Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born to Camilla Calicchio in Venice on March 4, 1678, in a small house in San Martino di Castello. His father, Giovanni Battista, came from a family in Brescia and was a violinist, likely the first to teach his son. Antonio was a sickly child, at immediate risk of death.
On April 23, 1685, Antonio's father (known as Giovanni Battista “Rossi” due to his hereditary hair color) joined the orchestra of St. Mark's as a violinist, hired for his soloist ability.
Here, young Antonio received the first encouragement for what would become one of the most fascinating musical stories of the 18th century. Is it true that he also played there as a substitute violinist for his father?
On March 23, 1703, Antonio Vivaldi was ordained a priest, and on August 12, the governors of the Ospedale della Pietà, intending to improve the level of the orchestra, decided to hire Antonio as the Maestro di Violino di Choro. The following year, at the age of 26, he received his first salary of 30 ducats. A devoted priest, helped by his father, a respected violinist, he became a master at La Pietà.
In addition to teaching, Vivaldi likely conducted and played in orchestral performances at La Pietà, composing instrumental music for private patrons and public occasions. In 1705, the publisher Sala released his Opera I, a series of Trios. Following his 12 Sonatas for Violin in 1709, European success arrived with the Estro Armonico Op. 3 two years later.
In 1714, when he began his career as an opera impresario at the Teatro S. Angelo, he also published La Stravaganza Op. 4, marking another remarkable moment in his compositional career.
In 1713, Vivaldi's first opera, Ottone in villa, premiered in Vicenza. After his initial experiment in the provinces, he began working as an impresario and composer for the Teatro S. Angelo in Venice, where, until 1739, eighteen of his scores were performed.
The astonishing novelty, which led to his subsequent international success, was represented by the publication in Amsterdam in 1725 of Op. 8, Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Invenzione, a collection of twelve concertos in which the soloistic figure of the violin definitively emerged.
From 1718 to 1720, Vivaldi served as Maestro di Cappella da Camera at the Duchy of Mantua, where he wrote operas and solo cantatas, and here he met the contralto Anna Girò (Giraud), who would follow him to Venice as a student. They worked and lived together later, along with her sister Paolina, possibly in the role of governess. In 1737, after a very difficult management of a project for an opera season in Ferrara, the apostolic nuncio in Venice informed Vivaldi that Tommaso Ruffo, the cardinal legate in that city, would not allow him to set foot there because he did not say Mass and due to his friendship with Girò. A business deal worth six thousand ducats fell through, and despite his vitality and the delightful adventure of a musical festival he organized in Amsterdam in 1738, it seemed that an inevitable phase of decline began then.
At 62, Vivaldi was eager to try again, probably aiming for the tranquility of a prestigious and well-paying position promised to him by Emperor Charles VI. Thus, he set off for Vienna.
But on October 20, 1740, Charles VI died, and the future Empress Maria Theresa of Austria was forced to flee to Hungary. Even if she had wanted to, she could not help him, as could Metastasio, a friend and author of the texts for four of his operas (and later a librettist for Mozart).
Perhaps, he still hoped to work for the Kärntnertortheater, an opera house near the home where he lived and where from 1731 to 1746 ten of his operas were staged...
In any case, we have reached the end: on July 28, 1741, Antonio Vivaldi died in poverty, perhaps from cancer, in unfortunate Vienna.