Alexander Gussev

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Impresario Bartolomeo Merelli according to Philip Eisenbeiss

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  Bartolomeo Merelli (1794–1879) earned the sobriquet ‘Eagle of the Impresarios’ for his skill, vision and refined taste. Unlike his competitors, Merelli was an accomplished musical scholar and librettist, and his name is indelibly tied to that of the greatest Italian opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi. Merelli was born in Bergamo, the Lombard city which also happened to produce many of the greatest composers and singers of the era. In his hometown, he studied under the German composer Giovanni Simone Mayr, initially contemplating a career as a musician. He first made his mark as a librettist, writing for his Bergamasc colleague Gaetano Donizetti, as well as Mayr, Nicola Vaccai and others. In 1830 Merelli entered the murky world of impresarios by taking over the  impresa  at the small theatre of Varese. In 1836, Merelli had his big break when he won the concession for Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, which he held on to until 1850. While that theatre was the most important house of...
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Philip Eisenbeiss on Domenico Barbaja

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  Philip Eisenbeiss has written an excellent book on Domenico Barbaja. In the following thumbnail he summarises the story he tells so well but there are some details I think he should have incorporated such as Barbaja having had dealings with Beethoven and Schubert when he controlled the Opera in Vienna and the fact his rebuilding of the Teatro San Carlo, Naples was within a year and from his own pocket. Here is Philip's summary; Domenico Barbaja in Naples in the 1820s Credit: Eisenbeiss, Philip (2013).  Bel Canto Bully Only the most hard-boiled opera lovers could name the leading impresarios of today: Peter Gelb of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Alexander Pereira of La Scala of Milan (formerly of Zurich Opera and the Salzburg Festival) and possibly Stéphane Lissner of the Paris Opera (formerly of La Scala). Some might even remember Sir Rudolf Bing, who ruled over the Met (old and new) with an iron fist for over twenty years and wrote two successful memoirs. And yet these...
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Alessandro Lanari by Philip Eisenbeiss

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 Philip Eisenbeiss writes (and I couldn't put it better myself): Of the three great impresarios of 19th century Italy (Domenico Barbaja, Alessandro Lanari, Bartolomeo Merelli), Lanari stands out as the one who commissioned the most operas that have lasted to this day: Gaetano Donizetti’s  Lucia di Lammermoor  and  L’Elisir d’Amore , Vincenzo Bellini’s  Norma  and  Beatrice di Tenda  and Giuseppe Verdi’s  Attila  and  Macbeth . Lanari also deserves the prize for running the largest number of theatres between 1820 and 1850: Milan’s La Scala, Venice’s La Fenice, Naples’ San Carlo, Florence’s La Pergola plus the theatres of Verona, Mantua, Faenza, Padua, Arezzo, Ancona, Lucca, Senigaglia; and the list goes on. In an era when the country was crazy about opera, Lanari controlled more theatres than anyone else. Born in a small town in the Marches region, he started early as an impresario of smaller stages until he moved to Florence where h...
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