Goldoni Carlo

Goldoni, Carlo (February 25, 1707, Venice – February 6, 1793, Paris) was an Italian playwright and theater reformer. Goldoni’s work became known in Georgia at the end of the 19th century through the play El Sorrut Benefactor, which was translated from Italian into Georgian by Iakob Machabeli in 1879. The play was immediately staged by the Georgian permanent dramatic troupe under the title It Doesn’t Rain As Loud As It Thunders.

Special mention should be made about the play The Beautiful Georgian Woman, written on a Georgian theme. It was first staged in 1761 in Venice, at the Teatro San Luca, and for the second time in Tbilisi, at the Shota Rustaveli State Theater in 1981 (directed by A. Varsimasvili). This production, along with a bilingual Italian-Georgian edition of the play (translation and preface by Z. Sturua), was dedicated to the 275th anniversary of Goldoni's birth.

Several of Goldoni’s plays have been staged on the Georgian stage. Among them: The Servant of Two Masters (1946), The Mistress of the Inn (1952), The Bride by Advertisement (1942).

I. Grishashvili, A. Fronispireli, D. Kasradze, and A. Faghava translated numerous Goldoni’s works into Georgian. In 1903, P. Umikashvili translated the play Goldoni and His Sixteen New Comedies by the Italian playwright P. Ferrari.

Literary works: Opere complete, v. 1–40, Venezia, 1907–57; Комедии, т. 1–2, М.–Л., 1959.

Literature: Р е и з о в Б. Г., К. Гольдони, Л.–М., 1957.

Z. Sturua