Gasparo Angiolini

Gasparo Angiolini (7 February 1731 – 6 February 1803), real name Domenico Maria Gasparo, son of Francesco Angiolini and Maria Maddalena Torzi, was an Italian dancer, choreographer and composer.

[1] Gasparo Angiolini directed the ballet at the Imperial Theatre in Vienna, taking over the post in 1758, working closely with Christoph Willibald von Gluck on such works as Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre (1761), and the opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762).

He later succeeded Franz Hilverding as director of the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1766.

He was also an early spokesman for a sense of Italian nationalism and spoke of the sad state where Germany and Russia were supporting better cultural institutions than was Italy.

His son (or nephew) Pietro Angiolini was also a dancer and choreographer, his daughter Fortunata Angiolini [ru] (1776–1817) and her partner Armand Vestris have danced in Lisbon and London with great success.

Title page of the original full score of Gluck 's 1762 opera Orfeo ed Euridice (Duchesne, Paris, 1764). [The original image has been cropped and lightened.