Drinking in Music

Arvid Niklas von Höpken's Il bevitore (1755)

Abstract

The name and music of Arvid Niklas von Höpken (1710-78) has largely been bypassed, though full-scores of his two operas and an intermezzo survive. The first performance of the intermezzo, in 1936, brought new and positive recognition of his music, and a doctoral dissertation by Johanna Ethnersson in 2003 gave a close discussion of the two operas. The focus here on the intermezzo complements Ethnersson’s study. In this, the libretto has turned out to be of special interest because instead of presenting two characters of widely differing social standing, as in La serva padrona, for instance it gives us two characters not too socially distant from each other. Each is smart and each plays tricks upon the other. The arias and duets provide an anthology in brief of all the major forms in mid-eighteenth century opera. After a brief historical sketch of the context, the analysis follows the three scenes (each called an intermezzo) and twelve arias and ensembles in order. A secondary discovery has led to the probable author of the otherwise anonymous libretto.