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• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

1664–1725, Italian Stampiglia was one of the 14 founding members of the Accadamia dell’Arcadia (The Arcadian Academy). Although a Roman by birth, for many years Stampiglia was associated with operas in Naples, and did not always conform to Arcadian ideals despite being part of their circle. Stampiglia’s libretti are often ironic comedies in which conventional heroism is regarded ...

• Major Operas
• Late Baroque
• Opera

Although popular now, Serse was one of Handel’s worst failures during his own time. It was only performed five times in its first run and Handel never revived it. Unusually among his operas, its libretto by Silvio Stampiglia (1664–1725) is warmly light-hearted and does not seriously concern itself with tragic events or heroic actions. The most famous aria, ...

• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

c. 1660–c. 1728–44, Italian Little is known about Silvani’s life, but he was an abbot who issued his earliest works under the anagram Frencasco Valsini. Silvani regularly produced libretti for Venice between 1691 and 1716, and the title pages of the printed wordbooks state that he served the Duke of Mantua between 1699 and 1705. Silvani identified with ...

• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

1670–1747, Italian Bononcini was orphaned at the age of eight, and moved to Bologna, where he studied music and was accepted into the Accademia Filarmonica in 1686. By 1692, Bononcini had moved to Rome, where he met Silvio Stampiglia. They collaborated on several operas, including Il trionfo di Camilla (‘The Triumph of Camilla’, 1696), which ...

• Houses & Companies
• Late Baroque
• Opera

Literary clubs that were established in seventeenth-century Italy were commonly known as ‘academies’, taking their name from the Athenian garden where Plato was thought to have met with his followers. One of the most important such groups in the early eighteenth century was the Roman ‘Arcadian Academy’. It was formally established in 1690 to honour the late Queen Christina of Sweden ...

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

‘Clowns’ Composed: 1892 Premiered: 1892, Milan Libretto by the composer, based on a newspaper crime report Prologue Tonio addresses the audience. The author has sent him to explain that they are to see real people and real passions. Act I A troupe of four travelling players arrives in a Calabrian village. They are led by Canio, with his ...

• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

c. 1670–1736, Italian Caldara was probably taught by Giovanni Legrenzi (1626–90) and was a choirboy at St Mark’s in Venice. His earliest operas were composed for Venice, while he was working as a cellist at St Mark’s. He was appointed maestro di cappella at Mantua to the last Gonzaga duke until about 1707, and then worked at Rome ...

• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

1669–1750, Italian The Venetian librettist Zeno was a librarian and historian, who sought to establish opera libretti as a recognized literary form. His first opera libretto, Lucio Vero, was a huge success at Venice in 1695. Zeno continued to write more libretti, although he had reservations about it affecting his scholarly credibility. In 1718, Zeno ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1876–1949, Italian Zenatello studied as a baritone at Verona and debuted at Belluno in 1898 as Silvio in Pagliacci. He sang Canio in the same opera the following year in Naples. His La Scala debut in 1902 was a success and he regularly appeared there in the years immediately afterwards. He worked extensively in South America and appeared occasionally at ...

• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

1660–1741, German Fux studied music at Graz, and became a talented organist and church musician. He probably travelled to Italy during the 1680s, and his a capella Masses influenced by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525–94) attracted the admiring attention of Emperor Leopold I in 1698. Based in Vienna for the remainder of his life, Fux was ...