Page - 367 - in Musiktheater im höfischen Raum des frühneuzeitlichen Europa - Hof – Oper – Architektur

Farinelli’s Dream: Theatrical Space, Audience and Political Function of Italian Court Opera 367 Casón del Buen Retiro (‘casón’ meaning large house). These three spaces—salón, coliseo and casón—were frequently used for festivities, as it was customary in 18th-century Eu- ropean court culture. In fact, opera, dance, masquerades and banquets were frequently conceived as different parts of the same event. The British diplomat Benjamin Keene, a frequent visitor of the Buen Retiro, whose letters reveal a conspicuous interest in the operas performed there, wrote from Madrid in 1749 to a colleague: “after the opera, began the ball in the great room called the Cason, in which, you may remember, we used to get cold in waiting for Their Majesties at their return from la chasse. I staid there, as usual, til 3 in the morning, but went out as I pleased to refresh with all sort of waters and wines, with the same ease and plenty as at a masquerade in England.” The next day, after another visit to the opera, Keene had “a supper in the sala de los Reynos, afterwards a ball.”27 As can be seen in Carlier’s plan, the Buen Retiro theatre is almost hidden from public view and perfectly linked to the palace complex, even if it was accessible from the outside through the garden on the right, an access which was used for public per- formances. The ground plan of the theatre shows an Italian distribution allowing the use of scenic perspective and separate stairs to some of the boxes (something similar to the access of the aposentos  —private rooms—of the old theatres build around a yard). Unfortunately, Carlier’s design provides only the information of a ground plan of the main floor of the entire palace, leaving us completely in the dark about the building’s elevation. This absence may be partially compensated by other sources, enabling us to imagine parts of the scenic space of the stage of the Buen Retiro theatre a few years after its inauguration. This is possible with the invaluable help of a collection of eleven sketches, which reproduce the sets designed in 1653 by the Florentine scenographer Baccio del Bianco for Calderón’s play Andrómeda y Perseo. These designs include one showing a complete view of the front of the stage with a drop curtain.28 For the 18th cen- tury, nine paintings by the Italian artist Francesco Battaglioli, who collaborated with Farinelli from 1754 to 1759, have been identified as pictorial representations of operatic scenes belonging to productions of the Buen Retiro. These paintings and the detailed descriptions of the Gaceta de Madrid give us an idea of the spectacular visual dimension of these operas.29 But it should be borne in mind that, in contrast to the 1653 drawings, the paintings by Battaglioli are surely conceived as a kind of imaginative veduta, loosely inspired in the actual theatrical sceneries. Therefore, they cannot document directly theatrical practice, obscured in the paintings by the absence of any visual reference to the frame of the stage or to an exact perspective of the actors depicted above of the represented buildings. 27 Letter from 20  February 1749 to Abraham Castres, British consul in Lisbon (Keene 1933, p.  95). 28 Facsimil in Calderón de la Barca 1994. 29 See Torrione 2000a.