Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Goldoni ( born February 25, 1707 Venice, † February 6, 1793 in Paris ) was an Italian playwright and librettist.

• 3.1 comedies
• 3.2 libretti
• 3.3 Autobiography

Life

Goldoni received his first scientific education at the Jesuit and Dominican colleges in Perugia and Rimini, then studied in Venice and Pavia law and philosophy. First, he embarked on a law career: He was secretary of the Vice Chancellor of the Criminal Court in Chioggia, whom he followed to Feltre in 1729. Meanwhile, he tried on a amateur theater in the design furnished by himself without music Opera Pietro Metastasio's Didone e Siroe as an actor and wrote two comedies II buon padre and La cantatrice who found great acclaim. After he had received his doctorate in 1731 in Padua, he practiced for some time as a lawyer in Venice without having to renounce his favorite pastime, the dramatic poetry.

Very soon compelled him an unhappy love affair, Venice to leave suddenly. In 1734 he joined a commedia dell'arte troupe - to which he supplied with spoken and sung texts, and was an assistant to Domenico Lalli obliged the house poet of the most important opera house in Venice, St. John Chrysostom. His work there consisted mainly in setting up opere serie of other librettists. In Venice, his first major dramatic attempts Il gondolier veneziano, Belisarlo, Rosamunda were brought, among others, by a troupe of actors, whom he had met in Verona for performance and partially received with great applause. Always busy literary, Goldoni lived for several years in various cities of northern Italy, until he made ​​the acquaintance of the daughter of a notary made ​​in Genoa, whom he married in 1736.

Financial constraints led him in 1743 to leave Venice and settle down as a lawyer in Tuscany. It was only when he succeeded in 1748, in a fixed ratio to Medebach Girolamo ( 1706-1790 ) and his theater company to contact, who played in the theater Sant'Angelo in Venice, he gave the Bar on fully to exclusively work for to dedicate this stage. He now wrote a large number of pieces that finally gave the audience a taste of the decisive turn in favor of the new direction. It was around this time that the collaboration began with Ciampi, is justified by Baldassare Galuppi but then, on the opere buffe of the main part of its purpose as a librettist. This collaboration arose over the next seven years, some of the most successful buffo operas in Italy.

His fame soon spread beyond Italy's borders, and gave him a call to Paris in 1761 to work for the local Italian theater. He remained the last 30 years of his life there. Here he wrote several pieces of Italian and two French, one of which, Le bourru Bienfaisant, 1771 with great success in Fontainebleau ( The kind-hearted grumbler, Augsburg, 1785). When his contract expired with the local stage, King Louis XVI appointed him. for language teachers of his daughters and sat him out a salary of 3600 livres, which he lost by the French Revolution. The National Convention confessed it to him again.

He was among the first foreign members, founded in 1750 Accademia degli Roveretana Agiati.

Works

In his theatrical work with the center of Venice ( often at the Venetian ) Goldoni fell to the role of a reformer of the Italian comedy. He took the place of the Commedia dell'arte with their harlequinades and buffoons land, their indecencies and fantastic inventions, the character and comedy of manners by Molière model. During the years of struggle he had to run against the current form, the writer Carlo Gozzi was his main opponent, he often changed his residence and worked again as a lawyer. It was only after his return to Venice in 1748 his efforts were crowned with success gradually, and he could deny his income from his literary activity.

Goldoni wrote to the 200 pieces and tries in all dramatic genres. His fame rests but preferably on his comedies, some of which even the ancient genre of mask games, but with a much improved form, belongs. Its chief merit consists in the introduction of the regular comedy, especially the morals and character comedy. With its extraordinary productivity, he worked often fleeting and unequal; also it lacks, especially compared with Molière, to comic force and genuine humor, though not on some good ideas. The manners of his time and nation he has drawn with great truth and sharp outlines in natural language and lively dialogue.

Furthermore, Goldoni's comedies process also influences their time, for example, the Enlightenment, as well as portray his comedies again the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the bourgeoisie.

Libretti

Goldoni was a member of the famous Academy of the Arcadia and signed his libretti therefore, unlike his works for the theater for plays with the pseudonym Polisseno Fegejo, under which he was this literary society. However, he said in his autobiographical writings rather disparagingly of them as a lucrative sideline. Many of the text books written by him, notably those from the collaboration with Galuppi, were - contrary to other practice in the opera buffa - neuvertont several times, including by Tozzi, Dittersdorf, Haydn, Mozart, Paisiello, Portugal, Piccini, Salieri and Cimarosa. In the course of these new settings its original librettos were often heavily modified, which caused him to explicitly warn in his Mémoires (1787 Paris ) is not distorted.

He provided the composer reliably varied, often located somewhere in the realm of the fantastic material with much spectacle and unexpected twists and turns of the plot. In contrast to Metastasio Goldoni was trying to adjust his texts to the ideas of the composer, and not vice versa. Goldoni was the first to use the term dramma giocoso consistent as a generic term, and his understanding of the term as a mixture of different types of role serio to buffo was the style of others librettists, for example, Giovanni and Lorenzo Da Ponte Bertati.

In most cases a typical ( original ) Goldoni's libretto begins with an issuing ensemble, followed by a colored panel and a first idea of the dramatic escalation. Typically, the entire three-act form with plenty of ensemble shares is provided, and the third act includes a duet between the two main characters immediately before the final. His main contribution to the opera buffa that time but were extended, enriched with plenty of action finalized, which were designed for continuous music. This innovation forced the composers of the time, to deal in the context of a musical " number" with action or sudden events and not, as hitherto usual, abzuhandeln this dramatic turning points in the recitative. In this respect, Goldoni has undoubtedly a big part in the development of opera buffa in the second half of the 18th century.

Selected list of works

• Don Giovanni Tenorio ossia il dissoluto ( Don Giovanni Tenorio, or libertine ) ( 1736)
• Il servitore di due padroni ( The Servant of Two Masters ) ( 1745)
• Il bugiardo ( The Liar ) ( 1750)
• La bottega del caffè ( The coffee ) ( 1750)
• La Locandiera ( Mirandolina ) ( 1753)
• The stay in the country ( 1754)
• Il Campiello (1756 )
• Il filosofo inglese (1756 ), dedicated to the British Consul Joseph Smith
• The Impresario from Smyrna (1760 ), edited in 1928 by Paul Kornfeld for the Hessian State Theatre in Darmstadt
• Le baruffe chiozzotte ( Much Ado in Chiozza ) ( 1761)
• Trilogia della villeggiatura ( The trilogy of summer, in more modern translation: Trilogy of beautiful holiday season ) ( 1761)
• The subjects
• La sposa persiana ( The Persian Bride)
• Momolo cortesan ( The man of the world )

Libretti

• La contessina, 1743, first set to music by Maccari
• Il mondo della luna set to music, Baldassare Galuppi 1750 and 1777 by Joseph Haydn
• Le pescatrici, 1751, Ferdinando Bertoni
• Il filosofo di campagna, 1754 Galuppi
• Lo Speziale, 1755, set to music by Joseph Haydn in 1768

A total of 80 libretti, of which by far the most buffo operas.

Autobiography

• Mémoires pour servir à l' histoire de sa vie et celle de son théâtre, 1787 ( Goldoni about yourself and about the history of his theater, 1788)