Beyond the Court Theatre: Rethinking the Origins of Early Opera Houses in Italy with Reference to the Musical Stage of Ladislas IV
Beyond the Court Theatre: Rethinking the Origins of Early Opera Houses in Italy with Reference to the Musical Stage of Ladislas IV

Summary/Abstract: In 1637, a dramma musicale entitled La Santa Cecilia was performed in Warsaw for the royal wedding between Ladislas IV, king of Poland, and the Archduchess Cecilia Renata of Austria. The sovereign himself had previously been an avid theatre-goer during his trip to Italy in 1625, when he met Claudio Monteverdi and other musicians. In the same year 1637, the Teatro San Cassiano opened in Venice, marking the birth of modern business of opera. For the first time since the genre emerged from courts and private palaces it became a form of public entertainment. Through a close examination of various documents, the aim of this study is to propose an innovative comparison between the court theatre of Ladislas IV and contemporary early playhouses in Italy—from Rome to Venice—with reference to spectacles set to music. The findings of this study will help us shed new light on the Royal Castle theatre in Warsaw during the reign of Ladislas, which may have been designed to accommodate more people than generally assumed, according to the most up-to-date construction principles of that time. Moreover, the paper makes use of recent historical enquiries on the San Cassiano for which an ambitious reconstruction project, following the model of Shakespeare’s Globe in London, has recently been presented.

• Details
• Contents