Bartolomeo Merelli

Bartolomeo Merelli (Bergamo, 1794 – Milan, 10 April 1879) was one of the most influential figures in Italian opera of the nineteenth century, although his reputation among his contemporaries was mixed.

The son of the steward of a noble Bergamasque family, he was initially training for a career in law, but he attended the composition class of Simon Mayr, where he came into contact with Donizetti, whose early operas he later provided with libretti.

In 1812 he was arrested and charged with attempted theft; after a few months in prison he was released for lack of evidence. He found work with a theatrical agent in Milan and, from then until the late 1820s, his own opera agency became one of the most active in the country. Like Alessandro Lanari, he engaged singers and dancers on long contracts with fixed salaries, and profited by hiring out their services to theatre companies or by directing seasons himself across an extensive network of theatres, chiefly in northern Italy.

From 1829 to 1850 he directed La Scala, initially in partnership with others. After the death of Giuseppe Crivelli during rehearsals, he took charge of the staging of Norma (1831). From 1836 he also managed the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, where his partner Carlo Balochino oversaw day-to-day affairs. At La Scala he premiered Oberto, Verdi's first opera, along with that composer's next three works.

His relationship with Verdi deteriorated after Giovanna d'Arco (1845), and Donizetti also complained about the Viennese performances of his operas. Both criticised the careless productions and the inconsiderate treatment of their scores. During the revolution of 1848, Merelli, openly sympathetic to Austria, was suspected of espionage. He spent part of the 1850s in Vienna and returned to direct La Scala between 1861 and 1863. After losing much of his fortune, he retired to the hills above Bergamo.

His legacy rests chiefly on his role as an agent and manager of Italian opera in his era, rather than on any substantial works of his own. He was the principal librettist of several operas by Donizetti and Vaccai in their early years, and his son Eugenio also worked as an impresario in Venice, Vienna and Paris.