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This opera was commissioned by Teatro La Fenice to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the homegrown playwright Carlo Goldoni.
The libretto is written in English because the librettist Melega finds this language more rhythmic than Italian and therefore suits better Mosca’s music, and, as today’s lingua franca, might help the opera travel outside of Italy
This is one of the very few contemporary operas that are being staged in Italy, and this is a good sign for a renewal of the operatic world. Yet, the primary points of reference for the opera’s creators are Auden and Stravinsky, as well as Rossini.
The two-act comedy Signor Goldoni (2005-7) is an homage to playwright Carlo Goldoni, but even more to Venice. Taking place in a surreal, dreamlike dimension of complete imaginative liberty, it is a play of masks that bears the stamp of comic energy, allusion, delicacy and - thanks to its music - a constant, incessant movement.
In the Elysian fields the Anzolo Rafael (the Angel from the facade of the Church of San Raffaele in Venice) informs an incredulous Goldoni that he will be able to journey down to earth, to his native Venice, and mingle with the masks of a Carnival ball on the theme of Shakespeare’s ”Venetian dreams”. Giorgio Baffo, a poet contemporary of - and hostile to - Goldoni, forces himself onto them at the last moment, as the villain of the situation. With Othello (Shakespeare in disguise), Desdemona, Arlecchino, Mirandolina and
Despina, the three enact a surreal, dreamlike opera where imagination runs rampant, in a whirling succession of images, where fragments are linked like in a kaleidoscope and rhythm plays an essential role.
The texts of Melega (who is an established journalist in addition to his literary production) are all in English, a language favoured by both composer and librettist for its concreteness and brevity, and for its inherent rich opportunities for plays on one and two-syllable words as well as a powerfully inventive concept of rhythm
Shakespeare also plays a central role in the libretto, which incorporates those tragedies and comedies set in the Veneto: Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and Two Gentlemen of Verona. Othello (later revealed as none other than the masked Shakespeare himself) and Desdemona are characters in the opera; a few lines from Othello are even quoted, as well as some from Romeo and Juliet .Appearances are also made by characters from Goldoni’s plays such as Arlecchino and Mirandolina, as well as Mozart’s Despina.
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