Giacomo Rossi was an Italian poet, translator and librettist who settled in London early in the 18th century and wrote librettos for
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque music, Baroque composer well known for his opera#Baroque era, operas, oratorios, anthems, concerto grosso, concerti grossi, ...
, between 1710 and 1729.
According to Rossi ''
Rinaldo
Rinaldo may refer to:
*Renaud de Montauban (also spelled Renaut, Renault, Italian: Rinaldo di Montalbano, Dutch: Reinout van Montalbaen, German: Reinhold von Montalban), a legendary knight in the medieval Matter of France
* Rinaldo (''Jerusalem Lib ...
'' was written by Handel in a fortnight.
Aaron Hill seems to have given his sketch to Rossi to translate. The libretto is according to
Winton Dean
Winton Basil Dean (18 March 1916 – 19 December 2013) was an English musicologist of the 20th century, most famous for his research on the life and works—in particular the operas and oratorios—of George Frideric Handel, as detailed in his boo ...
confusing.
Rossi probably worked on ''
Il pastor fido
''Il pastor fido'' (''The Faithfull Shepherd'' in Richard Fanshawe's 1647 English translation) is a pastoral tragicomedy set in Arcadia by Giovanni Battista Guarini, first published in 1590 in Venice.
Plot summary
To redress an ancient wron ...
'' and ''
Silla
Silla or Shilla (57 BCE – 935 CE) ( , Old Korean: Syera, Old Japanese: Siraki2) was a Korean kingdom located on the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula. Silla, along with Baekje and Goguryeo, formed the Three Kingdoms of K ...
''. Handel emerges from the enterprise with scarcely more credit than Rossi.
Rossi's name is also mentioned with for the libretto of ''
Amadigi di Gaula
''Amadigi di Gaula'' ( HWV 11) is a "magic" opera in three acts, with music by George Frideric Handel. It was the fifth Italian opera that Handel wrote for an English theatre and the second he wrote for Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington in ...
'', or assisting in ''
Poro re dell'Indie'' and ''
Lotario
''Lotario'' ("Lothair", HWV 26) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Antonio Salvi's ''Adelaide''.The opera was first given at the King's Theatre in London on 2 December 1729.
...
''. The result of this latter work is unusually concise and easily understandable for a baroque opera. Rossi not only shortened the recitatives for Handel, but improved the text by shortening, rearranging and rewriting it. Almost half of the text was new.
[http://www.oehmsclassics.de/cd.php?formatid=175&sprache=eng]
In 1729
Paolo Antonio Rolli
Paolo Antonio Rolli (13 June 1687 – 20 March 1765) was an Italian librettist, poet and translator.
Biography
Paolo Rolli was born in Rome, Italy and like Metastasio was trained by Gian Vincenzo Gravina. The earl of Burlington brought hi ...
wrote: ''You will have heard by now that
Attilio and
Haym have died. I inform you now that the famed Rossi, Italian writer and poet is Handel’s librettist.''
Notes
Sources
* Dean, Winton;
Knapp, J. Merrill (1987). Handel's Operas, 1704–1726. Clarendon Press.
* Dean, Winton (2006). Handel's Operas, 1726–1741, p. 173. The Boydell Press.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rossi
Italian opera librettists
Italian expatriates in England
Year of birth missing
Year of death missing
Italian male dramatists and playwrights
18th-century Italian translators