Calzabigi, Ranieri (Simone Francesco Maria) di

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Calzabigi, Ranieri (Simone Francesco Maria) di

Calzabigi, Ranieri (Simone Francesco Maria) di, Italian poet and music theorist; b. Livorno, Dec. 23, 1714; d. Naples, July 1795. In 1750 he went to Paris, then proceeded to Brussels in 1760. From 1761 until 1772 he remained in Vienna, and was in Pisa by 1775. He engaged in polemics regarding the relative merits of French and Italian operas, lending energetic support to Gluck in his ideas of operatic reform. He wrote for Gluck the libretti of Orfeo, Alceste, and Paride ed Elena. He publ. Dissertazione su le poesie drammatiche del Sig. Abate Pietro Metastasio (1755), a controversial work concerning Metastasio and Hasse. A. Bellina ed. his Scritti teatrali e letterari (two vols., Rome, 1994).

Bibliography

G. Lazzeri, La vita e l’opera letteraria di R. C.(Città di Castello, 1907).

—Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire