Carlo Goldoni was a prolific Italian playwright who transformed traditional Commedia dell’arte and founded Italian realistic comedy. Goldoni was fascinated by theatre at a young age and ran away from school with a company of strolling players at the age of 14. Although he practised law as a young man, he changed career to become a playwright and perfected his talent for writing witty comedies which combined the style of Molière with the more sophisticated elements of Commedia dell’arte. This style of writing was criticized by fellow playwright, Carlo Gozzi, who championed traditional Commedia dell’arte and accused Goldoni of forfeiting poetry and imagination in his work. Gozzi’s success irritated Goldoni so much that he sent himself into self-imposed exile in Paris. There, he was put in charge of the Theatre Italien and wrote several plays in French. Goldoni was a popular name in French theatre and, when he retired, he received a pension from the King. However, Goldoni lost his pension in the aftermath of the French Revolution and he died in poverty.
One of Goldoni’s best known plays is A Servant of Two Masters. It has subsequently been adapted into an opera by Vittorio Giannini (1966) and the popular 2011 play One Man, Two Guvnors by Richard Bean.
Goldoni was also key figure in the development of Italian opera. He wrote several librettos for opera seria and was, for a period of time, literary director of the San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice. After 1748, Goldoni collaborated extensively with the composer Baldassare Galuppi, and made important contributions to the developing genre, opera buffa.
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