Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo
Encyclopedia
The Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo (often written as Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo) was a theatre and opera house
in Venice
located on the Calle della Testa, and takes its name from the nearby Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Built by the Grimani
family in 1638, in its heyday it was considered the most beautiful and comfortable theatre in the city. The theatre played an important role in the development of opera and saw the premieres of several works by Francesco Cavalli
, as well as Monteverdi
's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
and L'incoronazione di Poppea
.
family originally built the theatre as a wooden structure on the Fondamenta Nuove around 1635. It was then rebuilt on a grander scale using both stone and wood in 1638 when it moved to the nearby Calle della Testa. It was built primarily for the performance of spoken drama, but from the very beginning operas were also performed there. In fact, the new theatre was inaugurated on 20 January 1639 with the premiere performance of Francesco Manelli
's opera La Delia o sia La sera sposa del sole. The librettist of La delia, Giulio Strozzi, became primarily based at the nearby Teatro Novissimo but returned to SS. Giovanni e Paolo for the 1642–1643 season, bringing with him the singers Barbara Strozzi
and Anna Renzi
(who sang Ottavia in the premiere of L'incoronazione di Poppea
) and the pioneering set designer Giacomo Torelli
. According to Rosand, it may have been at Santi Giovanni e Paolo that Torelli developed his machinery for changing several sets simultaneously.
In 1654 the theatre was remodelled specifically as an opera house by the architect Carlo Fontana
in one of his earliest commissions, and became the first fully developed horseshoe-shaped opera house in Italy, a design which remained essentially unchanged for over two centuries. Its magnificent interior could seat about 900 people with five tiers of boxes
and additional seating on the U-shaped floor (or platea) in front of the stage. The theatre was described in 1663 by an observer as having:
Marco Faustini became the theatre's impresario
in 1660, and for the next fifteen years the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Teatro di San Salvatore a San Luca (owned by the Vendramin
family) were to be the dominant opera houses in Venice, each putting on two new operas every year.
By 1700, the Grimani family had built two more theatres in Venice, the Teatro San Samuele
and the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo
. An economic crisis made the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo increasingly difficult to maintain, and it finally closed in 1715.
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
located on the Calle della Testa, and takes its name from the nearby Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Built by the Grimani
Grimani
The Grimani family were a prominent Venetian patrician family, including three Doges of Venice. They were active in trade, politics and later the ownership of theatres and opera-houses...
family in 1638, in its heyday it was considered the most beautiful and comfortable theatre in the city. The theatre played an important role in the development of opera and saw the premieres of several works by Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...
, as well as Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria is an opera in a prologue and five acts , set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1639–1640 carnival season...
and L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
.
History
The GrimaniGrimani
The Grimani family were a prominent Venetian patrician family, including three Doges of Venice. They were active in trade, politics and later the ownership of theatres and opera-houses...
family originally built the theatre as a wooden structure on the Fondamenta Nuove around 1635. It was then rebuilt on a grander scale using both stone and wood in 1638 when it moved to the nearby Calle della Testa. It was built primarily for the performance of spoken drama, but from the very beginning operas were also performed there. In fact, the new theatre was inaugurated on 20 January 1639 with the premiere performance of Francesco Manelli
Francesco Manelli
Francesco Manelli was a Roman Baroque composer, particularly of opera; and theorbo player. He is most well known for his collaboration with fellow Roman composer Benedetto Ferrari in bringing commercial opera to Venice...
's opera La Delia o sia La sera sposa del sole. The librettist of La delia, Giulio Strozzi, became primarily based at the nearby Teatro Novissimo but returned to SS. Giovanni e Paolo for the 1642–1643 season, bringing with him the singers Barbara Strozzi
Barbara Strozzi
Barbara Strozzi was an Italian Baroque singer and composer.-Life:...
and Anna Renzi
Anna Renzi
Anna Renzi was a leading Italian opera singer of the mid-17th century, renowned for her acting ability as well as her voice. She has been described as the first prima donna. She sang in Rome and Venice, where she appeared in the role of Ottavia in the premiere of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di...
(who sang Ottavia in the premiere of L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
) and the pioneering set designer Giacomo Torelli
Giacomo Torelli
Giacomo Torelli was the most important set designer of the middle of the seventeenth century. Born in 1608 in the town of Fano, the year of Giulio Parigi’s work on Il Giudizio di Paride in Florence, Torelli was of noble birth. His work in stage design was extensively engraved and hence survives...
. According to Rosand, it may have been at Santi Giovanni e Paolo that Torelli developed his machinery for changing several sets simultaneously.
In 1654 the theatre was remodelled specifically as an opera house by the architect Carlo Fontana
Carlo Fontana
Carlo Fontana was an Italian architect, who was in part responsible for the classicizing direction taken by Late Baroque Roman architecture.-Biography:...
in one of his earliest commissions, and became the first fully developed horseshoe-shaped opera house in Italy, a design which remained essentially unchanged for over two centuries. Its magnificent interior could seat about 900 people with five tiers of boxes
Box (theatre)
In theater, a box is a small, separated seating area in the auditorium for a limited number of people.Boxes are typically placed immediately to the front, side and above the level of the stage. They are often separate rooms with an open viewing area which typically seat five people or fewer. ...
and additional seating on the U-shaped floor (or platea) in front of the stage. The theatre was described in 1663 by an observer as having:
...marvellous scene changes, majestic and grand appearances [of performers] ... and a magnificent flying machine; you see, as if commonplace, glorious heavens, deities, seas, royal palaces, woods, forests...
Marco Faustini became the theatre's impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
in 1660, and for the next fifteen years the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Teatro di San Salvatore a San Luca (owned by the Vendramin
Vendramin
The Vendramin were a rich merchant family of Venice, Italy, who were among the case nuove or "new houses" who joined the patrician class when the Libro d'Oro was opened after the battle of Chioggia...
family) were to be the dominant opera houses in Venice, each putting on two new operas every year.
By 1700, the Grimani family had built two more theatres in Venice, the Teatro San Samuele
Teatro San Samuele
Teatro San Samuele was an opera house and theatre located at the Rio del Duca, between Campo San Samuele and Campo Santo Stefano, in Venice. One of several important theatres built in that city by the Grimani family, the theatre opened in 1656 and operated continuously until a fire destroyed the...
and the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo
Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo
The Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, now known as the Teatro Malibran, is an opera house in Venice. Founded in 1678 by the Grimani family, it was founded primarily to provide entertainment for the aristocracy and to advance the social position of the Grimani family, and was not expected to be a...
. An economic crisis made the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo increasingly difficult to maintain, and it finally closed in 1715.
Premieres
Operas which had their first public performance at the theatre include:- La Delia by Francesco ManelliFrancesco ManelliFrancesco Manelli was a Roman Baroque composer, particularly of opera; and theorbo player. He is most well known for his collaboration with fellow Roman composer Benedetto Ferrari in bringing commercial opera to Venice...
(1639) - Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patriaIl ritorno d'Ulisse in patriaIl ritorno d'Ulisse in patria is an opera in a prologue and five acts , set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1639–1640 carnival season...
by Claudio MonteverdiClaudio MonteverdiClaudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
(1640) - L'incoronazione di PoppeaL'incoronazione di PoppeaL'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
by Claudio Monteverdi (carnival season 1642/43) - XerseXerseXerse is an opera by Francesco Cavalli - specifically, a dramma per musica about Xerxes I. The libretto was written by Nicolò Minato, and was later set by both Giovanni Battista Bononcini and George Frideric Handel. Minato's plot outline is loosely based on Book 7 of Herodotus's Histories...
by Francesco CavalliFrancesco CavalliFrancesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...
(1654) - Statira principessa di PersiaStatira principessa di PersiaStatira principessa di Persia is an opera - more specifically, a dramma per musica - in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli, set to a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello. The opera was first performed in Venice at the Teatro SS...
by Francesco Cavalli (1655, possibly 1656) - Scipione affricanoScipione affricanoScipione affricano is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli. It was designated as a dramma per musica. The Italian libretto was by Nicolò Minato.-Performance history:...
by Francesco Cavalli (1664) - Il Tito by Antonio CestiAntonio CestiAntonio Cesti , known today primarily as an Italian composer of the Baroque era, he was also a singer , and organist. He was "the most celebrated Italian musician of his generation".- Biography :...
(1666) - La Gerusalemme liberata by Carlo PallavicinoCarlo PallavicinoCarlo Pallavicino was an Italian composer.Pallavicino was born at Salò, Italy. From 1666 to 1673, he worked at the Dresden court, from 1674 to 1685, at the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Venice and further in Dresden...
(1687) - L' Alboino in Italia by Carlo Francesco PollaroloCarlo Francesco PollaroloCarlo Francesco Pollarolo was an Italian composer, chiefly of operas. Born into a musical family, he became the cathedral organist of his home town of Brescia. In the 1680s he began composing operas for performance in nearby Venice. He wrote a total of 85 of them as well as 13 oratorios...
(1691) - Zenobia, regina de' Palmireni by Tomaso AlbinoniTomaso AlbinoniTomaso Giovanni Albinoni was an Italian Baroque composer. While famous in his day as an opera composer, he is mainly remembered today for his instrumental music, such as the concertos, some of which are regularly recorded.-Biography:Born in Venice, Republic of Venice, to Antonio Albinoni, a...
, (carnival season 1694) - Marsia deluso by Francesco PollaroloCarlo Francesco PollaroloCarlo Francesco Pollarolo was an Italian composer, chiefly of operas. Born into a musical family, he became the cathedral organist of his home town of Brescia. In the 1680s he began composing operas for performance in nearby Venice. He wrote a total of 85 of them as well as 13 oratorios...
(1713)
Sources
- Casaglia, Gherardo, "SS. Giovanni e Paolo", Almanacco Amadeus, 2005. Accessed 28 October 2009 (in Italian).
- Forsyth, Michael, Buildings for Music: the architect, the musician and the listener from the seventeenth century to the present day, CUP ArchiveCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 1985. ISBN 0521268621 - Ringer, MarkMark RingerMark Ringer American writer, theater and opera historian, director and actor. Ringer’s books include Electra and the Empty Urn: Metatheater and Role Playing in Sophocles, a critical analysis of theatrical self-awareness in the seven Sophoclean tragedies, Opera's First Master, which Alan Rich of...
, Opera's First Master: The Musical Dramas of Claudio Monteverdi, Amadeus Press, 2006. ISBN 1574671103. - Rosand, Ellen, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre, University of California Press, 2007. ISBN 0520254260
- Todarello, Nazzareno L., Le arti della scena: Lo spettacolo in Occidente da Eschilo al trionfo dell'opera, Latorre Editore, 2006. ISBN 8890320206