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Updated: May 24, 2025
After Maffei came Metastasio and Alfieri; the first before the middle, and the other in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
It is true that Metastasio is rather a lyrical than a dramatic poet, and that he describes love like one of the fine arts that adorn life, not as the most important secret of our happiness and our pain. I will venture to say, notwithstanding our language has been consecrated to the cause of love, that we have more profoundness and sensibility in describing any other passion than this.
But the moral attitude and gesture of Alfieri happened to be just those which were rarest in the eighteenth century in all countries, and more especially rare in Italy; and they were the moral attitude and gesture which the eighteenth century absolutely required to become the nineteenth, and which the Italy of Peter Leopold and Pius VI. and Metastasio and Goldoni absolutely required to become the Italy of Mazzini and Garibaldi, the Italy of Foscolo and Leopardi: they were the attitude and the gesture of single-mindedness, haughtiness, indifference to one's own comfort and one's neighbours' opinion, the attitude and gesture of manliness, of strength, if you will, of heroism.
That little stream the Sebeto, which is indeed, as the courtly Metastasio observes, “scanty in depth of water though overflowing with honour,” may be considered as the boundary line that divides the city of Naples from its eastern environs, although it is evident that the whole stretch of coast from Posilipo to Torre del Greco is covered with an unbroken line of houses.
I often called on Calsabigi, who made a parade of his Atheism, and slandered my friend Metastasio, who despised him. Calsabigi knew it and laughed at him; he was a profound politician and the right hand of Prince Kaunitz.
The adherents of Hasse and Metastasio no longer dared to raise their voices in opposition to the public verdict. In this state of excitement the third act began. With increasing delight, the audience listened. When Eurydice, condemned to return to the infernal regions, sang her plaintive aria, sobs were heard throughout the theatre, and murmurs of applause were audible during the whole scene.
What a lot of pocket- handkerchiefs he must have used that day to dry the tears he shed for you! He no doubt, too, swallowed at least three ounces of cream of tartar to drive away the horrid evil humors in his body. Just before beginning this letter I composed an air from the "Demetrio" of Metastasio, which begins thus, "Misero tu non sei." The opera at Mantua was very good. They gave "Demetrio."
Caffarelli's arrogant, vain, and turbulent nature seems to have been the principal cause of his troubles. The numerous anecdotes current of him turned mainly on this characteristic, so different from the modesty and reticence of Fari-nelli. Metastasio, in a lively letter to the Princess di Belmonte, describes an amusing fracas at the Viennese Opera-House.
Is this not so? Lord Nelville," continued Mr Edgermond, turning to his lordship and inviting his support by a glance, quite astonished at having found courage to speak in such a numerous assembly. "I am entirely of your opinion," answered Oswald; "Metastasio, who is vauntingly called the poet of love, gives the same colouring to this passion in every country and under every circumstance.
These innocent diversions became a source of calumny against her; yet they formed almost the only part of her German education, about which Maria Theresa had been particular: the Empress-mother deemed them so valuable to her children that she ordered the celebrated Metastasio to write some of his most sublime cantatas for the evening recreations of her sisters and herself.
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