Venetian Opera Documentation

Documentation for https://venop.ccarh.org

Venetian opera is celebrated for many reasons. This collection of tabular information was inspired by the most mundane of them: the sheer bulk of operas (889) performed in Venice between 1660 and 1760 cried out for a comprehensive resource to untangle the countless threads of activity that exist within and between them. It turns out, though, that the fundamental tool for untangling many aspects of this complex artform is a detailed, day-by-day chronology. Every record shown here has a finite date of opening. Access to it enables users to order events in many other fields.

Venetian culture of times past followed many prescribed rules, but which one was operative at any specific time was often an open question. The regularity that databases require for smooth operation inherently conflicts with the serendipity that grounded every aspect of Venetian culture. The need of the moment always supravened.

How to use this resource

Although it is possible to generate plots and tables for substantial periods of time, much of the power of this assembly of data comes from its richness to a focus on a specific topic--a composer, a librettist, a theater, a genre, a trail of musical sources. The difference is one of dimensions. A flat list of all the works at one theater, for example, can be immensely valuable. Yet a more nuanced view can be had by viewing, in a hypothtical case, the mutual occurrences of a specific genre, season, and incidental pieces (balli, intermezzi). It is also possible to collect several fields related to one perspective by using the tabbed choices at the top of the home screen.

Perspective views of the data

Why collect so much trivia?

How and why was this resource compiled?

My interest was stimulated by the discovery of a small book from which a few leaves of printed vocal music peeped out at an antique fair in Venice in 1977. Although the item followed me home to California, it took several years to unravel what its motives were and why music played an important role in its commentary.|See E. Selfridge-Field, Pallade Veneta: Music in Venetian Society, Venice: Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi, 1985|. Pallade Veneta

I never aimed to compile such a sprawling mass of data when I started assembling a few details for the 1680s and 1690s. My hope in 1982 was to establishing the sequential order of performances. I supposed that the position of a few perennially undatable works would match up with random holes in this provisional sequence. By a circuitous path I was able to explore many topics pertinent to Venetian opera, which was a cornucopia of microhistories of theaters, personnel, creators, musical sources and how they arrived at their current locations, and--at a general level--how much Europe changed between 1660 and 1760.