page_title: Royal Patriarchal Music Seminary of Lisbon
section_title: Emergence of opera
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Patriarchal Music Seminary of Lisbon / Seminary's continuation / Emergence of opera
caption_attribution_description: English: Section drawing of the Tagus Opera, Ribeira Palace, Lisbon showing the relationship between the floor plan and the cross-section at the central long-way axis. Pen on paper work carried out in 1933 by Portuguese historian and art critic, José de Figueiredo (1872-1937). Português: Desenho da secção da Ópera do Tejo, no Palácio da Ribeira, em Lisboa, mostrando a relação entre a planta e a secção transversal no eixo central de longa distância. Caneta sobre papelada realizada em 1933 pelo historiador e crítico de arte português José de Figueiredo (1872-1937).
context_page_description: The Royal Patriarchal Music Seminary of Lisbon was founded in 1713 by Portugal's king João V to train singers for his Royal Chapel of Saint Thomas at Ribeira Palace.
  Its role was similar to that of other schools which for some centuries had been training singers and musicians for European abbeys, cathedrals, parish and collegiate churches, and court chapels. Over time, its influence expanded as it produced singers, instrumentalists and composers of merit, many of whom took on careers in sacred and secular music including opera outside Portugal.
  According to the records, the official date of the Seminary's foundation was 9 April 1713, three years before the Patriarchate of Lisbon came into operation. At that early stage, the Seminary was housed in the Archbishop's Palace near Lisbon Cathedral; but from the outset, the Seminary's function and purpose were directly associated with the court, and once the position of Patriarch of Lisbon was created and the holder became chaplain to the king, the Seminary as part of the patriarchal household continued to serve its primary purpose in providing music in the Royal Chapel.
context_section_description: João V died on 31 July 1750 after almost a decade of illness which began when he had a stroke in 1740 followed by a second in 1742 which left him hemiplegic and dependent on the care of others.
  His health had never been stable and he had experienced repeated episodes of depression, so his response to this major crisis was to resort to religious devotion, even claiming after having received the Last Rites that he had made a full, miraculous recovery. However records of the period indicate that full use of the left side of his body was never restored and further illness finally led to his death. He was buried in the Braganza family's mausoleum (Portuguese: Panteão da Casa de Bragança) at the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora. More relevant to this discussion, however, from the time of his first stroke he forbad all entertainment in the court and the wider community, bringing any development of opera in Lisbon to an end.
  João V was succeeded by his son José I (Joseph).
  Overall, music entertainment in the court had always been dull. This was a trial for Jose's new wife Mariana Vitória who had spent some time in the more vibrant environment of the French court. In 1729, the same year as her marriage, she wrote in a letter to her mother, "I do what I can to relieve my melancholy, since you are so kind to want it thus, even though this is difficult in a country where there is no entertainment. My only one is singing, as I love music passionately. Lately we have gone out a lot, but only to churches ……"
  Change was in sight because José's interest in opera was so strong that he managed to build in the Ribeira Palace library one of Europe's largest collections of opera scores, and before a year of his father's death had passed he was already recruiting Italian opera singers and others to establish a professional opera company within the court's structure. Among several others, probably the most important of these was the Neapolitan-trained organist and composer, Davide Perez who in 1752 was appointed as mestre de capela at the Royal Chapel and music master to the royal princesses.
  Within of that same year, he opened within the palace building a new theatre called the Teatro do Forte which he had created by converting the room in which foreign ambassadors had once been presented. A number of operas by Perez, Johann Adolph Hasse and others, and lighter works known as balli (Singular: ballo) and intermedi (Singular: intermedio). Many of the singers were Italian and included those who were visiting Lisbon under contract or had moved there permanently, and others who were listed as "Virtuosi della Cappella Reale" (Virtuosos of the Royal Chapel) meaning members of the Patriarchal household including, potentially, staff and students from the Seminary.
  It is unclear what had aroused José's interest in opera because, while during his father's life special occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries had often been marked with the performance of so-called serenatas – works for one or more solo voices with instrumental ensemble, occasionally but not always including some form of semi-staging – the burgeoning level of interest in opera already seen in Italy, France, England, Austria and the Germanic States had not yet reached Portugal. While staged music performances including a small number of Italian operas had taken place in the court, they were of a more lightweight, comedic style generally classified as opera buffa (comic opera), whereas the opera seria (literally meaning "serious" opera but better understood as dramma per musica or melodramma serio) style, which had plots derived from mythology, heroism and historical tragedy, and had risen in favour elsewhere from about 1710 onwards, did not attract attention in the Portuguese court.
  By contrast with José personal enthusiasm for opera, his interest in the functioning of the Patriarchate and the Seminary might have been little more than a formality. Indeed, in 1743, seven years prior to his father's death, his wife in correspondence with her mother had observed, "I think that if his Fath
caption: Illus: 9: Section drawing of the Tagus Opera, Ribeira Palace, Lisbon showing the relationship between the floor plan and the cross-section at the central long-way axis. Pen on paper work carried out in 1933 by Portuguese historian and art critic, José de Figueiredo (1872–1937).
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