Il tempio della musica: il Teatro alla Scala. Forme e protagonsti

The osmotic relationship between theatrical ballet and opera on the Milanese stage in twenty years (from March 1776 – when Jean-George Noverre leaves the stage of Teatro Ducale – to March 1796, when Archduke Ferdinand leaves Milan while Napoleon triumphally enters the city) is focused in this paper: during this period Milan (together with Naples and Vienna) offers an interesting range of transformations and of ‘experiments’ concerning ballet settings more than of operatic productions. Significant examples are to be traced in Europa riconosciuta (Verazi/Salieri, inaugural work for the Teatro alla Scala, August 3, 1778) which the Milanese public disliked because of shocking, violent scenes (a battle with ferocious animals on stage) and because of new dramatic devises taken from French opera (such as an increasing number of ensembles). The paper also investigates the relationships among the repertoires of the three theatres founded by Archduke Ferdinand (Scala, Canobbiana and Teatro Ducale di Monza) and the circulation of operatic and choreutic settings as included in an ideal Absburg ‘circuit’, including Vienna (Burgtheater and Kärntnertortheater) and Naples (Teatro di San Carlo, Teatro del Fondo di Separazione). A chronology of operatic setting by the ‘Neapolitan’ Giovanni Paisiello and Domenico Cimarosa is built up and discussed in the second section of the paper. The third section focuses on the role of theatrical ballet in the descriptions made by Pietro Verri (a devoted fan of the dancers Gaspare Angiolini and Carolina Pitrot) in his letters to his brother Alessandro and on the presence of dance scenes in a comic opera (La ballerina amante, 1783, Palomba/Cimarosa).