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Juan José Carreras
382 The closure of Farinelli’s opera on Ferdinand VI’s death has habitually been ex-
plained by the cliché of a new king more interested in hunting than opera, confirming
once again the extraordinary persistence of anachronistic commonplaces in the his-
toriography of court opera. As has rightly been emphasized, “the prince’s amusement
was not a private matter, but an affair of state” and therefore, from this point of view,
personal inclinations should be considered to be secondary.76 In the case of the new
king Carlo di Borbone (Charles III of Spain)—the same king who founded the splendid
Neapolitan Teatro di San Carlo77—, his decision to close Farinelli’s opera was eminently
political, as it related not only to a costly “private diversion” of the former king but
also to a kind of entertainment that was losing its original foundational meaning in a
rapidly changing world.
76 Riepe 2006, pp. 148–149.
77 On Carlo’s rich and varied opera experiences in Naples precisely documented through his correspon-
dance, see Ascione 2006, pp. 59–69.
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book Musiktheater im höfischen Raum des frühneuzeitlichen Europa - Hof – Oper – Architektur"
Musiktheater im höfischen Raum des frühneuzeitlichen Europa
Hof – Oper – Architektur
- Title
- Musiktheater im höfischen Raum des frühneuzeitlichen Europa
- Subtitle
- Hof – Oper – Architektur
- Authors
- Margret Scharrer
- Heiko Laß
- Editor
- Matthias Müller
- Publisher
- Heidelberg University Publishing
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- German
- License
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-947732-36-4
- Size
- 19.3 x 26.0 cm
- Pages
- 618
- Keywords
- Kunstgeschichte, Architektur, Oper, art history, architecture, opera
- Category
- Kunst und Kultur