The Tuscan poet Ranieri Calzabigi (1714–1795) is one of the most intriguing and influential figures in eighteenth-century opera. Best known as the librettist of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s three Viennese ‘reform operas’, Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), Alceste (1767) and Paride ed Elena (1770), he also wrote a number of later librettos that have received much less attention, but which was each ground-breaking in its own way. L’opera seria (1769), set by Florian Leopold Gassmann, is a witty parody of Pietro Metastasio’s heroic dramas that Calzabigi rejected as a model for tragic opera; Amiti e Ontario, o I selvaggi (1772), set by Giuseppe Scarlatti (only two arias from his score survive), is the first opera to deal with American slavery; Comala (1774), set by Pietro Morandi in 1780, is the first opera libretto based on the Ossianic poems; Ipermestra o Le Danaidi (1784), set by Giuseppe Millico, revolutionized operatic aesthetics by focusing on the arousal of terror rather than pity in the audience; the pasticcio Cook o sia Gl’inglesi in Othaiti (1785) is the first opera set in the South Seas and the first one to feature contemporary figures on stage; and Elfrida (1792) and Elvira (1794), both set by Giovanni Paisiello, are gothic tragedies that challenged contemporary notions of gender and nationhood in the spirit of the late Enlightenment.

While the complete librettos of Pietro Metastasio, Carlo Goldoni and Lorenzo Da Ponte have long since been published in modern editions, no such edition of Calzabigi’s librettos exists, despite their originality, stage-worthiness and indisputable importance for the history of opera. His mock-epic poem La Lulliade o I buffi italiani scacciati da Parigi, a satire of the Querelle des Bouffons of 1752–1754 (the manuscript of which was completed in 1789), was, however, published in 1977; his complete critical writings appeared in two volumes in 1994; and several collections of his letters to various contemporaries have appeared in article form through the years. The present edition of Calzabigi’s forty-seven surviving letters to his Viennese patron, the imperial chancellor Prince Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg (1711–1794) – published with rich annotations, five introductory essays and parallel English translations – is the most substantial contribution to the publication of the poet’s correspondence thus far, and it will no doubt prove an important resource for scholars of eighteenth-century opera.

The first twenty-one letters, dating from c1764 to 1773, were sent from Vienna when Kaunitz was out of town and he and Calzabigi were unable to solve matters relating to the running of the court theatre in person. Most of these are matter-of-fact business letters, dealing with finances, employments and similar practicalities. They will interest historians of the French theatre in Vienna, but they contain few more general aesthetic reflections and – with one notable exception – little information about Calzabigi’s own works. In 1774, owing to a cabal at court, the poet lost the favour of Empress Maria Theresa and had to leave Vienna for Italy. He initially returned to his native Tuscany before finally settling in Naples in 1779. The last twenty-six letters in the collection, written between 1774 and 1791, dramatically differ in style, length and content in comparison to the earlier ones. Clearly, Calzabigi wanted to ensure the continued payment of his pension from the imperial court on which he relied for his livelihood. Maintaining his friendly relationship with the powerful chancellor, who had always defended him and promoted his career, was meant to guarantee the continued flow of funds. In order to remain in Kaunitz’s good graces, the poet wrote letters designed to impress with their classical learning, their evocative descriptions of Neapolitan society, culture and nature, their acute observations on novelties within the world of Italian philosophy, literature, art and theatre, and their far-sighted analyses of contemporary politics. Written principally in French, occasionally in Italian and interspersed with quotations from Horace, Ovid, Cicero, Tacitus, Virgil and other Latin writers, the second half of the correspondence offers a fascinating panorama of 1780s Naples, while providing further insights into Calzabigi’s thinking and opinions on a whole range of subjects.

Apart from some brief descriptions of La Lulliade and his various critical essays, references to Calzabigi’s own works are not as numerous as one might have hoped. Among the operas listed above, only the three Gluck operas and Le Danaidi are mentioned in the letters. Of particular importance is a letter of 6 March 1767 that deals with the casting of Alceste, and which happens to be the only letter in the collection that was previously known to scholarship, after its reproduction in a 1938 article by the Czech musicologist Vladimír Helfert (‘Dosud Neznámy dopis Ran. Calsabigiho z r. 1767’, Musikologie 1 (Prague and Brno, 1938), 114–122). In this letter, which predates the famous preface he wrote for Gluck’s score, Calzabigi sets out his ideas for reforming opera. He distances himself not only from the dramas of Metastasio, but also from the types of performer who shone in these operas, insisting that works like Orfeo ed Euridice, Alceste, Tommaso Traetta’s and Marco Coltellini’s Ifigenia in Tauride (1763) and Gluck’s and Coltellini’s Telemaco o sia L’isola di Circe (1765) required fidelity to the score and needed performers who were able to act and sing with ‘nature’, ‘passion’ and ‘the simple expression that comes out of words’ (85–87). Also noteworthy is a letter of 30 June 1774 in which Calzabigi explains how the Florentine productions of Alceste and Orfeo ed Euridice failed to present the works with ‘simplicity, truth, naturalness’ (‘La simplicité, la verité, le naturel sont traités de stupidite [sic]’ (my translation); 168). Especially important are the letters that recount the history of Le Danaidi. Calzabigi considered this libretto, which he wrote for Gluck, better than those he had previously written for him, but the aged composer turned it over to some of his French librettists, who adapted it for Antonio Salieri without Calzabigi’s knowledge. The French adaptation, Les Danaïdes, was premiered in Paris in April 1784, barely two months after Millico’s setting of the original Italian libretto was first given in a private concert performance in Naples. I was intrigued to learn, moreover, that Calzabigi, in 1790, turned the libretto over to the Prussian court Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Reichardt, whom he described as ‘a kind of Gluck. He is knowledgeable, full of fire’ (‘Cet homme est une espece [sic] de Gluck. Il est instruit, rempli de feu’ (my translation; 416)). Unfortunately, Reichardt never set the libretto.

The letters’ multiple comments on singers, dancers, actors, composers and choreographers add to our understanding of the aesthetic priorities and preferences of one of the main figures of eighteenth-century opera and ballet. There is, for example, an entertainingly withering account of Charles Le Picq’s ballet Semiramide, premiered in Naples in 1780, which constitutes an interesting point of comparison with Calzabigi’s and Gasparo Angiolini’s ballet on the same topic from 1765 with music by Gluck. But the letters also situate our poet within a broader cultural context, with his comments on eighteenth-century Italian luminaries such as the legal philosopher Gaetano Filangieri, the playwright Vittorio Alfieri and the sculptor Antonio Canova, as well as the grim picture he paints of a Neapolitan kingdom riddled with significant social and political problems. In the letters from the 1780s, the despotism, corruption, inefficiency and sheer lawlessness of the reign of Ferdinand IV are repeatedly contrasted with the enlightened reign of the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, Maria Theresa and Joseph II, to whom Calzabigi remains loyally devoted and to whose chancellor he continues to offer his startlingly perspicacious advice. In a letter of 11 November 1783, which includes an impressive analysis of European geopolitics, he warns that the Habsburgs should avoid getting involved in a war with the Ottoman Empire. In another, from 22 December 1789, he gives an ardent defence of the right of the French people to resort to violence when overthrowing an immoral and repressive aristocracy. Such letters provide an important context for our reading Calzabigi’s later librettos, which often touch on controversial political themes.

The letters are prefaced by contributions that place them in context. These include a general introduction (by Jana Franková and Lenka Švandová Maršálková) and introductory essays on Calzabigi’s relationship with Kaunitz (Maršálková), on their shared interest in theatre (Franková), on the poet’s relationship with the visual arts (Gernot Mayer) and on the eighteenth-century lotteries that he organized, initiating his employment as imperial counsellor (Manfred Zollinger). All of these essays are interesting, but I want to highlight Mayer’s contribution, in which he argues convincingly that a portrait of an unknown man, painted around 1760 by the Viennese court painter Martin van Meytens, is the only extant oil portrait of Calzabigi. The picture is reproduced in colour in the book. Finally, it is necessary to add one point of criticism regarding translations: the English translations would have benefited from a last language check, and the translations from French are particularly problematic. As these defects detract from an otherwise sound edition, we are fortunate to have Calzabigi’s letters in their original languages as well.