Opera and the Transformation of Naples under the Marquis del Carpio, 1683-1687

FAIN: FA-56581-12

Louise Stein
Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1382)

My book about opera in Naples explains how the intervention of Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán, marquis del Carpio (Viceroy of Naples, 1683-7) and his production team accelerated the integration of opera into Neapolitan public life and the metamorphosis of Naples into a center for opera and bel canto singing. Opera was among several facets of public life that Carpio sought to reform. He introduced a new system of opera financing, raised the level of artistic quality, and produced a series of operas that were more musically and visually innovative than earlier productions. He transformed Naples from a provincial backwater that hosted mostly revivals by Venetian traveling troupes into an innovative, sophisticated locus of production. Carpio has been identified by scholars as an art patron and voracious collector, but musicologists have previously neglected his pivotal importance in the history of opera in Italy. His operas and his legacy are the focus of my recent work and of this proposal.