Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti

Librettist. Born 1863-03-17 in Leghorn. Died 1934-05-30 in Leghorn.

Wrote libretto for:



Italian librettist. He was a professional journalist who became a newspaper editor and filled a number of public appointments. His earliest libretto seems to have been Pinotta, written for Mascagni in the early 1880s; the score was lost for 50 years. Then came Cavalleria rusticana, a work which, like all of Targioni-Tozzetti's, shows a strong sense of the theatre. In this, as in a number of his subsequent librettos, he worked with Guido Menasci (b Livorno, 1867). it was said that while Targioni-Tozzetti was responsible for the passionate, dramatic sections, Menasci supplied the more elegant, restrained ones. Targioni-Tozzetti was responsible for the first Italian translation of Massenet's Werther, and the Italian version of Mascagni's Amica, the composer's only work to a French text. He is sometimes credited (for example by Loewenberg) with a share in the libretto of Mascagni's Il piccolo Marat but the libretto carries the name of Forzano alone. In 1900 Targioni-Tozzetti and Menasci published a libretto Vistilia, 'scene liriche per la musica di Pietro Mascagni', but nothing seems to have come of it. In it they also listed five other librettos in preparation but none of them was heard of again.

Source: www.grovemusic.com