The Beginning of Competition
The publicity created around Andromeda and expanded in connection with La maga fulminata paid immediate and lasting dividends. Interest was such that the libretto of La maga fulminata quickly sold out and was reprinted in the same year.[25] More significant, by the next year a second opera company had been formed and a second theater converted for use as an opera house: the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo.[26]
Owned by the Grimani family, the original Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo was probably built sometime between 1635 and 1637. According to Giustiniano Martinioni's revision of Francesco Sansovino's standard guide to Venice, the wooden theater was soon moved from its original site on the Fondamenta Nuove to a location nearby (in Calle della Testa at Sta. Marina) and rebuilt, part in stone, part in wood.[27] The move and reconstruction, which probably occurred sometime in 1638, were arguably stimulated by the Grimani family's desire to exploit the political potential of the new genre, to compete with those families who had already invested in it. This motivation is clearly acknowledged in Bonlini's account: "In the year 1639, following the example of the theater of S. Cassiano, the first Opera in Musica was recited . . . in that of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, built a short time after the two already mentioned [i.e., the two S. Cassiano theaters], not only for the purpose of emulating them, but also to overshadow their fame."[28] The Grimani theater certainly exceeded that of S. Cassiano in size as well as magnificence, for in 1645, even after several other theaters had opened, it was referred to as the most comfortable and beautiful in the city: "il teatro, stimato più commodo, e bello di questa città."[29] This reputation it maintained for close to forty years, until the construction of a new Teatro Grimani, the S. Giovanni Grisostomo, in 1678.[30]
[25] With a few minor changes: copies in I-Vmc and US-Lau.
[26] Mangini, I teatri di Venezia , 56, considers SS. Giovanni e Paolo to be the fourth opera theater, after S. Cassiano, S. Moist, and S. Salvatore. But only S. Cassiano had as yet been used for opera. Ivanovich, Minerva , 399, lists it as third, after S. Cassiano and S. Salvatore; Bonlini, Le glorie della poesia , 20, as third after two S. Cassiano theaters, one of them our opera house, the other a theater built in the preceding century, where spoken dramas had been performed.
[27] Francesco Sansovino, Venetia città nobilissima et singolare . . . con aggiunta di tutte le cose notabili . . . da D. Giustiniano Martinioni (Venice: Curti, 1663), 397. For Ivanovich, see Appendix II.6p; see also Mangini, I teatri di Venezia, 56 .
[28] "L'anno 1639. ad esempio del Teatro di S. Cassiano fu recitata la prima Opera in Musica . . . in quello di SS. Gio e Paolo, già eretto poco tempo doppo li due accennati ad emularne non solo, ma ad offuscarne la Gloria ancora" (Bonlini, Le glorie della poesia , 20). For the two S. Cassiano theaters, see Mangini, I teatri di Venezia , 19-26.
[29] In a letter from the Florentine ambassador in Venice to Matthias de' Medici cited by Bianconi and Walker, "Dalla 'Finta pazza,' "435 n. 229.
[30] It is difficult to estimate the exact sizes of the individual theaters during this period. Some certainly had a greater number of boxes than others, and some, such as S. Moisé and S. Apollinare, had the reputation for being particularly small. Comparative figures are available for a later period, from the reports of Chassebras de Cramailles published in the Mercure galant of March and April 1683 and from notes made on a trip to Venice in 1688 by the Swedish architect Nicolas Tessin; see Per Bjurström,"Unveröffenthchtes von Nicodemus Tessin d. J.: Reisenotizen fiber Barock-Theater in Venedig und Piazzola," Kleine Schriften der Gesellschaft fur Theatergeschichte 21 (1966): 14-41. These descriptions and figures are all cited and discussed in the appropriate chapters of Mangini, I teatri di Venezia .
Ferrari's troupe, reconstituted to include, among others, two experienced theater men, the scenic designer of Ermiona , Alfonso Chenda "detto il Rivarola," and the librettist Giulio Strozzi, moved to the new theater in time for the 1639 season, when they produced not one but two operas.[31] Both season and theater were inaugurated with a setting of. Strozzi's Delia by Ferrari's usual collaborator, Manelli. Ferrari's own authorial efforts were reserved for the second production, Armida , for which he wrote not only the text but the music as well.
In the meantime, a new company, an "Accademia per recitar l'Opera," had taken charge of Ferrari's former theater at S. Cassiano.[32] It, too, consisted of a composer, a poet, a ballet master, and singers, including several veterans from Ferrari's troupe.[33] Unlike Ferrari's, however, it was not in any sense a traveling company. Its composer and leader was Francesco Cavalli, a Venetian who had already made something of, a name for himself. in the realm of. sacred music at San Marco and was soon to dominate the operatic field. His chief. associates— the librettist Orazio Persiani and the ballet master (scenographer) Balbi—were also local residents, and most of the singers belonged to the San Marco chapel.[34] The new company began its activity with a collaboration between two of. its founders. Cavalli's setting of Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo , a libretto by Persiani, was performed in 1639, during the same season as Delia and Armida at SS. Giovanni e Paolo.
In the space of. three seasons Venice had seen five new operas, by three librettists and three composers, at two theaters. These numbers were to increase dramatically the very next year, 1640, when a third theater, the Teatro S.
[31] Chenda was an architect as well as a scenographer of vast experience. In addition to building the theater in Padua where Ermiona took place, he had been responsible, earlier, for constructing a theater in his native Ferrara. He worked at SS. Giovanni e Paolo until his death in 1640 and was followed there by other illustrious scenographers: Giovanni Burnacini, responsible for La finta savia in 1643 and possibly, before that, Le nozze d'Enea, Narciso ed Ecco immortalati, Gli amori di Giasone e d' Isifile , and L'incoronazione di Poppea , was succeeded, though only briefly, by Giacomo Torelli; see p. 102 below For more on Chenda and Burnacini, see Bjurström, Torelli , 44-45; also Mancini, Muraro, and Povoledo, eds., Illusione e pratica teatrale , 54-62. Strozzi had been writing dramatic texts for Monteverdi since the late 1620s.
[32] See Morelli and Walker, "Tre controversie," 98-101. The company was founded on 14 April 1638, that is, some nine months before its first production. It dissolved in 1644.
[33] Bisucci, from Andromeda and Maga ; Felicita Uga, from Ermiona and Maga , whose presence in Venice, since 1634, anticipated Ferrari's by some years (see n. 17 above): and Balbi, who had participated in all three previous productions. Though a choreographer, Balbi may have acted as scenographer in this company.
[34] See Morelli and Walker, "Tre controversie," 98, 102. Mangini, I teatri dr Venezia , 40, claims that after Ferrari's departure, the Tron brothers took over the running of their theater themselves. But this seems to have happened after Cavalli's first few seasons.
Moisè, owned by the Zane family, opened its doors to opera.[35] Its two productions raised the number of new operas in a single season to at least four (most likely five): Arianna (Rinuccini/Monteverdi) and Il pastor regio (Ferrari/ Ferrari) at S. Moisè; Adone (Vendramin/Manelli) and probably Il ritorno d'Ulisse (Badoaro/Monteverdi) at SS. Giovanni e Paolo;[36] and Gli amori d'Apollo e di Dafne (Busenello/Cavalli) at S. Cassiano. In this year, the names of two new librettists (Vendramin, Busenello) and one new composer (Monteverdi) were added to the fast-expanding roll of opera makers.[37] Approximately five productions per season remained the norm until 1645, when theatrical entertainments and all other carnival activities were suspended by government decree because of the war with the Turks that had begun early that year.[38]
The economic arrangements supporting the individual undertakings at S. Cassiano, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and S. Moisè differed in detail, but they shared the special tripartite, cooperative organization that characterized opera production in Venice well into the eighteenth century. Indeed, although the system developed gradually over a period of years, its origins and structure are evident in the first S. Cassiano venture. There were essentially three agents responsible for the operation: theater owners, impresarios, and artists. Theater owners, like the Tron, Zane, or Grimani, belonged to the great patrician families of Venice;
[35] According to Ivanovich, Minerva , 399, the Teatto S. Moisè was the fourth theater to be opened in Venice, after S. Cassiano, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and S. Salvatore; but no operas were produced at S. Salvatore until 1661. Bonlini, Le glorie della poesia , 21, also lists it fourth, but after the two at S. Cassiano and SS. Giovanni e Paolo.
[36] Although Ritorno was traditionally ascribed to the 1641 season, Osthoff ("Zur Bologneser Aufführung") has argued that the 1641 Venetian performance was a revival and that the opera actually had its premiere in Venice the year before, just prior to the Bologna performance of 1640, a performance documented by Le glorie della musica (cited in ch. 1 above). That Ritorno had been performed m Venice by 1640 is documented by a reference to the opera in a book by the Incognito author Federico Malipiero published in 1640, La peripezia d'Ulisse overo la casta Penelope (Venice: Surian, 1640) (Lettore: "Ella fù una fatica motivatami . . . da una Musa, e da un Cigno, ch'entrambi abitando l'arene dell'Adria, ne formano appunto un richissimo Parnaso di meraviglia. M'apportò'l caso ne' Veneti Teatri a vedere l'Ulisse in Patria descritto poeticamente, e rappresentato Musicalmente con quello splendore, ch'è per renderlo memorabile in'ogni secolo. M'allettò cosi l'epico della Poesia, com'il delicato della Musica, ch'io non seppi rattenerne la penna, che non lasciassi correrla dietro'l genio. Viddi d'Omero le prodigiose fatiche rapportate dalla Grecia nella Latina Lingua. L'udij recitativamente rappresentate. L'ammirai poeticamente nella Toscana ispiegate. Parvemi, che lo portarle nella prosa fosse appunto fatica adeguata, a cui pretende co'l fuggir l'ozio d'involarsi alla carriera de' vizij"); and by the preface to the Argomento et scenario delle nozze d'Enea (Venice, 1640) (Appendix 1.9a).
[37] Curiously, Ferrari's company (at least the Manelli part) seems to have been simultaneously active at S. Moisè and SS. Giovanni e Paolo in 1640. And Cavalli seems to have begun an association with S. Moisè in 1642, while he was still involved at S. Cassiano (Nino Pirrotta, "The Lame Horse and the Coachman: News of the Operatic Parnassus in 1642," Essays , 333-34). Contracts were apparently not as exclusive as they became later. It is worth noting that many of the composers and librettists, and probably the singers as well, moved back and forth between theaters with some frequency. Ferrari, for example, moved from S. Cassiano (1637, 1638), to SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1639), to S. Moisè (1640, 1641). Manelli moved from S. Cassiano (1637, 38) to SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1639-40). Monteverdi worked at S. Moisè (1640) and SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1640, 1641, 1643). Busenello moved from S. Cassiano (1640, 1641) to SS. Giovanni e Paolo (1643).
[38] See Bianconi and Walker, "Dalla 'Finta pazza,'" 416 n. 154.
they invested in the buildings themselves, but generally delegated responsibility for what went on in them to an impresario—or a society (like Cavalli's) or troupe (like Ferrari's)—with whom they contracted seasonally. That party either supplied itself or hired at its own expense singers, players, and workers of various kinds. Besides paying the rent, the impresario or society covered operating costs for such necessities as scenery and illumination. The expenses were offset and profits made by receipts from the rental of boxes and by ticket sales.
The capital derived from box rentals depended on the number of boxes as well as the prices charged for them—which, at least in some theaters, depended on the position of the box. In both these matters individual theaters differed considerably. Figures for the earliest period are lacking, but by 1666 S. Cassiano had ninety-eight boxes (twenty-nine in each of the first two tiers), which rented for twenty-five ducats each.[39] SS. Giovanni e Paolo, although the "most magnificent" of the theaters, seems to have had fewer, only seventy-seven, which were arranged in four rows.[40] The number of boxes in S. Moisè during this period is unknown, but the theater had the reputation of being uncomfortably small, so presumably there were fewer, if any.[41]
Most boxes were rented in perpetuity, but paid for on a seasonal basis by members of the aristocracy, Venetian and foreign. Individual tickets, purchased nightly, were of two kinds: the bollettini were required for everyone entering the theater, including box-holders; scagni , purchased for an additional sum, entitled
[39] According to b . 194: 18. See Giazotto, "La guerra dei palchi," 260; Bianconi and Walker, "Production," 223. The importance of the income derived from box rental is emphasized in Ivanovich, Minerva , 401-4, 410.
[40] B . 194: 135. But the original number may have been higher, since in 1645 Giovanni Grimani indicated that two boxes (per row?) needed to be eliminated because the people in the end boxes could not hear the singers well, presumably because they were too far over the stage; see n. 86 below. The plan of the theater, drawn by Tommaso Bezzi, which dates from late in the century (after 1678), shows boxes extending over the stage to the sides (illustration in Mangini, I teatri di Venezia , no. 15). The number of boxes, in any case, was increased to 5 rows of 29 each, or 145, by 1683 (as reported by Cramailles in Le Mercure galant ); see n. 30 above.
[41] Pirrotta ("Theater, Sets, and Music," Essays , 262) interpreted two pieces of information provided in the prologue to Sidonio e Dorisbe , performed at S. Moist in 1642, as indicating that the theater had no boxes (in fact, he suggests [263-64] that other theaters may not have had boxes either until later). The first is a description of the theater as a "narrow and poorly decorated room." The second is a stage direction indicating that Tempo, one of the characters speaking in the prologue, is to take a place near some ladies, whose gambling he has interrupted. Pirrotta cited 1688 as the date when boxes (two tiers) were added, but this may have occurred earlier, in 1668, when, according to Taddeo Wiel (I teatri musicali veneziani nel settecento: Catalogo delle opere in musica rappresentate nel secolo XVIII in Venezia [1701-1800 ] [Venice, 1897], XLIII), the theater was entirely rebuilt. It must have had boxes by 1673, since a letter from 4 February of that year to Duke Johann Friedrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg from his agent in Venice, Francesco Massi, discusses the rental of boxes in S. Moist as well as in S. Cassiano, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and S. Samuele (Appendix IIIB. 19). Another theater famous for its small size, S. Apollinare, had only forty-eight boxes, in three tiers, which rented for twenty ducats per season (b . 194: 92-102). Mangini (I teatri di Venezia , 63 n. 4) claims that the Teatro Novissimo did not have any boxes at all, but this is belied by the documents reporting their construction, quoted in Benedetti, "Il teatro musicale," 200-201; see also Bjurström, Torelli , 36. For a glimpse of the politics involved in box rental, see Appendix IIIB.20.
the holders to seats in the parterre.[42] The artists, who originally participated in the running of the theater (such as Ferrari's troupe or Caralli's), eventually became employees of the impresario. Among them, the librettist became financially independent of the others, deriving his income exclusively from libretto sales and the largesse of his dedicatees.
Despite the proliferation of theaters and new works, opera remained confined to the carnival season.[43] Even allowing for a reasonable rehearsal period, opera companies were essentially unemployed for at least half the year. This hardly presented a problem for Cavalli and his troupe, since they were employed elsewhere in Venice. But several members of Ferrari's company, including Ferrari himself, did not yet have fixed posts. For several off-seasons they continued the itinerant ways that had brought them to Padua and Venice in the first place, producing four of their Venetian operas in Bologna in 1640 and 1641, and two in Milan several years later.[44]