BRINGING OPERA TO SAXON AUDIENCES IN THE AGE OF NAPOLEON 1800-1817

Abstract

The Saxon cities of Dresden and Leipzig hosted musical theater throughout the Napoleonic era. Opera was simultaneously a form of mass entertainment, a political tool, and a business venture. In contrast to prior eras, when the region was a vibrant hub of opera composition, I argue that Saxon opera during this period was defined by the collision between local conditions and a cosmopolitan repertoire drawn from Paris, Vienna, and Central European theater networks. Saxon operatic institutions had long been entangled with the fortunes of the community and the state. These entanglements were even more evident as Saxony endured invasion, foreign domination, and eventually partition after the Congress of Vienna. Impresarios selected and adapted foreign compositions to fit their production capabilities and meet the demands of audiences, who ranged from middle-class intellectuals and rowdy Leipzig University students to visiting merchants, army officers, and monarchs. Two companies dominated the local musical theater industry: Andrea Bertoldy’s Italian opera at the Dresden Court, and Joseph Seconda’s itinerant German theater company, which alternated between a rustic theater outside Dresden and Leipzig’s more well-furnished city venue. Although they pursued different goals and had different resources, both companies relied on translations, musical substitutions, and more elaborate textual reworkings by local staff and outsiders. Their productions featured stage decorations and machinery from local artisans, who brought their own expertise and occasionally influenced audience reactions far more than the music. I provide focused explanations of each of these different aspects of adaptation through specific productions of operas by Joseph Weigl, Ludwig van Beethoven, Luigi Cherubini, Gaspare Spontini, and others. Drawing on performance materials, government documents, and a wide variety of contemporary periodicals and technical writing, I produce a vivid picture of what was required to bring opera to Saxon stages at a pivotal point in European history.