Giuliano Carella - Paisiello: Proserpine (2004)

Proserpine was staged at the Théàtre de l’Opéra on the evening of Tuesday 28th March 1803. During the première the enthusiasm of Paisiello’s supporters was drowned out by the demonstrations of disapproval of his opponents. Napoleon, who was in the audience, did not intervene but made a public declaration expressing his appreciation of this tragédie lyrique. Yet the opinion of the First Consul did not achieve the desired effect and the opera ran to only twelve more performances. Examining the opera more closely in a historical context, Paisiello’s Proserpine reveals eighteenth-century characteristics but at the same time looks forward to the nineteenth century, pre-announcing orientations that would be immediately developed by musicians of the following generations. Paisiello, then, created an opera that was quite different from his earlier works and that represents a fundamental moment in his capacity for assimilation (Mozart, Haydn) and creativity in this final difficult period of his career as a composer. The opera offers the listener various motives of interest in the beauty of many of its pages, where the neo-classical poise of the work’s structure manages to combine with sincere, touching inspiration, especially in the more melancholic passages and the pages steeped in tenderness or passionate rage.