Giovanni Battista Locatelli

Giovanni Battista Locatelli was an Italian impresario and librettist who was active in central Europe and Russia during the second half of the eighteenth century. His date of birth is uncertain: according to some sources it falls on 7 January 1713, in either Milan or Venice, and the exact date of his death is not recorded, only that he survived 1790. His name is linked above all to the travelling opera of the period.

He got his first experience with the opera company of Pietro Mingotti, for which he wrote libretti such as that of Filippo Finazzi's intermezzo Il matrimonio sconcertato, per forza del Bacco, premiered in Prague during the 1744 carnival, and the three-act opera Diana nelle selve, premiered in the same city in November 1745. Between 1748 and 1757 he leased the municipal theatre in Prague and founded his own company, into which he brought outstanding singers such as Rosa Costa, Catarina Fumagalli and his wife, Giovanna della Stella. During several seasons in Prague he had Christoph Willibald Gluck as his maestro di cappella, who conducted premieres such as Ezio and Issipile, as well as a revival of Ipermestra.

His determination to engage good singers and mount spectacular productions was largely responsible for the growing financial difficulties of his company, which he left heavily in debt when he departed for Russia after the outbreak of the Seven Years' War. Between 1757 and 1762 he directed the empress's opera in Saint Petersburg, and with Italian singers and directors he introduced into Russia the comic operas of Galuppi, Fischietti and others. He also took his own company to Moscow, where he failed to hold the public's interest, and it ceased in 1761. For the serenata Il consiglio delle muse, composed for Catherine II's birthday in 1763, he obtained permission to open an entertainment venue called Krasnïy kabak. In later years he wrote some cantata texts, and after a charity tribute in Saint Petersburg in 1783 he withdrew from public life.

His importance lies above all in his role as an intermediary: he helped spread Italian opera and opera buffa in central Europe and Russia, although his management left a legacy of financial difficulties rather than lasting stability.