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Farinelli’s Dream: Theatrical Space, Audience and Political Function of Italian Court Opera 373 Pedro Marentes, Guardarropa de Su Majestad (His Majesty’s Master of the Wardrope), Gaspar de Montoya, a chamber valet to the king, or the Marquis of Villacastel, Joaquín Olivares, a gentleman-in-waiting of the king. In the middle of this colourful group of courtiers, it is an intriguing surprise to find box number 13 of the fourth floor reserved for Domenico Scarlatti, the extraordinary musician linked to the queen, who left so little documentary trace of his court life in Spain.41 Overall, the 1755 seating-plan emphasizes the central political function of opera at the Spanish court during Farinelli’s management. As can be seen from the example of the opera performance of 1755, the hierarchical structuring of the space of the audience distribution inside the theatre during the opera performances was a highly political matter, representing more geometrico the crucial court hierarchy.42 The already named British diplomat Benjamin Keene provides a good example of this, in the light of the start of his diplomatic mission at the Spanish court in the winter of 1749 and the sym- bolic significance of the public offering of an opera libretto at the beginning of a perfor- mance: “The next night, I was no sooner seated at the opera but their Catholic Majesties sent me the libretto by the hands of Farinelli. Judge how my confrères in the  [envoy’s] box lookt upon this mark of distinction.”43 As was typical of the vicissitudes of court life, these expressions of favour or distinction could sudenly be reversed, changing into displacement or even banishment from the symbolic space of the theatre. Such was the case two years later, when, in the middle of a long-winded conflict of protocol regard- ing the claim of the Imperial plenipotentiary minister to be treated as ambassador, the same diplomat pointed out: “All I lose by this alteration is that I know not where I am to be placed at the Operas. That matter has been but indifferently managed from the beginning, but I am always easy on such vetilles. I have no right to demand any place at a King’s private diversion, but I have a right to judge whether the place allotted for me be a proper one or not. A 41 As Kirkpatrick observed in his biography, Domenico Scarlatti is not mentioned in Farinelli’s Descripción. One of the few surviving Spanish autograph documents by Scarlatti is a letter dated in Madrid in 1752, addressed to the Duke of Huéscar, Fernando de Silva Álvarez de Toledo, XII Duke of Alba from 1755 onwards, and who signed the document under discussion. See Kirkpatrick 1953, pp.  120–121. For an updated account of Scarlatti’s life, see Fernandes 2018. On Fernando de Silva’s political biography at the court of Ferdinand VI, see Pavía 2015. 42 That this spatial order was also painstakingly reproduced on the smallest scale is shown by the distri- bution in Parma of courtiers inside the ducal box following Spanish etiquette as it appears in a sketch dated probably in the early 1750s, during the reign of Philipp of Bourbon. For a reproduction of this source, see Feldman 2007, p.  112. 43 Letter to Castres dated 20  February 1749 (Keene 1933, p.  95). On the translation, printing and binding of opera librettos for the Buen Retiro, see Broschi 1991, pp.  71–73.