In mid seventeenth-century Venice, opera first emerged from courts
and private drawing rooms to become a form of public entertainment.
Early commercial operas were elaborate spectacles, featuring ornate
costumes and set design along with dancing and music. As ambitious
works of theater, these productions required not only significant
financial backing, but also strong managers to oversee several
months of rehearsals and performances. These impresarios were
responsible for every facet of production from contracting the cast
to balancing the books at season's end. The systems they created
still survive, in part, today.
Inventing the Business of Opera explores public opera in its
infancy, from 1637 to 1677, when theater owners and impresarios
established Venice as the operatic capital of Europe. Drawing on
extensive new documentation, the book studies all of the components
necessary to opera production, from the financial backing of
various populations of Venice, to the commissioning and creation of
the libretto and the score; the recruitment and employment of
singers, dancers, and instrumentalists; the production of the
scenery and the costumes, and, the nature of the audience; and,
finally, the issue of patronage. Throughout the book, the problems
faced by impresarios come into new focus. The authors chronicle the
progress of Marco Faustini, the impresario most well known today,
who made his way from one of Venice's smallest theaters to one of
the largest. His companies provide the most personal view of an
impresario and his partners, who ranged from Venetian nobles to
artisans. Throughout the book, Venice emerges as a city that prized
novelty over economy, with new repertory, scenery, costumes, and
expensive singers the rule rather than the exception. The authors
examine the challenges faced by four separate Venetian theaters
during the seventeenth century: San Cassiano, the first opera
theater, the Novissimo, the small Sant'Aponal, and San Luca,
established in 1660. Only two of them would survive past the 1650s.
Through close examination of an extraordinary cache of
documents--including personal papers, account books, and
correspondence -- Beth and Jonathan Glixon provide a comprehensive
view of opera production in mid-seventeenth century Venice. For the
first time in a study of opera, an emphasis is placed on the
physical production -- the scenery, costumes, and stage machinery
-- that tied these opera productions to the social and economic
life of the city. This original and meticulously researched study
will be of strong interest to all students of opera and its
history.
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