Pietro Mingotti - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Pietro Mingotti was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

impresario

Impresario

An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...

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

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

company in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

around 1732, consisting of 3 male singers and 5 females; Pietro quickly followed suit, and the two troupes achieved Europe-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

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

and Giuseppe Sarti

Giuseppe Sarti

Giuseppe Sarti 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 on 28 December, but his baptism certificate proves the later date impossible...

as members. Most of the works performed belonged to the genre of opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

, though opere buffe were also given.

After performances at the coronation of Franz I at Frankfurt (Maria Theresa

Maria Theresa of Austria

Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...

's husband) in 1745, and at a royal wedding at Dresden in 1747 (when Gluck's festa teatrale
Festa teatrale
The term festa teatrale refers to a genre of drama, and of opera in particular. The genre cannot be rigidly defined, and in any case feste teatrali tend to be split into two different sets: feste teatrali divided by acts are operas, while works in this genre performed without division, or merely...

Le nozze d’Ercole e d’Ebe, with the composer conducting, was performed), Mingotti's troupe were invited to Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

by Queen Louise

Louise of Great Britain

Louise of Great Britain was the youngest surviving daughter of George II of Great Britain and Caroline of Ansbach, and became queen consort of Denmark and Norway.-Early life:...

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

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

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 4 years later in the Danish capital. Little is known of Angelo Mingotti's later career.

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