After the opera performance in Vicenza all goes quiet. So, on his
father’s advice, Antonio accepts an invitation to provide two pieces
of work for the Teatro San Angelo. He is not wild about this
commission; as far as the second opera is concerned he’s happy to
write just the final act.
Modetto has already tested the waters regarding how
interested the Vivaldis might be in reinvesting their impresario
energies in the theatre. So far they’ve refused, especially in the
light of Teatro allo Moda, a merciless satire on the world of Venetian
theatre, published by an author who prefers to remain anonymous.
Antonio is pretty superior about this defamation; it might have
been funny, but for the fact that he himself appears on the first
page in the caricature of ‘Aldivi’. Nobleman Benedetto Marcello,
co-owner of the Teatro San Angelo, is soon revealed to have written
the comedy. Much later, his brother Allessandro Marcello will offer
his apologies to the priest on his brother’s behalf, only to have
them airily waved aside with a smile. But deep in his heart Antonio
is wounded at yet another blow to his pride. Is this the sort of
humour that appeals to the people of Venice? What has Benedetto
to offer apart from some slick penmanship, the gift inherited from
his mother Paolina Capello, a real poetess? The man’s scribbled
down a couple of elementary musical exercises in his life, nothing
more.
But the little volume of witticisms probably owes its huge
success to Marcello’s acute observation of the scenes described.
Antonio’s father has a good laugh at it, anyway, and so does
Paolina. But then it is not their names that appear on the front page.
Later that spring the whole family is preparing to move house,
when in the middle of everything a commission, albeit not a very
challenging one, comes in at last from the mainland. The scrittura
is for a dramma pastorale to be premiered on the birthday of the
Habsburg empress. The request comes straight from the imperial
governor in Milan, and very probably thanks to the letter of
recommendation from Langravio Filippo! La Silvia, as the pastoral is
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