Francesco Algarotti

Francesco Algarotti (Venice, 1712 – Pisa, 1764) was an Italian writer, poet and scholar whose work on opera places him among the eighteenth-century critics who called for reform of the genre to restore dramatic coherence. Educated in Rome and Bologna, he moved in enlightened circles in London and Paris, where he shared lodgings with Voltaire.

In 1740 he entered the personal service of Frederick the Great, who granted him the title of count. Between 1742 and 1747 he also advised Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. In Berlin and Dresden he took an active part in opera productions, adapting and versifying Italian libretti to suit the tastes of his patrons. An illness forced him to return to Italy in 1753.

His Saggio sopra l'opera in musica, written the following year and published in 1755, denounced the lack of discipline in Italian public theatres, where singing dominated over every other element. In its place he proposed subordinating the music and staging to a unifying poetic idea, preferably a distant or exotic tale. He held up Graun's Montezuma as a model for Berlin and, of Metastasio's libretti, singled out only Didone abbandonata and Achille in Sciro. His boldest proposal was a French libretto for Iphigénie en Aulide, without a love intrigue or confidants, and with choruses and ballet integrated into the action.

The essay enjoyed wide circulation and is regarded as one of the texts that drove the shift in taste of the 1750s. Algarotti never saw Gluck's Iphigénie in Paris, but he did see the reform operas of Traetta and Frugoni in Parma. His vision of large, sober halls with semicircular plans, inspired by ancient amphitheatres, anticipates archaeological Neoclassicism, although he combined it with practical advice on acoustics and sightlines.