Religion and Opera in Liberal Italy from Unification to the First World War
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1 Opera avanti a Dio! Religion and Opera in Liberal Italy from Unification to the First World War Andrew James Holden Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award of Doctor of Philosophy Oxford Brookes University 25 February 2019 2 Opera avanti a Dio! Religion and Opera in Liberal Italy from Unification to the First World War Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 4 List of Tables and Images ....................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. 7 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 9 Chapter I – Adapting religion in the operatic libretto .......................................... 38 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 38 Verdian adaptations of religion after Unification ............................................. 48 Adapting History and Realism – Don Carlos .................................................... 54 Boito and Boito/Verdi ......................................................................................... 59 Sanctity and anticlericalism in Cristoforo Colombo ........................................ 63 Giving space to religion in contemporary drama ............................................ 68 Cavallerie Rusticane ....................................................................................... 69 Puccini’s dramatic adaptations of religion ................................................... 77 La Figlia di Iorio ............................................................................................... 87 Eroticism and religion in Biblical adaptations ................................................. 93 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 105 Chapter II – The Operatic Markers of Religion ................................................... 107 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 107 The sacred onstage (and off-stage) – liturgical scenes and stage music ... 112 The Religious Life and Death .......................................................................... 144 The celestial, diabolical and divine ................................................................. 160 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 166 Chapter III – L'arcano incanto: operatic visions of good and evil in post- unification Turin ................................................................................................... 167 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 167 The intellectual climate and supernatural phenomena in post-unification Turin ................................................................................................................... 177 Turin’s operatic thirst for the diabolical ......................................................... 191 The wrong type of Devil in Gounod’s Faust ................................................... 200 Mefistofeles makes his mark in Turin ............................................................. 210 3 Magnetising Devils and Angels ....................................................................... 214 Graf’s Devil and his temptation of Christ ....................................................... 229 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 234 Chapter IV – Religion and Opera in the Venetian Culture War ......................... 235 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 235 Politics and culture wars in Venice after 1866 ............................................... 239 Teatro La Fenice’s political and social status ................................................ 257 Religion in the evolution of opera’s status in Venice .................................... 274 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 291 Chapter V – From Porta Pia to the Grail Hall via Sant’ Andrea della Valle: Opera and religion in Rome after 1870 .......................................................................... 293 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 293 The End of Censorship? or ‘Don Alvaro’ ........................................................ 302 The coverage of opera in the Catholic Roman press .................................... 306 Processions, piety and prophets – policing religion at the Teatro Costanzi ............................................................................................................................ 312 The Maestro of the Capella Sistina at the Costanzi ....................................... 321 Tosca and the meaning of religion in Roma Capitale .................................... 326 From Sant'Andrea della Valle to the Grail Hall ............................................... 341 The Roman Parsifal .......................................................................................... 347 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 352 Bibliography ......................................................................................................... 356 Primary Sources ............................................................................................... 356 Archives ......................................................................................................... 356 Newspapers and Periodicals ....................................................................... 356 Opera Sources .................................................................................................. 357 Libretti ............................................................................................................ 357 Printed Music Scores .................................................................................... 358 Printed and Published Sources ................................................................... 360 Secondary Sources ....................................................................................... 363 Appendix – Primary Source Material ................................................................. 378 A note on the citation of primary sources: the original Italian of primary sources not previously published are given in Appendix 1 where citations are more than 50 words. 4 Abstract ‘Opera avanti a Dio! Religion and Opera in Liberal Italy from Unification to the First World War’ Against the background of the evolving confrontation between the Catholic Church and the new state, religion in opera in Liberal Italy took on a new significance, both in new works and the revival of operas from earlier in the nineteenth century. Focusing on repertoire reflecting Catholic settings and theology, this thesis offers a fresh argument about the consistency of religious tropes and their significance in the political, cultural and social trends of Liberal Italy. It sets the treatment and reception of religious themes in opera in three contrasting urban contexts – the fascination with the supernatural in the positivist, intellectual centre of Turin, the culture war between competing visions of society and the purpose of art in Venice, and the confrontation between Papal Rome and the growing new capital city. Two thematic chapters consider how the adaptation of source texts in this period tended to augment religious themes, often emphasising conventional and orthodox religious views, and examine a series of musical and dramaturgical examples of the operatic markers of religion, which represented religious tropes including liturgical scenes, prayers and visions of the celestial and infernal, to suggest how little these changed in comparison to the broader musical style in this period. It challenges existing assumptions in several ways, including highlighting the continuing role of censorship until the mid-1890s. However, the Catholic social revival and the realignment of clerical and conservative political forces during the 1890s supported a broader, positive reading of religious tropes in opera. Analysis of archival sources, the daily and Catholic press, show that by 1900, even Puccini’s Tosca, supposedly the most anticlerical opera according to many musicologists, was read sympathetically by Catholic opinion. Before the First World War, the arrival on Italian stages of Wagner's Parsifal saw liberal and Catholic opinion compete to praise its specifically Catholic qualities and Italian heritage. 5 List of Tables and Images Fig. 1 Repertoire at Teatro Costanzi, Rome 1904 .................................................... 17 Fig. 2 Selection of repertoire in Turin theatres ......................................................... 18 Fig. 3 'Il Nuovissimo Teatro Civico di Schio' ............................................................. 24 Fig. 4 Typology of adaptation