The Opera Architect Girolamo Sartorio (1630s/40s–1707) and the Dissemination of Opera in Northern Europe

Abstract

Girolamo Sartorio is one of the unsung heroes of the Baroque era, being the architect who single-handedly designed the first opera houses for Hanover, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Leipzig, Weimar, and Prague. His role in the dissemination of opera in northern Europe cannot be overestimated. Furthermore, his work puts into relief the House of Hanover’s important role of patronage in this trajectory, while his career highlights important changes in Europe at the turn of the century—a time when artists and other professionals began moving away from court environments to develop their skills along freelance models of entrepreneurship, assuming positions of managers and impresarios in various urban centers of northern Europe.