Showing posts with label Theatre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theatre. Show all posts

13 September 2023

Francesco Manelli – Baroque composer

Theorbo player staged the world’s first public opera

Manelli worked in Tivoli, Rome and Padua before settling in Venice
Manelli worked in Tivoli, Rome and
Padua before settling in Venice
Musician and opera composer Francesco Manelli, who is remembered for the important contribution he made to bringing commercial opera to Venice, was born on this day in 1595 in Tivoli in Lazio.

Manelli (sometimes spelt Mannelli) was also a skilled player of the theorbo, which is a plucked string instrument belonging to the lute family that has a very long neck.

From the age of ten, Manelli used to sing in Tivoli's Duomo, the Basilica Cattedrale di San Lorenzo Martire, and he was taught music by the various maestri di cappella working there at that time.

Manelli moved to Rome with the intention of studying for a career in the church, but after meeting and marrying a singer, Maddalena, he decided to dedicate himself exclusively to music.

In 1627, Manelli went back to Tivoli where he himself became a maestro di cappella at the Duomo, a post he held for two years. Then he returned to Rome to take up the post of maestro di cappella at the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione.

After going to Padua, where his wife sang in the opera Ermiona, Manelli and his family settled in Venice in order to be close to his patron.

In 1637, Manelli and another composer and theorbo player, Benedetto Ferrari, put together a company of singers to present an opera in a public theatre, which was the first time this had happened. The singers performed Andromeda, an opera, with music written by Manelli and a libretto written by Ferrari, at Teatro San Cassiano during that year’s Carnevale. Manelli himself sang two of the bass parts.  

A 17th century painting of an English woman playing the theorbo
A 17th century painting of an English
woman playing the theorbo
The following year, the company performed another opera by Manelli, La maga fulminata, with Manelli’s wife, Maddalena, singing the role of Pallade.

In 1639, Manelli composed La Delia, with a libretto by Giulio Strozzi, which premiered at Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. This was followed by his operas, Adone in 1640 and L’Alcate in 1642, which were both performed at the same theatre.

Between 1639 and 1642, Manelli and Ferrari directed a company of Venetian singers in Bologna, which included Manelli’s wife, Maddalena, and their son, Constantino. In addition to Manelli’s own compositions, the singers performed Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria by Claudio Monteverdi.

In 1645, Manelli and his family went into the service of Ranuccio II Farnese, the Duke of Parma. Manelli composed five operas for the court, which were performed in the ducal theatre of Parma and Piacenza.

Manelli died in Parma in 1667 and his wife, Maddalena, died there in 1680.

A wooden model of how the theatre might have looked
A wooden model of how the
theatre might have looked
Travel tip:

Teatro San Cassiano, which was located in the San Cassiano parish of Venice’s Santa Croce sestiere, was the world’s first ever public opera house thanks to Francesco Manelli and Benedetto Ferrari. This sparked a global opera boom and established Venice as its capital. There is now a project to reconstruct the Teatro San Cassiano of 1637 as faithfully as modern scholarship and traditional craftsmanship will allow to deliver a fully functioning dedicated Baroque opera house and a centre for research into Baroque opera.

Tivoli's attractions include the gardens and fabulous fountains of the 16th century Villa d'Este
Tivoli's attractions include the gardens and fabulous
fountains of the 16th century Villa d'Este
Travel tip:

Tivoli, where Francesco Manelli was born, is a town in Lazio, situated about 30km (19 miles) northeast of Rome. The city offers a wide view over the Roman Campagna, a low-lying area of countryside surrounding Rome. Tivoli is famous for being the site of Hadrian’s villa, a large villa complex built around AD 120 by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, and the Villa d’Este, a 16th century villa, famous for its terraced hillside Renaissance garden and its abundance of fountains. Both villas are UNESCO World Heritage sites.




Also on this day: 

1506: The death of painter Andrea Mantegna

1583: The birth of composer Girolamo Frescobaldi

1808: The death of writer Saverio Bettinelli 

1973: The birth of footballer Fabio Cannavaro


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13 March 2023

Eduardo Scarpetta - actor and playwright

Much-loved performer began theatrical dynasty

Scarpetta's comic plays were hugely popular with Neapolitan audiences
Scarpetta's comic plays were hugely
popular with Neapolitan audiences
Eduardo Scarpetta, one of the most important writers and actors in Neapolitan theatre in the last 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in Naples.

Fascinated by the commedia dell’arte and Neapolitan puppet theatre character Pulcinella, Scarpetta was the writer of more than 50 dialect plays in the comedy genre, creating his own character, Felice Sciosciammocca, a wide-eyed, gullible but essentially good-natured Neapolitan who featured prominently in his best-known work, Miseria e Nobiltà (Misery and Nobility).

His plays made him wealthy, although his standing was damaged towards the end of his career by a notorious dispute with Gabriele D’Annunzio, the celebrated playwright and poet with aristocratic roots who was a considerable figure in Italian literature.

A showman with a reputation for throwing extravagant parties, Scarpetta led a complicated personal life that saw him father at least eight children by at least four women, of which only one was by his wife, Rosa De Filippo.

One of his relationships, with Rosa’s niece, Luisa, a theatre seamstress, produced three children - Eduardo, Peppino and Titina De Filippo - central figures in an Italian theatre and film dynasty in the 20th century.

Another daughter, Maria, was the child of an affair with a music teacher, while a relationship with his wife’s half-sister, Anna, produced the journalist, poet and playwright, Ernesto Murolo, who co-wrote a number of famous Neapolitan songs with the composer Ernesto Tagliaferri, and another actor, Eduardo Passarelli.

His only legitimate son, Vincenzo, also became an actor, and later a director, playwright and composer. The part of Peppeniello in Miseria e nobiltà was written specifically for Vincenzo.

Scarpetta in character as his own creation, Felice Sciosciamocca
Scarpetta in character as his own
creation, Felice Sciosciamocca
Scarpetta did not come from a theatrical background. His father, Domenico, was a civil servant who tried without success to steer Eduardo into a more secure profession.

By joining a theatre company at the age of 15, Scarpetta believed he could help bring money into the family after his father’s poor health led to them falling on hard times.

He soon met Antonio Petito, a playwright and actor who at the time was one of Naples’s most famous interpreters of the Pulcinella character, and joined his company at the Teatro San Carlino on Piazza Castello, near the Castel Nuovo. It was while working with Petito that he created Felice Sciosciammocca, with whom Petito was so impressed he began to write plays with Pulcinella and Sciosciammocca as the main characters. 

Petito’s Pulcinella had evolved from the rather simple, slow-witted character of tradition to a sharp, insolent and above all instinctively cunning individual. Where Pulcinella was working class, Scarpetta’s middle-class Sciosciammocca was a perfect foil.

His partnership with Petito ended with the latter’s death in 1876, after which he worked briefly in Rome before returning to Naples. After a period performing at the Teatro Metastasio on the city’s pier, he returned to San Carlino as manager, investing much time and money in saving it from impending closure and restoring it.

San Carlino would in 1884 be demolished to make way for a new urban square, the Piazza Municipio, as part of a rehabilitation project for the area, which had become rather run down.

Nonetheless, Scarpetta had enjoyed a number of huge successes with his own plays, notably Miseria e Nobiltà, but also Il medico dei pazzi, na santarella, Lo scarfalietto, Nu Turco Napulitano and O miereco de’ pazzi.

Na santarella was one of Scarpetta's most successful plays
Na santarella was one of Scarpetta's
most successful plays
His wealth enabled him to build a substantial palazzo on Via Vittorio Colonna in the prestigious Chiaia district and a villa on the Vomero hill, in Via Luigia Sanfelice, which he named La Santarella.

La Santarella hosted a huge party each year on the occasion of his daughter Tatina’s birthday, to which Scarpetta invited actors, directors, journalists, writers and poets for a celebration that traditionally ended with a spectacular fireworks display that was visible all over the city.

Rosa was happy to accommodate all of Eduardo’s various children. Indeed, after his affair with the music teacher, Francesca Gianetti, it was Rosa who was said to have rescued the child, Maria, from the religious institute to which she had been abandoned.  Rosa, in fact, had a son of her own, Domenico, whose father was none other than the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II, with whom she had a relationship as a teenager before marrying Scarpetta.

Scarpetta’s fortunes began to decline when his Teatro Salone Margherita, a cabaret theatre in the basement of the then newly-built Galleria Umberto I in the centre of Naples began to suffer financially. At the same time a play he had written as a parody of a play by Gabriele D’Annunzio which prompted the well-connected D’Annunzio to accuse him of plagiarism and take him to court for staging the play without permission.

In the event, the court case went in the favour of Scarpetta, who successfully argued that his play, Iorio’s Son, was not a copy but a comic send-up of D’Annunzio’s tragedy, Iorio’s Daughter, but the case - and the panning that Iorio’s Son received from the critics - left Scarpetta embittered and though he continued to write he decided he would no longer act. 

He died at the age of 72 in 1925 and after an elaborate funeral in which his body was placed in a crystal coffin, he was buried in the De Filippo-Scarpetta-Viviani family tomb at the Cimitero Monumentale di Poggioreale in Naples, close to what would become the site of the city’s international airport at Capodichino.

Scarpetta's impressive villa in the Vomero district, which he named La Santarella
Scarpetta's impressive villa in the Vomero
district, which he named La Santarella
Travel tip:

Vomero, where Scarpetta had his impressive villa, La Santarella, is a middle class largely residential area of central Naples but has a number of buildings of historic significance. The most dominant, on top of Vomero hill, is the large medieval fortress, Castel Sant'Elmo, which stands guard over the city. In front of the fortress is the Certosa San Martino, the former Carthusian monastery, now a museum.  Walk along the adjoining street, Largo San Martino, to enjoy extraordinary views over the city towards Vesuvius.  Vomero's other tourist attraction is the Villa Floridiana, once the home of Ferdinand I, the Bourbon King of the Two Sicilies.  Surrounded by extensive gardens, the building now houses the Duke of Martina National Museum of Ceramics.

Chiaia is one of the more upmarket areas of the city of Naples
Chiaia is one of the more upmarket areas
of the city of Naples
Travel tip:

Chiaia, where Scarpetta’s wealth enabled him to build a large family house, is a neighbourhood bordering the seafront in Naples, roughly between Piazza Vittoria and Mergellina. It has become one of the most affluent districts in the city, with many of the top fashion designers having stores on the main streets. It is the home of a large public park known as the Villa Comunale, flanked by the large palazzi along the Riviera di Chiaia on one side, and the sweeping promenade of the Via Francesco Caracciolo on the other.  The area is home to many fine seafood restaurants and has become a popular nightlife destination for well-heeled young Neapolitans.

Also on this day:

1925: The birth of actor and voice-dubber Corrado Gaipa

1955: The birth of footballer and coach Bruno Conti

1960: The birth of rock musician Luciano Ligabue

1980: The birth of dancer Flavia Cacace


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27 September 2022

Flaminio Scala - Renaissance writer and actor

Influential figure in growth of commedia dell’arte

A 16th century painting thought to show Flavio Scala's commedia dell'arte company, I Gelosi
A 16th century painting thought to show Flavio
Scala's commedia dell'arte company, I Gelosi 
The writer, actor and director Flaminio Scala, who is recognised as one of the most important figures in Renaissance theatre, was born on this day in 1552 in Rome.

Commonly known by his stage name Flavio, Scala was the author of the first published collection of scenarios - sketches - from the commedia dell’arte genre.

These scenarios, brought together under the title Il Teatro delle Favole Rappresentative, were short comic plays said to have provided inspiration to playwrights such William Shakespeare and Molière.

They were unusual because the theatre companies were so worried about rival troupes stealing their ideas that publishing them was considered too risky.

Commedia dell’arte was a theatrical form that used improvised dialogue and a cast of masked, colourful stock characters such as Arlecchino, Colombina and Pulcinella. The characters tended to be exaggerated versions of social stereotypes. Figures of authority, such as doctors or city officials, were often portrayed as buffoons, while the servants were much more lovable and sympathetic.

The cover page of Scala's collection of scenarios, published in 1611
The cover page of Scala's collection
of scenarios, published in 1611
The first record of Scala’s theatrical career suggests he was a member of a touring troupe known as the Compagnia dei Comici Gelosi in Florence from as early as 1577. He became known as Flavio after being given the role in 1610 of the company’s stock innamorato character, who was called Flavio.

Innamorati - lovers - were staple characters in commedia dell’arte, generally seen to be in love with themselves as much as other members of the cast. They were central to the plots of most scenarios.

As well as I Gelosi, Scala worked with a number of other successful commedia dell’arte companies. He can also be said to have been theatre’s first professional producer, having identified and hired an actor to play opposite him as his innamorata. She was Isabella Andreini, the 16-year-old wife of another actor, Francesco Andreini, who was such a success in the role that the company’s stock female lover became known as the Isabella.

Scala’s writing and directing reinforced commedia dell’arte as a highly expressive and physical art form, underlining the importance of body and facial gestures. The 50 scenarios in his collection Il Teatro delle Favole Rappresentative, published in 1611 and sometimes known simply as the Scala collection, did not contain any dialogue. 

They consisted instead of detailed stage direction, descriptions of the actions the characters were required to perform.  Dialogue in commedia dell’arte was improvised, the most successful actors those who could reference topical events or popular culture.

The collection was republished a number of times and, in 1967, appeared in translation for the first time as Scenarios of the Commedia dell'Arte.  More recently, translation of 30 of the scenarios was published as The Commedia dell'Arte of Flaminio Scala: A Translation and Analysis of 30 Scenarios, by Richard Andrews.

Little is known about Scala’s private life, although it is thought he was born into an aristocratic family and fathered one child, Orsola, who herself became an actress. His death was recorded as having occurred in Mantua in 1624.

The facade of the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome
The facade of the church of San
Luigi dei Francesi in Rome
Travel tip:

Flaminio Scala’s life coincided with that of the temperamental but brilliant painter, Caravaggio, who was active largely in Rome and was a major influence on the art of the Baroque period.  Rome today hosts approximately 25 Caravaggio masterpieces, several of which are on free public display in churches, including the basilicas of Sant’Agostino and Santa Maria del Popolo, which has two of his masterpieces in the Cerasi Chapel, and the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, where three Caravaggio paintings can be viewed in the Contarelli Chapel. The Sant’Agostino basilica is in Campo Marzio, where in 1606 the painter killed a man in a row over a woman, after which he spent the rest of his life effectively on the run.

Mantua, like Venice, gives the impression of rising from the water, in this case the Lago Superiore
Mantua, like Venice, gives the impression of rising
from the water, in this case the Lago Superiore
Travel tip: 

Mantua, where Flaminio Scala died, is a Renaissance city surrounded on  three sides by lakes, which can create the impression that the city rises from the water in the same way that Venice seems to emerge from the lagoon.  It is a city with a rich artistic and cultural heritage, going back to the time of Virgil, the Roman poet, said to have been born in a village nearby. In the Renaissance, Frederico Gonzaga II and Isabella d’Este presided over one of the finest artistic courts in Europe, to which they invited many musicians, artists and writers, among them Leonardo di Vinci and Raphael. Claudio Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo was performed for the first time in Mantua in 1607. More than 200 years later, Giuseppe Verdi set his opera, Rigoletto, in the city.

Also on this day:

1389: The official ‘birthday’ of Cosimo de’ Medici, banker and politician

1871: The birth of Nobel prize winner Grazia Deledda

1966: The birth of rapper and musician Jovanotti

1979: The death on Capri of English actress and singer Gracie Fields


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17 March 2022

Angelo Beolco - playwright

Actor and dramatist with a genius for comedy

Angelo Beolco's plays were written in Paduan dialect spiced with vulgarities
Angelo Beolco's plays were written in
Paduan dialect spiced with vulgarities
One of the most powerful Italian dramatists of the 16th century, Angelo Beolco, who was nicknamed Ruzzante (or sometimes Ruzante) after his favourite character, died on this day in 1542 in Padua in the Veneto region.

Beolco was famous for his rustic comedies, which were written mostly in the Paduan dialect of the Venetian language.

Many of his plays featured a peasant called Ruzzante and they painted a vivid picture of life in the Paduan countryside during the 16th century.

Beolco was born in Padua in 1496 and was the illegitimate son of a doctor. His mother was possibly a maid in the household where he was brought up by his father. He received a good education and after his father’s death became manager of the family estate. In 1529, he also became manager of a farm owned by a nobleman, Alvise Cornaro, who had retired to live in the Paduan countryside. Cornaro later became Beolco’s friend and protector.

Beolco met and associated with Paduan intellectuals of the time, such as the poet Pietro Bembo and the scholar and dramatist Sperone Speroni, which led to him developing an interest in the theatre.

His first attempts at acting and writing plays may have been delivering impromptu sketches at wedding parties.

It is established that in 1520 he was already known as Ruzzante and that he played a role in a play put on at a palace in Venice. It was after this that he put together his own theatrical troupe. His first plays were staged in Ferrara between 1529 and 1532 and then later in Padua at the residence of his friend, Cornaro.

Beolco was a friend of the poet Pietro Bembo (above)
Beolco was a friend of the poet
Pietro Bembo (above)
In Beolco’s first printed play, La pastoral, which was categorised as a rural comedy, Arcadian shepherds tell of their frustrated love affairs, while, in contrast, the peasants Ruzzante and Zilio deliver rustic verses in dialect, spiced with vulgarities and obscenities, beginning with Ruzzante’s first line in the play.

Much of the play’s comical effect comes from the contrast between the two languages, which provides the opportunity for misunderstandings and plays on words.

One of the characters is a physician, who earns the gratitude of Ruzzante for prescribing a fatal medicine to his stingy father. This unites the young peasant with his long-awaited inheritance.

In his later plays and monologues, Beolco shifts more to the Venetian language, while maintaining his social satire.

In the Oratione, a welcome speech for Bishop Marco Cornaro, who was later to become the 59th Doge of Venice, he suggests measures the new prelate should consider for improving the life of the peasants, including castrating the priests, or forcing them to marry, in order to give peace of mind to the local men and their wives.

Beolco’s plays were sometimes considered unfit for educated audiences because of the lascivious themes and vulgar language and this occasionally led to performances being cancelled.

In one of his best-known pieces, Il parlamento de Ruzante, the character tells of his return from the Venetian war front only to find that he has lost his wife, land and honour. The speech begins with Ruzzante’s favourite expletive.

Linguistic studies have concluded that Ruzante’s speech was not an accurate record of Paduan dialect of the day, but to some extent, a theatrical dialect created by Beolco.

Playwright Dario Fo put Beolco on the same level as the French playwright, Molière, claiming that he is the true father of the Venetian comic theatre (commedia dell’arte) and said that he was the most significant influence on his own work.

Beolco wrote at least 11 plays and monologues, but died in Padua when he was in his late forties, while preparing to stage a play by his friend, Speroni, for the Accademia degli Infiammati. Despite his theatrical success, Beolco was very poor for most of his life. Speroni once remarked that, while Beolco had an unsurpassed understanding of comedy, he was unable to perceive his own tragedy.

The Basilica di Sant'Antonio is one of Padua's most impressive sights
The Basilica di Sant'Antonio is one
of Padua's most impressive sights
Travel tip:

Padua, where Angelo Beolco was born and died, is in Italy’s Veneto region, situated 52km (32 miles) to the west of Venice. Padua is close to the stunning Euganean hills and many of the Venetian villas designed by architect Andrea Palladio. It is home to the second oldest university in Italy, the magnificent Basilica di Sant’Antonio, and one of the world’s greatest art treasures, the frescoes by Giotto in the Cappella Scrovegni, which tell the life stories of the Virgin Mary and Christ.

Padua hotels by Booking.com

The Ruzzante statue next to Padua's Teatro Verdi
The Ruzzante statue next to
Padua's Teatro Verdi
Travel tip:

There is a statue of Angelo Beolco (Ruzzante) next to the Teatro Verdi in Padua. The beautiful 18th century theatre, named after the composer Giuseppe Verdi, is in Via del Livello in the centre of the city, close to Piazza dei Signori. Teatro Verdi now presents operas, musicals, plays, ballets and concerts organised by the Teatro Stabile del Veneto.

Also on this day:

1826: The birth of inventor Innocenzo Manzetti

1861: The proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy

1925: The birth of actor Gabriele Ferzetti

1939: The birth of football coach Giovanni Trapattoni


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14 September 2021

Vittorio Gui – composer and conductor

Precise and sensitive musician enjoyed a long and distinguished career

Vittorio Gui enjoyed a long and distinguished career
Vittorio Gui enjoyed a long
and distinguished career
Internationally renowned orchestra conductor Vittorio Gui was born on this day in 1885 in Rome.

Gui composed his own operas, while travelling around Italy and Europe conducting the music of other composers. He spent many years conducting in Britain and served as the musical director of the Glyndebourne Festival for 12 years.

He was taught to play the piano by his mother when he was a young child. He graduated in Humanities at the University of Rome and then studied composition at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

The premiere of his opera, David, took place in Rome in 1907. He made his professional conducting debut at the Teatro Adriano in Rome in the same year, having been brought in as a substitute to lead Ponchielli’s La Gioconda.

This led to Gui being invited to conduct in Rome and Turin. Arturo Toscanini then invited him to conduct Salome by Richard Strauss as the season opener at La Scala in Milan in 1923.

He conducted at the Teatro Regio in Turin between 1925 and 1927 and premiered his own fairytale opera, Fata Malerba, there.

Gui founded the Orchestra Stabile in Florence and developed the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival, which he led for ten years, conducting the Orchestra Stabile and trying out unusual operas there.

Some recordings of performances conducted by Gui are still available
Some recordings of performances
conducted by Gui are still available 
He was guest conductor at the Salzburg festival in 1933 and invited by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1936 to be a regular conductor at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in London.

Complete recordings of Gui conducting Il Trovatore and La Traviata from the 1939 Covent Garden season have survived.

Gui remained in Britain during World War Two and made his debut at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1948. He served as musical director there from 1951 to 1963 and as artistic counsellor to the festival from 1963 to 1965.

He was particularly known for his conducting of music by Brahms and in 1947, on the 50th anniversary of the death of Brahms, he conducted a complete cycle of the orchestral and choral works of the composer  throughout Italy.

A prolific writer and critic, Gui’s works include a study of Boito’s opera, Nerone, an article on Mozart in Italy and a collection of essays, Battuta d’aspetto.

Gui died in October 1975 at his home in Florence at the age of 90 after an attack of angina. He had made his final appearance as a conductor in Italy just two weeks before his death, when he inaugurated the new season at the Teatro Comunale in Florence with a concert of Mozart and Brahms.

He was considered by critics to have been one of the most precise and sensitive conductors of the 20th century and he had been presented with a gold medal by the regional administration of Florence on 14 September, 1975, his 90th birthday.

The Teatro Regio in Turin was closed for 37  years after a catastrophic fire in 1936
The Teatro Regio in Turin was closed for 37 
years after a catastrophic fire in 1936
Travel tip:

The Teatro Regio in Turin, where Gui conducted in the 1920s, was burnt down in a catastrophic fire in 1936. It remained dark for 37 years until reopening in 1973. The theatre, which is in Piazza Castello close to the Palazzo Reale in the centre of the city, had something of a chequered history even before the fire. Inaugurated in 1740, it was closed by royal decree in 1792 then reopened with the French occupation of Turin during the early 19th century, first as the Teatro Nazionale and then the Teatro Imperiale before its original name was reinstated with the fall of Napoleon in 1814. It endured several financial crises in the late 1800s but somehow survived.

The Teatro del Maggio Musicale  has been fully open only since 2014
The Teatro del Maggio Musicale 
has been fully open only since 2014
Travel tip:

The Orchestra Stabile Fiorentina founded by Gui evolved into the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, resident at the Teatro Comunale in Corso Italia, on the edge of the city’s historic centre, about 1.5km (1 mile) from the Ponte Vecchio along the Arno river.  Since 2014, the May Festival has had its own base at the new Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, situated less than one kilometre away on land opposite the vast public park known as Le Cascine. Designed by Paolo Desideri, it was inaugurated in 2011 with a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony conducted by Zubin Mehta, although not fully opened until 2014-15, when its first opera season was staged. The square in front of the theatre is named Piazza Vittorio Gui in honour of the festival’s founder.

Also on this day:

1321: The death of the poet Dante Alighieri

1937: The birth of architect Renzo Piano

1938: The birth of journalist Tiziano Terzani


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8 July 2019

Gian Giorgio Trissino – dramatist and poet

Innovative playwright spotted the potential of Palladio


Vincenzo Cateno's portrait of the  dramatist Gian Giorgio Trissino
Vincenzo Catena's portrait of the
dramatist Gian Giorgio Trissino
Literary theorist, philologist, dramatist and poet Gian Giorgio Trissino was born on this day in 1478 in Vicenza.

As well as his contribution to Italian culture, Trissino is remembered for educating and helping Andrea di Pietro della Gondola, a young mason he discovered working on his villa in Cricoli, just outside Vicenza.

He took the young man on two visits to Rome that profoundly influenced his development into a great architect and he gave him the name Palladio, after the Greek goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athene.

Trissino had been born into a wealthy family and was able to travel widely, studying Greek in Milan and philosophy in Ferrara. He was part of Niccolò Machiavellis literary circle in Florence before he settled in Rome, where he associated with the humanist and poet, Pietro Bembo. He became a close friend of the dramatist, Giovanni Rucella, and served Popes Leo X and Clement VII.

Trissino’s most important dramatic work was the blank verse tragedy Sofonisba, published in 1524 and first performed in 1562.

Andrea Palladio was Gian
Giorgio Tressino's protégé
The play was based on a story about the Carthaginian wars by the Roman historian Livy. It employed the dramatic techniques of Sophocles and Euripides. It was the first time blank verse had been used extensively in Italian drama and many later European tragedies were modelled on it. The play was translated into French and performed in 1556 at the Château de Blois.

Trissino later wrote a verse comedy based on a work by the Roman playwright Plautus. He wrote the first Italian odes modelled on the verse of the Greek poet, Pindar, and the first Italian versions of the Horatian ode.

Trissino died in Rome in 1550. An edition of his collected works was published in Verona in 1729.

Vicenza's Piazza dei Signori
Vicenza's Piazza dei Signori
Travel tip:

Vicenza, where Gian Giorgio Trissoni was born, has become known as the city of his protégé, Andrea Palladio, and the buildings the great architect designed are all around the city. There is a statue of Palladio close to Piazza dei Signori, the main square. Palazzo del Valmarana and Loggia del Capitaniato are examples of his work that can be seen close to the centre.

Andrea Palladio worked as a stonemason on the Villa Trissoni, which can be found at Cricoli, near Vicenza
Andrea Palladio worked as a stonemason on the Villa
Trissoni, which can be found at Cricoli, near Vicenza
Travel tip:

The Villa Trissoni is located at Cricoli, just outside the centre of Vicenza. Most of it was built in the 16th century and it is associated with Andrea Palladio, who worked on it as a mason. Since 1994 the villa has been part of a World Heritage Site designated to protect the Palladian buildings of Vicenza. Gian Giorgio Trissoni was personally responsible for organising the remodelling of the villa at Cricoli, which he had inherited from his father.

Read more:

Andrea Palladio - the world's famous architect

The poet who was Lucrezia Borgia's lover

Leo X - visionary Renaissance pope

More reading:

1593: The birth of painter Artemisia Gentileschi

1822: The death of the English poet Shelley

1918: American author Ernest Hemingway injured by Austrian mortar fire in the Veneto

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27 April 2019

Renato Rascel - actor, singer and songwriter

Film and TV star who wrote the iconic song Arrivederci Roma


Renato Rascel enjoyed a remarkable career as a  singer, songwriter and actor
Renato Rascel enjoyed a remarkable career as a
singer, songwriter and actor
Renato Rascel, whose remarkable career encompassed more than 60 movies, a hit 1970s TV series, representing Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest and writing one of the most famous Italian songs of all time, was born on this day in 1912 in Turin.

Rascel was Italy’s entry at Eurovision 1960 in London, singing Romantica, with which he had won the Sanremo Music Festival earlier in the year. Romantica finished eighth overall in London.

He is arguably most famous, however, for the song Arrivederci Roma, which he wrote for the 1955 film of the same name, in which he starred with the Italian-American tenor and actor Mario Lanza, which was subsequently released for English and American cinema audiences with the title Seven Hills of Rome.

Arrivederci Roma quickly became a favourite Italian song and scores of big-name singers recorded cover versions, including Bing Crosby, Connie Francis, Dean Martin, Dionne Warwick, Nat King Cole, Perry Como and Vic Damone.

Only a year earlier, Rascel had written the best-selling Italian song of 1954 in Te voglio bene tanto tanto (I Love You So Much).

Rascel performing at the Eurovision Song Contest in London in 1960
Rascel performing at the Eurovision Song
Contest in London in 1960
Yet, those achievements were just one part of Rascel’s career in the entertainment business, a life he was born into literally. His mother, Paola Ranucci, gave birth to him backstage in a theatre in Turin, where he and her husband, Cesare, both opera singers, were performing.

As Renato Ranucci, he grew up in his parents’ home city, Rome, and sang in a choir at St Peter's Basilica.  At the age of 14, he began to play drums in ballrooms around Rome before breaking into the growing comedy revue scene as an actor, dancer and clown. His first major stage role was in the operetta Al cavallino bianco, by the Austrian composer Ralph Benatzky.

In 1941 he launched his own theatre company and he began to develop a distinctive kind of humour that became known as ‘non-sense’ and which won him huge popularity. He made play of his small stature - he was only 5ft 2ins tall - becoming known as the il piccoletto nazionale - The Tiny Italian - and exaggerated his smallness by wearing oversized coats.

One of the characters he created for his stage act was called ‘Il Corazziere’, an irony based on the fact that the Corazziere division in the Italian army recruited only soldiers over six feet tall.

His style of humour was seen as ideal for the big screen, where comic characters were all the rage. His movie debut came in 1942 in Pazzo d’amore (Crazy For Love) and began a new phase in his career that saw him appear in more than 60 comedy or drama features.

Renato Rascel starred in Alberto Lattuada's 1952 film Il cappotto (The Overcoat)
Renato Rascel starred in Alberto Lattuada's 1952
film Il cappotto (The Overcoat) 
These included Figaro here, Figaro there alongside the king of comic actors, Totò, Alberto Lattuada’s Il cappotto (The Overcoat), which won Rascel a Nastro Argento award for his performance in the lead role, The Secret of Santa Vittoria, in which he had played alongside Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani.

Rascel continue his film career well into his 60s, appearing as the blind man in Franco Zaffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth in 1977.

He also made his mark in a big way in television. When Rai began broadcasting as Italy’s first national TV network in the 1950s, Rascel was chosen as host for the first Saturday night variety shows, among them Rascel la nuit and Stasera Rascel City.

In the 1970s he achieved fame all over again when he was chosen to play the crime-solving priest Father Brown in a series based on the character created by the English novelist G K Chesterton. The series ran for several seasons.

Rascel died in Rome of heart failure at the age of 78 in 1990.

Carlo Mollino's modern auditorium is a feature of the  rebuilt Teatro Regio in Turin
Carlo Mollino's modern auditorium is a feature of the
rebuilt Teatro Regio in Turin
Travel tip:

The main opera venue in Turin is the Teatro Regio, which opened originally in 1740 and was re-opened in 1973 after a long closure following a fire. Architect Carlo Mollino created a striking contemporary interior design behind a reconstruction of the original facade. One of the oldest and most important theatres not only in Turin but in Italy is the Teatro Carignano in Turin, which is believed to date back to 1711, although it has been rebuilt several times over the centuries. Today it is owned by the city of Turin and is used mainly to stage plays.

The facade, designed by Carlo Maderno, of the vast St Peter's Basilica in Rome
The facade, designed by Carlo Maderno, of the vast
St Peter's Basilica in Rome
Travel tip:

From conception to completion, St Peter's Basilica in Rome, where Rascel sang in a choir as a schooboy, took more than 150 years to build.  Suggested by Pope Nicholas V in about 1450, at which time the original St Peter's was near collapse, it was not finished until 1615.  Although the principal design input from the laying of the first stone in 1506 came from Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Maderno and Bernini, contributions were also made by Giuliano da Sangallo, Fra Giocondo, Raphael and Antonio da Sangallo.  Michelangelo became involved with reluctance, ironically, after Pope Paul III's first choice as architect, Giulio Romano, died before he could take up the post and second choice Jacopo Sansovino refused to leave Venice.

More reading:

Why Totò is still remembered as Italy's funniest performer

The Oscar-winning talents of Anna Magnani

Mario Monicelli - the father of Commedia all'Italiana

Also on this day:

1937: The death of left-wing intellectual Antonio Gramsci

1942: The birth of the entrepreneur and film producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori

2014: The canonisation of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II


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25 February 2019

Carlo Goldoni – playwright

Greatest Venetian dramatist whose work still entertains audiences today


Alessandro Longhi's portrait of Carlo Goldini is on display at the Casa Goldoni
Alessandro Longhi's portrait of Carlo Goldini
is on display at the Casa Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni, the author of The Servant of Two Masters, one of Italy’s most famous and best-loved plays, was born on this day in 1707 in Venice.

Goldoni became a prolific dramatist who reinvigorated the commedia dell’arte dramatic form by replacing its masked, stock figures with more realistic characters.

He produced tightly constructed plots with a new spirit of spontaneity and is considered the founder of Italian realistic comedy.

The son of a physician, Goldoni read comedies from his father’s library when he was young and ran away from his school at Rimini with a company of strolling players when he was just 14.

Later, while studying at the papal college in Pavia, Goldoni read comedies by Plautus, Terence and Aristophanes and learnt French so he could read plays by Molière.

He was eventually expelled for writing a satire about the ladies of Pavia and was sent to study law.

Although he practiced law in Venice and Pisa and held diplomatic appointments, his real passion was writing plays for the theatres in Venice.

Antonio Dal Zòtto's statue of Goldoni in Piazza San Bartolomeo in Venice
Antonio Dal Zòtto's statue of Goldoni
in Piazza San Bartolomeo in Venice
In 1748 he began writing for the Teatro Sant’Angelo company and dispensed with masked characters altogether for his play, La Pamela, a serious drama based on Samuel Richardson’s novel.

In the 1750 season he produced some of his best comedies, such as I pettegolezzi delle donne - Women’s Gossip - a play in Venetian dialect, Il bugiardo - The Liar - written in commedia dell’arte style and Il vero amico -  The True Friend - a comedy of manners.

From 1753 to 1762, Goldoni wrote for Teatro San Luca, now called Teatro Goldoni. Among the important plays he wrote during this period is La locandiera - Mine Hostess - which was first performed in 1753.

There was intense rivalry between competing playwrights at the time. Goldoni satirised Pietro Chiari, a rival playwright, in I malcontenti - The Malcontents - which was performed in 1755, before Carlo Gozzi, an adherent of the commedia dell’arte, denounced him in a satirical poem in 1757, then ridiculed both Goldoni and Chiari in a commedia dell’arte classic, L’amore delle tre melarance - The Love of Three Oranges - which was performed in 1761.

In 1762, Goldoni left Venice for Paris to direct the Comedie-Italienne. He later rewrote all his French plays from this period for Venetian audiences. L’Eventail, performed in France in 1763, became Il ventaglio - The Fan - and is considered one of his finest works.

Goldoni retired from the theatre in 1764 and went to teach Italian to the French royal princesses at Versailles.

In 1783 he began writing his Memoirs in French but after the French Revolution his pension was cancelled and he died in poverty in Paris in 1793. The pension was eventually restored to his widow, Nicoletta Conio, after the intervention on her behalf of the poet Andrea Chénier.

Goldoni’s most famous work, Il servitore di due padroni - The Servant of Two Masters - written in 1745, has been translated into different languages and performed many times. In 2011 it was adapted for the National Theatre in the UK under the title One Man, Two Guvnors and it was so popular it transferred to the West End and then Broadway.

Travel tip:

Goldoni was born in Ca’ Centani, or Centanni, a beautiful 15th century Gothic palace overlooking a narrow canal in the San Toma district of Venice. Better known as Casa Goldoni, the palace was bequeathed to Venice in 1931 and now houses the Goldoni Museum and a centre for theatrical studies. Through a series of displays of relics, furniture, paintings, illustrations of Goldonian comedies and explanatory panels, the museum represents the life and work of Carlo Goldoni in the context of 18th century theatre and Venetian society.

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The interior of the Teatro Goldoni, which dates back to the 1720s
The interior of the Teatro Goldoni, which
dates back to the 1720s
Travel tip:

Teatro Goldoni near the Rialto Bridge in Venice was formerly known as Teatro San Luca, when Goldoni was writing plays for it. The present building dates back to the 1720s although it has been renovated many times after fires or structural problems. Situated in Calle Goldoni in the San Marco district, it was renamed Teatro Goldoni in 1875 and is now home to the Teatro Stabile del Veneto ‘Carlo Goldoni’.


More reading:

How Carlo Gozzi fought to preserve commedia dell'arte

Zanetta Farussi, the 18th century Venetian actress who was the mother of Casanova

Niccolò Piccinni, the opera composer for whom Goldoni wrote a libretto

Also on this day:

1682: The birth of anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni

1873: The birth of the great tenor Enrico Caruso

2003: The death of comic actor Alberto Sordi

Selected books:

The Comedies of Carlo Goldoni, edited and introduced by Helen Zimmern

The Servant to Two Masters, by Carlo Goldoni

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27 January 2019

Roberto Paci Dalò – composer and film maker

Music maker coined the definition ‘media dramaturgy’


Roberto Paci Dalò has composed and directed more than  30 groundbreaking music-theatre works
Roberto Paci Dalò has composed and directed more than
30 groundbreaking music-theatre works
The award-winning contemporary musician and composer Roberto Paci Dalò was born on this day in 1962 in Rimini.

Paci Dalò is the co-founder and director of the performing arts ensemble Giardini Pensili and has composed music for theatre, radio, television and film.

After completing musical, visual and architectural studies in Fiesole, Faenza and Ravenna, Paci Dalò focused on sound and design and their use in film, theatre and collaborative projects.

He has been a pioneer in the use of digital technologies and telecommunication systems in art and has been particularly interested in performing arts as a meeting point of languages.

Since 1985 he has written, composed and directed more than 30 groundbreaking music-theatre works which have been presented worldwide.

Roberto Paci Dalò has worked at some of Italy's leading universities
Roberto Paci Dalò has worked at some
of Italy's leading universities
Paci Dalò has composed music for acoustical ensembles, electronics and voices and has produced radio works for the main European broadcasting corporations.

His films and videos have been regularly presented in international festivals.

Paci Dalò taught Media Dramaturgy at the University of Siena and collaborates with institutions such as the University of Bologna, University of Rome, University of Ascoli Piceno and the Brera Fine Arts Academy in Milan, where he develops projects in collaboration with designers, architects, planners, artists, programmers and hackers.

He coined the term ‘media dramaturgy’ - an extension of the study of composition of drama and adapting stories to actable form to cover not only the theatre but radio, television and film - in describing his own work.

He has been internationally acclaimed for leading the way in multimedia.

As a performer he has also developed extended techniques on the clarinet and with electronics.

Paci Dalò currently lives and works in the hills above Rimini.

The 13th century Tempio Maletestiano in Rimini has frescoes by Piero della Francesca and works by Giotto
The 13th century Tempio Maletestiano in Rimini has
frescoes by Piero della Francesca and works by Giotto
Travel tip:

With wide sandy beaches and plenty of hotels and restaurants, Rimini is one of the most popular seaside resorts in Europe, but it is also a historic town with many interesting things to see. The Tempio Maletestiano is a 13th century Gothic church originally built for the Fransiscans that was transformed on the outside in the 15th century and decorated inside with frescoes by Piero della Francesca and works by Giotto and many other artists. In 1993 Paci Dalò conceived the project Publiphono for his native town, using the public address system of the beach at Rimini to create environmental audio performances along 15km (9 miles) of the coast.


The Piazza della Libertà in the centre of Faenza, the city
in Emilia Romagna where Paci Dalò studied
Travel tip:

Paci Dalò studied at Faenza, a city about 72km (45 miles) kilometres northwest of Rimini, which is famous for the manufacture of a type of decorative majolica-ware known as faience. It is also home to the International Museum of Ceramics, which has examples of ceramics from ancient times, the Middle Ages and the 18th and 19th centuries as well as displaying work by important contemporary artists. The museum is in Viale Baccarini in Faenza. For more information visit www.micfaenza.org

More reading:

The unique style of contemporary composer Ludovico Einaudi

The Futurist artist who invented 'noise music'

How Luigi Nono used avant-garde music as a means of political expression

Also on this day:

98AD: Trajan becomes Roman Emperor

1901: The death of Giuseppe Verdi

1927: The birth of novelist Giovanni Arpino


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5 November 2018

Filippo Taglioni - dancer and choreographer

Father of star ballerina was pioneer of Romantic ballet


Filippo Taglioni's portrait, the original of which is at Teatro alla Scala in Milan
Filippo Taglioni's portrait, the original of
which is at Teatro alla Scala in Milan
The dancer and choreographer Filippo Taglioni, who choreographed the original version of the ballet classic La Sylphide for his ballerina daughter Marie Taglioni, was born on this day in 1777 in Milan.

La Sylphide was one of the earliest works to represent a new ballet genre, which became known as Romantic ballet, that gained popularity in the 19th century as an alternative to traditional classical ballet.  Romantic ballet was different in that the characters were recognisable as real people rather than the gods and goddesses and strange creatures from Roman and Greek mythology that populated classical ballet.

The work, which premiered at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra in 1832, cemented Marie Taglioni’s status as a star, the prima ballerina of the Romantic movement, although the version performed today - the only version to have survived - was choreographed by the Danish ballet master August Bournonville in 1836.

Filippo was part of an Italian dancing dynasty of the 18th and 19th centuries. His father and mother, Carlo Taglioni and Maria Petracchi, were both dancers. Carlo, who was born in Turin, worked in Venice, Rome, Siena and Udine.

Taglioni's daughter, Marie, pictured in a performance of La Sylphide
Taglioni's daughter, Marie, pictured in a
performance of La Sylphide
As well as Marie, Filippo had a son, Paul Taglioni, who was a successful choreographer and the father of another dancer, Marie Taglioni the younger. Filippo’s brother, Salvatore Taglioni, was father of Luisa Taglioni, who was a ballerina of the Paris Opéra, and Fernando Taglioni, who became a respected composer.

Trained for the most part by the Neapolitan dancer Carlo Blasis and Jean-François Coulon, Filippo made his debut at 17 in Pisa, playing female roles, and after appearing in other Italian cities joined the Paris Opéra at the age of 22, before moving to Stockholm to be principal dancer and ballet master for the Royal Swedish Ballet.

It was while he was living in Stockholm that he married the dancer Sophie Karsten, daughter of a famous Swedish opera singer Christoffer Christian Karsten and a Polish actress, Sophie Stebnowska.

Their two children were born early in the marriage and after living for a number of years in Vienna and Germany they moved to Paris to escape the the Napoleonic wars.  Filippo danced and choreographed in different parts of Europe before accepting a permanent position in Vienna.

Filippo Taglioni made his daughter, Marie, practise six hours a day for six months
Filippo Taglioni made his daughter, Marie,
practise six hours a day for six months
Filippo had left his daughter, Marie, to study ballet in Paris but in time summoned her to join him in Vienna, where he began training her himself, making her practice six hours a day for six months until she mastered her jumps and pointe work. When he judged her to be ready he took her back to Paris.

Marie soon became popular and Filippo was able to negotiate a six-year contract for the two of them. He unveiled La Sylphide to huge acclaim and its success established Marie as the pre-eminent prima ballerina of the Romantic period, as well as making him its most renowned choreographer.

The two toured Europe and Russia and were well rewarded, although Filippo lost a good deal of his daughter’s fortune in through unwise and speculative investments.

His legacy, though, was to have changed the nature of ballet. Although the Romantic movement began to decline at the start of the 20th century, it produced works of lasting popularity such as Delibes’s Coppélia (1870) and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (1876) and The Nutcracker (1892).

Filippo Taglioni died in Como in 1871, at the age of 93.

The Teatro Verdi in Pisa was opened in November 1867
The Teatro Verdi in Pisa was opened in November 1867
Travel tip:

The principal venue for ballet and opera in Pisa is the Teatro Verdi in Via Palestro, built in the mid-19th century in the style of classic theatre architecture to designs by the Venetian architect Andrea Scala, who won a competition organised by the architect and politician Ranieri Simonelli, a prominent Pisan citizen of the day. Completed in 1867, it was inaugurated on November 12 of that year with a performance of Gioachino Rossini’s opera William Tell. It began to stage ballet as well as opera in the latter part of the 19th century.  Taglioni is likely to have performed at the Regia Teatro Nuovo, which the Teatro Verdi replaced.

The beautiful Villa Olmo on Lake Como
The beautiful Villa Olmo on Lake Como
Travel tip:

Como, where Taglioni died, is a city at the southern end of Lake Como. It has become a popular tourist destination because it is close to the lake and has many attractive churches, gardens, museums, theatres, parks and palaces to visit. The Villa Olmo, built in neoclassical style there in 1797 by an aristocratic family, has hosted Napoleon, Ugo Foscolo, Prince Metternich, Archduke Franz Ferdinand I and Giuseppe Garibaldi, to name but a few of the eminent people who have stayed there.

More reading:

Fanny Cerrito - the Neapolitan ballerina who wowed Europe

Pierina Legnani - the Italian who conquered St Petersburg

How Strictly Come Dancing judge Bruno Tonioli dealt with playground bullies

Also on this day:

1702: The birth of Venetian painter Pietro Longhi

1754: The birth of explorer Alessandro Malaspina

1898: The birth of Francesco Chiarello, soldier who survived two World Wars


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