Table of Contents
Carlo Goldoni was born at Venice in 1707 and spent his early childhood in the house of his grandfather, a keen enthusiast for the theatre. A toy theatre was the boy's favourite plaything, and plays his favourite reading. He was sent to school at Rimini and escaped back to Venice with a theatrical company; he studied law at Pavia, but was expelled from his college on account of a satire which he had written. He took his degree in law at Padua in 1731 and practised as a lawyer for some time at Venice. But the theatre always interested him more than the law, and from 1734 onwards he wrote regularly for the stage. His earliest efforts were tragedies in verse and libretti for operas; in 1747 he definitely abandoned the law for the theatre, and produced some hundred comedies and a large number of comic operas. It is by his comedies alone that Goldoni is generally remembered, but his comic operas, set to music by Galuppi, enjoyed in their day a popularity, both in Italy and in England, comparable to that of Gilbert and Sullivan.
The Servant of Two Masters is one of his earliest plays; it was written in 1743 at the request of the actor Sacchi, who suggested the subject and himself played the part of Truffaldino. The Italian theatre of that day was dominated by the improvising actors who wore the traditional masks, and in the original form of this play the comic scenes were left to the actor's own invention. Goldoni wrote them down when he printed the play in 1753, and there can be no doubt that he incorporated a great deal of Sacchi's traditional business. Mozart had a great admiration for The Servant of Two Masters, and in 1783 contemplated turning it into a comic opera.
The improvised Comedy of Masks, the history of which goes back to the days of ancient Rome, was frequently coarse and obscene. In the early eighteenth century, as Goldoni himself says, there was an English theatre and a French theatre, but no real Italian theatre. The Opera had become the most popular entertainment of the cultivated classes, and even the opera stood badly in need of reform until Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio gave it real literary distinction. Goldoni made it his mission to give an artistic form to the spoken comedy. The four traditional masks which appear in his plays are Pantalone, the Doctor, Brighella and Arlecchino. Pantalone is the old Venetian merchant, wearing the dress of the sixteenth century. By tradition he was merely senile and lascivious; Goldoni made him a model of respectability, while never losing sight of his comic character. The Doctor represents the old man of the educated classes; he is a Doctor of Law of the University of Bologna, pompous and pedantic, much given to Latin quotations. He plays a small part in Goldoni's plays. Brighella and Harlequin come from Bergamo and represent the two types of servant, knave and fool. Truffaldino is also from Bergamo and is much the same person as Harlequin.
Goldoni is at his best when he lays his scene in his native Venice. His heroes and heroines are conventional figures, often of little interest, but he gives a vivid presentation of types from humbler life, porters, waiters, fisher-folk and gondoliers. The trend of the age was towards sentimental comedy, and this becomes more and more noticeable in Goldoni's later plays, especially those written after 1762 for the Théâtre Italien in Paris. The masks disappear and the scene is laid in more aristocratic circles. The earlier plays, written for Venice, deal with middle-class family life; Goldoni's Venice is the Venice of the remoter streets, not the gay international city of pleasure shown us in Volpone and in the Memoirs of Casanova. Goldoni's plays are conventional in construction, trivial in incident, undistinguished in dialogue and strictly moral in intention; yet when they are seen on the stage, especially if acted by a Venetian company, no one could fail to enjoy their delightful humour. Goldoni's puritanism was in fact of an entirely negative type; he simply ignored the coarser and rougher jests because, like Mozart's Don Alfonso, he saw every little event of daily life from a comic point of view.
The translator is indebted to the kindness of Mr Frank Birch and Professor Edgardo Maddalena of Florence for much valuable help.
| DRAMATIS PERSONAE |
| |
| Pantalone dei Bisognosi, a Venetian merchant. |
| Clarice, his daughter. |
| Doctor Lombardi. |
| Silvio, his son. |
| Beatrice Rasponi, a lady of Turin, disguised as her |
| brother Federigo Rasponi. |
| Florindo Aretusi, of Turin, lover of Beatrice. |
| Brighella, an Innkeeper. |
| Smeraldina, maidservant to Clarice. |
| Truffaldino, servant first to Beatrice, and afterwards |
| to Florindo. |
| First Waiter. |
| Second Waiter. |
| First Porter. |
| Second Porter. |
| The Scene is laid in VENICE. |
| CAST OF CHARACTERS |
| A. D. C. Cambridge: 5-12 June 1928 |
| |
| Pantalone | J. Y. Smart |
| Clarice | O. W. Reynolds |
| Doctor Lombardi | R. V. Machell |
| Silvio | E. P. Hedley |
| Beatrice | R. L. Eddison |
| Florindo | M. S. Redgrave |
| Brighella | M. L. Furber |
| Smeraldina | E. J. Griffith |
| Truffaldino | A. M. S. Mackenzie |
| First Waiter | J. A. Hartigan |
| Second Waiter | J. W. Rattray |
| First Porter | L. D. Gilliam |
| Second Porter |
| |
| Scenery and Costumes | by R. L. Eddison |
| The Songs sung | by M. L. Furber |
| The Play produced | by Frank Birch |
| SCENES |
| |
| ACT I |
| Scene I: | A Room in the House of Pantalone. |
| Scene II: | A Street with Brighella's Inn. |
| Scene III: | A Room in the House of Pantalone. |
| |
| ACT II |
| Scene I: | The Courtyard of Pantalone's House. |
| Scene II: | A Room in Brighella's Inn. |
| Scene III: | A Street with Brighella's Inn. |
| |
| ACT III |
| Scene I: | A Room in Brighella's Inn. |
| Scene II: | A Street. |
| Scene III: | A Room in Brighella's Inn. |
| Scene IV: | A Room in the House of Pantalone. |
| MUSIC |
| |
| Sinfonia | Galuppi |
| |
| INTERMEZZO I |
| Una ragazza che non è pazza | Galuppi |
| Song | 'The Incompetent Watermen' | Anon. |
| Minuetto serio | Anon. |
| Song | 'The Serenade' | Anon. |
| Serenade (between the verses of the song) | Galuppi |
| Minuetto buffo | Leo |
| La mia ragione è questa | Galuppi |
| |
| INTERMEZZO II |
| Minuetto veneziano | Anon. |
| Song | 'The Rejected Lover' | Anon. |
| March | A. Scarlatti |
| Song with Chorus | 'The Jolly Topers' | Anon. |
| Forlana | 'Saltagiovanni' | Anon. |
| Minuetto buffo and Borè | A. Scarlatti |
| Finale | 'L'Amor Contadino' | Lampugnani |
| |
The pieces by Galuppi are from his comic opera Il Filosofo di Campagna; the anonymous dances from a contemporary Italian ms; the Songs, which are Venetian and of the same period, from Canzonette Veneziane da Battello, edited by Hermann Springer and Eduard Buhle, published by Schlesinger, Berlin and Haslinger, Vienna.
| WORDS OF SONGS |
| |
| Premi o stalì |
| (The Incompetent Watermen) |
| |
| Left or right, which way you will, sir! |
| Where do you want to go? |
| Where did you learn to row? |
| Keep to the left, I say! |
| |
| You seem to think that any fool |
| Can take an oar in hand; |
| You'd better stay on land |
| Till you have learnt the way! |
| Look there, the way they go! |
| Where did they learn to row? |
| |
| 'Tis a wonder, when such people |
| Can't even steer a boat, |
| How they can keep afloat; |
| There'll be the devil to pay! |
| |
| Well, they may thank us gondoliers, |
| Who keep the proper way, |
| If they come safely home |
| And are not drowned to-day! |
| Just look, the way they go! |
| Where did they learn to row? |
| Semo a la riva |
| (The Serenade) |
| |
| Here at your service, my lord, the music is, |
| And to the window your lady has come; |
| Here are the violins, hautboy and flute as well, |
| Bass-viol, harpsichord, trumpet and drum. |
| So listen to the serenade— |
| ('Twill cost a pretty sum!) |
| |
| All you good people in boats and gondolas, |
| Spread out to right and left, leave us some room! |
| Ladies and gentlemen, please to stop talking now! |
| While we are playing, I bid you be dumb. |
| And listen to the serenade— |
| (It costs a pretty sum!) |
| |
| Now for the last thing a lively symphony— |
| Trumpets are braying, loud beats the drum! |
| Here's to your ladyship! Thank you, good-night, my lord! |
| Pack up your instruments, now we'll go home. |
| O thank you for the serenade— |
| (It cost a pretty sum!) |
| Vago e no torno più |
| (The Rejected Lover) |
| |
| O take my last farewell, |
| For I must leave you; |
| Cruel you are to me, |
| Yet I forgive you. |
| |
| Heaven grant you every joy, |
| I wish you well indeed; |
| That heart you made to bleed |
| I freely give you. |
| |
| O think no ill of me, |
| I could not bear it; |
| I never did you wrong, |
| Never, I swear it. |
| |
| Yet, ere I take my way, |
| One kindly word alone, |
| One kindly word, I pray, |
| O let me hear it. |
| A coro tutti quanti |
| (The Jolly Topers) |
| |
| Come, join the cheerful chorus, |
| All of you here before us! |
| But let us have no lovers |
| Sighing their hearts away. |
| (Chorus) | We want the jolly topers, |
| | No melancholy mopers! |
| | We'll drink and we'll be merry; |
| | Bacchus shall rule the day! |
| |
| The lover who sings to the moon, sirs, |
| Never can keep in tune, sirs, |
| And if he would be dancing, |
| Always he goes astray. |
| (Chorus) | We want the jolly topers, etc. |
| |
| A lover's laugh is hollow; |
| Marriage is there to follow! |
| So let us bid such fond fools |
| Hence and begone, I say. |
| (Chorus) | We want the jolly topers, etc. |
