L’autocoscienza (e l’istituzionalizzazione) di una crisi nell’“età plurale” dell’opera italiana (1806–15)

Abstract

The present article investigates an era that in the historiography of Italian opera bears a label (“interregnum between Cimarosa and Rossini,” defined by Stendhal) long conditioning its study, almost as a minor, transitional period. But did contemporaries perceive a crisis (if not transition) in opera, following the glorious years of the Neapolitan school? My discussion will demonstrate that the intellectual elite, driven by its classicist orientation, indeed felt a crisis to have arisen, and at the same time formulated a new lexicon and discourse marked by the Napoleonic power that prevailed at this time throughout Italy. The French aimed, as in other fields, to reform music and recast the theatrical world according to their own national practices. However, this aim conflicted with the habits of the Italian public, engendering an unmanageable situation. My discussion furthermore highlights the diverse nature of the subject matter under consideration, proposing, in place of the disparaging “interregnum,” the notion of an “age of plurality,” which better reflects the richness of this period and avoids constructing it teleologically in relation to the messianic expectation of the coming of Rossini.