Page - 374 - in Musiktheater im höfischen Raum des frühneuzeitlichen Europa - Hof – Oper – Architektur

Juan José Carreras 374 Sardininan and a Venetian Ambassador have served to barbouiller this matter more than it was before.”44 Significantly, in Keene’s eyes the political dimension of opera performances at court appears perfectly compatible with the idea of opera as the king’s “private diversion,” an important issue to which I will return. First, we have to consider a marked change in the production of operas under Farinelli’s direction, which profoundly affected its reception: the shift from festive exception to ritual repetition. If operas were origi- nally produced at the court of Philip V for extraordinary during Ferdinand VI’s reign were performed regularly as part of an annual court ritual, which, with reference to the San Carlo theatre in Naples, has been aptly described as a “secular liturgy of pow- er.”45 Opera performances continued to share a common frame as part of a festive court culture characteristic of the 18th century, but their status as a unique event was now lost. A specific recurring ritual time-frame distinguishes the court opera from the regular stagione system of commercial theatres, despite of shared common traits, the most notable of which was the concentration of performances during carnival. Under Farinelli’s direction, opera was wont to start yearly with a new production to celebrate the king’s birthday on 23  September (this was regularly the case from 1748 to 1757 with the exception of 1750).46 After a second production around January, the two operas were normally rotated at carnival, when opera was combined with balls.47 Easter Sunday was usually celebrated with three days of performances at the Coliseo after the break caused by Lent and Holly Week, the prelude of the court’s yearly dis- placement to Aranjuez, where it remained for the summer. A serenata was regularly produced there for the name day of the king on 30  May. Other recurring festivities, also commemorated, though not regularly, were the queen’s birthday and name day on the 4  December and Carlo’s di Borbone birthday on 20  January. Benjamin Keene offers again a telling proof of the frequency and ritual importance of operas at the 44 Letter dated 2  April 1751 (Keene 1933, pp.  291–292). For a discussion of similar diplomatic cases concerning the political importance of seating hierarchies in the theatres of the Imperial court, see Sommer-Mathis 1995 and 2006. 45 “Liturgia laica del potere” (Fabbri 1987, p.  62). On the festive calendar of the San Carlo Theatre, see Traversier 2009, pp. 77–80. 46 The 1750 exception was caused by the mourning for the queen’s father, João V, who died on 31  July of the same year. Birthday operas were generally new productions, with the exception of the revivals in 1749 and 1755. 47 A complete and reliable chronology of the operas and serenatas performed at the Spanish court is cur- rently lacking. For a general reconstruction based on surviving librettos and announcements of the Ga- ceta de Madrid, see Leza 2014, pp.  337–340. As an illustration of the research still to be done, I complete and correct in Appendix 2 the year 1755 using the information available from the Mercurio histórico y político. Systematic extracts from the Gaceta of reports concerning opera performances can be found in Torrione 1998.