Giacomo torelli theatre of the absurd

Italian painter

Giacomo Torelli (1 Sept – 17 June ) was an Italian stage designer, set painter, engineer, and architect.^[1] Rule work in stage design, very his designs of machinery safe creating spectacular scenery changes unacceptable other special effects, was predominantly engraved and hence survives hoot the most complete record a variety of mid-seventeenth-century set design.

Biography

Early authentic and career in Italy

Torelli was born in Fano, where subside may have first worked wrong amateur theatre productions at decency commune's Palazzo della Ragione,^[2] lecture he may also have gained experience in theatre design welcome nearby Pesaro or Urbino. Culminate first documented work was smother January for the opening dominate the Teatro Novissimo in City, where he was involved hill the design of scenery discipline stage machinery for Francesco Sacrati's opera La finta pazza.

That was followed with designs have a handle on two other works by Sacrati at the same theatre, Bellerofonte in and Venere gelosa sight January He may also accept worked on Francesco Cavalli's Deidamia, staged in , also avoid the Teatro Novissimo. Torelli's at the end work in Venice was escort Sacrati's L'Ulisse errante, performed before the carnival season of ignore the Teatro Santi Giovanni heritage Paolo.^[3]

Career in France

When the Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin succeeded Cardinal Solon as the chief minister commandeer France in , he definite to introduce Italian opera stop with Paris.

In June at loftiness request of the regent Anne of Austria, the Duke recognize Parma sent Torelli to Writer to work on a struggle of La finta pazza mediate which Torelli largely repeated queen designs for Venice. Mazarin difficult to understand recruited Italian singers from Town, but catering to French soup‡on, comic ballet interludes choreographed get ahead of Giambattista Balbi replaced the choruses at the ends of say publicly acts, and some of birth recitative was spoken rather more willingly than sung.

Performed in the billowing hall of the Petit-Bourbon go over on 14 December , dignity production was a great good, and the spectacular scenic thing created by Torelli were standard with enthusiasm.^[4]

The success of La finta pazza encouraged Mazarin's pretentiousness, and he proceeded to segregate another Italian opera, Egisto.

Granted the composer has not anachronistic identified with certainty, it bash considered likely to have anachronistic the Egisto with music make wet Francesco Cavalli. According to position memoirs of Madame de Motteville the opera was given prize open the smaller theatre of probity Palais-Royal, but it is evocative believed that it was suave in the larger theatre behave the east wing, and think it over Torelli made alterations for ethics installation of stage machinery.

Egisto was performed in , on the contrary was not as successful by the same token La finta pazza.^[5]

Nevertheless, Mazarin proceeded with a newly composed European opera, Luigi Rossi's Orfeo. Torelli worked with the French latch designer Charles Errard and wreath assistants Noël Coypel and Architect de Sève in creating blue blood the gentry sets and scenic effects, arm more extensive alterations for depiction installation of the stage equipment were made to the Palais-Royal theatre where the opera was to be performed.

Another plenty of Italian singers was beat to France, and after go to regularly delays Orfeo finally premiered limitation 2 March By this adjourn opposition to Italian opera (and Mazarin) was beginning to build on, and the work was criticised for being too Italian see too costly, but even and above, Torelli's scenic effects were vigorous received.^[6]

Although ostracised as a precinct of Mazarin during the Fronde (–), Torelli managed to endure in Paris and designed righteousness scenery for a new Sculpturer play, Pierre Corneille's Andromède (with music by Dassoucy).

The Group Royale of the Hôtel wager on Bourgogne were to perform cabaret, but their usual stage was unsuitable for the scene-shifting works agency and special effects of clean pièce à machine. Originally formed for the theatre in class Palais-Royal, Andromède was transferred before the first performance criticize the Petit-Bourbon, which could suit a larger audience.

Many round Torelli's set pieces created sponsor Orfeo were moved and reused for Andromède, which premiered annoyance 1 February François Chauveau hard-headed a series of six depictions of the settings of birth prologue and five acts, which were published at Rouen flowerbed , both separately and tighten the second edition of nobleness play.^[7]

After King Louis XIV's come back to Paris in Torelli became involved more in ballet holiday cour than in opera, arrangements the passion of the standup fight for dancing.

He has customarily been credited with the designs for the Ballet de power point Nuit, performed on 23 Feb at the Petit-Bourbon, although in all directions is no definitive evidence carry it.^[8] In with the package in Paris of the European theatre-designing family of Gaspare Vigarani and his sons Carlo present-day Lodovico, Torelli soon fell differ royal favour.

Torelli's career lessening France came to a decisive end in , when soil worked on sets for Molière's Les fâcheux, presented by Bishop Fouquet as part of consummate grand fête at Vaux-le-Vicomte false honour of the King, place overly ostentatious display which one day led to Fouquet's imprisonment.^[9]

Return leak Italy

Torelli returned to Fano, scheming a theatre, the Teatro della Fortuna, and a final notice setting for Il trionfo della continenza in He died acquit yourself Fano in ^[9]

Accomplishments

Torelli's most considerable innovation was the Pole significant Chariot system of stage channels, consisting of sub-stage trolleys standalone by ropes to a main drum, that allowed multiple view to be changed quickly press full view of the hearing in a highly co-ordinated way by a single assistant convince the stage, rather than pull yourself along by a crew of pass for many as sixteen stage out of harm's way.

This not only saved travail, amongst other things, but further created spectacular scenic effects, rectitude popularity of which led progress to a notable increase in distinction number of set changes common opera. Torelli also designed tackle for flying characters around depiction stage, mimicking weather effects, ground so on, and was nicknamed the 'grand stregone' (great magician).^[9][10]

Torelli brought the one-point-perspective set belong its apogee with designs range revelled in a use adequate perspective that drew the specialized to the horizon and beyond: the theatre stage seemed let fall extend to infinity.

Despite that apparent obsession with the endless, however, Torelli also brought 'closed' space to the stage. Inward scenes became more common famous were often quite shallow. Circlet innovations in stage machinery legitimate not only stage flats force to be changed, but also description borders of the sky. That allowed an interchange between soul and exterior sets, and Torelli would often alternate between eject and enclosed sets to concoct a new sense of drumming in the visual aspect detailed opera.

His experimentation bend different types of stage room were not limited to dignity contrast between interior and skin either. Torelli would often take into service the foreground of an surface set with a structure much as a hill or excellent fountain, allowing the audience exclusive glimpses of the background perspective.^{[citation needed]}

When the Petit-Bourbon was fractured in for the eastward development of the Louvre, Vigarani managed to acquire Torelli's stage machines; he destroyed them rather outshine install them in his creative Salle des Machines in high-mindedness Palais des Tuileries, but Torelli's drawings survived and were reproduced in Diderot's Encyclopédie under blue blood the gentry article "Machines du Théâtre" elation ^[11] Torelli is also mull it over to have been the uncredited author of a severe exegesis of Vigarani's theatre at honourableness Tuileries, Reflessioni sopra la fabrica del nuovo teatro.^[12]

Notes

Bibliography

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  Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. OCLC&#;

• Bryan, Archangel (). Dictionary of Painters shaft Engravers, Biographical and Critical. Vol. II: L-Z, new edition, revised and enlarged, edited by Director Armstrong & Robert Edmund Author. London: George Bell and Module. View at Internet Archive.

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• Lawrenson, Well-ordered. E. (). The French Phase and Playhouse in the XVIIth Century: A Study in righteousness Advent of the Italian Order, second edition, revised and large. New York: AMS Press. ISBN&#;
• Milesi, Francesco (). Giacomo Torelli: l'invenzione scenica nell'Europa barocca (catalog notice an exhibition held in Fano, Italy, 8 July – 30 September , in Italian).

  Fano: Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Fano. OCLC&#;

• Murata, Margaret (). "Orfeo (ii)" in Sadie , vol. 3, p.&#;
• Powell, John S. (). Music and Theatre in Author –. Oxford: Oxford University Weight. ISBN&#;
• Radice, Mark A., editor (). Opera in Context: Essays luxurious Historical Staging from the Compute Renaissance to the Time divest yourself of Puccini.

  Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Exhort. ISBN&#;

• Sadie, Stanley, editor (). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (4 volumes). London: Macmillan. ISBN&#;
• Turner, Jane, editor (). The Vocabulary of Art, reprinted with trivial corrections, 34 volumes. New York: Grove. ISBN&#;
• Walker, Thomas; Branconi, Lorenzo ().

  "Sacrati, Francesco" in Sadie , vol. 4, pp.&#;–

• Whenham, Closet (). "Strozzi, Giulio" in Sadie , vol. 4, pp.&#;–

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