National theater and the age of revolution in Italy

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

Abstract Inspired by the writings of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Denis Diderot, between 1796 and 1799 Italy lived through an intense period of theatrical reform trying to diffuse the concept of ‘national theater’, financed and controlled by public authorities. This process resulted in the opening of new theaters and opera houses. During the Restoration period, the same idea found a different political declination but with similar results: an even more powerful propagating of public theaters as spaces of urban sociability. The article examines the impact of this process on Italian society since the end of the eighteenth century, identifying some specific characters of the Italian theatrical system in relation to other national cases. The network of Italian theaters during the early nineteenth century shows seemingly contradictory elements whose dynamics have to be explained: local aspirations of excellence and participation in a national circuit of opera production; market dynamics and censorship; police control and involvement in political nationalism. Keywords: ItalytheateroperaRisorgimentonationalismeducation Notes 1 The text Il General Colli in Roma, pantomimo eseguito dal cittadino Le Fèvre in Milano has been republished in Salfi (1975), along with a number of other (then highly celebrated) dramas by the same author, such as the Virginia bresciana and also various theoretical essays on the social function of the theater. 2 Pantomime and melodrama represented the most important genres during the decades at the turn of the eighteenth century, as a more commercial theaters – aimed at an audience that was at any rate potentially broader than it had been in the past – began to emerge. For a general survey of the phenomenon, see, for France, Brunet (Citation2007) and, for Great Britain, Moody (Citation2000); on the genre of pantomime in Italy, see Lombardi (1998). 3 This passage is taken from a discussion in 1784 regarding the lamentable state of the Italian tragic theater between Vittorio Alfieri and the poet and librettist Ranieri de’ Calzabigi(Alfieri Citation1966a: 972). 4 The following year, Alfieri similarly intervened in the debate on the comic theater, with his text Parere sull'arte comica in Italia (Alfieri Citation1966b: 1095). 5 On Salfi's trajectory, see Ferrari (Citation2009). 6 The Report of the Commissione sui teatri was presented on 1 July 1798, and both expounded its guiding principles and included a draft proposal for legislation (see Monticini and Alberti (1917–1927), vol. 5: 848 ff). The Commission's proceedings have been analysed in detail in Bosisio (Citation1990). 7 AA.VV, Il Teatro Grande di Brescia. Spazio urbano, forme, istituzioni nella storia di un'istituzione culturale, Brescia 1985. 8 On France, see Hemmings (Citation1994); and on Great Britain, Moody (Citation2000). 9 Amongst those who laid the most stress upon the capacity of the theater to promote political mobilization, one should mention Matteo Galdi (1798). 10 The first newspapers specifically dedicated to theater programmes and criticism arose in the 1820s (the Corriere degli spettacoli italiani in Bologna and the Memorie degli spettacoli in Reggio Emilia; but above all, for its national and international scope, I Teatri in Milan); a number of tentative and short-lived ventures had been launched during the precious decade. Among the collections dedicated to the theater, the first wide-ranging and coherent experiment along these lines was the one published in Venice under the title Il Teatro moderno applaudito ossia Raccolta annuale divisa in dodici mensuali volumi di tragedie, drammi, e farse, a compilation of texts published in Venice between 1796 and 1806 by the publisher Antonio Rosa; in this regard, see (Accorsi Citation1997). 11 ‘Il Teatro moderno applaudito’, Venice, July 1797, tome XIII, p. 3 ff. 12 A similar course of development was also evident in the German states (see Zenobi Citation2005). 13 The theoretical reflections of the great actor are collected in Modena (Citation1997); for some comment on his theatrical and political trajectories, see Meldolesi (Citation1971). 14 Verdi's Attila exemplifies the complex nature of the relationship between Risorgimento nationalism and the theater, and on this topic see the symposium convened and co-edited by Helen Greenwald (2009).