Background
Apostolo Zeno was born of Cretan Greek descent in Venice in 1669. His father was Pietro Zeno a doctor of medicine and his mother, Caterina Sevasto, belonged to the Sevasti, an illustrious and powerful Greek family of Candia, Crete.
journalist librettist writer poet
Apostolo Zeno was born of Cretan Greek descent in Venice in 1669. His father was Pietro Zeno a doctor of medicine and his mother, Caterina Sevasto, belonged to the Sevasti, an illustrious and powerful Greek family of Candia, Crete.
A Venetian nobleman, he was in 1691 among the founders of the Accademia degli Animosi. In 1695, he composed his first libretto, Gli inganni felici, which obtained great success, making him a fashionable librettist. From 1705, he worked with Pietro Pariati, keeping the theatrical scenes for himself and leaving to Pariati the composition of the libretti.
From condemnation of the unrealistic and exaggerated elements of melodrama was born a demand for greater verisimilitude in plots and for literary dignity in texts.
Zeno was the first to undertake reform to make melodrama more sober, according to the arcadici principles, developed further by Metastasio. Inspired by French tragedians, he respected, as they did, the rule of the unity of time and space.
Francesco de Sanctis, referring to Metastasio, wrote that "if we look at the structure, his drama is constructed in the fashion which Apostolo Zeno already demonstrated. But the structure is only a simple skeleton.
Metastasio breathed into that skeleton the grace and the romance of a happy and harmonious life.
He was the poet of melodrama. Zeno was the architect.".
Accademia della Crusca.