San Cassiano Theater
Coordinates: 45 ° 26 ′ 22.8 " N , 12 ° 19 ′ 55.5" E
The Teatro San Cassiano or Teatro di San Cassiano in the San Polo district of Venice was the world's first public opera house. It was opened in 1637.
history
The theater got its name after the neighboring parish church of San Cassiano near Rialto . It was housed in a stone building owned by the Venetian Tron family. It can be considered a “public” theater because it was run by an impresario and the public had access and paid for entry, while other theaters outside of Venice were only open to aristocrats during this period. The first impresario was Benedetto Ferrari from Rome (with his colleague Francesco Manelli) who stayed until 1639. Then Francesco Caletti-Bruni took overwith financial support from the Venetian patrician family Cavalli. Caletti-Bruni stayed until 1645 and mostly performed operas he had composed himself. From 1657 to 1660 Marco Faustini was the impresario.
During the 17th century Venice was the capital of opera par excellence. The Teatro San Cassiano premiered some of the earliest works of this genre, including various operas by Francesco Cavalli (such as L'Ormindo , Giasone and Elena ).
The last performance took place in 1807. In 1812 the house was demolished after several fires.
A forerunner was a wooden building for spoken theater built by Andrea Palladio in 1565 , which was destroyed by fire in 1629.
See also
literature
- Venice. In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Volume 4: Roe - Z, Appendices. Macmillan et al., London et al. 1998, pp. 913 ff.
- Stephan Burianek: The Venetian Opera in the 17th Century. Grin-Verlag, sl 2005, ISBN 3-638-40243-6 , p. 6 (student paper ; excerpt from Google Books )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Irving Kolodin, The Opera Omnibus: Four Centuries of Critical Give and Take . New York: Dutton (1976). P. 50. ISBN 0-8415-0438-5 .