Reinhard Strohm: Die klassizistische Vision der
Antike
Zur MŸnchner Hofoper unter den KurfŸrsten Maximilian II.
Emanuel
und Karl Albrecht
This study, divided in two installments (parts I & II; part III), interprets
operatic culture at the Munich court between
c. 1680 and c. 1740 (1731). An introduction (part I) relates this theatrical
and metaphorical practice to a theory of discourse which identifies a
normative classicist aesthetic in courtly art of this period. In Munich, in
particular, a Ôclassicist visionÕ was put on stage in order to present the
House of Wittelsbach as a cultural heir of antiquity. Special characteristics
included the recurring theme of the Wittelsbach descendancy from the ancient
royal house of Thebes, a focus on ancient heroes who had been statesmen or city
founders, and the selection of rare operatic subjects such as Amphion and
Niobe, Oedipus and Epaminondas. There was a striving for self-historicization
(for example, through a revival performance in 1715 of an emblematic scene from
SteffaniÕs opera Niobe, 1688) and
an interest in pseudo-ancient ritual scenes and choruses. Part II describes the
repertory from c. 1680 to c. 1715, part III the one after 1715, in which, among
other things, the Italian libretto reform, the court poets Antonio Salvi and
Domenico Lalli, and several Pietro Torri opera scores are discussed.
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