Canoppi, Antonio

Information about the Italian youth of Canoppi is not entirely reliable. Old Russian sources claimed that Kanoppi's father, known for various hydraulic structures, directed his son's abilities to study mathematical sciences and building art, but Kanoppi loved fine arts and decorated the palaces of Italian nobles with his Alfresco, then began working as a decorator in Milan at the Fenice Theater. The claim that Kanoppi studied with the sculptor Canova is considered an exaggeration.

In 1805, after the invasion of Napoleon’s troops in Italy, Kanoppi fled to Vienna. At first he worked in Moscow, painting the halls of the Noble Assembly and arranging the mansions of the Moscow nobility (works died in the fire of 1812). Since 1812 he lived in St. Petersburg, becoming the main decorator of the imperial theaters. Kanoppi owned the design of many musical and dramatic performances, including the operas Semiramis, The Firebird, Revenge, or Amur Triumph. The architectural-perspective and landscape scenic scenery and Kanoppi curtains, executed in the style of classicism, are close to the works of Quarenghi and Gonzago . Departing from the traditional depiction of mythological plots, Kanoppi often reproduced the scenery and buildings of St. Petersburg in the scenery (for the St. Petersburg Bolshoi Theater, renewed after the fire of 1818, he painted the scenery with the appearance of the triumphal Narva Gate). According to contemporaries, Kanoppi widely applied lighting effects, conveying them by means of painting (for example, reflections of fire, the play of moonlight). Romantic tendencies are clearly reflected in Kanoppi’s scenery for the last act of Ducange’s melodrama “Thirty Years, or the Life of a Player”, where the artist depicted a wretched hut, through a dilapidated ceiling and through which the windows pour bright daylight. In 1813 he was recognized by the Academy of Arts as "appointed."

• Stefan Kozakiewicz. CANOPPI, Antonio // Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 18 (1975) (Italian)