Pietro Mingotti (born

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, c. 1702; died

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, 28 April 1759) was an Italian

impresario An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer. His ...

active across continental Europe. His brother, Angelo, formed an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

company in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

around 1732, consisting of three male singers and five females; Pietro quickly followed suit, and the two troupes achieved European-wide success (though mostly in German and Austrian cities), sometimes performing together. Pietro's company, the more high-profile of the two, at times included Christoph Willibald Gluck and

Giuseppe Sarti Giuseppe Sarti (also Sardi; baptised 1 December 1729 – 28 July 1802) was an Italian opera composer. Biography He was born at Faenza. His date of birth is not known, but he was baptised on 1 December 1729. Some earlier sources say he was born o ...

as members. Most of the works performed belonged to the genre of '' opera seria'', though ''

opere buffe ''Opera buffa'' (; "comic opera", plural: ''opere buffe'') is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ''commedia in musica'', ''commedia per musica'', ''dramm ...

'' were also given. After performances at the coronation of

Franz I Francis I or Francis the First may refer to: * Francesco I Gonzaga (1366–1407) * Francis I, Duke of Brittany (1414–1450), reigned 1442–1450 * Francis I of France (1494–1547), King of France, reigned 1515–1547 * Francis I, Duke of Saxe-L ...

at Frankfurt ( Maria Theresa's husband) in 1745, and at a royal wedding at Dresden in 1747 (when Gluck's ''

Le nozze d'Ercole e d'Ebe ''Le nozze d'Ercole e d'Ebe'' (The Marriage of Hercules and Hebe) is an opera in two acts composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck to an Italian libretto by an unknown author. Sometimes referred to as a '' festa teatrale'' or ''serenata'', it wa ...

'', with the composer conducting, was performed), Mingotti's troupe were invited to

by Queen Louise in the same year. The company's repertory for the Danish court included not only operas but also

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

s. Sarti joined the troupe in December 1752 as music director after Gluck left during 1750. Severe financial difficulties forced Pietro to end his contract with the court at Copenhagen in 1755, and he died impoverished four years later in the Danish capital. Little is known of Angelo Mingotti's later career; from 1743 until 1751 the

Oper am Gänsemarkt The Oper am Gänsemarkt was a theatre in Hamburg, Germany, built in 1678 after plans of Girolamo Sartorio at the Gänsemarkt square. It was the first public opera house to be established in Germany: not a court opera, as in many other towns. E ...

was used by Angelo Mingotti, performing Italian operas.Marx, H.J. & D. Schröder (1995) Die Hamburger Gänsemarkt-Oper, p. 502-507.

References

: '' Regina Mingotti: Diva and Impresario at the King's Theatre, London'', Royal Musical Association Monographs 22 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). *K.-H. Viertel: ‘Anmerkungen zum Dresdener Opernpublikum während der Direktionszeit Johann Adolf Hasses’, Dresdener Operntraditionen: Dresden 1985, 208–18 *R. Theobald: 'Die Pressburger Oper von 1741. Zum Spielplan der Truppe Pietro Mingottis', Kleine Schriften der Gesellschaft für Theatergeschichte 25, Berlin 1972, 72-81 *E.H. Müller von Asow: Angelo und Pietro Mingotti (Dresden, 1917) *E.H. Müller von Asow: ‘Gluck und die Brüder Mingotti’, Gluck-Jb 1917, 1–14 {{DEFAULTSORT:Mingotti, Pietro Opera managers Impresarios 18th-century theatre managers 1700s births 1759 deaths Businesspeople from Venice Year of birth uncertain

References

Further reading