Antonio Denzio (23 September 1689 – after 1763) was an Italian

impresario An impresario (from Italian ''impresa'', 'an enterprise or undertaking') is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, Play (theatre), plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film producer, film or ...

tenor A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...

, and

librettist A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major ...

. Born in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

to a family of musicians and operatic personnel, he pursued a career mainly as a singer until 1724, when he traveled to

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

as a member of the opera company of Antonio Maria Peruzzi, probably his uncle. Peruzzi had the idea of bringing an Italian opera company to Central Europe to perform first in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, then

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

and

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. The company was first brought to Bohemia under the patronage of Count

Franz Anton von Sporck Franz Anton von Sporck, Count (, ) (9 March 1662 in Lysá nad Labem or Heřmanův Městec – 30 March 1738 in Lysá nad Labem) was a German-speaking literatus and patron of the arts who lived in the province of Bohemia in what is now the Czech ...

, who had it play at his palace at

Kuks Kuks () is a municipality and village in Trutnov District in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 300 inhabitants. It lies on the Elbe river. Its main feature is a Baroque spa building with famous sculptures by Matthias B ...

in northwest Bohemia in the summer of 1724. The performances were so successful that he permitted the company to perform free of charge in his palace in

. After disagreements with Peruzzi, Denzio was able to supplant him as impresario before the end of the year 1724 and continued productions in the Sporck palace until 1735. Peruzzi left with some of the Peruzzi-Denzio players to found the Breslau Opera. Denzio's opera theater at Sporck's palace was the first standing opera theater in the city. His productions were popular with the Bohemian nobility until about 1729, after which Denzio's finances deteriorated. Count Sporck provided no financial assistance to the company except the free use of his theater, and he allowed it to fail. The company went bankrupt and Denzio was forced to spend time in

debtors' prison A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, Lucinda"A Histor ...

. During its heyday, Denzio was able to attract at least one of the principal singing stars in Italy to Prague each season. The most prominent of all was Margherita Gualandi, who was forced to come to Prague after being blackballed in Italy for bad behavior. Denzio sought the assistance of

Antonio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, impresario of Baroque music and Roman Catholic priest. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lif ...

in engaging singers for his company, and the composer sent music. In the early 1730s, Vivaldi came himself to Prague. Some of the music for one of his operas composed for Prague, '' Argippo'', has only recently been re-discovered. Isolated as he was from his operatic base of Venice, Denzio was forced to become a theatrical jack-of-all-trades. He sang himself in the company's productions and also served as its poet. He wrote several full-length librettos, the most significant of which was '' La pravità castigata'' (1730), the earliest opera based on the

Don Juan Don Juan (), also known as Don Giovanni ( Italian), is a legendary fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. The original version of the story of Don Juan appears in the 1630 play (''The Trickster of Seville and t ...

tale to use the original setting and characters. After returning briefly to Venice in 1735, Denzio tried again to mount opera companies in Northern Europe, including in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

and

Augsburg Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...

. Unfortunately, all of these ventures failed. The last record of him comes from a newspaper announcement published in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

in 1763.

References

Bibliography

* Freeman, Daniel E.
The Opera Theater of Count Franz Anton von Sporck in Prague
'. Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press, 1992. *Jonášová, Milada. "I Denzio: tre generazioni di musicisti a Venezia e a Praga. ''Hudební věda'' 45 (2008): 57-114. {{DEFAULTSORT:Denzio, Antonio Italian impresarios Italian male singers Italian operatic tenors Italian poets Italian male poets Italian opera librettists Italian opera managers Musicians from Venice 1689 births 18th-century deaths Italian male dramatists and playwrights