Giovanni Faustini

Giovanni Faustini (* 19th May 1615 in Venice ; † 19th December 1651 ) was an Italian opera - librettist and opera impresario . Many of his opera libretti were set to music by the composer Francesco Cavalli .

Live and act

Giovanni Faustini was impresario at the Teatro San Cassiano (the first public opera house opened in 1637), Teatro San Moisè (founded in 1639) and the Teatro San Apollinare (which he and two business partners rented for his opera productions from 1650) in Venice . Most of his 14 librettos were set to music by Cavalli - eleven were written just for him. Mostly they were based on a plot of the following kind: two pairs of noble lovers from distant nations in different stages of separation and recovery, assisted by servants in comical roles. Elements of the plot were like in the novels of the time, for example. B. Potions, confusion from misdirected letters, disguises. Only three of his libretti were based on mythological motifs (including La Calisto ). With Cavalli he formed the most successful opera composer / librettist duo in what was then Venice in the 1640s, where after Monteverdi's death the genre of opera developed in today's sense. At that time, opera experienced an upswing in Venice, as the founding of numerous competing opera houses shows. Shortly after the world premiere of La Calisto (for which he wrote the libretto, Cavalli the music) in late 1651 he died. Shortly before, he had opened the Teatro Sant 'Apollinare opera house . The management was continued by his brother Marco, who became a successful impresario a decade later.

Faustini played an important role in the development of Venetian opera, which, in his and Cavalli's time, made the transition from court events or performances in front of enthusiasts to commercial, public opera houses. This was also reflected in the libretti, which took up contemporary entertainment literature and elements of the commedia dell'arte .

literature

• Beth L. Glixon, Jonathan E. Glixon: Marco Faustini and Venetian Opera Production in the 1650s: Recent Archival Discoveries. In: The Journal of Musicology. Vol. 10, No. 1, 1992, ISSN  0277-9269 , pp. 48-73, doi : 10.2307 / 763560 .
• Beth L. Glixon, Jonathan E. Glixon: Inventing the Business of Opera. The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2006, ISBN 0-19-515416-9 .
• Jane Alison Glover : The Theater Sant'Apollinare and the Development of Seventeenth-Century Venetian Opera. 1975, (Oxford, St. Hugh's College - University of Oxford, Dissertation, 1975).
• Jane Glover : Cavalli. Batsford, London 1978.
• Jane Glover: The Peak Period of Venetian Public Opera: The 1650s. In: Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association. Vol. 102, 1975/1976, ISSN  0080-4452 , pp. 67-82, doi : 10.1093 / jrma / 102.1.67 .
• Silke Leopold : The opera in the 17th century (= history of the opera. Vol. 1). Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2006, ISBN 3-89007-658-0 .
• Ellen Rosand: Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice. The Creation of a Genre. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 1991, ISBN 0-520-06808-4 .