A Sociable Moment: Opera and Festive Culture in Baroque Siena

by Colleen Reardon

Overview

After their military defeat by the Florentines in the mid-sixteenth century, the citizens of Siena turned from politics to celebratory, social occasions to express their civic identity and show their capacity for collective action. In the first major work of its kind, Colleen Reardon opens a window on the ways in which the Sienese absorbed the new genre of opera into their own festive apparatus and challenges the prevailing view that operatic productions in the city were merely an extension of Medici power to the provinces. It was, rather, members of the expatriate Chigi family who exploited the festive impulse of their countrymen, coordinating operatic performances with their triumphant visits home by activating ties of friendship and family as well as connections to Sienese institutions, most notably the Assicurate, possibly the first all-female academy in Italy. If the Chigi proved successful at inserting opera into larger patterns of sociability that conveyed the very essence of what it meant to be Sienese (senesità), their successor, the flamboyant playwright and librettist Girolamo Gigli, struggled in his attempts to transform operatic performances into professional enterprises. Fluidly written and richly embellished with anecdotes from historical chronicles, A Sociable Moment offers insight into the Sienese experience with opera during the genre's rapid expansion throughout the Italian peninsula during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190607524
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/02/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Colleen Reardon is a Professor of Music at the University of California, Irvine. She is a devoted topo d'archivio (archive rat) whose research centers on musical culture in early modern Siena. She enjoys teaching music history classes of all stripes, including specialized courses on Jane Austen and Music, Film Music, and the Musicals of Stephen Sondheim. When not teaching or doing research, she can be found devouring mystery novels.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1: The Curtain Rises Chapter 2: A Festive Culture and its Sociable Network Chapter 3: The Chigi between Rome and Siena Chapter 4: A Princess Comes to Town Chapter 5: Siena, the Chigi, and the Pastoral Documents Chapter 6: Pastoral Reflections, Political Drama, and the End of an Era Chapter 7: The Rozzi and Opera in the 1690s Documents Chapter 8: Innocence Recognized and Cammilla Revived Documents Chapter 9: Gigli's Last Bow and the Return of the Pastoral Documents Appendix: Chronology of Opera in Siena, 1669-1704 Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"Throughout A Sociable Moment, a plethora of archival sources support an engaging account of Sienese opera in late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Most importantly, Reardon establishes Siena as its own, distinct opera center characterized by the roles assumed by members of its patrician class as financiers, impresarios, and musicians ... Reardon provides a colorful and detailed account of operatic life in the Tuscan city." —Notes

From the Publisher