Salieri: Cublai, Gran Kan De' Tartari (Aparté)

Antonio Salieri (1750-1825)
Cublai, gran kan de’ Tartari (1788), Opera in 2 acts
Cublai: Mirco Palazzi (bass)
Alzima: Marie Lys (soprano)
Timur: Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani (tenor)
Memma: Ana Quintans (soprano)
Chœur de chambre de Namur
Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset
rec. July 2024, Studio RIFFX 1 de la Seine Musicale, Boulogne-Billancourt, France
Texts and translations provided
Reviewed as a download
Aparté AP379 [161]

Christophe Rousset here with his usual forces, the Chœur de chambre de Namur and Les Talens Lyrique, continue their series of Salieri operas with Cublai, finished in 1788 for the Viennese stage but never produced. Mine is the second review on MWI after Michael Cookson’s assessment in June. I agree with everything Michael says and at first didn’t feel I could add much to his comments. Nonetheless, having left the discs a few weeks and returned to them very recently, I wanted to join with him in praising the achievements of Rousset and his cast in this superb recording and pay tribute to these musicians for bringing this work out from the shadows so brilliantly.

Salieri arrived In Vienna in the early 1770s. He scored a huge success with his Armide early on but by 1777 the Italian opera company in that city had folded. Salieri was forced to rely on commissions from his native Italy and beyond. Two of the works he wrote for Milan and Venice were Europa riconosciuta, with which La Scala was opened in 1778 and La scuola de’ gelosi from the same year. Meanwhile in Vienna, the Singspiel was the flavour of the time. Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail of 1782 is the most famous example now, but Salieri contributed, too. His Der Rauchfangkehrer dates from a year earlier. In 1783 Italian opera was back in Vienna at the Burgtheater and Salieri was sitting pretty. He was in demand in Paris, too, for which he composed three stunning examples of tragédie lyrique: Les Danaïdes, Les Horaces and Tarare, all three of which have been memorably recorded by Rousset with Les Talens Lyrique. In 1788, back for good in Vienna and installed as Kapellmeister by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Salieri was in peak form. That summer he finished his opera to a libretto by Giovanni Battista Casti, Cublai, gran kan de’ Tartari. Casti had written a satire on the Russian court of Catherine the Great after making a trip there in the 1770s. His poema tartaro, finished in the 1780s became the source of the libretto for Cublai. Historians will know Cublai as Kublai Khan (1215-1294), Emperor of the Yuan dynasty, grandson of the founder Genghis Khan. The opera is set in the palace in Cublai’s winter capital of Khanbaliq, modern-day Beijing.

Casti’s Cublai is a ruthless autocratic leader of limited intellect, very gullible and with low morals. He is portrayed as a buffoon, a drunkard and incredibly lazy. He has a couple of European guests, Memma and Bozzone who have made it their business to sort things out and put things on a more enlightened level. They are like Figaro and Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, the real holders of power in the palace. The plot hinges on the succession. Kublai’s son Lipi is, like his father, not cut out to govern and the match Kublai has made for him, Alzima, sees that quickly. Alzima has been fetched from India by Lipi’s cousin Timur. It is he who, we will see named as the next Great Khan designate, he and Alzima have loved each other since their first meeting so it is happy fortune for them. The cast includes a couple of other comprimario roles, important to the plot in a similar way to the roles Bartolo and Basilio are in Le nozze di Figaro. Salieri is clearly influenced by that work which had its premiere at the Burgtheater in May 1786. As he was finishing Cublai, another work of Mozart’s was given for the first time in Vienna, Don Giovanni which opened at the Burgtheater in May 1788.

Unfortunately for Salieri events rather overtook his new opera. A political alliance between Austria and Russia in response to the war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia meant that the libretto was censored for fear of causing offence, and the opera removed from the upcoming schedules. It was never seen on any stage in Vienna or anywhere else, and its eventual premiere had to wait over two hundred years. In those performances given in Würzburg, Diana Damrau sang Alzima. She also recorded a couple of the arias on a recital for Virgin Classics (review), made several years later. This new recording for Aparté is the first complete performance of Cublai on record. It followed performances in Vienna by Les Talens Lyrique, a couple of months before the recording sessions in Paris. There were several significant differences in the casts between Vienna and Paris, new singers in the title role of Cublai and the principal tenor role of Timur. The Arnold Schoenberg Choir sang in Vienna, whilst In Paris the chorus are the Chœur de chambre de Namur.

As seems always to be true with records made by these artists, the reading is lively and vital. The orchestra relish their parts, and it fizzes along infectiously. Those Vienna shows, where the players and Rousset himself became conversant with the work, and fluent with its twists and turns, have, after a couple of months distance proved to be the ideal grounding for this re-acquaintance with the score. It sounds well-rehearsed yet exciting and fresh. Horns bray; woodwinds bubble and chirrup and the strings are effervescent. It is a supremely well played rendition of the piece with sonics to match. Salieri’s company at the time contained some of the greatest singers in Europe. Like Mozart, he wrote exquisitely for the voice and knew exactly what he was doing. He writes grace notes, ornamentation, runs, shakes and of course he would have expected his singers to add their own embellishments, subtle portamento and appoggiatura. The excellent booklet notes contain a useful essay by Dr. Timo Jouko Herrmann, but there is nothing about the singers who would have taken on this opera had it got to the stage.

I believe there is no doubt that the title role Cublai was written for the great bass Francesco Benucci. He was the highest paid singer in the troupe at the time and was a legendary artist. He had already created Mozart’s Figaro and Axur in Salieri’s revision of Tarare. In Don Giovanni, Benucci had just sang Leporello, and in 1790 would create Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte. Benucci had a beautifully rounded bass. He was by contemporary accounts a vocalist of pure class, and his singing was of unparalleled style and elegance. In the principal soprano role of Alzima, I suggest Salieri was writing for Luisa Laschi. She had created the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro and she sang Zerlina in the Vienna Don Giovanni. Laschi had also, like Benucci, sang several roles for Salieri. Both these great voices had also created roles in what in 1786 had been the number one hit of those years: nothing by Mozart nor Salieri at all, but Una cosa rara by Vicente Martín y Soler.

Benucci’s great partner, Nancy Storace would have been the natural fit for Memma, so alike with Mozart’s Susanna, but she had left Vienna in 1787 for England. Perhaps Salieri would have cast Celeste Coltellini. In the role of Timur would it have been Mombelli or Morella? The grace and style of the singing in this period were unique in opera. Many connoisseurs of singing writing one, two, even three generations ahead of these times said as much. The tradition was passed down through singing teachers, but as musical styles and repertory changed, we lost so much of it. When casting a Mozart opera or indeed one by Salieri, I believe it is pertinent to look back and try to match the voice to the part as these composers took such labour to so do. I thoroughly believe that is what Rousset has done here.

In the role of Cublai we hear Italian bass Mirco Palazzi. He is now in his mid-40s and in great form in this role. He has a rich, warm, commanding voice, and great agility. He is most often heard leading ensembles. My favourite is the huge finale that ends Act 1. Memma has convinced him to outlaw beards, and he announces the new rule with immediate effect: “La barba, o la testa”, he will have the beard or the head! Palazzi can be heard to good effect on record as Noah in Opera Rara’s version of Donizetti’s Il diluvio universal (review) and more recently Maometto II (review) or Assur in Rossini’s Semiramide (review). He is a worthy successor to the great Benucci in this new release.

Swiss-born Marie Lys sings Alzima. This lovely soprano took a break from her initial studies and re-emerged in London around 2015. Recently she has been singing roles such as Cleopatra, Semele and Zerlina. She has a healthy youthful tone and has a real success in this, her first Salieri role. Her first duet with Timur “Deh perchè mi guardi” is beautiful. She has two bravura arias in each act: “D’un insultante orgoglio” at the end of the first, where she turns from fury to introspection – a gorgeous set piece with oboe. Her “Fra i barbari sospetti” at the close is a brilliant tour de force of the genre. Spectacularly done. I was really impressed with Marie Lys throughout the set. This is, I believe, her finest account of a role on record so far, and she has already made a few good ones (review – review – review). I am excited to hear what she may move on to next.

In the tenor role of Timur, Cublai’s overlooked nephew we hear Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani. The role is very like Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, same tessitura and that same sense of noble consort. Timur gets a big scene alone in Act 1: “Misero! io stesso… Quando a colei che adoro”. Salieri mixes in oboes and clarinets masterfully but it is a fiendishly difficult assignment, the writing exposed and requiring supreme vocal skill. Giustiniani impresses me with his satisfying reading, even though we can imagine his role being even more dashingly sung by the greats from the grand tradition of bel canto. His “Quai grazie rendere” in Act 2 is lovely; smoothness and delicacy are in fine evidence throughout. In the soubrette role of Memma is cast Ana Quintans. This lovely Portuguese soprano has been singing for a while now, but she still sounds sweet and fresh. I echo Michael Cookson’s approval of her performance. She brings a sparkle and sense of joy to the role and technically she delivers too. I can imagine the role of Memma stealing the show at the Burgtheater, had it got on the stage there.

There really is so much more I could say of these four principals and the other four singers, too. This is a real company performance, however, and greater than the sum of its parts, even when those parts are performed at this high a level. Behind (or rather in front of) these singers is the expert guiding hand once again of Christophe Rousset who has given us so many unforgettable records with his merry band. This new disc joins a formidable and growing discography of excellence. Rousset as usual directs from the fortepiano with bass continuo in recitatives. Salieri perhaps didn’t have the same God-given talent for melody and sheer bravado as his younger colleague Mozart, but once again in Cublai we can experience his undoubted musical genius and perfect sense of timing. The opera moves fast; indeed, it is quite breathless in places. There is some inappropriate text in the libretto to do with racial stereotypes which may indeed have been amusing to the audience at the time, but which feels wrong now. We are lucky to have the records, though, and I urge you to investigate this or indeed any of the series on Aparté. There are several more Salieri works Rousset could turn to, pre- and post-dating Cublai. I would also love him to direct Una cosa rara one day.

Philip Harrison

Previous review: Michael Cookson (June 2025)

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