Venetian Opera Productions: Analytical Views

These analytical views give overviews of the main aspects of the Venetian opera repertory between 1660 and 1760.

Composers and Music

A few composers dominated Venetian opera at every stage of its development, but overall the number of composers covered here totaled more than 140. This excludes 25 pastiches (operas "pasted" together from a consortium of composers) and 17 unattributed works.

Entr'actes

Operas staged in Venice were often adorned with a miscellany of entr'actes. All of them were musical, but some were more elaborate and carefully constructed than others.

Librettists and Texts

Librettists were slightly less numerous, but over time the number of texts that were reworked by others made the overall picture of literary authorship fuzzy.

Literary genres

Venetian operas were overwhelming offered as drammi per musica, but experimentation tested the boundaries of the paradigm at intervals.

Theaters

By 1660 the number of regularly functioning theaters was stabilized at four, growing to six before 1680. Every theater had a different thrust, reflecting the tastes of the proprietor(s) and their associates. Decades by decade their activities and relative importance was constantly changing.

Patronage

In 1660 Venice commanded a growing profile of mercantile and social importance. Its steadfast avoidance of political commitments rendered it neutral territory for the negotiation of treaties, marriages, and law suits involving non-Venetian territories. By 1760 the city and its role in society was completely changed.