The artist is known today mainly for his achievements in the field of architecture: the church and monastery at Superga near Turin, the hunting lodge of Stupinigi near Turin and the Palazzo Madama in the same city. However, before creating those works most associated with his name, Filippo Juvarra worked for many years as a stage designer in Rome, developing, among other things, settings for operatic works staged at Maria Kazimiera Sobieska's private theatre in her Roman residence at the Palazzo Zuccari.

Filippo Juvarra was born in Messina, into a family with artistic and craft traditions, and spent the first years of his life there, working mainly as a goldsmith. He arrived in Rome in 1704, widening the circle of Sicilian artists arriving in the Eternal City thanks to the efforts of, among others, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. After arriving in Rome, he still studied in the studio of Carlo Fontana, the artist most respected and appreciated there at the time. Under his tutelage, he studied both the architecture of Rome's ancient monuments, the works of the Renaissance masters and the works of generations of recent artists active in the city. During this period, however, he was afflicted by terrible poverty, which would probably have brutally interrupted his enthusiasm for his studies had his person and talent not been recommended to the attention of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni.

It was for Ottoboni that Juvarra's first theatrical works were created. First, the cardinal commissioned the artist to renovate and adapt the theatre for the staging of operas in the residence he occupied in the Palazzo della Cancelleria, then he commissioned him to design sets for the following works: "Costantino Pio" (1710), "Teodosio il Giovane" (1711), "Il Ciro" (1712). It is likely that as early as 1710, Maria Kazimiera, on the advice of the cardinal, concluded a contract with the artist for stage designs for the operas planned for the 1711 carnival - 'Tolomeo et Alessandro' and 'L'Orlando'. These were universally acclaimed by the audiences seated in the Palazzo Zuccari, which probably prompted the Queen and Alexander to continue using Juvarra's talent for their next home productions, which were to be 'Tetide in Sciro' and two Iphigenias - 'Iphigenia in Aulide' and 'Iphigenia in Tauri'.

In 1713, Juvarra left Rome for Turin, where the Duke of Savoy, Victor-Amadeus II, entrusted him with completing the reconstruction of the Piedmontese capital. It can be assumed that elements of his earlier set designs were still used by the Sobieski family in 1714 for their production of Amor d'un'Ombra e gelosia d'un'Aura. Juvarra himself remained attached to Turin for the next dozen years or so, until 1734. After this date, he set off for Spain, where he unexpectedly died in 1736. Interestingly, his Roman contacts and experiences came full circle, because here one of his acquaintances was certainly Domenico Scarlatti, former Kapellmeister of the Queen's widow, who had been in Madrid since 1729.

Audiences sitting in the opera theatres of 18th-century Europe were enthralled not so much by the resounding music as by the visual aspect of the performances, which had its roots in the opulent court festivals and operas of the early 17th century. An example of this reception can be found in the opinion expressed by one of Rome's chroniclers, Francesco Valesia, who, after seeing a performance of 'Costantino pio' with Juvarra's decorations, staged on the initiative of Cardinal Ottoboni, noted: "Last evening the dramma entitled Costantino pio began for the first time in public, the production of which was organised in his theatre in the Cancelleria palace by Cardinal Ottoboni, who wrote it and had it musically elaborated by Polleroli[sic!], who came for the purpose from Venice, and it succeeded magnificently, not only because of the excellence of the music and the performers, but because of the beauty of the scenes with the magnificent machines as seen in the printed dramma".

The small stage in the Queen's theatre may have caused the artist considerable problems. Nor did the Sobieski family have the theatrical machinery used at the Cancelleria. However, as the opinions of the time testify, Juvarra also managed perfectly with these difficulties. In a way, he was helped by the mood of the works of Maria Kazimiera Sobieska's librettist, Carl Sigismond Capecego, characterised - according to theatre scholar Wanda Roszkowska - by Arcadianism as an aesthetic category. On the visual side, this style was characterised by the dominance of open spaces and open-air settings: the sea coast, an avenue of trees, a forest, a view of a village, a campsite. Most of the more than thirty surviving sketches by the set designer, which can be linked to the operas presented by Sobieski, are dominated by such locations. A certain exception is made by both Iphigenie, which, drawing most fully on the ancient tradition, required elements of specific architecture, such as a temple, a sacrificial altar or a harbour with ships. Roszkowska, however, noticed a very interesting difference in Juvarra's scenographies created for the Sobieski and those designed for Ottoboni - namely, she saw in the former a combination of pastoralism with exotic and even Sarmatian elements. For example, the tents in 'Iphigenia in Aulide' are inspired by the tents of Turkish viziers, while the straw-covered shepherd's huts in 'L'Orlando' are native to distant Russia. Wanda Roszkowska interpreted these Sarmatian elements in Juvarra's scenography as a mythologisation of beloved places, facilitated by the Sobieski family's remoteness. 'Hence, probably, these fairy-tale huts with roofs glittering with golden straw. It's an allusion to a homeland - a lost, imaginary one," she wrote.

From the perspective of later technical developments, theatre scholars credit Filipp Juvara with perfecting the style of seeing the scene from the corner, as the central plan had hitherto dominated the stagings. On the other hand, Il Ciro, staged at Cardinal Ottoboni's house, foreshadows the nature worship and sentimentality of the second half of the century by combining arcadianism with romantic ruins or, in other words, integrating architecture into the landscape space. The stagings created for Sobieski combine picturesqueness (further enhanced by the fact that many of the decorations were simply painted) with lyricism, a masterful use of chiaroscuro, and the creation from the scenery of an autonomous kingdom subordinated to the musical and literary content. The artist also did not forget the Sarmatian symbolism important to the Sobieski family, which shows how he reckoned with their patronage. The great understanding that Juvarra showed in his work on the preparation of the operatic work may also have been due to the fact that he had a passionate love for music. It was probably due to his inspiration and efforts that Capece-Scarlatti's 'Iphigenia in Tauri' saw the light of day again on the theatre stage in Turin (1719), even though he himself was already passionately indulging his love of architecture.

The text comes from PASAŻ WIEDZY , where you can find more reliable texts on Old Polish history and culture

Courtesy of the King John III Wilanów Palace Museum