ABSTRACT
The 1790s saw a slight increase everywhere except in Venice, where the number virtually doubled, almost as if, after preoccupying themselves with comic opera for several decades, Venetians began to view opera seria as a novelty to be cultivated. Wiel records a Venetian revival in 1783 of Ferdinando Bertoni's setting of Calzabigi's Orfeo, which Florence mounted the following year, and both theaters produced Tarchi's new setting of Coltellini's Ifigenia in Tauride as revised for Milan in 1784. Two works performed during Carnival, 1786, proved pivotal for Italian opera seria: Pietro Giovannini's La vendetta di Nino ossia La morte di Semiramide, which Prati set for Florence, and Giuseppe Foppa's Alonso e Cora, which Bianchi set for Venice. Meanwhile there was a proliferation of new Venetian librettists following in Sografi's footsteps, whose works served to assist in the spread of the new style.
