from the quintessential operatic hero into a jealous husband. While Rosand
associates Orfeo's loss of heroism with opera's decline and subsequent critical censure, she
also notes that it is Euridice who assumes the more heroic role. Whether or not Orfeo's
anti-heroism is symptomatic of a decline (indeed his behaviour in the Striggio and Monteverdi
setting was not always strictly heroic), reversal of gender roles may have been a factor in
the perception of a decline in opera and an increase in the desire to 'reform' the young
genre. See Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice (n. 3), 389-91, and McClary, 'Constructions
of Gender' (n. 16), 222-3.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 1ll

engendered by the pro/anti-female polemic? Semiramide's threat to the established

order would have been unmistakable.35

In refashioning Semiramide for the Venetian Republic, Noris created a character

who is the embodiment of qualities found in numerous other heroines of the
Venetian opera stage. The danger of women rulers such as Semiramide - their
ambition, their vulnerability to love, their inclination towards incestuous acts
- is, for example, explored in Pietro Dolfin's and Antonio Sartorio's Ermengarda
regina dei Longobardi, presented during the 1670-71 season at the Teatro SS Gio-
vanni e Paolo. Like Semiramide, Ermengarda tries to maintain her throne by
avoiding marriage and preventing the ascent of a legitimate male. She uses her
powerful sexuality to control her generals and outwit her enemy, but is like Semira-
mide forced to surrender her kingdom through marriage to an enemy of dubious
heroism and intellect, and not without having strayed dangerously near an incest-
uous relationship with her brother.36 The heroine of Francesco Piccioli's and
Carlo Pallavicino's Messalina (Venice, 1679) surpassed even Semiramide as a rep-
resentation of uncontrolled female sexuality.37 The lascivious empress is sur-
rounded by men who are not only morally deficient but weak and ineffectual;
yet the adulterous, unrepentant Messalina outwits them all. Despite Emperor Clau-
35 Rosand cites a letter to Johann Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick-Liineburg from his secretary
in Venice, Francesco Maria Massi, dated 12 December 1670, in which Massi reveals that
the first performance of La Semiramide the previous evening was not a success, despite
excellent singers (Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice, 240n). As Ziani immediately went
on to write two more operas for the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo - Heraclio and Attila
the following year, both of which are similar in style to La Semiramide - it seems unlikely
that the quality of the music alone would have been responsible for the failure of this work.
Perhaps at that time Semiramide's challenge to the conventional order offended even Venetian
audiences. Notably, the 1673 season at the Teatro SS Angelo featured a much more faithful
revision of Moniglia's libretto (and Cesti's music) under the title La schiavafortunata, with
some new arias by Marco Antonio Ziani, Pietro's nephew. The new title is indicative of
the change in focus away from the problematic Semiramide to the happy fortunes of the
slave-girl - Nino's lover - turned Princess. Significantly, it is this version that travelled later
to other Italian cities; there is no record of any reprises of the 1670-71 version by Noris
and Pietro Ziani.
36 The argomento describes the heroine in terms that are familiar from our examination of
Semiramide. The recently widowed Ermengarda is also 'incited by the ambition to reign',
and although she never dons male attire, she is similarly portrayed with mixed gender signs.
She is fortified 'not only by the weapons of Mars but also those of Venus' - with traditional
arms and with 'feminine' weapons: 'feigned wanton deeds' and 'deceitful ways'. Her desire
to avoid marriage to the enemy King Ridolfo is in part motivated by her love for Guido,
who may or may not be her brother. When it is revealed finally that Guido is her brother
(and as a male the true heir to the throne), she must decide whether to allow brother or
spouse to assume power. She chooses the latter and, throwing down her sceptre, offers herself
and her throne to Ridolfo.
37 For an interpretation of Messalina as a forerunner of the eighteenth-century soubrette, see
Helmuth Wolff, Die Venezianische Oper in der zweiten Hdlfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin,
1937), 131-8, which discusses Messalina along with La Semiramide as an example of a comic
opera. For a discussion of Messalina in terms of anti-heroism and the use of this libretto
as a model for Antonio Vivaldi's Ottone in villa, see John Walter Hill, 'Vivaldi's "Ottone
in villa"' (n. 34), IX-XXXVI.

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112 Wendy Heller

dio's continued failure in his own adulterous diversions, Messalina's infidelities

are not discovered - until she is found seducing a young woman disguised as
a boy. Messalina may not actually wear male attire, but she assumes the role
of seducer and makes love to women with arguably greater success than her male
counterparts.38
Semiramide's vengeful nature is seen again in Alinda, the heroine of Adriano
Morselli's Candaule, set by Pietro Andrea Ziani for the 1679-80 season at the
S Cassiano.39 By secretly allowing his companion Gige to see his wife Alinda
naked in her bath, Candaule sows the seeds of his own destruction: she takes
Gige as her lover and the two plot to murder Candaule and take away his kingdom.
Eventually, Candaule is murdered by an angry populace and Alinda marries Gige
with the blessing of Imeneo, god of marriage. For Giuseppe Passi, the story of
Candaule and Alinda was an important lesson to prospective husbands, for if
they exploit women in such a manner they must be prepared for the consequences
that will inevitably result from their vengeful natures:

Therefore the husband must be careful not to make jokes to his wife that might give
birth to shame and hatred; because some for disdain and under impetus of anger, and
others for amusement and jest, have given dishonest names to their women, and showed
them off nude, to their own great damage. Thus we read of the wife of Candaule, who
while sleeping was shown nude to his companion Gige. And she, having discovered this
had him [Candaule] killed, and took Gige for her husband, saying that it is not appropriate
for women to be seen nude by anyone except their husband.40

By the time of Taide, heroine of Aureli's Alessandro Magno in Sidone (Venice,

1679), the lascivious and ambitious woman has become a well-established fixture
within Venetian operatic convention. Aureli describes Taide as a 'famosa Donna,
lasciva, interessante', and the argomento tells of young King Eumene's fascination
with Taide, the most interesting and wise woman living at that time. As in the
legends of the young Semiramide, Taide uses her sexuality to gain power, discarding
the effeminate Eumene for the greater appeal of Alessandro Magno. Yet, unlike
the effeminato re Eumene or his counterparts, Alessandro Magno resists all temp-
38 Like Semiramide, Messalina also appears in writings about women, but rarely as a positive
exemplum. Giuseppe Passi describes her unbridled libido, her celebrated visits to brothels
and her compulsion to lead other women to adultery, Donneschi difetti (see n. 5), 52. Messalina
also interested members of the Incogniti. Pietro Angelo Zaguri's La Messalina: Opera scenica
(Venice, 1656), presented in a private performance at the home of Giovanni Battista Sanudo
and dedicated to Incogniti founder Loredano, includes a debate between Honour and
Lasciviousness on Messalina's sins. The Incognito author Pona, whose Galleria delle donne
we have already noted, devoted an entire novella to the lascivious queen, providing a detailed
description of her many adulterous activities. Pona's moralistic intentions ('Draw near, young
maidens ... Come chaste matrons ... A glance at this face can show you how deforming
promiscuity may be ...') are only a thin disguise for what was acknowledged as one of
the most pornographic (and popular) works of the century. Francesco Pona, La Messalina
(Venice, 1628).
As Paolo Fabbri has noted, the librettos of the later 1670s and 1680s seem particularly
preoccupied with the erotic; hence the lascivious woman is a popular character type. For
a compilation of other conventional topics in the Italian libretto in the seventeenth century,
see Fabbri, II secolo cantante (n. 21).
40 Giuseppe Passi, Dello stato maritale (see n. 5), 156-7.

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 Refashioning Semiramide for Seicento Venice 113

tation and banishes the beautiful, interesting and lascivious Taide. He is the ideal
prototype of the male hero - in full possession of appropriate masculine characteris-
tics - who can triumph over the most fascinating and seductive of women.
The power of Semiramide and her fellow heroines was inevitably linked with
dangerous sexuality, excessive ambition and an unfortunate tendency to feminise
the men that surrounded them. In this respect, they differed profoundly from
the strong but virtuous heroines who prevailed in operas of the previous decades.
There are women such as Veremonda, the heroine of Veremonda l'amazzone di
Aragone (Venice, 1653), who (assisted by a band of Amazons) vanquished her
husband's enemies and outwitted his philandering general; or the heroine of Matteo
Noris's first libretto, Zenobia (Venice, 1666), who despite military defeat clung
steadfastly to the virtue of her widowhood. The scrambling of male and female
characteristics so evident in Semiramide is configured rather differently in these
women. They accomplish heroic deeds in the name of virtuous love rather than
ambition; they have no sexual autonomy. They offer neither the danger nor the
allure of a Semiramide, and their representation of female power carries no warning
labels. It is striking that during this period, in which women's roles were so
highly contested, these more suitably behaved heroines were gradually abandoned
in favour of their potentially disruptive sisters. It may well be that the prospect
of unchecked female power, symbolised so compellingly by the splendour of the
prima donna, had become both too fascinating and too terrifying. Whether or
not opera producers consciously recognised the inherent power of this new genre
to instruct and ultimately control audiences, it was inevitable that the ambivalent
attitudes towards women that so pervaded this era would find expression within
the narrow but infinitely variable repertoire of devices known as operatic conven-
tion.
As is often the case in the Venetian libretto, philosophical musings find their
way into the mouths of servants, who comment on the nature of fortune or
the insanities of love, and who pass judgement on the behaviour of their 'betters'.
The servants are also a traditional repository for the misogynistic comments that
pervade Venetian librettos at this time. In his refashioning of La Semiramide,
Matteo Noris leaves us an important clue as to the background that informed
his work, and many like it, in a debate about women between the servants Clitarco
and Dircene. When the elderly nurse Dircene offers to assist the resourceful servant
Clitarco in his endeavours, Clitarco tells her to remain with the queen, saying
'Che la Donna e de l'uom sempre ruina' (For woman is always man's ruin).
Dircene, however, replies with a bold rejection of this misogynistic tradition:

S'inganno
Chi danno la Donna
Nel mondo chiamo!
Donna e ancora colei che lo stame
Torce a l'huomo, che nasce nel mondo.
La fortuna con crine, ch'e biondo,
Che sia femina ogn'una affermo.
S'inganno

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 114 Wendy Heller

Chi danno la Donna

Nel mondo chiamo!

[He who called woman the ruin of the world only deceived himself! For woman still
is the one who twists the thread on which every man born to the world turns. Everyone
knew that Fortune, with her blond tresses, is a woman. He who called woman the ruin
of the world only deceived himself!]

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