Giacomo Torelli

Giacomo Torelli (1608-1678) was the most important set designer of the middle of the seventeenth century. Born in 1608 in the town of Fano, the year of Giulio Parigi’s work on "Il Giudizio di Paride" in Florence, Torelli was of noble birth. His work in stage design was extensively engraved and hence survives as the most complete record of mid-to-late seventeenth century set design. Torelli produced designs first for the public theatre in Venice, and then from 1645 in France on a summons of the Queen (Anne of Austria), he worked there initially as set designer to the Italian commedia troupe. Although ostracised during the Fronde (1648-53) after Louis XIV’s return to Paris in 1653 Torelli became involved more in the "ballet de cours" than in opera, reflecting the passion of the king for dancing. Torelli’s career came to an end in France in 1661 when he worked with the doomed Nicholas Fouquet, on sets for Molière’s "Les Facheux", for his fête in honour of the king, which ultimately led to Fouquet’s imprisonment. He returned to Fano designing a theatre, the "Teatro della Fortuna", and a final stage setting for "Il trionfo della continenza".

Torelli brought the one-point-perspective set to its apogee with designs that revelled in a use of perspective that drew the eye to the horizon and beyond, theatre stages seemed to extend to infinity. Despite this apparent obsession with the infinite, however, Torelli also bought ‘closed’ space to the stage. Interior scenes became more common and were often quite shallow. His innovations in stage machinery allowed not only stage flats to be changed, but also the borders of the sky. This allowed an interchange between interior and exterior sets, and Torelli would often alternate between open and enclosed sets to create a new sense of rhythm in the visual aspect of opera. His experimentation with different types of stage space were not limited to the contrast between interior and exterior either. Torelli would often delimit the foreground of an exterior set with a structure such as a hill or a fountain, allowing the audience only glimpses of the background perspective.

Torelli's technical innovations included machinery that allowed sets to be changed in an instant, rather than slowly with a crew of at least sixteen stage hands. This, amongst other things, led to a notable increase in the number of sets per opera.

Torelli not only designed the sets but was also closely involved with innovations in stage machinery. He created new techniques for changing the scenes and also machinery for flying characters around the stage, mimicking weather effects, and so on, and was nicknamed the ‘grand stregone’ or the great magician.

References

* Bjurström, P. (1962) Giacomo Torelli and Baroque Stage Design (Stockholm,
* Milesi, F. (2000) Giacomo Torelli: l'invenzione scenica nell'Europa barocca in: Fano (Ed) (Fano, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Fano).