[1:18]In the eighteenth century, Venice was the European capital of culture, of art, of libertine love, of intrigue and conspiracies, but also of high society with its famous feasts that attracted aristocrats and rich merchants from everywhere, especially during Carnival, when the game of seduction combined with the mystery of the masks that concealed identity and lineage.
[1:51]Venice had a great number of theatres offering all kinds of works where the current craze was the "Commedia dell'Arte", which had been the fortune of the Italian theatre, at home and abroad.
[2:32]No, not like that. Come on, Balanzone, let's try it again! All right. Do you like my hand like this? That's all right. I want a woman! A woman? Yes, just a sudden desire! Have you got one handy? Handy?! That's what I said. Handy, I mean: around. A round one?! Stop repeating everything I say! Well, come on, tell me: have you got a woman? Well, actually, at this very moment, I've only got one or two. Oh that's all right, one's enough. Well, yes, I do have one. Here she is now. Here I am. Is this her? That's her! At your service! Her? You mean, her daughter, or her granddaughter.
[3:17]She hasn't got any daughters. No, and I haven't got any granddaughters either. But she's old! Don't you remember the old saying?! An old hen makes the best broth! Yes, hens! But not women! Broth, broth. I make good broth, no, better than that. I make French consommé. Stop it! Enough of this rubbish! Aren't you ashamed of showing the audience all this stupidity? When you think of all the things you could talk about?! Come on, Mr Goldoni! Ah! Truth, ladies and gentlemen! Truth and beauty! What is outside you. And what is within. That is theatre! The middle class in Venice was already the majority and dominant, and Goldoni was the poet who was to celebrate their rise and set off their new and positive virtues in a grand fresco of over one hundred comedies and dramas. Do you want to come to Muscovy with me? I should accept, that's not a bad idea. How? With your father's consent? Modern theatre was born with Goldoni's reform, which eliminated masks and costumes, classical myths, gods and heroes. And started off that tradition of staging reality, which is still typical of cinema and television production today. For many centuries Venice was a great sea power. At the borders of the Christian and the Muslim worlds it had been since Marco Polo's times the centre of all trade with the East.
[5:22]Unique elective republic in a world of hereditary monarchies, the political power, at whose top was the Doge, was concentrated in the hands of a restricted, active and enterprising nobility. Around it developed, before anywhere else in Europe, a new middle class made up of merchants, artisans and professionals. Peace, tolerance, freedom and independence had fostered the city's growth and made it one of the most beautiful and wealthy cities in the world.
[7:08]The pomp and glory of the Serenissima dissolved, and the curtain of history fell forever over the city. All that remained were Carlo Goldoni's plays to describe its last moments and to immortalize its voices, its characters and its moods on stage.
[8:40]Ca' Centani in Venice. The playwright Carlo Goldoni was born in this house on 25th February 1707 into a middle class family. He wrote his first theatre piece at the age of eight. Goldoni studied first at Rimini, at the Collegio of the Dominican Friars. Then at Pavia, at the Collegio Ghislieri, from where he was expelled after writing a biting satire against the women of the city. In 1731 he obtained his degree in Law at the University of Padua. Goldoni's first works, or if we like, Italian, themes and atmosphere. In the eighteenth century Venice boasted very lively theatres that were the envy of all Europe: San Giovanni Grisostomo and San Cassiano for serious plays, San Moisè for comic opera, and the San Benedetto Theatre from 1755 onward. If the people laugh and gaily applaud, it is all praise for the comedian. Goldonian comedy was born from the study of the actors in these theatres.
[10:15]In 1736 Goldoni married the Genoese Nicoletta Conio, who was to stay with him to the end of his days; she was devoted, discreet, patient and tolerant, despite the many flirts that Goldoni had with actresses and young starlets.
[10:53]Goldoni soon became Director of the San Giovanni Grisostomo Theatre and set about adapting old tragedies, melodramas and standard issue comedies. At his theatre, Goldoni put the life of the city on stage, with its haunts to brighten it up; the cafés, the gambling rooms, St Mark's Square, the Rialto Bridge, the shops and ateliers, the bustling hotels.
[11:29]In 1743 difficult economic circumstances forced Goldoni to flee Venice. He settled in Pisa. Five years later, however, the situation had already changed. Goldoni left his legal profession for good, joined Girolamo Medebach's Theatre Company and returned to Venice.
[15:47]The characters in Goldoni's works, they have an apparent often humorous meaning, but below there is always a touch of melancholy.
[18:12]When you go around the world and you mention Goldoni, they always associate his name with "Harlequin Servant of Two Masters" and so ignore everything that has been said and written for a long time about the relation between masks and play, and the importance of the play in respect to the mask. And indeed the mask of Harlequin has won. There are many people looking for a master. And I've found two! But what am I supposed to do? Will I be able to serve both? No-o-o? And why not? It's great serving two masters, earning two wages and eating double!
[42:57]Of all these dramatic and crucial events, there is no mention in the "Mémoires", nor in his letters, the last of which is dated 3rd September 1792. It was February 7th, 1793. Goldoni had died the day before, or perhaps the very same day. The Republican Government granted his wife a pension of 1,500 lire. Clavière's letter is the highest acknowledgement that France had bestowed on Goldoni during the more than thirty years he had spent there.
[48:29]Today we remember Goldoni through his life, his trip with the boatful of comedians from Rimini to Venice, his comedies, his vitality, his theatrical reform, his relations with theatrical life, very important and very modern; through the fact that over the years great actors and great directors have felt the need to re-see him, internalize him. This is the great wealth that Goldoni has left us.
