Venetian Opera Productions: Difference between revisions
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==The Repertory as a Whole== | ==The Repertory as a Whole== | ||
<b>The corpus vs single works</b> Many studies of Venetian opera focus on a single work, or perhaps a small group of works related by a common subject from antiquity, or a single composer, or a single theater. By considering almost 900 works from a single century together, we can trace and cluster dozens of details that are rarely perceived or acknowledged. | <b>The corpus vs single works:</b> Many studies of Venetian opera focus on a single work, or perhaps a small group of works related by a common subject from antiquity, or a single composer, or a single theater. By considering almost 900 works from a single century together, we can trace and cluster dozens of details that are rarely perceived or acknowledged. | ||
<b>Composers: </b>One notable impression of the Venetian corpus (889 works) is the large number of composers (171) who contributed to it. Yet more than 25% of these operas were set to music by just eight composers—C. F. Pollarolo (60), B. Galuppi (52), T. Albinoni (45), A. Vivaldi (33), Fr. Gasparini (30), M. A. Ziani (29), C. Pallavicino (25), and G. M. Buini (20). Fragments of their works may also be found here and there in the twenty-five pastiches listed. These stalwarts apart, most composers set fewer than four dramas to music. This reflects the dilettante nature of opera in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth, the composition of opera became a professional career path. | <b>Composers: </b>One notable impression of the Venetian corpus (889 works) is the large number of composers (171) who contributed to it. Yet more than 25% of these operas were set to music by just eight composers—C. F. Pollarolo (60), B. Galuppi (52), T. Albinoni (45), A. Vivaldi (33), Fr. Gasparini (30), M. A. Ziani (29), C. Pallavicino (25), and G. M. Buini (20). Fragments of their works may also be found here and there in the twenty-five pastiches listed. These stalwarts apart, most composers set fewer than four dramas to music. This reflects the dilettante nature of opera in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth, the composition of opera became a professional career path. | ||
Revision as of 00:38, 24 July 2025
Documentation for https://venop.ccarh.org
Venetian Opera Productions: A searchable calendar
When the first opera was given at the Teatro San Cassiano in 1637, no one anticipated that this novel, ambitious species of entertainment would endure. As a venue Venice had little competition for several decades. Although the opera enterprise as a whole never became self-supporting, the precarious situation of most theaters did not diminish the genre's popularity. [venop.ccarh.org Venetian Opera Productions] enables users to investigate growth and change (and eventual decline) over the core century (1660-1760) of the dramma per musica.
Quick start guide
1. Select or deselect desired fields at https://venop.ccarh.org. Results appear immediately beneath the query form.
2. Modes of viewing:
- To browse, scroll through the entire corpus.
- To limit searches to a restricted period of years, use the Min. and Max. delimiters (boxes).
- To reorder records (e.g. to view all the works by one composer or theater), click on column header (top row). To return to original view, click refresh icon on browser.
3. To return to this documentation view, click on the "?" in upper left corner of table view.
The Repertory as a Whole
The corpus vs single works: Many studies of Venetian opera focus on a single work, or perhaps a small group of works related by a common subject from antiquity, or a single composer, or a single theater. By considering almost 900 works from a single century together, we can trace and cluster dozens of details that are rarely perceived or acknowledged.
Composers: One notable impression of the Venetian corpus (889 works) is the large number of composers (171) who contributed to it. Yet more than 25% of these operas were set to music by just eight composers—C. F. Pollarolo (60), B. Galuppi (52), T. Albinoni (45), A. Vivaldi (33), Fr. Gasparini (30), M. A. Ziani (29), C. Pallavicino (25), and G. M. Buini (20). Fragments of their works may also be found here and there in the twenty-five pastiches listed. These stalwarts apart, most composers set fewer than four dramas to music. This reflects the dilettante nature of opera in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth, the composition of opera became a professional career path.
Librettists: The profiles of librettist as a group is similar but the number of individuals is smaller. The most prolific dramatists were court poets or, in some cases, held a significant office in the Venetian Republic. This tells us that scripts were intended to project images supportive of existing power structures in the seventeenth century, when the most prominent librettists were Francesco Silvani (67), Matteo Noris (49), and Aurelio Aureli (36). The profile was warped in the eighteenth century by the rising fortunes of the imperial court and efforts to emulate its tastes. Its court poets Apostolo Zeno (69) and Pietro Metastasio (88) completely dominated Venetian stages and those of many other venues for several decades.
The Experience of Early Opera
The cultural distance between the years around 1600 and our own times is considerable. In early Venetian theaters, important public figures rented or subleased a box for a season (or a lifetime) and bought a libretto at the door to follow the action onstage. Performances were permitted for a maximum of four hours from sunset. Those lacking a box could rent a folding chair or stool for the parterre (today's orchestra section minus fixed seating). A small orchestra sat in front of the stage. Two harpsichordists were present—one to accompany the singers, the other to support the orchestra.
The delimiting dates of this table (1660-1760) mark the confines of a period during which a huge increase in productions occurred. This forced a degree of predictability on patterns of performance, with significant implications for composers and performers. The same time-span also coincides with an abundance of minutely dated references to opera productions in weekly news-sheets, an under-the-radar source of local news conveyed (on paper) by vast networks throughout Europe. In the accumulation of their minutiae lies the resolution of many questions that are difficult to answer using standard historical resources. Because items were published weekly, they exclude all possibility of the misinterpretation of years, which contaminates all printed catalogues and bibliographies of Venetian opera.
Opera production then and now
Today most professionally-staged operas form part of a standard repertory that young singers aspire to master. With few exceptions, the score, the roles, and the orchestra vary little from decade to decade or place to place if financial support is adequate. Title selections change from year to year and entirely new works are introduced as budgets permit. More customary changes may involve staging, scenery, costumes, or interpretation.
The sheer quantity of works produced in Venice between our target years—1660 to 1760—offers a striking contrast to the few dozen works in core repertories today, but not all the differences are as great as they may appear. After 1700 new titles could be slapped onto familiar plots. The practice of "revise and disguise" produced unpredictable results. Some possible outcomes included:
- the combination of existing arias with new recitatives;
- addition, subtraction, or modification of one part of a work;
- new or revised arias for one cast member;
- insertion of arias detached from a previous work in a new work.
The printed text prepared in advance for an opera may not fully correspond to the work as staged. Scores were circulated only in manuscript. By tracing productions, rather than works per se, we can associate a significant amount of rarely seen commentary with perfunctory title information to better understand the constantly shifting values and mutable practices that enabled performance.
When people went to the opera in Venice, they often went in sizeable groups. Most attendees sat in a box to which they might carry drinks and other refreshments. One member of the group would buy a libretto at the door. A candle would be necessary to see the libretto: theaters were dark inside. (They were also prone to fires.) The impresario was responsible for lighting adjacent outdoor spaces, the stage, and the instrumentalists' pit. Attendees and personnel were expected to arrive by gondola. (See a remnant of San Cassiano's water-gate below.) A dusk-to-dawn curfew meant that streets were deserted.
By 1760 the audience for opera had changed considerably. While the abundant nobility of the seventeenth century responded well to serious, sometimes tragic fare, the rising bourgeosie of the eighteenth rapidly developed a taste for comic and pastoral works as well as satirical ones ones that portrayed traits the aspirations, speech, dress, and manners. Venice had to compete with its imitators in the realm of opera buffa. Pastorals were common in spring and autumn productions. Carnival remained the season of serious opera and noted singers, but fewer and fewer works were entirely new. The best known singers pursued opportunities abroad, as new theaters (many linked to commercial markets) appeared rapidly in venues north of the Alps. The rise of spring and summer operas in more northerly venues drew performers away from Italy.
Despite general acknowledgement of the historical importance of Venetian opera collectively, only a handful of Baroque operas are performed today. The reasons are many: the lack of survival of musical sources, the paucity of modern editions of surviving works, the expense of staging long, elaborate works with large casts, and the lack of training in Baroque performing techniques in many potential venues.
The Database
Essential parameters
Theaters: From 1660 until the middle of the next century Venice usually had six theaters operating. These were the most stable: San Cassiano (intermittent, from 1637), SS. Giovanni a Paolo (1639-1699; 1714-15), San Salvatore (1661-1700, intermittent from 1727), Sant'Angelo (1677-intermittent after 1748), and SS. Giovanni Grisostomo (1678-1751). The others were less regular, or switched between opera and commedia, or lasted only a few years.
Productions:We know from weekly news-sheets that productions rarely ran for more than three weeks. Performances were not necessarily given every night. With regard to opening dates, some accommodation between theaters could occur. Opening night conflicts were usually avoided. Ticket prices for an opening performance could cost twice the normal amount on ordinary nights at some theaters.
Disruptions:Some ebbing and flowing of theatrical activity was associated with wars, pestilences, and fluctuating economic conditions. Venice was engaged in a war in the Aegean—the "War in Candia"—from 1645 to 1669. After 1700, the more stable theaters could produce three works in a year with a late Easter, but this was rare until the start of spring opera in the 1720s. Public operas were permitted only in periods of time uncontested by the Church and explicitly permitted (by proclamation) by the Venetian Republic. The total number of days when opera was permitted gradually increased over the course of the century represented.
Fields and filters
The Data and its Uses
Something else
Almost every production included here has an exact date of opening (the sorting date) verified by historical sources, as opposed to bibliographies, which are based on printed texts. The exceptions, which can be confined to a week or two, are followed by a tilde (~), e.g. 1696~. In the year-day-month format used, the few works that cannot be so so sequestered substitute "00" for an unknown day and month. Examples:
- 1675-00-00 (1675)
- 1680-02-00 (February 1680)
- 1720-11-11 (11 November 1720)
Sorting dates for titles are especially useful in reconciling Venetian opera and its vast horde of composers, performers, librettists, and patrons against activities in related fields (dance, drama, sculpture, painting, theater history, and social history) chronologically.
Overview of genres
The 889 productions listed here consist largely of three-act drammi per musica. Details of the repertory as a whole were constantly shifting. The nature of the content in combination with precise dating information enables a wide range of approaches needed to refine many aspects of opera history.
The century 1660-1760 differs from adjacent segments of Venetian opera history in ways that call for modified approaches and the inclusion of additional data fields.
- 1637-1659: The 96 productions mounted between 1637 and 1659 involved fewer theaters, a few traveling troupes, a wide range of component items within works, and much greater latitude in dating. (The gap between a libretto dedication date and a premiere could be as long as six months in the 1650s, but on average it was a mere two days after 1660.) Many of the most important early operas had prologues with separate casts and libretti. A few had independent scenari (lists of on-stage actions).
- 1660-1744: The seasonal framework that emerged in the 1660s enables us to evaluate elements of stability and change in ways that are not possible with sparser material. Elaborate prologues, which could involve separate casts and scenery, dominated some works of this period. No clear system of patronage developed until the 1670s.
- 1745-1760 and beyond: By 1745 the status of the dramma per musica as a musical-literary genre was challenged by the rise of opera buffa. Mainly Neapolitan, opera buffa won fans without the elaborate apparatus or complicated staging requirements of its serious rival. More and more audience members in Venice were from imperial precincts where stale formulas in dramatic plots were quickly eclipsed by the shorter, gayer content of the new genre. The re-establishment of prose comedy, which alternated with opera at some theaters, was heavily dominated by Carlo Goldoni from from 1732 to 1762.
About Venetian Opera Productions
Website design and management: Craig Sapp
Content: Eleanor Selfridge-Field
Background image on search page: Fold-out etching by Domenico Rossetti from the libretto of Berenice vendicativa (music by Domenico Freschi, text by Gio. Maria Rapparini) premiered at the Villa Contarini at Piazzola on 8 November 1680 (Venice, Ca' Goldoni). Alvise Contarini served as doge from 1676 to 1684. The grandiose staging involved more than 400 supernumeraries, twenty choruses, two lions, two elephants, and sixteen horses—four for Berenice's chariot and a dozen to pull carts of prisoners. News reports relate that this entertainment, lasting for two weeks, was abruptly terminated by the collapse of a storage room for the chariots. It caused the horses underneath to panic and destroy the main props.