Maria Antonia Walpurgis, Born July 18, 1724, Is Known for Talestri

Summary: Bavarian princess, composer, librettist, painter and singer Maria Antonia Walpurgis, born July 18, 1724, is known for Talestri, Regina delle Amazoni.

Maria Anthonia Walpurgis of Bavaria’s 1750s self-portrait; Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bavarian princess, composer, librettist, painter and singer Maria Antonia Walpurgis, born July 18, 1724, is known for Talestri, Regina della Amazoni, one of two operas credited to her.

Maria Antonia Walpurgis Symphorosa was born Tuesday, July 18, 1724, at Nymphenburg Palace (Schloss Nymphenburg, “Castle of the Nymph/Nymphs”) in Munich, Bavaria, southeastern Germany. Her parents were Maria Amalie von Österreich (Oct. 22, 1701-Dec. 11, 1756), Archduchess of Austria, and Karl Albrecht von Bayern (April 7, 1697-Jan. 20, 1745), Prince Elector of Bavaria (Feb. 26, 1726-Jan. 20, 1745) and later Holy Roman Emperor Karl VII (Jan. 24, 1742-Jan. 20, 1745). Of the couple’s seven children, only four survived to adulthood. Maria Antonia was the oldest of the survivors.

Maria Antonia’s marriage by proxy to her musically inclined, wheelchair-dependent first cousin and heir to the Electorate of Saxony, Friedrich Christian Leopold Johann Georg Franz Xavier von Sachsen (Sept. 5, 1722-Dec. 17, 1763), took place June 13, 1747 in Munich. Their in-person marriage took place June 20, 1747, in Dresden, Saxony, east central Germany. Of the couple’s nine children, seven survived infancy.

Friedrich Christian’s reign as Friedrich IV, Prince Elector of Saxony, lasted only three and one-half months. His accession, upon the death of his father, Friedrich August II (Oct. 17, 1696-Oct. 5, 1763), ended with his own death from smallpox before the end of the year.

Prior to her marriage, Maria Antonia studied music in Munich. Her teachers included Giovanni Battista Ferrandini (Oct. 12, 1709-Sept. 25, 1791), an Italian composer of the Baroque and Classical eras, and with Italian opera composer Giovanni Porta (ca. 1675-June 21, 1755).

She continued her musical studies in Dresden. There her teachers were German Baroque era composer Johann Adolph Hasse (March 25, 1699-Dec. 23, 1783) and Italian Baroque era composer and singing teacher Nicola Antonia Porpora (Aug. 17, 1686-March 3, 1768).

Maria Antonia Walpurgis published her two known operas under the pseudonym of E.T.P.A. The acronym transcribes as Ermelinda Talea Pastorella Arcadia. British onomastician (proper name specialist) and toponymist (place name specialist) Adrian Room (Sept. 27, 1933-Nov. 6, 2010) notes in his Dictionary of Pseudonyms (2010) that the acronym’s last two words translate as “Arcadian Shepherdess.”

Maria Antonia’s first known opera, Il Trionfo della Fedeltà (The Triumph of Fidelity), premiered in Dresden in summer 1754. Maria Antonia set the score for the three-act opera to her own Italian libretto. The opera’s setting is the Temple to Pan, god of nature. The locale is ancient Greece’s Arcadia, Pan’s homeland in the central and eastern Peloponnese peninsula.

Her second opera, Talestri, Regina delle Amazoni (Talestri, Queen of the Amazons), premiered Feb. 6, 1760, at her birthplace, Munich’s Nymphenburg Palace. She is credited as the three-act opera’s composer and librettist.

Talestri’s setting is Temiscira (Themiscyra), an ancient Greek settlement on the banks of the Termodonte (Thermodon; Terme River) in northeastern Anatolia. The opera offers a happy ending of peaceful co-existence between Amazons and Scythians, with love uniting Talestri with Orontes, a Scythian, and Talestri’s advisor, Antiope, with Learchus, a Scythian.

In his 1773 work, The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Provinces, English composer and music historian Charles Burney (April 7, 1726-April 12, 1814) noted that Maria Antonia’s two operas “are much admired all over Germany, where they have frequently been performed.” He recognized her as epitomizing the ancient union of musician and poet within the same person. His praise-filled profile stated: “This princeſs is celebrated all over Europe for her talents, and the progreſs ſhe has made in the arts, of which ſhe is a conſtant protectreſs” (page 125).

The next year, in 1774, Spanish Jesuit mathematician and music theorist Antonio Eximeno y Pujades (Sept. 26, 1729-July 9, 1809) dedicated his treatise, Dell’Origine e Delle Regole Della Musica (The Origin and Rules of Music), to “all’Augusta Real Principessa Maria Antonia Valburga di Baviera.” At the end of the treatise, he included “Io di Quel Sangue ò Sete,” an aria from Maria Antonia’s Talestri, with compositions by Italian composer Giovanni Carlo Maria Clari (Sept. 27, 1677-May 16, 1754), Italian Baroque era composer and violinist Arcangelo Corelli (Feb. 17, 1653-Jan. 8, 1713), late Renaissance composer Giovanni Maria Nanini (ca. 1543/1544-March 11, 1607) and Italian composer Giovanni Battista Draghi (Jan. 4, 1710-March 16/17, 1736), known as Pergolesi.

Maria Antonia Walpurgis of Bavaria passed away Sunday, April 23, 1780. She was buried in the Dresden Cathedral (Katholische Hofkirche).

A recent performance of Maria Antonia’s Talestri by Batzdorfer Hofkapelle took place May 5, 1998, as a live recording at Sender Freies Berlin’s (SFB; Radio Free Berlin) Große Sendesaal. Batzdorfer Hofkapelle was founded in 1993 as a German ensemble specializing is the manuscript collection of the Dresden State Library (Dresdner Staatsbibliothek).

Neither of the two known operas by Maria Antonia Walpurgis has ever been staged by the Metropolitan Opera.

The takeaway for Maria Antonia Walpurgis, born July 18, 1724, is that the Bavarian princess is credited with two operas, Il Trionfo della Fedeltà and Talestri, Regina delle Amazoni, which were popular in her lifetime but have never premiered at the Metropolitan Opera.

Soggiorno pastorale, painted by B. Müllers, engraved by L. Zucchi (Plate 5, between pages 44 and 45), in published librertto of Maria Antonia Walpurgis of Bavaria’s first known opera, Il Trionfo della Fedeltà: Public Domain, via Library of Congress

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Maria Anthonia Walpurgis of Bavaria’s 1750s self-portrait; Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maria_Antonia_di_Sassonia_-_Self-portrait_in_Uffizi_Gallery.jpg

Soggiorno pastorale, painted by B. Müllers, engraved by L. Zucchi (Plate 5, between pages 44 and 45), in published librertto of Maria Antonia Walpurgis of Bavaria’s first known opera, Il Trionfo della Fedeltà: Public Domain, via Library of Congress @ https://www.loc.gov/resource/musschatz.18359.0/ (image URL @ https://www.loc.gov/resource/music.musschatz-18359/?sp=44)

For further information:

BnF Catalogue Général. “Ferrandini, Giovanni Domenico (1709-1791) forme international.” BnF Catalogue Général > Nom de Personne. Création 00/07/19. Mise à jour 14/08/19.
Available via BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) @ https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb14813369t.public

Bristol Ensemble. “Maria Walpurgis.” Bristol Ensemble > Notes for Women.
Available @ http://www.bristolensemble.com/notes-for-women/maria-walpurgis/

Burney, Charles. The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Provinces. Or, the Journal of a Tour Through Those Countries, Undertaken to Collect Materials for a General History of Music. Vol. I. London, England: Printed for T. Becket, 1773.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/presentstateofmu00burn/

E.T.P.A. [Ermelinda Talea Pastorella Arcadia, pseud. Maria Antonia Walpurgis]. Il Trionfo della Fedeltà. Dramma Pastorale per Musica. Dresda [Dresden, Germany]: Stamperia regia per la Stössel, e Giovanni Carlo Krause, 1754.
Available via Library of Congress @ https://www.loc.gov/item/2010664978/

E.T.P.A. [Ermelinda Talea Pastorella Arcadia, pseud. Maria Antonia Walpurgis]. Talestri, Regina delle Amazoni. Opera Drammatica. Monaco di Baviera [Munich, Bavaria]: Apresso Giuseppe Francesco Thuille, 1760.
Available via Library of Congress @ https://www.loc.gov/resource/musschatz.18221.0/

Eximeno [y Pujades], Antonio. Dell’Origine e Delle Regole Della Musica Colla Storia del Suo Progress, Decadenza, et Rinnovazione. Dedicata all’Augusta Real Principessa Maria Antonia Valburga di Baviera, Elettrice Vedova di Sassonia fra le Pastorelle Arcadi Ermelinda Talea. Roma, Italia: Stamperia di Michel’ Angelo Barbiellini, MDCCLXXIV (1774).
Available via HathiTrust @ https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009281274

Fitzgerald, Gerald, ed. Annals of the Metropolitan Opera: The Complete Chronicle of Performances and Artists. New York NY: Metropolitan Opera Guild; Boston MA: G.K. Hall, 1989.

Mesa, Franklin. Opera: An Encyclopedia of World Premieres and Significant Performances, Singers, Composers, Librettists, Arias and Conductors, 1597-2000. Jefferson NC: McFarland & Company Inc., 2007.

Rausch, Robin. “Women of Note: Music Division Celebrates Women Composers.” Library of Congress > Library of Congress Information Bulletin, vol. 65, no. 4 (April 2006).
Available via Library of Congress @ https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0604/compose.html

Room, Adrian. Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins. Fifth edition. Jefferson NC: McFarland & Company Inc., 2010.