
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.
This book investigates how the citizens of Siena integrated the emerging genre of opera into their local festive culture to assert civic identity following their political subjugation by Florence. Colleen Reardon, a scholar of music history, utilizes archival records and historical chronicles to challenge the traditional narrative that Sienese opera was merely a tool of Medici political hegemony. Instead, she argues that opera functioned as a social mechanism, facilitated by the Chigi family, to reinforce local networks and the concept of senesità.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of provincial operatic culture and the social history of the Italian Baroque. Experts frequently note that the text provides a nuanced alternative to centralized models of cultural production by highlighting the agency of local institutions.
Page Count:
320
Publication Date:
2016-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190607521
ISBN-13:
9780190607524
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