History and Artistic License
Lucrezia Borgia
Departing a little from my tendency to post operatic excerpts on their own merit without commentary, today’s post will begin to tie together the bits and pieces of my passion for music. Lucrezia Borgia is great opera, one of my many favorites. The plot adheres closely, but not entirely, to historic fact. It relies partly on the writings of Machiavelli who was a contemporary of Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Rodrigo Borgia — who later became Pope Alexander VI — and his mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei.
As a Borgia, Lucrezia was heavily involved in politics and was perhaps the original femme fatale: beautiful, ambitious, and riddled with secrets, including perhaps a son who figures prominently in the opera. As a member of one of the most prominent and powerful families of the time, Lucrezia had a superb education, surrounded by the intelligentsia of the Italian Renaissance. Several marriages were arranged by her powerful family, and she had a number of miscarriages and at least ten children. She also held positions as the governor of Spoleto and later took care of Vatican correspondence and the governance of Ferrara. All this was managed in the short span of 39 years. She died after complications of the birth of the eighth child born while married to Duke Alfonzo whom we see in the first clip below.
My mother, who was a concert pianist before giving birth to me, said I was the only person she knew who could listen to opera before breakfast. I vividly remember all the operettas my mother used to play on the piano, but when I heard grand opera, a new world opened for me. The first performance of Lucrezia Borgia I saw was with Monserrat Caballe, and wonderful as she was, Mirella Devia is actually perfect and therefore peerless.
In the first selection, the enraged husband accuses Lucrezia of infidelity and says she was followed to Venice and seen with Gennaro. In the second, we see Lucrezia and Gennaro who has been poisoned by the jealous Duke. Lucrezia reveals to him that he is a Borgia and at the very end discloses that the person he adores is, in fact, his mother. This part is probably not historic fact, but rather artistic license.
Copyright by Dr. Ingrid Naiman 2024 || All Rights Reserved
For permission to quote, please contact the author. Sharing via e-mail and posting links are welcome so long as the author and source are properly cited. Reprinting is strictly prohibited.
Note:
My line of herbal remedies and essential oils can be found through this link. Bioethika International is the main site with a complete list of available herbs. The other active e-commerce enabled sites are Ayurvedic Bazaar, AdrenalHerbs.com, ImmuneFormulas.com. MoldHerbs.com has the herbs I used to recover from very serious mold exposure. ToxicTeeth.com has herbs for chelation. Referrals of new subscribers are always welcome. Just be sure you have permission from your friends before subscribing them.
Thank you so much!
Image Credit: Wikipedia, portrait of Lucrezia Borgia, by Bartolomeo Veneto
This Substack column was launched in mid-January 2023. Paid subscribers are greatly appreciated, but only 10% of readers are paid subscribers. Maybe monthly or annual commitments are too much for some people so if you would like to make a one-time donation, you can use this link. Please note, all subscriptions and donations are going through the Institute for Invisible Epidemics, and will appear on your credit card as iie-academy.