Miroslava Jindrová

The nineteenth-century Italian opera and the public

The opera was the part of the Italian tradition every time. In the nineteenth century historians and artists looked for the national roots to vindicate the Italian nation as a whole; they made an effort to open up their pieces to the public. The opera achieved to catch the people of all social ranks.

This presentation is aesthetic view of the Italian opera; it deals with the public in the Italian opera houses in the nineteenth century. It tries to specify the parting of the theatre year to the three seasons – carnival, spring and autumn season, and emphasize the importance of the most fashionable season.

The ownership was also very important. The piece explains the different pattern of the keeping the opera house and the boxes, which were the property of the nobles or rich bourgeoisie.

The Italian opera house was the centre of the meeting. But there was no mixture of the classes. The seating arrangement was highly hierarchically organized. Each social class had its own place in the theatre and it expressed its richness and respectability. The presentation is engaged in the seating position of each social rank from nobles to the lowest class. Above all it accentuated the importance of location of the boxes.

Next, the opera was particularly the entertainment. The piece looks mainly at the nobles, because they were the most frequent visitors of the opera house. They went to see the opera performance almost every evening so they could see and hear one performance thirty or forty times. Their behaviour was not such as we would expect. In the theatre the noise was very heavy, the nobles ate, drank, played cards and spoke with their friends in the boxes. But when the monarch visited the opera house, the rules were very strict for all auditors. The regulations of behaviour were often very curious.

The Italian opera of the nineteenth century was not only the entertainment but also the business. It stimulated the trade, tourism and the circulation of money, it gave employment. The auditors demanded spectacular show, which was very expensive. The theatre could act due to subscription fee and the nightly charge. It profited by gambling in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, later it got money from the lotteries and tombolas.

In spite of the view of the opera as the entertainment and the business it was great music and poetry, which amazed audience not only in the nineteenth century but also later.

Key words: aesthetics, Italian opera, nineteenth-century, public

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