Seite - 361 - in Musiktheater im höfischen Raum des frühneuzeitlichen Europa - Hof – Oper – Architektur

Farinelli’s Dream: Theatrical Space, Audience and Political Function of Italian Court Opera 361 are very rich and, as we shall see, surprisingly precise in many aspects. Moreover, an important number of these sources are easily accessible as they have been for a great part thoroughly edited and studied in relation to the Spanish spoken theatre, mainly by English and American scholars who followed the path-breaking studies of Norman Shergold and John Varey in the 1970s and 1980s. Unfortunately, these valuable studies do not include the Madrid court theatres in the 18th century from the 1730s onwards, coinciding with the crucial moment when opera performances largely displaced spoken and musical Spanish plays at court.14 The result is that the modern edition of the main documentary sources of the court theatre in Madrid is restricted to a chronology of between 1586 and 1724, and consequently the rest of the 18th century is excluded.15 To sum up, we can say that musicological research on Spanish court opera has not been concerned with theatrical spaces and, conversely, practices and theatrical studies have not considered the history of theatres from the moment in which opera performance became the main activity of these institutions.16 The result has been, paradoxically, a black hole at the heart of what has been considered one of the most brilliant cultural episodes of 18th-century Spain. Studied in all its complexity and documentary detail, the theatre history of the main European capitals during the 17th and 18th centuries tend to chaos, as documented by the different and contradictory interests, religious and political restrictions, ideological and architectonical reforms, and multiple and diverse practices that shape theatrical experience in a given urban context. Nevertheless, much is to be gained if we start by tracing the basic traits of its main institutions as a sort of topographical frame in which further research may unfold. From its designation as capital city of the Spanish Empire in 1561 by Philipp  II, Madrid boasted a rich theatre life.17 “La villa y corte” (the town and court) developed a complex web of spaces and practices dedicated to the spoken drama and music theatre which supported the important cultural legacy known as the Teatro del siglo de oro of the 17th century. Beside the theatrical spaces belonging to the court entertainments at the different royal residences, such as the urban palaces of the Alcázar and the Buen Retiro, the city of Madrid owned two theatres located in the city centre, the Teatro de la Cruz and the Teatro del Príncipe, which were hired to two theatre companies each year importance of the Buen Retiro Palace in the 17th century, see Brown and Elliott 2003. An important catalogue of images and plans of the Buen Retiro can be found in Blasco 2001, pp.  135–203. 14 For a reconstruction of the repertory performed at the Buen Retiro during Farinelli’s managment years (made mainly on the basis of the surviving libretti), see Cotarelo y Mori 1917, 101–190. The most de- tailed (but far from complete) calendar of performances is to be found in Leza 2014, pp.  337–340. 15 See Greer  /  Varey 1997 and López Alemany  /  Varey 2006. 16 Among the few studies on theatres not related to the spoken Spanish repertoire are López de José 2006; Doménech Rico 2007. 17 For an overview see for instance Fernández Muñoz 1988 and Andura Varela 1992.