Page - 363 - in Musiktheater im höfischen Raum des frühneuzeitlichen Europa - Hof – Oper – Architektur

Farinelli’s Dream: Theatrical Space, Audience and Political Function of Italian Court Opera 363 significant that these performances arrived hand in hand with profound changes in theatre architecture. In the case of the public theatres, the Cruz theatre was completely rebuilt in 1736, followed, as mentioned above, by the Teatro de los Caños del Peral two years later and finally to be finally joined by the Príncipe theatre, which reopened in 1745 totally reformed.19 The transformation of the Príncipe and Cruz theatres com- pletely changed the traditional structure. Adaptation to the Italian stage disposition was made clear by its new designation as coliseo, a term closely associated in Spanish with Italian opera.20 If the impact of the fire of 1734, which destroyed the old and im- posing Alcázar palace is added, a clear image emerges of the profound architectural transformations carried out, mainly by Italian architects and artists, in the urban land- scape of Madrid along the 1730s. A suitable space for opera: The Coliseo del Buen Retiro However, the oldest theatre in Madrid in the Italian style was not from the 18th century. Inaugurated in 1640, the Coliseo del Buen Retiro was located in the Buen Retiro palace, a complex of different residential buildings in the east of the city constructed around the Jeronymite Church, a site where the Spanish monarchs used to retire for Holy Week (Fig.  1). The structure of this court theatre is relatively well known for the 17th  century. For the early 18th  century, several seating plans of the building give some idea of the structure of the space. At the same time as the aforementioned new building of the city theatres, the Coliseo underwent also significant changes, which remain to be explored in detail. The notable reforms here are two: 1738 and 1747, the last one being the most important reform with regard to opera, as we shall see.21 Both were closely connected with the ritual function of Italian opera at court: the first reform finished just in time for the celebration of the birthday of Philipp V in December 1738 with an opera. The sec- ond reform coincided with the start of Farinelli’s management, in January 1747, when the birthday of Carlo di Borbone, king of Naples and half-brother of the new Spanish king, was celebrated with a new opera. What may be called the golden decade of Span- ish court opera, from 1747 to 1757, thus started so with the ascendance to the throne of Ferdinand VI and his wife, Queen Barbara de Braganza. 19 For a thorough overview of the Teatro de los Caños before its transformation in 1738 see Doménech Rico 2007. The construction and audience of the new Cruz theatre has been the object of a detailed docu- mentary study, see Thomason 2005. A similar study is still lacking in the case of the coliseo del Príncipe, which has been researched only for the 17th century, see Allen 1983 and Ruano de la Haza 2000. 20 In 1726, the Diccionario de Autoridades published by the Real Academia de la Lengua stated that a coliseo was a theatre where “comedies or musical feasts, called operas, are performed” (“Colisseo. Se llama oy comunmente el lugar o theatro donde se representan las Comedias o fiestas de música, que llaman Ope- ras”). 21 On the coliseo reforms, see Barbieri 1878, pp. XLIX–LII; Verdú 1989 and Torrione 2000b.