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‘An atrocious indifference’: Rossini's operas and the politics of musical representation in early-nineteenth-century Italy

2012; Routledge; Volume: 17; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1354571x.2012.690580

1469-9583

Emanuele Senici,

Musicians’ Health and Performance

Abstract Abstract This article explores the potential connection between the politics of operatic representation and politics in the more common and wider sense of the word. It does so by focusing on Gioachino Rossini's Italian operas, whose popularity was enormous between the 1810s and the 1830s. These were also crucial decades for the formation of an Italian nationalist discourse, to which opera is usually thought to have made a substantial contribution. The nature of this contribution is discussed here from the viewpoint of the anti-mimetic representational aesthetics promoted by Rossini's Italian operas. After addressing Rossini's personal political stance, as well as references to nationalist discourse in his Italian works, explored through the case study of the protagonist's final aria in L'Italiana in Algeri, the article interrogates the possible consequences of an anti-mimetic and ultimately anti-realistic aesthetics for an explicitly politicized reception of such references. Keywords: Musicnineteenth centuryoperapoliticsrepresentationRossini Notes 1 I have in mind especially Rossini (2004). 2 The last opera written for an Italian theater, before Rossini moved to Paris, was Semiramide in 1823; the last theatrical work on an Italian libretto was Il viaggio a Reims, an occasional piece composed for the coronation of Charles X as King of France in 1825. 3 See, for example, the statements quoted in Grempler (1996 Grempler, Martina. 1996. Rossini e la patria. Studien zu Leben und Werk Gioachino Rossinis vor dem Hintergrund des Risorgimento, Kassel: Bosse. [Google Scholar]: 28). 4 For a detailed discussion of these works, see Grempler (1996 Grempler, Martina. 1996. Rossini e la patria. Studien zu Leben und Werk Gioachino Rossinis vor dem Hintergrund des Risorgimento, Kassel: Bosse. [Google Scholar]: 36–90); for their biographical context, see Osborne (2007 Osborne, Richard. 2007. Rossini: His Life and Works, , 2nd edn, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]). 5 For an exploration of nationalist discourse in Rossini's French operas, see Walton (2007 Walton, Benjamin. 2007. Rossini in Restoration Paris: The Sound of Modern Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]). 6 For an overview of the situation in Venice in the early 1810s from a specifically Rossinian perspective, see Mangini (1981 Mangini, Nicola. 1981. 'Sui rapporti tra teatro e politica negli anni delle "prime" veneziane di Rossini'. Chigiana, 34(1): 41–52. [Google Scholar]). 7 For a recent exhortation to focus on reception when investigating the potential relevance of artworks for the nationalist discourse in nineteenth-century Italy, see Körner (2009 Körner, Axel. 2009. 'The Risorgimento's literary canon and the aesthetics of reception: some methodological considerations'. Nations and Nationalism, 15(3): 410–18. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 8 For details, see the 'Prefazione' to Rossini (1981 Rossini, Gioachino. 1981. L'Italiana in Algeri, Edited by: Corghi, Azio. Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini. 2 vols + 1 vol [Google Scholar]), and Grempler (1996 Grempler, Martina. 1996. Rossini e la patria. Studien zu Leben und Werk Gioachino Rossinis vor dem Hintergrund des Risorgimento, Kassel: Bosse. [Google Scholar], 2010 Grempler, Martina. 2010. "'Rossinis Libretti und die Zensur'". In Rossini und das Libretto, Edited by: Müller, Reto and Gier, Albert. 97–109. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag. [Google Scholar]). 9 Grempler is rather more cautious about the evidence from censorship in 2010 than she was in 1996; see Grempler (1996 Grempler, Martina. 1996. Rossini e la patria. Studien zu Leben und Werk Gioachino Rossinis vor dem Hintergrund des Risorgimento, Kassel: Bosse. [Google Scholar]: 110–18). 10 See also Gossett (1976 Gossett, Philip. 1976. 'The tragic finale of Tancredi'. Bollettino del centro rossiniano di studi, 16(1): 5–79. [Google Scholar]: 71–7) for an earlier, more detailed, discussion. 11 See also Rossini (1981 Rossini, Gioachino. 1981. L'Italiana in Algeri, Edited by: Corghi, Azio. Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini. 2 vols + 1 vol [Google Scholar], vol. 1: xxx–xxxi, Critical commentary: 23). 12 These words seemingly need repeating in the face of recent statements about an opera's 'narrative machineries which are especially well suited to a nationalistic interpretation, and which are available for use so many years after the work was originally staged' (Banti 2009 Banti, Alberto M. 2009. 'Reply'. Nations and Nationalism, 15(3): 446–54. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 454, responding to Körner 2009 Körner, Axel. 2009. 'The Risorgimento's literary canon and the aesthetics of reception: some methodological considerations'. Nations and Nationalism, 15(3): 410–18. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). It seems obvious to me that the 'narrative machineries' of Verdi's Nabucco (the opera in question) have little to do with the appropriation of 'Va pensiero' on the part of the Lega Nord in Italy and the Front National in France, to which Banti refers (I very much doubt that Umberto Bossi or Jean-Marie Le Pen know anything at all about such machineries). It was rather the weight of a century and a half of nationalistic reception of this chorus that made it available for appropriation by the Lega Nord and the Front National. 13 For an overview of the early reception of Rossini's operas in Italy, see Conati (1994 Conati, Marcello. 1994. "'"Una certa malattia, la quale può denominarsi contagio fantastico"'". In La recezione di Rossini ieri e oggi, 101–19. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. [Google Scholar]). I have discussed the compositional principles behind this dramaturgy in Senici (2010 Senici, Emanuele. 2010. '"Ferrea e tenace memoria": la pratica rossiniana dell'autoimprestito nel discorso dei contemporanei'. Philomusica Online, 9(1): 69–99. [Google Scholar], in press). 14 For a more detailed treatment of these themes and for references to the secondary literature, see Senici (2004 Senici, Emanuele. 2004. "'Introduction: Rossini's operatic operas'". In The Cambridge Companion to Rossini, Edited by: Senici, Emanuele. 1–9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), which follows a somewhat different interpretative path. 15 On Rossini's noisiness, see Esse (2009 Esse, Melina. 2009. 'Rossini's noisy bodies'. Cambridge Opera Journal, 21(1): 27–74. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]); for a few samples of contemporary remarks, see Steffan (1992 Steffan, Carlida. 1992. Rossiniana. Antologia della critica nella prima metà dell'Ottocento, Pordenone: Studio Tesi. [Google Scholar]: 7, 23, 44, 61 (an opposite position, praising the composer's orchestration), 91–92, 130, 168). 16 On this trend in early Verdi, see Parker (2007 Parker, Roger. 2007. The New Grove Guide to Verdi and His Operas, New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar]: 18–21).