Ranieri de Calzabigi Italian librettist 1714-95

Nikolaj Heiselberg Trap
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Ranieri de Calzabigi Italian librettist 1714-95 was born in Italy but came after a time to Vienna where he was presented to C W Gluck in 1761. Their first collaboration included Orfeo ed Euridice (1762). Around 1772, Calzabigi left Vienna and returned to Italy.

Ranieri de Calzabigi Italian librettist 1714-95

Ranieri de Calzabigi (Italian pronunciation: [raˈnjɛːri de kaltsaˈbiːdʒi]; 23 December 1714 – July 1795) was an Italian poet and librettist, most famous for his collaboration with the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck on his “reform” operas.

Born in Livorno, Raniero de Calzabigi spent the 1750s in Paris, where he became a close friend of Casanova. Here he explored his interest in opera, producing an edition of the works of Metastasio, the most famous librettist of opera seria. However, Raniero de Calzabigi was also impressed by French tragédie en musique, and eager to reform Italian opera by making it simpler and more dramatically effective.

Vienna

In 1761 he settled in Vienna where he met likeminded reformers: Gluck; Count Giacomo Durazzo, the theatre director; Gasparo Angiolini, the choreographer; Giovanni Maria Quaglio, the set designer; and the castrato Gaetano Guadagni. Together they worked on Gluck’s groundbreaking Orfeo ed Euridice in 1762.

Ranieri de Calzabigi then wrote the libretto for Alceste, which further abandoned the practices of opera seria in favour of “noble simplicity”. In the preface to this work, to which Gluck put his signature, Calzabigi set out his manifesto for reforming opera. A third collaboration, Paride ed Elena, followed in 1770.

Calzabigi also contributed to the scenario of Gluck’s reformist ballet, Don Juan, in 1764. La finta giardiniera, set by Pasquale Anfossi in 1774 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1775, has been ascribed to him, but this is now regarded as doubtful. 

In 1775 Raniero de Calzabigi was banished from the Viennese court as the result of a scandal and took up residence in Pisa, where he continued his literary activities until his death.

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