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February 24, 2023

Almanac of Story Tellers: Carlo Goldoni

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, in podcasts, and in books

Today is a story of February 25th

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    It is the 56th day of the year, leaving 309 days remaining in 2023.
   
    On this date, the Italian playwright, Carlo Goldoni, was born in Venice.


    He told his stories with wit and charm and realism, a rich use of the Venetian language, and the use of tightly constructed plots. His plays portrayed the emerging middle class of the time, giving them an honest assessment of themselves.

    He is often considered the founder of Italian realistic comedy.

    He was born what was then the Kingdom of Venice. His first love was the theater, and despite training in the law, he began writing plays at the age of 16. After a time of actually practicing law, he returned to the theater, writing plays in French, but mostly in the Italian-Venetian dialect. He also wrote occasionally for the opera.

    His first play, the tragedy, Amalasunta, was a flop. Indeed, many of his early works were in the old style. But in his 1750 play, La Pamela, he did not use the traditional masked characters of the commedia dell'arte style.

    In 1750-51, writing for Teatro Sant'Angelo, Goldoni produced some 16 plays, including I pettegolezzi delle donne (Women's Gossip), Il bugiardo (The Liar) and Il vero amico (The True Friend), all written in different styles. But over the next 10 years, writing for various theater companies, he began to find his own style and voice, and increasingly used realistic characters. foregoing the stilted style and repetitive dialogue in favor of a more descriptive and robust voices.

    His style sometimes caused controversy in the theater world, and for a time he lived and worked in France.  

    He died in 1793

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