Pavlos Carrer

During the 19th century, exoticism and folklorism, two aesthetic tendencies which originate in the common matrix of nationalism, enjoy pan-european appeal. Especially in the field of music, folklorism was connected to the romantic discovery of elements of “national spirit” in the folk tunes of the country, while exoticism prepared the ground for the constitution of national schools of music in Europe.
The first national school of music in Greece was developed outside the borders of the Modern Greek State, by the western-bred musicians of the Ionian Islands. Pavlos Carrer of Zakynthos, one of the mainstays of the Ionian school of music of the 19th c., is in essence the first Greek music composer to put forward a complete collection of vocal works with national subjects, Greek-language libretti and lyrics and melodies inspired by the folk, as well as the urban popular tradition of Greece.
This article examines the double function of the national element in two Greek-inspired operas by Carrer, Marco Bozzari and Kyra-Frossini. In these two works, the composer, through his manipulation of language and music, exploits folklorism and exoticism in order to inaugurate his musical “system”, to advertise his nationalistic expressive pursuits and to create a national imagery of sound and scenery.

This paper paper focuses on an opera forgotten today, but popular in its time: Isabella d’Aspeno, a work by the Ionian composer Paolo Carrer and the unknown Italian librettist hidden behind the initials R.G.S. The opera Isabella d’Aspeno opened in April 1855 at the Milanese theatre ‘Carcano’ and was considered one of the grands succès of the year, a fact confirmed by the numerous repetitions of the production during that year and the next. The particularity of this work lies is its obvious thematic similarity to the celebrated Italian opera Un Ballo in Maschera by Giuseppe Verdi and Antonio Somma. Both works dramatize the assassination of a sovereign by his political and erotic rival, which takes place during an official masquerade ball.

Taking into consideration that Carrer’s Isabella (composed in 1853 and first presented in Italy in 1855) is anterior to Verdi’s Ballo (1859), it would be reasonable to wonder whether the work of the young composer from Zante was one of the prototypes for one of the major operatic creations of the incontestable king of the Italian opera. Was Verdi or his librettist Somma aware of Isabella d’Aspeno, a big operatic hit at that time in Milano, when they started working on the dramatic plot of Un Ballo in Maschera? This paper attempts to answer this question by offering a comparative examination of the two operas, supplemented by a scrutiny of the other known prototypes of Un Ballo in Maschera, such as the works of Auber (Gustave III ou Le Bal Masquée), Gabussi (Clemenza di Valois) and Mercadante (Il Reggente).

""The Greek Melodramatic Troupe was founded by the art-loving tailor Ioannis Karayannis and the comic bass Antonios Landis. During its short period of activity (1888–1892) it created a real breakthrough in the art life of its era by daring to translate and present the contemporary operatic repertoire in Greek language. Moreover, the troupe included in its repertoire operas by Greek composers, something that contributed decisively to their popularity in a wider audience.

The earliest Greek melodramatic troupe was the case for the cooperation of significant artistic personalities of the era, such as Napoleon Lambelet, Spiridon Bekatoros, Spiridon Xindas and Pavlos Karrer. Elpida Kaouki-Lambelet is of significant importance, since she was the first female orchestra conductor in the Greek theatres. The Karayannis’s troupe through its meticulous productions achieved the wobble of the usually statefunded monopoly of the imported melodramatic troupes that exclusively exploited the audience of the Greek opera lovers.
Meanwhile, the Greek Melodramatic Troupe became a unifying net by connecting by means of art the Greek places which were geographically divided. During its long tours in Greece, Europe and the East, especially due to the performances of Greek operas, the troupe excited the Greeks and aroused the foreigners’ interest.""

The opera Marco Bozzari, by the composer Paolo (Pavlos) Carrer, of Zakynthos, is closely associated with the movement of national awakening, from the moment of its first conception (1856-1857) until the first decades of the 20th century.
In this paper, the history of this play is presented in detail: the period of patriotic inspiration and composition, the prohibition of the play for political reasons, its warm welcome by the Greek public, and its connection with events of historical significance. This paper also includes a discussion on the Greek translation of the play's libretto, which, wherever performed, intensifies the impact of the play on the national consciousness of the Greek public.

In the summer of 1873, Pavlos Carrer agrees with his friend, poet Conte Giorgio D. Roma, to work together on the libretto of a new opera based on the “episode of the French Revolution concerning Marie Antoinette”. The choice of the subject raises questions, since it forms the only exception among the five Greek national operas that Pavlos Carrer composes from 1868 until the end of his life. The composer does not state, his sources, therefore we do not know whether he and Roma studied the history of the French Revolution and, consequently, drew the inspiration for their libretto from it or worked on a literary text. Further below, we will examine that both may be the case.

Carrer [Carreris], Pavlos [Carrer, Paolo; Karrer, Paul] (b Zante, 12 May 1829; d Zante, 7 June 1896). Greek composer. He is one of the leaders of the Ionian art music school and the first to create national operas and national songs on Greek plots, Greek librettos and verses, and melodies inspired by the folk and the urban popular musical tradition of modern Greece.

The present paper deals with the unhappy fate of the Greek opera Marathon-Salamis, written by Paolo (Pavlos) Carrer from Zante, and the tribulations of its constantly postponed performance. On the basis of the historical sources of the 19th c., and especially the local press in Athens and other Greek cities, we shall follow Carrer's arduous efforts to have his play performed at the Municipal Theatre in Athens, and at the same time draw a not-so-flattering picture of the Greek cultural scene of the period.
The composition of the opera Marathon-Salamis (libretto by Agamemnon Martzokis) begins in 1886 in Zante, which sees the performance of two musical excerpts from the fourth scene in early 1887. In the same year, the athenian newspapers announce the first performance of the new opera, which is scheduled for the opening night of the new Municipal Theatre of Athens. A series of unfortunate events will keep the play away from the musical stages from October 1888 until February 2003, when the world premiere of the opera Marathon-Salamis takes place at the Greek National Opera.

Hermoupolis, the Capital of Syros, the small island of the Aegean, was created after the War of Greek Independence (1821) literally from the beginning, based on the model of the Neoclassical Europe. The citizens of this New World, who were called to identify themselves in really special conditions, were seeking for their cultural identity towards the West. The seeking of their musical identity, was proved to be quite significant, because Music, as well as Language and Religion, would stand as a symbol of their Greekness.

Με την "Κυρά Φροσύνη", τον "Μάρκο Βότζαρη", τη "Δέσπω",
αλλά και με δεκάδες εθνικού χαρακτήρα άσματα,
ο Καρρέρ ως συνθέτης θέτει «τας πρώτας βάσεις
ελληνικού μελοδράματος» και πραγματοποιεί μεγάλα
βήματα προς τη δημιουργία αυθύπαρκτης ελληνικής
μουσικής.