Marco Coltellini

Marco Coltellini (24 May 1724, in Montepulciano – November 1777, in Saint Petersburg) was an Italian opera tenor, librettist and printer.

He set up a printing shop in Livorno to publish the works of Enlightenment figures such as Francesco Algarotti and Cesare Beccaria.

He provided libretti for Gluck, Hasse (Piramo e Tisbe) and Salieri, as well as revising Carlo Goldoni's La finta semplice so it could be set by Mozart.

In 1768, he wrote the libretto for Giuseppe Scarlatti's opera Dove è amore è gelosia, which was premiered at the newly refurbished theatre in Český Krumlov Castle for the wedding celebration of Johann Nepomuk Anton [de], the eldest son of Prince Joseph I Adam of Schwarzenberg, in which Coltellini himself sang the role of Patrizio, one of the characters of the opera.

Coltellini was dismissed from the post in 1772 after one of his satires angered the Empress Maria Theresia, and he accepted the job of official librettist for the Imperial Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia.