Giacomo Torelli

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Giacomo Torelli

Giacomo Torelli (pseudonym: Giulio del Colle ; * 1608 in Fano ; † 1678 ibid) was an Italian painter, architect and stage designer ( quadrature painting ) of the Baroque . He is considered to be one of the main inventors of the baroque stage machinery.

Stage design for La Finta Pazza (Paris 1645)

Torelli invented stage wagons under the stage that were connected with ropes and pulley blocks. He was credited with inventing a system of counterweights and levers with which a scene change could be carried out in one fell swoop, operated by a single person.

Torelli came from a noble family in Fano and was educated. He gained his first theater experience in performances in the palaces of noble families in Fano and then worked in the provinces of Pesaro and Urbino. From 1641 he was a naval engineer in Venice in the arsenal. Upon request, he took on the task of building the stage machinery for the Teatro Novissimo in Venice, which established his reputation thanks to spectacular performances. Among other things, he worked in operas by Francesco Cavalli and in 1641 at the opera La finta pazza by Francesco Sacrati . In the carnival season of 1644 he worked at the neighboring Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo .

After the death of the French king Louis XIII. In 1643, under the ruling minister Cardinal Mazarin in Paris, there was a lively comings and goings of Italian artists, and the concerts performed by Queen Anna of Austria increased. Mazarin had the idea of ​​performing an opera and the first step towards making it a reality was to entice away the famous set designer Torelli from the Duke of Parma . It was so successful the first time in 1645 that the stage sets for the opera La Finta Pazza were captured in engravings as performed in the Petit-Bourbon Theater , since the memory was to be preserved . His machines, which let actors float , helped him to gain the nickname “Grand Sorcier” (great sorcerer).

His collaboration with the young King Louis XIV was unhappy : when he was dancing in the Ballet de la Nuit in 1653 , the cloth of a painting caught fire, and in the following year a stage worker at Nozze di Peleo e di Theti died when he was not far from the king from the scaffolding crashed onto the stage. In divertissements with Ludwig's participation, Torelli's services were waived. Although Torelli was seen as overly sensitive and despotic, the Italian comedian troupe who presented La Finta Pazza on stage, had disdain and had spoiled the Abbé Buti and Colbert , Mazarin wanted him at least with the project to build the Théâtre des Tuileries, which began in 1659 participate in a little thing. Torelli, however, refused to work with the architect Gaspare Vigarani , appointed by Mazarin , and soon a four-page text attributed to him, Riflessione sopra la fabbrica del nuovo teatro, was circulating . He no longer had to reckon with orders from the French court, he found work with Nicolas Fouquet , but after his arrest Torelli was asked to leave the country forever.

In 1677 the stage decoration for Il Trionfo della continenza was his last work at the Teatro della Fortuna , which he built in his native Fano, where he last lived.

Works

  • Scene e machine preparate alle Nozze di Teti, balletto reale, representato nella sala del piccolo Borbone et da Giacomo Torelli inventore, dedicate all'Eminentissimo Prencipe Cardinal Mazzarino . Paris 1654

literature

  • Per Bjurström: Giacomo Torelli and baroque stage design . National Museum, Stockholm 1961.
  • Susan Crabtree, Peter Beudert: Scenic Art for the Theater: History, Tools and Techniques . Elsevier 2004, ISBN 0240804627 , p. 380f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry Prunières: L'Opéra italien en France avant Lully , Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, Paris 1913, p. 68.
  2. Philippe Beaussant: Lully ou Le musicien du Soleil , Gallimard / Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, [Paris] 1992, p. 54.
  3. Jérôme de La Gorce: Carlo Vigarani, intendant des plaisirs de Louis XIV , Editions Perrin / Etablissement public du musée et du domaine national de Versailles, 2005, p. 15 f. and 42
  4. Johanna Saduov: Torelli, Giacomo . In: Annette Hartmann and Monika Woitas (eds.): Das Großes Tanzlexikon , Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2016, p. 641.