Space and Hegemony at La Scala, 1776–1850s

Abstract

This article focuses on the significance of space in the display of hegemonic power in the La Scala opera house in the years 1776–1850s. More specifically, it traces the changes in the use of space from Napoleon’s attempt to “democratise” La Scala by attacking the display of hegemonic hierarchy and subverting the status quo, to the Habsburgs’ attempt to “restore” a display of hegemonic rule. The analysis of primary findings demonstrates that the space of the opera house was reshaped not only physically through renovation but also by imposing rules and structuring attendance during performances. The social significance of La Scala’s theatrical space is also explored by identifying the means the Habsburg authorities used to control it as part of their response to the rise of the Risorgimento. The article thus traces the historical shifts in the political functions of space in La Scala from its early role of displaying aristocratic authority through the period of Napoleonic democratisation and finally the Hapsburgs’ restoration politics of surveillance.

I would like to express my thanks to Philip Gossett, Ruth Kinna, Martha Wörsching, Saul Newman, Robert Knight, Jeremy Leaman and John Ashdown-Hill for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article.

I am very grateful to the Civica Raccolta delle Stampe "Achille Bertarelli" and to the Biblioteca Trivulziana of Milan for their permission to reproduce the figures.

Notes

1. See Enrico Lonati, La Scala: Its Building, Site, Restoration and Architecture (Venice: Marsilio, 2004).

2. On the implications of the current trend of searching for authenticity in music, see Nicholas Cook, Music: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 6–10.

3. The literature on Italian opera and nationalism is vast. Most of the debate focuses on specific composers (e.g., Verdi) highlighting the relevance of their opera for Italian nationalism previous or post-Unification. For a more specific exploration of the responses of the Austrian government to the political significance of opera in Italian nationalism, see Philip Gossett, “Censorship and Self-Censorship: Problems in Editing the Operas of Verdi,” in Essays in Musicology: A Tribute to Alvin Johnson, ed. Lewis Lockwood (Philadelphia, PA: American Musicological Society, 1990), 247–57; and David Laven, Venice and Venetia under the Habsburgs, 1815–35 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Most of these studies focus on the analysis of librettos and scores, whereas my aim is to extend the debate by using different sources on the organization of the opera house.

4. Mariangela Donà, “Milan,” at http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/18655; accessed 8 February 2014.

5. Remo Giazotto, Le Carte della Scala: Storie di Impresari e Appaltatori Teatrali (1778–1860) (Pisa: Akademos & Lim., 1990), 5.

6. Giuseppe Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta (Milan: Rizzoli, 1989), 14.

7. Carlo Gatti, Il Teatro alla Scala nella Storia e nell’Arte (1778–1958) (Milan: Ricordi, 1964), vol. 1, 7–8.

8. The impresario was the manager of the opera house whose duties and commitments are well depicted in John Rosselli, The Opera Industry in Italy from Cimarosa to Verdi: The Role of the Impresario (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Specific studies on the impresarios at La Scala include Mariagabriella Cambiaghi, “La Scala degli Impresari: Il modello organizzativo del XIX secolo,” in Il Teatro alla Scala, ed. Erica Cantarelli (Rome: Bulzoni Editore, 2004), 37–48. The peculiarities of the system of management in Italy are explained in Franco Piperno, “Il Sistema Produttivo fino al 1780,” in Storia dell’Opera Italiana, ed. Luciano Bianconi and Giorgio Pestelli (Turin: EDT, 1987), vol. 4, 1–75.

9. Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 22.

10. Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 19.

11. Donà, “Milan,” at http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/18655 and

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/O006673; accessed 8 February 2012.

12. See Martha Feldman, Opera and Sovereignty: Transforming Myths in Eighteenth-Century Italy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

13. See Edward J. Dent, Opera: A Stimulating Guide to its Nature and Development (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1949), and “The Nomenclature of Opera,” Music & Letters 25.4 (1944): 213–26; and the more recent, Thomas McGeary “Gendering Opera: Italian Opera as the Feminine Other in Britain, 1700–42, Journal of Musicological Research 14 (1994): 17–34; Serena Guarracino, “Voices from the South: Music, Castration, and the Displacement of the Eye,” in Anglo-Southern Encounters, ed. Luigi Cazzato (Lecce: Negroamaro, 2011), 40–51.

14. The books of the first impresario are the source of Beth Lise Glixon and Jonathan Glixon, Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and his World in Seventeenth Century Venice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

15. Ellen Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991), 413–14.

16. For an assessment of the socio-political significance of opera houses in the Papal State, see Alex Kõrner, “The Theatre of Social Change: Nobility, Opera Industry and the Politics of Culture in Bologna between Papal Privileges and Liberal Principles,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8.3 (2003): 336–41. An overview of opera houses in nineteenth-century Italy can be found in Carlotta Sorba, Teatri: L’Italia del Melodramma nell’Età del Risorgimento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001).

17. Giazotto, Le Carte della Scala, 5–6; Pompeo Cambiasi, La Scala 1778–1906: Note Storiche e Statistiche (Milan: G. Ricordi & Co., 1906), XIII; Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 23.

18. Ugo Foscolo, “Dell’Impresa d’un Teatro per Musica,” Opere Edite e Postume 4 (Florence: Le Monnier, 1856): 391–92.

19. Giampiero Tintori, “La Scala e Milano,” in Le Capitali della Musica: Milano, ed. Giorgio Taborelli and Vittoria Crespi Morbio (Cinisello Balsamo: Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano and Amici della Scala, 1984), 74.

20. Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 23.

21. Gatti, Il Teatro alla Scala nella Storia e nell’Arte, 1.3.

22. Giazotto, Le Carte della Scala, 5–11.

23. Promemoria, 15, VII 1778, Archivio Storico Civico Biblioteca Trivulziana.

24. In Cambiasi, La Scala 1778–1906: Note, 130–40. This book is a collection of primary sources edited by Senator Pompeo Cambiasi in 1906. The originals are lost, possibly as a result of the bombing at La Scala in World War II.

25. Up to the nineteenth century, male and female operatic performers often became lovers of members of the upper-classes, who were called protettori, because they protected and supported the career of the performers. See, for example, Davide Daolmi, “Arte Sol da Puttane e da Bardasse: Prostituzione maschile e ‘nobile vizio’ nella cultura musicale della Firenze barocca,” Civilta’ Musicale 6.1–2, 14–15 (February-June 1992): 103–31.

26. This is not the case in other opera houses, particularly in Northern Europe, as for example, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London.

27. Stendhal, Rome, Naples et Florence (1826; Paris: Gallimard, 1987), 42. All translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated. There is uncertainity on the reliability of some of Stendhal’s comments, so we are not sure if the price of a box he mentions is reliable. However, the practice of selling boxes as private property is also confirmed by other sourcers, such as a list of box owners, so carrying different names in different years.

28. One could say that the construction of the public sphere in Italy, a country with a large number of illiterates in the nineteenth century, can be linked to the public space of the opera house. See Carlotta Sorba’s paper, Carlotta Sorba “Audience Teatrale, Costruzione della Sfera Pubblica ed Emozionalità in Francia e in Italia tra XVIII e XIX Secolo” in Rileggere l’Ottocento: Risorgimento e Nazione, ed. L. Betri (Rome: Carocci Editore, 2010).

29. Stendhal, Rome, Naples et Florence, 30.

30. Their names in the Milanese dialect refer to physical attributes: Gioanin (little Juan) has crooked legs and his girlfriend has big breasts. The Romantic poet Carlo Poeta presents these characters on other occasions, and although the poems are comic they express empathy for the troubles of the lower classes. Carlo Porta, “El lament del Marchionn di gamb avert” [The lament of Melchior the crippled, 1816], in Carlo Porta, Le Poesie: Edizione Critica a cura di Dante Isella (Florence: Nuova Italia, 1955).

31. Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 56.

32. Gazzetta Privilegiata di Milano, 14 January 1831, 2. The year 1831 marked the nationalistic uprisings throughout Europe, which were followed by strict measures to restore the balance of power.

33. Cambiasi, La Scala 1778–1906: Note, 12.

34. Cambiasi, La Scala 1778–1906: Note, 92.

35. John Street, Politics and Popular Culture (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), 15.

36. Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 54–55, 58, 59.

37. Giuseppe Rovani, Cento Anni (Milan: Rizzoli, 1934).

38. Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 59.

39. A. Gagliardelli, “Quasi due Secoli di Vita,” in La Nostra Scala (Milan: Comune di Milano - Ripartizione Educazione, 1961), 11–24.

40. Cambiasi, La Scala 1778–1906: Note, 118.

41. Barigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 230, 235.

42. While in Italy opera is associated with nationalism, in other countries it takes on a different political significance. See, for example, Raffaella Bianchi and Bezen Coskun “The Function of Opera across Borders: Italian and Turkish Identity Construction,” in Music across Borders, ed. Serena Guarracino and Marina Vitale, Anglistica 13.2 (2009): 59–70; Harry White, “Operas of the Irish Mind: Cultural Theory, Literary Reception and the Question of ‘Irishness’ in Nineteenth Century Opera,” Musical Theatre as High Culture? The Cultural Discourse of Opera and Operetta in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Vjera Katalinić, Stanislav Tuksar, and Harry White (Zagreb: Croatian Musicological Society, 2011); and Vlado Kotnik, Opera, Power and Ideology: Anthropological Study of a National Art in Slovenia (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2010).

43. Alfredo Bosisio, Storia di Milano (Milan: Giunti Martello, 1984), 317.

44. “i milanesi furono vinti da una ballerina.” Aldobrandino Malvezzi, Il Risorgimento Italiano in un Carteggio di Patrioti (1821–1860) (Milan: Hoepli, 1924), 209–10.

45. Franco Della Peruta, Milano nel Risorgimento: Dall’Età Napoleonica alle Cinque Giornate (Milan: Editrice La Storia, 1992), 116.

46. Cesana in Gaston Vuillier, La Danza (Milan: Tip. del Corriere della Sera, 1899), 352.

47. Cambiasi, La Scala 1778–1906: Note, 61, 64.

48. “Atti relativi agli ispettori di Polizia in servizio nei Teatri” (Documents on Police inspectors employed in Theatres), Spettacoli Pubblici, 41, Personale (Personnel), 1, 1810–1825, Archivio Storico Civico, Biblioteca Trivulziana.

49. Cambiasi, La Scala 1778–1906: Note, 71, 60.

50. “Ti do’ un Sarau,” in Barrigazzi, La Scala Racconta, 96.

51. “Atti relativi agli ispettori di Polizia in servizio nei Teatri” (Documents on Police inspectors employed in theatres), Spettacoli Pubblici, 41, Personale (Personnel), 1, 1810– 1825, Archivio Storico Civico, Biblioteca Trivulziana.

52. Leading figures of the Italian Risorgimento, among them Silvio Pellico, took part in this conspiracy. For further details, see Raffaella Bianchi, “La Scala and the Struggle of the Risorgimento: From Restoration to the Barricades of the Five Days of Milan,” in Viva V.E.R.D.I.: Music from the Risorgimento to the Unification of Italy, ed. Roberto Illiano, Studies on Italian Music History, vol. 8 (Brussels: Brepols Publishers, 2013).

53. Cambiasi, La Scala 1778–1906: Note, 72, 81.

54. “è vietato agli Attori, per gli ordini già da lungo tempo pubblicati, e di recente richiamati in vigour dall’I.R. Direzione Generale della Polizia, di comparire sul Palco Scenico, quando vi sono invitati dagli applausi, prima che sia terminato l’Atto dello spettacolo in cui agiscono.”

55. “Regolamenti per servizio d’ordine sul palcoscenico” (Regulation for order on stage), Spettacoli Pubblici 5, Atti della Direzione Teatrale (Documents of Theatre Direction) (1830–31), Archivio Storico Civico, Biblioteca Trivulziana.

56. Strassoldo, in Bruno Spapaen, “‘Governare per mezzo della Scala’: L’Austria e il teatro d’opera a Milano,” Contemporanea 6.4 (October 2003): 600.

57. Spapaen, “‘Governare per mezzo della Scala’,” 593–620. The Panopticon was a circular prison designed by Jeremy Bentham with a central tower allowing a guard to observe all prisoners without their being able to tell whether they were being watched. See Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Penguin, 1991).

58. Appalti – Direzione (Tenders – Directions) 1818–1844, Spettacoli Pubblici 56, Archivio Storico Civico, Biblioteca Trivulziana.