Inventing the Business of Opera

Abstract

This book explores public opera in its infancy, from 1637 to 1677, when theater owners and impresarios, drawing on the models of the already existent theaters for comedy, established Venice as the operatic capital of Europe. Based on new documentation, the book studies all of the components necessary for opera production, from the financial backing and the issue of patronage to the commissioning and creation of the libretto and score; the recruitment and employment of singers, dancers, and instrumentalists; the production of the scenery and the costumes; and the nature of the audience. The book examines the challenges faced by four separate Venetian theaters during the 17th century, focusing on the progress of Marco Faustini, the Venetian impresario most well known today. Faustini — a lawyer by profession — made his way from one of Venice's smallest theaters to one of the largest and most important, and his advancement provides a personal view of an impresario and his partners, who ranged from Venetian patricians 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.

Performing Celebrity and Anna Renzi's Cross-Dressed Performance as Ergindo

“…But Renzi's everyday aspect as a celebrity figure and independent businesswoman was extraordinary in its performance of gendered self. So, despite the prejudice against women performers, her pioneering activity up to the 1660s (her exact whereabouts and date of death after 1660 remain unknown) 127 is a legacy that highlights her importance to the story of women's liberation from oppressive patriarchy. A lasting trace that women like Renzi, and Isabella Andreini before her, left behind is their uncompromising insistence on living extraordinary lives, on their own terms, as forerunners for professional women of the future working in any roles they choose.…”

“…This matters because, while forging the new social role, she faced a prevailing attitude, expressed by the Jesuit Giovan Domenico Ottonelli (1581-1670), contending that women performing in public endangered not only their own morality but, most egregiously, also that of the men in the audience. 79 By broadcasting Renzi's reserved personal deportment in everyday life, Strozzi's approbation diluted the threat of Deidamia's fictitious power over Demetrius, as it did the moral threat of Renzi's public performance to men. Indeed, with male authority, Strozzi legitimated her position as a consummate professional by publicizing her reputation as a virtuous woman in everyday life, thereby lending her protection from public censure.…”

“…was particularly critical: it was through their voices (rather than those of the castrati) that many notions about gender and sexuality were disseminated to Venetian audiences." 23 Renzi proved gender norms for women transposable by exceeding them. Her celebrity status wrought her an influential position as a role model for women as her performance of gender and identity in everyday life helped to reformulate how women could live.…”

L'Alcasta and the Emergence of Collective Patronage in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Rome

“…They helped her negotiate the best contract, lent her money, mediated for her with her previous protector, the Duchess of Parma, and obtained for her both the lead role and a change of opera when she refused to sing in Carlo Pallavicino's Il Meraspe and opted for her favorite, Apolloni's and Cesti's La Dori, a preference she shared with the Colonna. 43 Beginning in 1668 her bond to the Chigi family is documented by the impressive number of letters that Giulia exchanged with various members of the family, and particularly with Cardinal Sigismondo Chigi. 44 The Colonna, however, remained profoundly involved in the developments of her artistic career in Venice even after she passed under the protection of the Chigi family.…”

Dancing Statues and the Myth of Venice: Ancient Sculpture on the Opera Stage

“…Opera may have been a commercial business in Venice -a veritable industry, as it is frequently called -but it was perpetually unprofi table, earning the family far more in prestige than in wealth. 37 Opera also allowed the Grimani brothers to create a theatrical universe thatperhaps naturally -refl ected the family's obsession with antiquities and the past. Giovanni and Antonio Grimani, it must be recalled, grew up among the splendours of the family Palazzo at Santa Maria Formosa, which even after the establishment of the Public Statuary still housed a substantial number of antiquities.…”