Gli impresari in precariato: Mingotti e Crosa e la prima diffusione dell’opera buffa fuori dall’Italia

Abstract

After the first documented performance of an opera buffa outside of Italy, more precisely Madama Ciana at the Lisbon Court Theatre in 1740, more and more opera companies took up the genre. They were responsible for the first stage successes of the comic operas not only on the Iberian Peninsula but also north of the Alps. Barely twenty years later, opera buffa was present on stages all over Europe. Giovanni Francesco Crosa and the brothers Angelo and Pietro Mingotti were among the first opera impresarios to make a significant contribution to the establishment of the opera buffa outside Italy alongside its competitor, the opera seria. The article traces the strategies of the mobile opera companies and clarify questions such as: How, when and where did the companies and their responsible impresarios explicitly focus on opera buffa? How was the relationship between the company and its impresario structured? What problems was the impresario confronted with in connection with opera buffa performances and to what extent did the specific characteristics of the respective companies influence the work of their repertoire.