In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Opera, Theatrical Culture and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples by Anthony R. DelDonna
  • Zoey M. Cochran
Opera, Theatrical Culture and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples. By Anthony R. DelDonna. pp. xxi+318 (Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT, 2012. €65. ISBN 978-1-4094-2278-5.)

Despite its vague and somewhat controversial definition, the concept of ‘Neapolitan opera’ endures in opera scholarship. In the first booklength study in English to deal exclusively with operatic culture in eighteenth-century Naples since Michael Robinson’s Naples and Neapolitan Opera (Oxford, 1972), Anthony DelDonna proposes to interpret the genre ‘from [the] perspective [of] contextual cultural factors’ [End Page 341] (p. 11). Viewing theatre ‘not only as an expression of contemporary art, society, and often ideology, but also as a lens through which to view [Naples] fromboth a national and international perspective’ (p. 11), for DelDonna ‘the phrase “opera, theatrical culture and society” [reflects] the breadth of eighteenth-century traditions in circulation in the city’ (p. 11). Concentrating on twenty years of Neapolitan history (c.1770–90), his objective is twofold: he hopes to reveal that Neapolitan traditions are ‘idiosyncratic to their Neapolitan context’ (p. 1) and to refute the traditional view of a conservative Naples, focusing on the experimental tendencies and calls for reform evident in the works and writings generated in the city during the late eighteenth century.

The book is divided into eight chapters, each dedicated to a specific case study. The first two deal with the Neapolitan comic operas Il Socrate immaginario (1775) by Giovanni Battista Lorenzi and Giovanni Paisiello, and Il convitato di pietra (1783), a collaboration between Lorenzi and Giacomo Tritto; the following two with the opere serie Elfrida (1792) by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi and Paisiello, and Enea e Lavinia (1785) by Gaetano Sertor and Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi; chapters 5 and 6 focus on the ‘Lenten tragedies’ Debora e Sisara (1788) by Carlo Sernicola and Guglielmi, and Gionata (1792) by Sernicola and Niccolò Piccinni; and the final chapters explore the Neapolitan ballets d’action Il ratto delle Sabine (1780) and La bella Arsene (1781), both collaborations between Charles LePicq and Vicente Martín y Soler. Each chapter is organized internally in a similar fashion: because the intent is to demonstrate that works created in the city of Naples ‘reflected acutely [its] cultural and social context’ (p. 187), DelDonna begins each chapter by presenting the specific context that the studied works ‘mirror’ (p. 206). This contextualization, revealing his profound knowledge of Neapolitan history, politics, and aesthetic debates, is followed by an analysis of the music and libretto of the work on which the chapter focuses. The analyses show both the relationship between these works and the context in which they were generated, as well as the nature of the musical experimentation that took form in late eighteenth-century Naples.

The structural plan of the book, however, sometimes fails to do justice to the rich subject matter. While certain themes recur from chapter to chapter, they are rarely tied together, problematized, or developed at length. Some of these broad themes are worth identifying. One is the relationship between opera in Naples and the Neapolitan monarchy, with a particular emphasis on operatic representations of female sovereignty, especially of Maria Carolina of Austria, wife of King Ferdinand IV (discussed in the studies of Elfrida, Enea e Lavinia, and Debora e Sisara). Another is the question of French influence on Neapolitan intellectuals and musicians (central to the studies of Elfrida, Gionata, and Neapolitan ballet d’action). A third is the impact of Gluck’s operatic reform in Naples (considered in most of the book’s musical discussions, but particularly in the studies of Elfrida, Debora e Sisara, and La bella Arsene). Finally there is the idea of ‘a burgeoning nationalism and desire to define [a Neapolitan] national identity’ (p. 115), related by DelDonna to the rise of antiquarianism, the fight against feudalism, and the emergence of regalism in opposition to the power of Rome (dominant in the studies of Il Socrate immaginario, Il convitato di pietra, Enea e Lavinia, Debora e Sisara, Gionata, and Il ratto delle Sabine). To have arranged the study along the lines of these larger...

pdf

Share