Musicologica Austriaca (Jun 2020)
Italian Opera in Vienna in the 1770s: Repertoire and Reception – Data and Facts
Abstract
Up to now in the research on Vienna’s theater and opera life in the 1770s the subject of the Italian repertoire and its reception remained rather underexposed, among other reasons for lack of outstanding artistic events, but also for the particular attention devoted to the institution-historical developments of this decade, namely the foundation of the Deutsches Nationaltheater and the Deutsches Nationalsingspiel. The first aim of this contribution is to present an overview of the Italian branch of Vienna’s theater activity in the 1770s, first of all by reconstructing the daily program of Italian operas in both teatri privilegiati, thus correcting erroneous data contained in the standard literature on the one hand and answering a series of questions concerning the local production system on the other: which operas were performed, when, how often, and where, how long did they stay in the repertoire, how did Vienna’s theater season function, how were Italian operas embedded in Vienna’s theater business, what repercussions did institutional changes have on the Italian repertoire in that heterogeneous period? The second objective consists in creating, on the basis of the information and data collected on the organization of the theater season, a more suitable and differentiated tool with respect to the conventional methods used for the success assessment of operas staged in Vienna. A systematic processing of the collected performance data, daily ticket sales—for lack of sources not available for the whole period—and contemporary commentary will thus enable statistically based statements that better reflect the reality of the reception and the success of individual Italian operas performed in Vienna and of the Italian opera branch in general than was previously possible. The reconstructed calendar, including the aforementioned information supplements, and the aggregated statistical data are annexed as Excel tables, allowing individual readers to retrieve, sort, and filter data for further research according to different criteria—date, day of week, title, theater, premiere type (absolute premiere, Viennese premiere, or revival), composer, librettist, and statistical keys.
