Early Venetian Opera and "Incogniti" Literature

This research project will investigate the connections between early Venetian commercial operas and libertine literature by members of the Accademia degli Incogniti, one of the foremost Italian literary academies of the 17th century. There are clear associations between some of the most prominent Incogniti and early operas. Several Incogniti, including Gian Francesco Busenello, Giacomo Badoer, Giulio Strozzi, wrote opera libretti and one of the most influential, if short-lived, opera theatres of the 17th century, the Teatro Novissimo (1641-5) was founded and managed by Incogniti members. Yet the main focus of Incogniti literary activity were short tales (novelle), Discorsi Accademici (Academic Speeches), and, above all, novels. Indeed, the number of novels published in Italy during the decades when the Accademici met (1630-61) remains unsurpassed, many of them being authored by Incogniti themselves. The libertine content of this cornucopian narrative and, more generally, literary production, which has many traits in common with contemporary French libertinism, emerges in a sceptical attitude towards accepted dogma and religion. Its main features are a sensualist approach to life and experience, a certain moral relativism, and a mistrust of institutionalised power and its actors. These are the same ingredients that are found in the first Venetian opera libretti, which additionally share similar conventions with novels and short tales, such as an inclination towards intricate story lines with two or three couples parting and reuniting themselves and frequent gender ambiguities. Several important studies, including those by Lorenzo Bianconi, Ellen Rosand and Wendy Heller, have dealt with the influence of the Accademia degli Incogniti on the very creation of the Venetian opera as a genre; however, few have explicitly tackled the relationship between literary output of the Accademici and opera libretti. It is for this reason that a systematic search of thematic, structural, rhetorical and more topical connections between early Venetian opera libretti and contemporary Incogniti narrative will be a very rewarding endeavour. The chronological boundaries of the project span the period between the performance of the first commercial opera, the Andromeda by the duo Ferrari/Manelli in 1637 and the last year that the Accademici Incogniti met (1661). Crucial for these decades is the work of Francesco Cavalli (1602-76), the composer by whom the music of most of the early Venetian operas survives. His sensitivity for the slightest rhetorical nuances of the text earns him a place alongside Monteverdi as one of the most important opera composers of the 17th century.

The early 17th century is characterised as a time of great artistic and scientific upheaval. Italy, in particular, experiences important developments on several fronts in the early decades of the century: Natural sciences (Galileo), performing arts (Caravaggio, Bernini...), music (Monteverdi), literature (Marino; the first novelists), musical theatre. The latter, especially after the opening of the first opera houses for a paying audience in Venice, was destined to have a long life and a lasting influence on European musical life in the following centuries right up to the present day. The new genre 'opera', however, consists of a combination of music and a further new genre: the opera libretto, which emerged in Venice beyond the first Florentine, Mantuan and Roman experiments from the reflections of writers active in the free-thinking 'Accademia degli Incogniti': and indeed all the first opera libretti were by 'Incogniti', who incidentally regarded their libretto production as a side activity. Giovan Francesco Busenello, the librettist of "L'incoronazione di Poppea" (1643) and other musico-dramatic and purely poetic works, was a lawyer by profession, while Giulio Strozzi, who contributed the libretto for "La finta pazza" (1641), one of the most successful Venetian operas of the early years, was a successful dramatic author and poet who had worked with Monteverdi in the past; and Giovanni Faustini, the first successful 'professional' librettist, had originally, like Busenello, trained as a lawyer. However, the libretto is deeply rooted in the Venetian and Italian literary culture of those decades and, when scrutinised more closely, shows many parallels and overlaps with other literary genres. Although there are now quite a few studies that deal with one genre (libretto) or the other (novel, 'novella', theatre play), far fewer are those that consider the libretto in its relationship and cross-fertilisation with other literary genres. And it is precisely this gap that the project has attempted to fill with the publication of studies that deal in depth with the thematic, structural and narratological interplay of the libretti with other contemporary literary works. Admittedly, the correlations are not always obvious and unambiguous, but rather subtle and can only be grasped after a thorough analysis: but to have clarified them has been a great intellectual enrichment, not least because it has emphasised the transdisciplinarity of music theatre even better. In addition to the studies already published, a monograph is currently in preparation that will delve even deeper into this topic, especially with regard to the work of Giulio Strozzi, Maiolino Bisaccioni and Pietro Paolo Bissari, three early, not yet so well known librettists who played a formative role in the shaping of the opera libretto and the first public music-theatrical works.