"Il resto si finge per abellimento della festa"la serenata, la festa teatrale y el dramma pastorale en la corte de Felipe V (1733-1746)

Abstract

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to show and demonstrate the nature of small format dramatic genres in the context of the Spanish court during the last years of the reign of Philip V of Spain. The study focuses on the operatic activity developed in the Spanish court in the period between the return of the kings to Madrid in 1733 after the Lustro Real, and the appointment of Carlo Broschi as manager of the Buen Retiro Coliseum in 1747. Specifically, the thesis analyses the contexts of representation, and the dramaturgical and formal features of the serenata, the festa teatrale and the dramma pastorale. The role that opera played as one of the main ways to circulate Italian aesthetic and musical paradigms in 18th century Europe has been highlighted in many studies. Since the publication of the first works dealing with the introduction and establishment of the operatic genre, historiography has based the reconstruction of stage music from this period on archival documentation and data extracted from the remaining librettos and scores. The focus of these ground-breaking studies in establishing the stages of penetration of the new genre, as well as demonstrating its relationship with the arrival at the Spanish court of artists, professionals, and musicians of Italian training, gave way to a new approach that began in the 1970s. This approach focused on the study of the processes of production, diffusion and use of Italian opera in the Iberian context...