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Abate Varesco (1735–1805) was a chaplain, musician, poet and (most famously) librettist to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
His given name variously appears as
Abate Giambattista Varesco
Abate Gianbattista Varesco
Abate Giovanni Battista Varesco and
Abate Girolamo Giovanni Battista Varesco.
He is sometimes referred to with the Italian title Abate used for priests.
Abate VARESCO was chaplain at the Salzburg court chapel from 1766.
Varesco's only familiar work with Mozart is the libretto to Idomeneo.
The abortive L'oca del Cairo is little-known.
Varesco also edited Metastasio's libretto for Il re pastore, one of Mozart's lesser operas.
Mozart's commission for Idomeneo came in 1780 from Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria.
His court in Munich paid Varesco 90 gulden.
Leopold Mozart acted as a local intermediary for his son, and their correspondence left many details on the collaboration, and showed the Mozart's dissatisfaction, primarily with the excessive length of the text.
In a letter in December 1780 Mozart wrote:
Ask the Abbate Varesco if we could not break off
at the chorus in the second act,
"Placido e il mare" after Elettra's first verse,
when the chorus is repeated,
--at all events after the second,
for it is really far too long.
(V.1. - 43/46)
Varesco resented the many cuts and changes that Mozart demanded.
Varesco insisted that his original text be published in full, which Mozart used as an excuse for cuts he made without the librettist's approval.
In a letter from Mozart to his father, who acted as a go-between for him in Salzburg, Mozart notes Varesco's admission that he had "not the slightest knowledge or experience of the theatre."
By contrast with the extensive documentation of this uneasy collaboration, we have no written record of the collaboration between Mozart and his greatest librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, whose office was a short walk from Mozart's lodgings in Vienna.
His given name variously appears as
Abate Giambattista Varesco
Abate Gianbattista Varesco
Abate Giovanni Battista Varesco and
Abate Girolamo Giovanni Battista Varesco.
He is sometimes referred to with the Italian title Abate used for priests.
Abate VARESCO was chaplain at the Salzburg court chapel from 1766.
Varesco's only familiar work with Mozart is the libretto to Idomeneo.
The abortive L'oca del Cairo is little-known.
Varesco also edited Metastasio's libretto for Il re pastore, one of Mozart's lesser operas.
Mozart's commission for Idomeneo came in 1780 from Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria.
His court in Munich paid Varesco 90 gulden.
Leopold Mozart acted as a local intermediary for his son, and their correspondence left many details on the collaboration, and showed the Mozart's dissatisfaction, primarily with the excessive length of the text.
In a letter in December 1780 Mozart wrote:
Ask the Abbate Varesco if we could not break off
at the chorus in the second act,
"Placido e il mare" after Elettra's first verse,
when the chorus is repeated,
--at all events after the second,
for it is really far too long.
(V.1. - 43/46)
Varesco resented the many cuts and changes that Mozart demanded.
Varesco insisted that his original text be published in full, which Mozart used as an excuse for cuts he made without the librettist's approval.
In a letter from Mozart to his father, who acted as a go-between for him in Salzburg, Mozart notes Varesco's admission that he had "not the slightest knowledge or experience of the theatre."
By contrast with the extensive documentation of this uneasy collaboration, we have no written record of the collaboration between Mozart and his greatest librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, whose office was a short walk from Mozart's lodgings in Vienna.
References[edit]
- Jump up ^ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart :: Salzburg and Munich - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- Jump up ^ Edward J. Dent, also David Cairns, Mozart and his operas, 2006, p.50
- Jump up ^ L853, 21 June 1783
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