PLAYING THE COURT: COURT THEATER DURING THE REIGN OF CARLOS II OF SPAIN (1661-1700) by CAITLIN O’REILLY BRADY B.A., University of Oregon, 2009 M.A., University of Arizona, 2012 M.A., University of Granada, 2017 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Spanish and Portuguese 2017 ii This thesis entitled: Playing the Court: Court Theater During the Reign of Carlos II of Spain (1661-1700) written by Caitlin O’Reilly Brady has been approved for the Department of English Núria Silleras-Fernández John Slater Andrés Prieto Juan Herrero-Senés David Glimp Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. iii ABSTRACT Brady, Caitlin O’Reilly (Ph.D., Peninsular and Latin American Literatures, Department of Spanish and Portuguese) Playing the Court: Court Theater During the Reign of Carlos II of Spain (1661-1700) Thesis directed by Associate Professor Núria Silleras-Fernández This project analyzes a long-neglected dimension of Early Modern Peninsular Studies: court theater. My thesis explores theoretical, political, and scenographic frameworks of court drama written for and produced in the court of Carlos II of Spain. I explore the notions of imagined communities and agency in order to understand how the theater functioned within the Habsburg court, and I juxtapose the role of the king as a spectator to that of the individual consumer of the public theater to confirm it is possible not to identify as part of the mass public during theater consumption. From there, my archival research exposes the political conflicts during the 1670s between Queen Regent Mariana of Austria and her illegitimate step-son, Don Juan José, as their opposing factions vied to dominate the terrain of courtly politics in Madrid. My research investigates how these tensions were reflected in the 1670s works: La estatua de Prometeo and Fieras afemina amor by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. This then led me to consider the political anxieties around the topic of succession in the 1690s as well. I illustrate that Francisco Antonio de Bances Candamo’s political trilogy offered viable options for an heir through his presentation of what I term the nephew-king paradigm. My research illustrates how politics and royal theater production in the 1670s and 1690s were linked due to theater’s status as a facet of the royal Baroque identity. My project concludes by establishing court drama as its iv own genre through an investigation of court performance, the scenographic advancement, and the musical evolution in Baroque Spanish court drama—a highly original artistic genre in seventeenth-century Spain. I establish staged performance as malleable and trans-dynastic as it outlasts the performance of the monarchs for which the work was staged. Ultimately, this project proves that theater is a part of royal Baroque Spanish identity. v DEDICATION To my parents, Jean and Al, who always knew the greatest gift they could give their children was roots and wings. Thank you for both. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a thank you to several parties for their impact on this project. First and foremost, this dissertation would not have come to fruition without the support and guidance of Dr. Núria Silleras-Fernández. Her dedication to her own craft is an inspiration, and her commitment to her students, and to our projects, is unparalleled. To her, I am indebted. In a similar vein, some of this project’s most magical pieces came about after Dr. John Slater proposed questions of which I had never dreamed. His critical eye is a blessing to any student’s work. I thank you both. Additionally, the archival research that supports this dissertation was made possible by two grants. A Department Research Grant from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese funded my summer research in 2015. Subsequently, the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport in Spain awarded me the Hispanex Grant to fund my summer work in 2016. Their funding made possible powerful discoveries that contributed to this project, and will shape my early publications. To my friends and colleagues that influenced this project, thank you. A particular thank you to Dr. Harrison Meadows. I bent your ear more than once and found inspiration in your musings. If not for the chance to explore the Golden Age with you over coffee and at conferences, this project would have been much different. Finally, to my fiancé—Daniel—and my family, I owe you the greatest debt of gratitude. Your support gave me energy when I thought I had none. vii CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................1 Court Drama and its Roots ..................................................................5 Performance: The Writerly Text .......................................................12 Court Drama and Baroque Identity: Theory, Politics, and Performance ......................................................................................16 II. THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO THEATER ANALYSIS: THE COURT AND THE CORRALES IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SPAIN ....................................................................................................23 Lope de Vega’s Arte nuevo ...............................................................27 Theorizing Theater in the Seventeenth Century: The Moralist’s Objection and the Courtier’s Defense ...............................................35 New Approaches to Theater: The Imagined Community and Pervasive Shared Agency .................................................................45 Maravall, Greer, and Egginton: Approaches to the Golden Age and Their Applications to Theatrical Analysis ........................................60 Conclusions .......................................................................................69 III. POLITICS AND THE PRINCE ...........................................................71 Factions Divided: Political Tensions of the 1670s ...........................84 Who Will Be King?: The 1690s and Bances Candamo’s Answer Delivered by Theatrical Propositions ..............................................109 Conclusions .....................................................................................132 viii IV. SCENOGRAPHY, SPACE, AND THE SPANISH ZARZUELA .........134 Performance in the Royal Court .....................................................142 The Monarch as Spectacle and Plays for “His” Solace ..................153 Theater Spaces of the Court ............................................................159 Scenography and Music in the Court ..............................................170 Conclusions .....................................................................................187 V. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................189 Transitions versus Continuity: Theater under Bourbon Rule .........196 The Future of this Project ...............................................................199 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………..…………………………………………202 ix FIGURES Figure 1. Mariana de Austria entrega la corona a Carlos Segundo ..............................1 2. Carlos II y Mariana de Austria .......................................................................4 1 CHAPTER I Introduction Figure 1. Mariana de Austria entrega la corona a Carlos Segundo by Pedro Villafranca Malagón, 1672. “Behold the King with the crown with which his mother has crowned him” (Fig. 1). Although the Latin at the bottom of the above engraving seems to refer to a monarchical future with the coronation of a new king, Royal Engraver Pedro Villafranca Malagón captures the fears, dynamics, and people directly linked to the Habsburg Monarchy in the imagery of this 1672 engraving titled: Mariana de Austria entrega la corona a Carlos Segundo. Depicted here are Mariana of Austria (1634-1696), second wife and niece of Felipe IV (1605-1665), and her 2 youngest child, Carlos II of Spain (1661-1700). At the moment in which Villafranca engraved this image, Mariana was Queen Regent for Carlos, Felipe IV had died in 1665, Carlos’ brother— Felipe Prospero—had died as a toddler in 1661, and Margarita Teresa was Carlos’ only surviving full-sibling, and ten years older than her brother.1 With much of the immediate royal family therefore deceased, this engraving depicts the monarchs responsible for the future of the Habsburg Monarchy. The Latin phrase, therefore, expresses not a call to interpret the artwork as a reference to a coronation, but rather expressed a fearful hope for the future felt throughout the court. Carlos, a sickly king was not to take the throne until 1675—the year in which Mariana’s regency was to end. In 1672 this phrase evoked the desire that this young king would be able to wear the crown his mother symbolically holds out to him here, and the fear that he may not ever be ready or capable of doing so. The body language of Mariana also suggests that she embodied these same concerns. While the black curve of her habit gives the illusion of her leaning toward her son, if you allow your eye to trace her arm from her shoulder to her elbow, you will see she is leaning fairly far back in her chair and it is only the illusion created by the lines of her habit that suggest she might be leaning forward, offering the