Licinio imperatore, an opera with a libretto by Matteo Noris and music (now lost) by Carlo Pallavicino, is a highly atypical work as regards both the sumptuous and costly productions that were the norm at the Teatro San Giovanni Gristostomo, and that theatre’s habit of presenting only decorous subjects. This was the first attempt to introduce a comic and satirical subject into Venice’s most important theatre. Noris had already experimented with this sort of subject in operas for the theatre of SS. Giovanni e Paolo (including Dionisio in 1681 and Bassiano in 1682). The libretto of Licinio, remarkable for its solid structure, reveals the author’s great skill in writing for the theatre. Noris was particularly attracted by comic subjects, something which caused the censoring of his Demone amante in 1687. But he continued to write further works in this vein until the end of the century, in spite of increasing pressures for a reform of the opera libretto.
