Musicologica Brunensia (Jun 2018)
Hudební divadlo v Brně ve druhé polovině 18. století : repertoár a provoz divadla na Zelném trhu v jeho proměnách ze stagiony ve stálou divadelní instituci
Abstract
Castle culture, musical and especially opera activities in Moravia have become a perspective realm of research interest in recent years. However, the second half of the 18th century of Theater in Brno remained a secondary research interest. The libretto and theatrical almanacs which are preserved in the Archive of the City of Brno are a key source for reflecting of theater performance. While in the 1730s and 1740s the Italian opera series remained firmly in the repertoire, half of the 18th century, following the example of Vienna, brought forth works in the intentions of enlightenment thinking. This was reflected in the ideas of the Italian wandering societies that proceeded from Vienna to Brno and featured a similar repertoire subject to the Theresian reforms as well as to the influence of Goldoni's theater reform. Director Franz Joseph Moser was in Brno since 1752, then he was replaced by the company of impresario Franz Schuch, Fuchs Wenzel Freudenreich and Joseph Felix von Kurz. Kurz was later alternated with Franz Moser. After these unsettled seasons, the city council preferred the Italian company belonging to Giovanni Francesco Crosa, who offered high rents as well as a rich repertoire of musical intermezzo, Goldoni's drama and Italian opera series. An actor Karl Joseph Schwertberger settled with his twelve-member company in Brno in the winter of 1758. In contrast to the insufficient sources base of the previous decade, the 1760s boasted the importance of the Opera House in Brno thanks to several preserved librettes. Bellino Vign performed together with Franz Joseph Sebastian from Easter 1761 on the Brno scene; he presented ballets and pantomime performances of predominantly French origin, which alternated with a Goldoni's drama on german texts. The new director Johann Joseph Brunian came to Brno after Easter in 1763. According to records by historian Christiano d'Elvert, Brunian proposed a total of 58 titles to the City Council; from the comic opera named d‘Elvert specifically 7 operas. Two libraries of the cited operas were also preserved in Brno; they were published in 1763 by Emmanuel Swobody. Another theater directora were Joseph Jacobelli and Joseph Franz Moser. The predominantly drama was later presented by Johann Matthias Menninger. He also presented one of the first comedies in Czech language named Der Verliebte Nachtwächte. Two directors worked together since 1768 – Simon Friedrich Koberwein and Karl Joseph Helmann. Both directors withdrew from the repertoire of ballets and replaced it with tragedy and comedy in verses and prose and singspiel and operetta in german. At that time, the city governor intervened to the economic state of the theater; the theater implemented subscription and was transformed from a seasons stage into a stable theater institution after the appointment of the new director Johann Heinrich Böhm. He oriented his repertoire mainly on the french opera comique and the german singspiel. Roman Waitzhofer took over the theater in 1775. Even though he got into debt and ended the contract prematurely, his work on this scene got Brno among the best and the most stable scenes in the Austrian countries. If we looking at a quarter of a century of theater between his renewed production after the Prussian siege of the city and the scene of the Royal City Theater (at 1786 we can see it as dramaturgically and operatively strangely unfocused season of the scene without a clear direction. Despite the fact that many primary reports on the production have not been preserved, it is clear from the first essayes about the history of the Brno theater that the theater had a fundamental influence on the socio-cultural progress of the city, which maintained contacts with Vienna and other European cities. Now it has become an instrument of moral and social refinement, as we will see in the streams of Enlightenment over the coming years.
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