History of opera
Venetian opera

In the middle decades of the 17th century the major opera-producing center was Venice, the first place where music was detached from religious or aristocratic protection to be performed in public places: in 1637 the Teatro San Cassiano was founded (demolished in 1812), the first opera center in the world, located in a palace that belonged to the Tron family. The first opera performed was L'Andromeda, by Francesco Mannelli. The theater was founded by Domenico Mazzocchi, who after losing papal favor moved from Rome to the Venetian city. As opera became a business, it began to depend more and more on the tastes of the public, since by its attendance at performances it could favor a certain compositional line or relegate it to oblivion. One of the first consequences was that the public showed more and more taste for high-pitched voices, those of tenors, sopranos and castrati, while the use of choirs and large orchestras declined, since an accompaniment of few instruments was preferred, between ten and fifteen, generally. As the genre became more popular, more comic elements were introduced and the texts were simplified, to the point where, especially in the arias, the interpretation was more important than the words that were expressed. After the San Cassiano, the opening of new theaters flourished in Venice: Santi Giovanni e Paolo (1639), San Moisè (1640), Novissimo (1641), San Samuele (1655) and Santi Apostoli (1649). It was in these theaters that the piazza-like layout surrounded by boxes, typical of opera houses, began.

In Venice the concept of bel canto emerged, which became popular especially in the first half of the 18th century and again in the first half of the 19th century in Italy. It is a vocal technique of difficult execution consisting of maintaining a uniform tone passing from one musical phrase to another without pauses, in a sustained legato that requires a powerful timbre and harmonic articulation. The main interpreters of bel canto were the castrati and the prima donna sopranos. On the other hand, at this time emerged the arioso, an intermediate song between the recitative and the aria, which over time became closed numbers with a tendency to ornamentation. Likewise, from the years 1630–1640 the ensemble, the conjunction of voices in different numbers, was gaining relevance: duet, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet and octet.

The Venetian opera was particularly influenced by the Spanish theater of the so-called Golden Age —especially Lope de Vega — perceptible in the plot confluence between fantasy and reality —a path started with Don Quixote by Cervantes — the abandonment of the Aristotelian units, the coexistence of comic and tragic characters, the relationships between lords and servants, the taste for entanglement and for disguises and cross-dressed characters. In the Venetian operatic milieu these features were called all'usanza spagnuola.

Claudio Monteverdi settled in 1613 in Venice, where he was maestro di cappella of the St. Mark's Basilica. There he composed twelve operas, the principal of which are Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1640) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642). The latter is considered his best opera, with libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, based on works by Tacitus and Suetonius. It was one of the first operas with a historical rather than a mythological plot.

One of his disciples, Pier Francesco Cavalli, introduced some novelties, such as the use of short arias, in works like L'Egisto (1643), La Calisto (1651), Statira principessa di Persia (1656) and Ercole amante (1662). He was director of the Teatro San Cassiano, with a contract to write one opera a year. Another exponent was Marc'Antonio Cesti, who still further reduced the orchestra, as in Orontea (1649) and Cesare amante (1651). He performed some operas for the emperor Leopold I (Il pomo d'oro, 1668), thus introducing opera into the Germanic sphere. Antonio Sartorio was for ten years maestro di cappella at the ducal court of Brunswick-Lüneburg, until he returned to his native city and was appointed maestro di cappella of St. Mark's Basilica. He is remembered as the introducer of the musical parliament. His major work was Orfeo (1672), which reaped great success. Giovanni Legrenzi was director of the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice and maestro di cappella of St. Mark's Basilica. He composed fourteen operas for various Venetian theaters, many of which have been lost. He introduced the heroic-comic genre, as in his operas Totila (1677), Giustino (1683) and I due Cesari (1683). Pietro Andrea Ziani started in religious music, which he abandoned to devote himself to opera. He succeeded Cavalli as organist of San Marco. His most important works were L'Antigona delusa da Alceste (1660) and La Circe (1665). His nephew, Marco Antonio Ziani, was also an operist in Naples and Vienna.

In the vocal field, Anna Renzi, the first soprano to achieve the status of prima donna, stood out. She played Octavia, wife of Nero, in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. The castrato Siface was also popular with the public, and counted among his admirers Christina of Sweden and Henry Purcell.
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