Gluck's Orphée - title page illustration (lightened and cropped)

Gasparo Angiolini (7 February 1731 – 6 February 1803), real name Domenico Maria Gasparo, son of Francesco Angiolini and Maria Maddalena Torzi, was an Italian

dancer Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoi ...

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. He was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

and died in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. He is known thanks to the polemics with the French ballet master

Jean-Georges Noverre Jean-Georges Noverre (29 April 1727 19 October 1810) was a French dancer and balletmaster, and is generally considered the creator of ''ballet d'action'', a precursor of the narrative ballets of the 19th century. His birthday is now observed as ...

. Gasparo Angiolini directed the ballet at the Imperial Theatre in Vienna, taking over the post in 1758, working closely with

Christoph Willibald von Gluck Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he ga ...

on such works as '' Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre'' (1761), and the opera ''

Orfeo ed Euridice ' (; French: '; English: ''Orpheus and Eurydice'') is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on Orpheus, the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the ''azione teatrale'', mea ...

'' (1762). The dancing in both Don Juan and Orpheus were said to have insisted on th
"primacy of drama".
In addition to collaborating with Gluck, he also composed music for many of his ballets. He later succeeded

Franz Hilverding Franz Anton Christoph Hilverding (1710–1768), aka Hilferding, was an Austrian choreographer and dancer. For a time Hilverding served as the director of the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. Hilverding, simultaneously as his contempo ...

as director of the Imperial Theatre in

St. Petersburg, Russia Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in 1766. Both Hilverding and Angiolini are credited with bringing the pantomime balletArianna Béatrice Fabbricatore, « Gasparo Angiolini et la réforme morale de la danse italienne » in Danse et morale « European Drama and Performance Studies », n. 8, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2017, p. 143-162. to Russia. Likewise, Angiolini also attempted to introduce elements of Russian culture into his own work through use of songs, folk dances, and Russian themes. In 1772–1773 Angiolini worked in

Teatro San Benedetto The Teatro San Benedetto was a theatre in Venice, particularly prominent in the operatic life of the city in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It saw the premieres of over 140 operas, including Rossini's ''L'italiana in Algeri'', and was the th ...

in Venice. In 1778 he came to Milan to direct the theatre of

La Scala La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performan ...

. Angiolini was a choreographer interested in the dramatic possibilities of dance. He was also an early spokesman for a sense of

Italian nationalism Italian nationalism is a movement which believes that the Italians are a nation with a single homogeneous identity, and therefrom seeks to promote the cultural unity of Italy as a country. From an Italian nationalist perspective, Italianness is ...

and spoke of the sad state where Germany and Russia were supporting better cultural institutions than was Italy. His wife was a ballerina (1733–1792).

Giacomo Casanova Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (, ; 2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798) was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, (''Story of My Life''), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of information about the c ...

was in love with her and admits in his memoirs that he stole her portrait. His son (or nephew) Pietro Angiolini was also a dancer and choreographer, his daughter (1776–1817) and her partner

Armand Vestris Auguste-Armand Vestris (1788 or 1786, 1787, or 1795 Paris – 17 May 1825, Vienna) was an early 19th-century French dancer and choreographer. The son of Auguste Vestris and (if the year of birth is 1795) dancer Anne-Catherine Augier, called Aimé ...

have danced in Lisbon and London with great success. And Gasparo Angiolini was a ballet teacher of

Vincenzo Galeotti Vincenzo Galeotti (5 March 1733 – 16 December 1816) was an Italian-born Danish dancer, choreographer and ballet master, who was influential as the director of the Royal Danish Ballet from 1775 until his death. Life Vincenzo Tomasselli was ...

References

"Angiolini, Gasparo."
Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 23 Jan. 2007. *

Christopher Duggan Christopher John Hesketh Duggan (4 November 1957 – 2 November 2015) was a British historian and academic. He specialised in the political, social and cultural history of modern Italy. He began his career as a research fellow at Wolfson Coll ...

. ''The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796''. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008) p. 4–5. * Au, Susan.

Ballet and Modern Dance, Second Edition. 2002. London: Thames and Hudson. Pages 34,36,38,61. {{DEFAULTSORT:Angiolini, Gasparo 18th-century Italian ballet dancers Italian male ballet dancers Italian choreographers Italian expatriates in Russia Musicians from Florence 1731 births 1803 deaths