Alessandro Striggio the Younger

Alessandro Striggio, called the Younger (* 1573 in Mantua , † June 8, 1630 in Venice ) was an Italian poet , librettist and diplomat . He was the son of the composer Alessandro Striggio the Elder . His best-known work is the libretto for Claudio Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo (1607).

Life

He came from a high-ranking Mantuan family who had connections with court society. His parents were the madrigalist Alessandro Striggio and the singer and lutenist Virginia Vagnoli. From these he received musical training; he was first mentioned in a document in 1589 as an instrumentalist in the orchestra at a gala performance of the Medici on the occasion of a wedding. Striggio first studied law and then worked for 20 years as a political official in the service of the Gonzaga at the court of Mantua, as secretary of the dukes, as ambassador in Milan and in 1628 as chancellor . Eventually he was raised to the rank of marquis . He fell ill with the plague in 1630 while on a trip on a diplomatic mission and died in Venice.

plant

Striggio kept an interest in music throughout his life. In the mid-1590s he published the complete edition of his father's compositions. He worked several times with Claudio Monteverdi. He was a member of the Accademia degli Invaghiti of Mantua, which Monteverdi commissioned to compose L'Orfeo . Striggio wrote the libretto for this opera based on the model of Ottavio Rinuccini , who wrote the poem for Jacopo Peris Euridice (1600). In 1608 he wrote the textbooks for two operas by Marco da Gagliano . Striggio maintained his collaboration and correspondence with Monteverdi after the composer had left Mantua to work as Kapellmeister at St. Mark's Basilica in Venice . At least two other libretti for him, for the missing Lamento d'Apollo (around 1620) and for the ballet Tirsi e Clori (1616), came from Striggio.

Web links

• Works by and about Alessandro Striggio the Younger in the catalog of the German National Library