Father Giambattista Varesco (

Trento Trento ( or ; Ladin and lmo, Trent; german: Trient ; cim, Tria; , ), also anglicized as Trent, is a city on the Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th centu ...

, 26 November 1735 –

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

, 25 August 1805) was a chaplain, musician, poet and (most famously) librettist to

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

. His given name variously appears as Giambattista, Gianbattista, Giovanni Battista and Girolamo Giovanni Battista. He is sometimes referred to with the Italian title ''Abate'' or the French ''

Abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin ''abbas'', in turn from Greek , ''abbas'', from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is the title for low ...

'', both used for priests: he was chaplain at the

court chapel from 1766. Varesco's only familiar work with Mozart is the libretto to ''

Idomeneo ' (Italian for '' Idomeneus, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante''; usually referred to simply as ''Idomeneo'', K. 366) is an Italian language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a Frenc ...

''; the abortive ''

L'oca del Cairo ' (''The Goose of Cairo'' or ''The Cairo Goose'', K. 422) is an incomplete Italian opera buffa in three acts, begun by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in July 1783 but abandoned in October. The complete libretto by Giambattista Varesco remains. Mozart co ...

'' is little-known. Varesco also edited

Metastasio Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi (3 January 1698 – 12 April 1782), better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio (), was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of ''opera seria'' libretti. Early life Me ...

's libretto for '' Il re pastore'', one of Mozart's lesser operas. Mozart's commission for ''

'' came in 1780 from Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria; his court in Munich paid Varesco 90 gulden.

Leopold Mozart Johann Georg Leopold Mozart (November 14, 1719 – May 28, 1787) was a German composer, violinist and theorist. He is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook ''Versuch einer gründlichen ...

acted as a local intermediary for his son, and their correspondence left many details on the collaboration, and showed the composer's dissatisfaction, primarily with the excessive length of the text. In a letter in December 1780 Mozart wrote: ''Ask the Abbate Varesco if we could not break off at the chorus in the second act, ''Placido e il mare'' after Elettra's first verse, when the chorus is repeated,--at all events after the second, for it is really far too long.'' (V.1. - 43/46) Varesco resented the many cuts and changes that Mozart demanded, and insisted that his original text be published in full, which Mozart used as an excuse for cuts he made without the librettist's approval. In a letter from Mozart to his father, who acted as a go-between for him in Salzburg, Mozart notes Varesco's admission that he had "not the slightest knowledge or experience of the theatre."L853, 21 June 1783 By contrast with the extensive documentation of this uneasy collaboration, we have no written record of the collaboration between Mozart and his greatest librettist,

Lorenzo da Ponte Lorenzo Da Ponte (; 10 March 174917 August 1838) was an Italian, later American, opera librettist, poet and Roman Catholic priest. He wrote the libretti for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's most celebrated operas: ''The Marr ...

, whose office was a short walk from Mozart's lodgings in Vienna.

References

* * . {{DEFAULTSORT:Varesco, Giambattista Italian opera librettists Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's librettists 1805 deaths Italian expatriates in Austria 1735 births 18th-century Italian writers 18th-century Italian male writers 18th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests