|
The first attempts at all-sung dramatic works (Dafne, Euridice and Orfeo) were not, technically speaking, based on librettos – literally “small books” sold at the theatre door before performances – but on poems (Rinuccini claimed to be a direct descendent of Petrarch via the poet Bembo) whose literary aspect outweighed their dramatic value. The Venetian lawyer Gian Francesco Busenello has gone down in history as the person who established the opera libretto (known at the time as dramma musicale or melodramma) as a genre containing a hitherto unexplored combination of literary and dramatic qualities. Busenello (Venice, 1598 – Legnaro, 1659) was born into a wealthy and influentual family that belonged to the founders of Venice and had long been prominent in public affairs. He studied law and philosophy at the University of Padua – a hotbed of freethinking – receiving tuition from Paolo Sarpi and Cesare Cremonini, the latter of whom was opposed to the doctrine of the soul’s immortality and influenced Busenello’s dramatic writing. He began a brilliant career as a lawyer in 1623, following in the footsteps of his brother, the successful Marc’Antonio, who held a number of prestigious positions and was the object of Gian Francesco’s nearly lifelong jealousy. Free from financial worries, Busenello was able to pursue the passion for poetry that would ensure the immortality of his thoughts, which, even at a relatively young age, were marked by a radical pessimism brought on by the decimation of his family and friends in the great plague of 1630.
Busenello not only turned out a great deal of dialectal poetry of unquestionable value (a good example is his correspondence – in verse – with his friend Giacomo Badoer, author of Il ritorno d’Ulisse), he also befriended a number of intellectuals and poets such as Claudio Achillino, the great Ciro di Pers, Francesco Pona (who sent him Twelve Caesars, which later inspired L’incoronazione di Poppea), and in particular the famous G.B. Marino, to whom he wrote an impassioned letter after reading the great poem Adonis (a work containing over 40,000 lines and a masterpiece of baroque concettisme), which exercised a long-lasting influence on his style. He then became a member of the risqué Accademia degli Incogniti, founded around 1630 by the patrician writer G.F. Loredan. The academy played an important role in the dissemination of Venetian popular opera: many of its members wrote librettos (aside from Busenello, the group included Pietro Michiel, author of an Amore innamorato; Giulio Strozzi, who penned the celebrated La finta pazza as well as writing the Nozze d’Enea e di Lavinia for Monteverdi; Paolo Bissari, author of a Bradamante, etc.), a large number of which were based on the members’ own literary works. This is true of L’incoronazione di Poppea, for example, which was not only an adaptation of Tacitus’ Annals, but also owed much to Poppea supplichevole, a ‘literary caprice’ written by Loredan, as well as to two licentious novels by Incogniti members Ferrante Pallavicino (Incogniti, Le due Agrippine) and Federico Malipiero (L’imperatrice ambiziosa). Both novels were published in 1642, the year Poppea was written, and both had previously circulated in manuscript form, as was common in the seventeenth century. Malipieri in turn was influenced by the opera, and confessed to having written one of his novels, La peripezio d’Ulisse, after attending a performance of Il ritorno d’Ulisse. As these examples show, contacts and influences flowed in both directions.
|
|
|
|