Baroque Stage Curtains: Space, Spectacle and the Monarch

Abstract

In this article I explore the stage curtain's role in the folding of real and illusionistic space, examining, through Deleuze's notion of the fold, both its function in court theatre to join-yet-separate such spaces and its dynamic relationship with the loa. An analysis of the striking use of the curtain to depict space in Francisco de Bances Candamo's 1687 court production, Duelos de ingenio y fortuna, and a comparison of this with Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Hado y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa (1680) and Marcos de Lanuza Mendoza y Arellano's Las Bélides (1686)—with which productions, I argue, Duelos is in open dialogue—leads to an examination of the representation of the monarch in court drama. Drawing parallels with Velázquez and Bernini, the article considers the implications for the monarch of being caught within the folding of illusion and reality that typifies Baroque space, for in each of these spectacles the king, queen, or queen mother in the auditorium faces an image of themselves on, or being created on, the stage. In such specular moments, the monarch is revealed as always subject to the (omni)presence of his own idealized image; as mere parecer to its ser.

Key words:

• curtain
• Gilles Deleuze
• fold
• loa
• Francisco de Bances Candamo
• Pedro Calderón de la Barca
• Marcos de Lanuza
• Diego Velázquez
• Gian Lorenzo Bernini
• Baroque space

Notes

1 See my ‘Baroque Space: Claudio Coello's Sagrada forma and the Sacristy of the Escorial’, BHS, 86:6 (2009), 775–86.

2 See my ‘Folding Space and Staging the Palace in the Baroque sainete: Antonio de Solís' fin de fiesta to Triunfos de Amor y Fortuna (1658)’, in Golden-Age Essays in Commemoration of A. A. Parker, ed., with an intro., by Terence O'Reilly & Jeremy Robbins, BSS, 85:6 (2008), 79–91 (p. 91).

3 See Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, trans. Tom Conley (London/New York: Continuum, 2003), 3.

4 See Deleuze, The Fold, trans. Conley, 30.

5 See Deleuze, The Fold, trans. Conley, 12.

6 On this reciprocal cross-over of binary opposites and its relation to the aesthetic of wit, especially as this is articulated by Sarbiewski, see my ‘Baroque Architecture: Góngora and the Folds of Wit’, in Essays on Góngora's ‘Polifemo’ and ‘Soledades', ed. Terence O'Reilly & Jeremy Robbins, BSS, 90:1 (2013), 55–82 where I bring into dialogue Baroque quadratura and the architectonic rhetoric of Góngora.

7 Such a reading of the consequence of the folding of binaries in Baroque space, namely the collapsing of difference into similarity, would, of course, be essentially anti-Deleuzian. Compare my ‘Baroque Architecture: Góngora and the Folds of Wit’, 79.

8 See Franco Battistelli in Giacomo Torelli: l'invenzione scenica nell'Europa barocca, ed. Francesco Milesi (Fano: Cassa di Risparmio di Fano, 2000), 387.

9 Like Vasari in his life of Giorgione and Vicente Carducho in his Diálogos de la pintura, Gracián praises a painter's ingenuity in using multiple reflective surfaces to depict an object in the round. See Baltasar Gracián, El Criticón, ed. crítica y comentada de Miguel Romera-Navarro, 3 vols (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press/London: Humphrey Milford/Oxford U. P., 1938–1940), III (1940), 2–3. The use of reflection to overcome the limitations of our fixed viewpoint was widespread in Baroque culture, the mirror in Las Meninas being perhaps the most prominent example.

10 See Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo, ‘Loa para la gran comedia de “La restauración de Buda” ’, ed. Ignacio Arellano, in Apuntes sobre la loa sacramental y cortesana. Loas completas de Bances Candamo, estudios & ediciones críticas de Ignacio Arellano, Kurt Spang & M. Carmen Pinillos (Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1994), 127–42 (p. 129 n.). Further page-references to this edition of the loa are given in the text.

11 See Comedia nueva intitulada Todo lo vence el Amor. Fiesta que se ejecutó a sus Majestades en el Coliseo del Sitio Real del Buen Retiro. En celebridad del deseado feliz nacimiento de nuestro serenísimo príncipe Don Luis Fernando de Borbón. A la expensa de la muy noble, leal, imperial, coronada Villa de Madrid. Quien la dedica a la alta católica majestad del Rey nuestro Señor (que Dios guarde). [ … ] Escribiola don Antonio de Zamora (n.p.: n.p., 1707). References are to this edition; Latin quotations have been corrected. On the curtain, see J. E. Varey, ‘Dos telones para el Coliseo del Buen Retiro’, Villa de Madrid, 19 (1981), 15–18; Teresa Zapata Fernández de la Hoz, ‘Fiesta teatral en el Real Coliseo del Buen Retiro para celebrar el nacimiento de Luis I’, Villa de Madrid, 100 (1989), 36–48; Margarita Torrione, ‘El Real Coliseo del Buen Retiro: memoria de una arquitectura desaparecida’, in España festejante. El siglo XVIII, ed. Margarita Torrione (Málaga: Centro de Ediciones de la Diputación de Málaga, 2000), 295–322 (p. 303); and Ignacio López Alemany & J. E. Varey, El teatro palaciego en Madrid: 1707–1724. Estudio y documentos (London: Tamesis, 2006), 8–15.

12 ‘Estando tendida la Cortina, que cerraba la primera boca de la frontis (cuyo concepto hermosamente animado del pincel incluía la misma vista que corpórea se abultó después de recogerse) [ … ]’ (Todo lo vence el Amor, 1).

13 See Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Andrómeda y Perseo. Fábula escénica. Escenotecnia de Baccio del Bianco, ed. filológica, crítica & escenotécnica de Rafael Maestre (Almagro: Museo Nacional del Teatro, 1994), 45.

14 See here María Teresa Chaves Montoya, El espectáculo teatral en la corte de Felipe IV (Madrid: Ayuntamiento de Madrid, 2004), 191; and J. E. Varey, ‘A Further Note on the Actor/Audience Relationship in Spanish Court Plays of the Seventeenth Century’, in Arts du spectacle et histoire des idées: recueil offert en hommage à Jean Jacquot (Tours: Centre d’Ėtudes Supérieures de la Renaissance, 1984), 177–82 (p. 180); and Varey's ‘Andrómeda y Perseo, comedia y loa de Calderón: afirmaciones artístico-literarias y políticas', Revista de Musicología, 10 (1987), 529–45 (pp. 536, 541).

15 For the classic formulation of the notion of coextensive space, see John Rupert Martin, Baroque (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989), 14–15, 155–96. And for an excellent application of the Baroque notions of breaching and co-penetration to modern media entertainment forms, see Angela Ndalianis, Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment (Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press, 2004).

16 On the probable scenographer, see Kazimierz Sabik, ‘El teatro de tema mitológico en la corte de Carlos II (texto y escenografía)’, in El teatro español a fines del siglo XVII: historia, cultura y teatro en la España de Carlos II, ed. Javier Huerta Calvo, Harm den Boer & Fermín Sierra Martínez, 3 vols, III, Representaciones y fiestas, Diálogos Hispánicos de Amsterdam, 8/III (1989), 775–91 (pp. 790–91).

17 See Carmen Sanz Ayán, Pedagogía de reyes: el teatro palaciego en el reinado de Carlos II (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 2006), 145.

18 See Bances Candamo, La comedia de Duelos de ingenio y fortuna. Fiesta real que se representó a sus majestades en el gran Coliseo del Buen Retiro al feliz cumplimiento de años del rey Nuestro Señor don Carlos Segundo, que Dios guarde, con loa y sainetes. Descríbese la festiva pompa de galas y trajes, el real aparato de escenas, mutaciones, apariencias y máquinas ingeniosas con que la hizo ejecutar el Excelentísimo Señor Condestable de Castilla, Mayordomo Mayor del Rey Nuestro Señor (Madrid: Bernardo de Villa-Diego, 1687), fols. 2^r–v. See also Bances Candamo, ‘Loa para la comedia “Duelos de ingenio y fortuna” ’, ed. Blanca Oteiza, in Apuntes sobre la loa sacramental y cortesana, ed. Arellano, Spang & Pinillos, 143–65 (pp. 152–54).

19 See Bances Candamo, La comedia de Duelos de ingenio y fortuna, fol.4^r; and ‘Loa para la comedia “Duelos de ingenio y fortuna” ’, ed. Oteiza, 157–58.

20 Shergold notes a certain resemblance between Restauración de Buda and this scene, the former with its statue of Caesar, this with one of Charles. See N. D. Shergold, A History of the Spanish Stage from Medieval Times until the end of the Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 350.

21 See Hado y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa, comedia con loa, entremés, baile y sainete, in Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Comedias, ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, 4 vols (Madrid: Atlas, 1945), IV [BAE XIV], 356. All references are to this edition. For the manuscript account, see Hado y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa, BNM MS 9373.

22 For this suggested placement, see Sebastian Neumeister's ground plan of the auditorium and stage in Neumeister, Mito clásico y ostentación: los dramas mitológicos de Calderón (Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 2000), 299. The figures represent Fernando III, Alfonso el Sabio, Philip I, Charles V, Philip II, Philip III and Philip IV; and Louis IX, Robert I, Louis of Bourbon, Francis I, Henry IV, Louis XIII and the Duke of Orléans. In Duelos, the nine Heroes of Fame are played by actors, but there is some uncertainty as to the situation in Hado: Shergold simply describes the ‘figuras naturales' as statues, as does Varey, whereas according to Greer, these are played by actors. See Shergold, A History of the Spanish Stage, 344; and J. E. Varey, ‘The Audience and the Play at Court Spectacles: The Role of the King’, in Golden-Age Studies in Honour of A. A. Parker, ed. Melveena McKendrick, BHS, LXI:3 (1984), 399–406 (p. 403); and Margaret Rich Greer, The Play of Power: Mythological Court Dramas of Calderón de la Barca (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1991), 184, 185, 187. The accounts for the 1680 production list material for the costumes of these fourteen monarchs: see N. D. Shergold & J. E. Varey, Representaciones palaciegas: 1603–1699. Estudio y documentos (London: Tamesis, 1982), 108–09.

23 See Don W. Cruickshank, Don Pedro Calderón (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2009), 293. The ceiling of the Salón Dorado is partially represented in the watercolour illustrations for Los celos hacen estrellas (1672). For depictions of royal lineage in this serial fashion, including the Salón Dorado with its canvases depicting Spanish monarchs from Pelayo to Philip IV and the ceremonial entry of Mariana of Austria into Madrid in 1649 which included representations of both Philip's and Mariana's immediate ancestors, see Steven N. Orso, Philip IV and the Decoration of the Alcázar of Madrid (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1986), 126–35.

24 See Greer, The Play of Power, 185.

25 See Diego Saavedra Fajardo, Empresas políticas, ed. & intro. Sagrario López (Madrid: Cátedra, 1999), emblem XVI, 315. Further references are to this edition.

26 For pictorial representations of Charles within the context of the Habsburg dynasty, see Víctor Mínguez, La invención de Carlos II: apoteosis simbólica de la casa de Austria (Madrid: CEEH, 2013), 59–81.

27 Cruickshank (Don Pedro Calderón, 294) loosely describes the set-up as follows: ‘the king and queen in a theatre, watching a play which portrayed them in a theatre, watching a play’.

28 For the suggestion that the scenography is by José Caudí, see Kazimierz Sabik, ‘El teatro de tema mitológico de Marcos de Lanuza, Conde de Clavijo, en la corte de Carlos II’, in Actas del X Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas, Barcelona 21–26 de agosto de 1989, ed. Antonio Vilanova, 4 vols (Barcelona: PPU, 1992), II, 1085–96 (p. 1093). On Lanuza, see Pedro C. Rojo Alique, ‘Notas sobre don Marcos de Lanuza Mendoza y Arellano, Conde de Clavijo’, Criticón, 103–04 (2008), 171–206.

29 For this and other quotations, see the unpaginated loa in Marcos de Lanuza Mendoza y Arellano, Las Bélides. Zarzuela que se escribió para celebrar el día de los años de la Reina Madre nuestra Señora Doña Mariana de Austria, y se representó a sus Majestades en el Salón de Palacio el día de sus reales años veinte y dos de diciembre del año de mil seiscientos y ochenta y seis (n.p.: n.p., n.d.) (Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid).

30 For a brief discussion of portraitists shown at work in court dramas, see Javier Portús Pérez, ‘Diego Velázquez, 1650–1660: retrato y cultura cortesana’, in Velázquez y la familia de Felipe IV (1650–1680), ed. Javier Portús Pérez (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2013), 17–59 (pp. 26–27).

31 For Palomino's comments on Las Meninas, see Antonio Palomino, El museo pictórico y escala óptica, pról. de Juan A. Ceán Bermúdez (Madrid: Aguilar, 1947), 921.

32 See Neumeister, Mito clásico y ostentación, 308; for a discussion of similarities and differences between Hado's loa and Las Meninas, see 296–311. Cruickshank (Don Pedro Calderón, 293) also sees the influence of Velázquez's masterpiece in the staging of Hado's loa.

33 See Domenico Bernini, The Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, trans., with intro. & commentary, by Franco Mormando (University Park: Pennsylvania State U. P., 2011), 103.

34 ‘Hizo la de Juan de Pareja, esclavo suyo, y agudo pintor, tan semejante, y con tanta viveza, que habiéndolo enviado con el mismo Pareja a la censura de algunos amigos, se quedaban mirando el retrato pintado, y al original, con admiración y asombro, sin saber con quién habían de hablar, o quién les había de responder’ (Palomino, El museo pictórico, pról. Ceán Bermúdez, 913). This cliché is found elsewhere in Palomino's discussion of Velázquez, as when he records Philip IV's reaction to the Sevillian's portrait of Adrián Pulido Pareja, the king speaking to it having mistaken the portrait for Pulido himself, or when he mentions his portrait of Innocent X leading a member of Innocent's court to assume the pope himself was present (Palomino, El museo pictórico, pról. Ceán Bermúdez, 905, 912–13).

35 ‘Dos retratos de nuestros felicísimos monarcas, imitados tan al vivo, que como estaban frente de sus originales pareció ser un espejo en que trasladaban sus peregrinas perfecciones; y el ansia que desea verlos en todas partes quisiera hallar más repetidas sus copias’ (Hado y divisa, 358).

36 See Bernini, The Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, trans. Mormando, 103.

37 As such, we have what amounts to an object lesson in the scopic imperative of court society. As the monarch sees himself as others supposedly see him, and gazes upon, whilst transfixed by, his own idealized gaze, there is a coming together of two key aspects of that imperative as described by Gracián: on the one hand, the constant need to be aware that our every action might be overseen and, on the other, the constant need to ensure that we are (over)seen by ourselves. See, for example, Baltasar Gracián, Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia, ed. & intro. de Emilio Blanco (Madrid: Cátedra, 1995), aphorisms 297 and 50 (258–59, 130).

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.