Venice, 1641 On 30 May 1640, the decision was made to create a new opera house in Venice, to compete with the existing three opera houses, the
Teatro San Cassiano, the
Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo, and the
Teatro San Moisè. The Teatro Novissimo marked the first time that a building was created specifically for opera. Torelli's sets for Paris were not like the ones for Venice, since the published descriptions are quite different and for the Paris production he introduced a new setting for the prologue, which now took place in
Flora's garden, and the inferno scene was omitted. Hoping to flatter his French patrons, Torelli included in the background for Act I, scenes 1–2 (The port of
Skyros), a view of the
Place Dauphine and the relatively new equestrian statue of
Henri IV on the
Pont Neuf. He was unsure about the reception of this set, since it may have been regarded as inappropriate. The remainder of this design was based on the one he used in Venice for the 1642 premiere of Sacrati's
Bellerofonte, which in turn was based on Chenda's
Ermiona, produced in
Padua in 1636. Ship's prows were visible on the right and on the left, a tall city wall with round towers, evoking the
Tour de Nesle in Paris, while for
Bellerofonte he had used square towers like those of the
Arsenal in Venice. File:Feste teatrali per la Finta pazza – Gallica bpt6k15118548 f03 (frontispiece).jpg|Frontispiece File:Feste teatrali per la Finta pazza – Gallica bpt6k15118548 f10 (set design for the prologue) cropped.jpg|Prologue File:Feste teatrali per la Finta pazza – Gallica bpt6k15118548 f17 (set design for act 1, scenes 1 and 2) cropped.jpg|Act I 1–2 File:Feste teatrali per la Finta pazza – Gallica bpt6k15118548 f24 (set design for act 1, scene 3, to act 2, scene 7) cropped.jpg|Act I 3 – Act II 7 File:Feste teatrali per la Finta pazza – Gallica bpt6k15118548 f51 (set design for act 2, scene 8, to act 3, scene 4) cropped.jpg|Act II 8 – Act III 4 File:Feste teatrali per la Finta pazza – Gallica bpt6k15118548 f70 (set design for act 3, scenes 5 to 8) cropped.jpg|Act III 5–8
Aftermath and influence Strozzi returned to the
Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo for which he made two further operas,
La finta savia and
Romolo e Remo, which are considered to form a trilogy with
La finta pazza, with stories about the origins of Venice (which was said to be related to the fall of Troy). Sacrati, Torelli and Renzi stayed with the Teatro Novissimo for new operas in 1642, but followed Strozzi to the Giovanni e Paolo in 1643. The Novissimo closed down in 1646.
La finta pazza is said to have been responsible for the use of disguise as a central plot element in many later operas, even though its "men-disguised-as-woman" theme was usually reversed in later works. Other aspects of the work which were highly influential include its use of song (with a character who is a singer), the plot element of sleep, and especially the use of madness. Real or feigned madness was used in many operas in the next fifteen years, starting already in 1641 with
Didone by
Francesco Cavalli, and with the end of the craze in 1657 with
Le fortune di Rodope e Damira by
Aurelio Aureli and
Pietro Andrea Ziani, which was also the final role of Anna Renzi in Venice. While the story of
Achilles in Scyros was known since ancient times, it was the first time that it had been turned into an opera. The opera remained influential in the next century as well, when
Pietro Metastasio created in 1736 his hugely popular libretto
Achille in Sciro, which was set to music more than sixty times in the next hundred years. Metastasio countered the more comical and female-oriented approach of Strozzi with a text which was much more serious and used Achilles as the main role instead of Deidamia. ==Story==