In theatre, the elaborate conceits, multiplicity of plot turns and a variety of situations characteristic of Mannerism (Shakespeare’s tragedies, for instance) were superseded by opera, which drew together all the arts into a unified whole.
Theatre evolved in the Baroque era and became a multimedia experience, starting with the actual architectural space. In fact, much of the technology used in current Broadway or commercial plays was invented and developed during this era. The stage could change from a romantic garden to the interior of a palace in a matter of seconds. The entire space became a framed selected area that only allows the users to see a specific action, hiding all the machinery and technology – mostly ropes and pulleys.
This technology affected the content of the narrated or performed pieces, practicing at its best the Deus ex Machina solution. Gods were finally able to come down – literally – from the heavens and rescue the hero in the most extreme and dangerous, even absurd situations.
The term Theatrum Mundi – the world is a stage – was also created. The social and political realm in the real world is manipulated in exactly the same way the actor and the machines are presenting/limiting what is being presented on stage, hiding selectively all the machinery that makes the actions happen.
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Confidencen – Rococo theatre
Confidencen is Sweden’s oldest rococo (or “Late Baroque”) theatre situated in the National City Park, on the ground of the Ulriksdal Palace outside Stockholm. The building’s original structure was built in 1671. It was first used as a stable block, but then converted to a theatre in 1753 when Queen Louisa Ulrika decorated it as one of her prime theatres: for twenty years, the scene was thereafter occupied by the Du Londel Troupe. It was one of a few chosen theatres maintained by the Swedish Royal Family, and used until her son’s, king Gustav IIIs death in 1792. His majesty himself performed there as well as the great Swedish national poet and composer Carl Michael Bellman.
Confidencen is part of the Ulriksdal Palace estate, one of the five official residences of the Swedish Royal Family.
Stage machinery
Venetian opera became a great tourist attraction. An English traveler wrote in 1645 about the opera and its “variety of scenes painted and contrived with no less art of perspective, and machines for flying in the air, and other wonderful motions; taken together, it is one of the most magnificent and expensive diversions the wit of man can invent.” The stage machinery of baroque opera bordered on the colossal; stage effects might include gods descending on clouds or riding across the sky in chariots, ships tossing, boulders splitting. And set design was an art in itself. Painters turned backdrops into cities with arches and avenues that stretched into the distant horizon.
Giacomo Torelli
Giacomo Torelli (1608 – 1678)
Giacomo Torelli (1 September 1608 – 17 June 1678) was an Italian stage designer, engineer, and architect. His work in stage design, particularly his designs of machinery for creating spectacular scenery changes and other special effects, was extensively engraved and hence survives as the most complete record of mid-seventeenth-century set design.
Torelli was born in Fano, where he may have first worked on amateur theatre productions at the Palazzo della Ragione, and he may also have gained experience in theatre design in nearby Pesaro or Urbino. His first documented work was in January 1641 for the opening of the Teatro Novissimo in Venice, where he was involved in the design of scenery and stage machinery for Francesco Sacrati’s opera La finta pazza. This was followed with designs for two other works by Sacrati at the same theatre,Bellerofonte in 1642 and Venere gelosa in January 1643. He may also have worked on Francesco Cavalli’s Deidamia, staged in 1644, also at the Teatro Novissimo. Torelli’s last work in Venice was for Sacrati’s L’Ulisse errante, performed during the carnival season of 1644 at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo.
Torelli’s most significant innovation was the Pole and Chariot system of stage machinery, consisting of sub-stage trolleys connected by ropes to a central drum, that allowed multiple flats to be changed quickly in full view of the audience in a highly co-ordinated manner by a single assistant under the stage, rather than slowly by a crew of as many as sixteen stage hands. This not only saved labour, amongst other things, but also created spectacular scenic effects, the popularity of which led to a notable increase in the number of set changes per opera. Torelli also designed machinery for flying characters around the stage, mimicking weather effects, and so on, and was nicknamed the ‘grand stregone’ (great magician).
Torelli brought the one-point-perspective set to its apogee with designs that revelled in a use of perspective that drew the eye to the horizon and beyond, theatre stages seemed to extend to infinity. Despite this apparent obsession with the infinite, however, Torelli also brought ‘closed’ space to the stage. Interior scenes became more common and were often quite shallow. His innovations in stage machinery allowed not only stage flats to be changed, but also the borders of the sky. This allowed an interchange between interior and exterior sets, and Torelli would often alternate between open and enclosed sets to create a new sense of rhythm in the visual aspect of opera. His experimentation with different types of stage space were not limited to the contrast between interior and exterior either. Torelli would often delimit the foreground of an exterior set with a structure such as a hill or a fountain, allowing the audience only glimpses of the background perspective.
When the Petit-Bourbon was demolished in 1660 for the eastward expansion of the Louvre, Vigarani managed to acquire Torelli’s stage machines, and destroyed them rather than installing them in his new Salle des Machines in the Palais des Tuileries, but Torelli’s drawings survived and were reproduced in Diderot’s Encyclopédie under “Machines du Théâtre” in 1772. Torelli is also thought to have been the anonymous author of a severe critique of Vigarani’s theatre at the Tuileries: Reflessioni sopra la fabrica del nuovo teatro.
Domenico Scarlatti 