# **MANAGEMENT THE OF OPERA**

**THEATRES OF THE EASTERN ADRIATIC**

© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0 Cristina Scuderi

# Te Management of Opera (1861–1918)

Teatres of the Eastern Adriatic

Translated from the Italian by Hugh Ward-Perkins

#### Published with the support from the Austrian Science Fund ( FWF ): PUB 926-G

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https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537

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© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0 For Vittorio Vella

© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

# **Table of Contents**


Inhalt Inhalt

#### 8 Inhalt




© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

### **Acknowledgements**

Many people have contributed in various ways to this work. Above all, I wish to thank the staf of the Institute of Musicology of the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, beginning with its former director and the present dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Professor Michael Walter, who has always encouraged me to complete this work, together with the present director Professor Susanne Kogler, my colleagues Saskia Jaszoltowski, Monika Voithofer, Martina Bratic, Ingeborg Zechner and Elisabeth Probst, the assistants Susanne Göttlich and Stefanie Liang, and the secretaries Melanie Rieger and Marion Hintsteiner. I am particular grateful to Noemi Silvestri for aiding me in matters of editing and translation. Tis project, which developed at the Institute, required a number of research trips to assemble the sizable quantity of archival documents from the Istrian and Dalmatian coastal region: for this I wish to thank the Büro für Internationale Beziehungen (BIB) of the Karl-Franzens-Universität.

Acknowledgements Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to the staf of the archives, foundations and libraries where I had the opportunity to conduct my research. In particular I thank Emilio Medici and Cristina Zacchigna of the Museo Schmidl of Trieste; Ivana Paula Gortan Carlin of the University of Pula, Bruno Dobrić of the University Library of Pula and the staf of the City Library of Pula; Elvis Orbanić, director of the State Archive of Pazin, together with Iva Grdinić and Vedran Dukovski; Mladen Urem and Boris Zakošek of the State Archive of Rijeka, Tea Perinčić, director of the Maritime Museum of Rijeka, and Iva Jazbec Tomaić; Nataša Mučalo, director of the State Archive of Šibenik; Ivana Galasso, director of the Centro Ricerche Culturali Dalmate and Karlo Grenc of the Grenc Foundation in Split, Narcisa Bolšec Ferri, director of the City Museum of Split and the curator Tea Blagaić; Susana Martinović, Edi Modrinić and Dubravka Kolić of the State Archive of Zadar; and in addition, the staf of the State Archive of Dubrovnik, Boris Senker, director of the Division for the History of Croatian Teatre (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), and Brane Čop of the Central Technical Library of the University of Ljubljana.

For their feedback and advice on the project, when presented at various universities, I have been grateful to Professors Lorenzo Bianconi, Marco Beghelli, Gerardo Guccini, Cesarino Ruini of the Department of the Arts at the University of Bologna, together with Gianmario Merizzi of the library of the Department of the Arts, to Professors Ivano Cavallini of the University of Palermo, Maria Rosa De Luca of the University of Catania, Michele Biasutti and Sergio Durante of the University of Padua, Michele Girardi and Annibale Cetrangolo of Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Fabrizio Della Seta of the University of Pavia, Claudio Toscani of the University of Milan (La Statale), Nicola Montenz of the Università Cattolica of Milan, and Pier Cesare Ioly Zorattini of the University of Udine; along with Professors Kordula Knaus and Anno Mungen of the University of Bayreuth, Jutta Toelle of the University of Klagenfurt, Michele Calella of the University of Vienna, Andrea Garavaglia of the University of Fribourg, Ante Bralić of the University of Zadar, as well as Andrijana Jusup Magazin and Nikolina Gunjević Kosanović also of the University of Zadar. I am also greatly indebted, for interesting information and advice, to the researchers Vanni d'Alessio of the University of Naples, Carla Konta of the University of Rijeka, and Borut Klabjan of the Centro di Ricerche Scientifche di Capodistria, as well as my colleagues Nicola Giosmin, Fabiana Licciardi and Bert Preiss. My thanks also go to Francesca Baldan, Roberto Frisano, Katalin Kim, David Giovanni Leonardi, Keith Lyons, Alessandra Pighin and my anonymous revisers, not to mention professor Hugh Ward-Perkins, who translated this work, making valuable suggestions and skilfully improving the text at various points.

Finally, I am infnitely grateful to Vittorio Vella for the extraordinary patience shown throughout and to my parents Francesco Scuderi and Rita Di Marco who taught me to study and love both history and music.

# **Abbreviations**


Abbreviations

© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

# **Sources consulted**

Te archival material consulted for the present research is listed here below.

Sources consulted Sources consulted




© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

### **Introduction**

### Theatres and the management of opera in Istria and Dalmatia: the project

Introduction

and Dalmatia: the project

Theatres and the management of opera in Istria

Te present research intends to trace the presence of opera and reconstruct the organisational system in the theatres situated along the coastline of present-day Croatia in the period immediately following the constitution of the frst Diet of Dalmatia (1861) until the end of the First World War. Te period is sufciently broad to permit us to understand and defne the workings of both the impresario system and the opera circuits operating in the area. Te study aims, therefore, to provide notes for a history that is at present lacking. In the process it will contextualise the historical documentation discovered, so that it can be correctly assessed and interpreted. With the beneft of the material hitherto collected in the archives, museums and libraries of the area, we can reconstruct – not always, unfortunately, in a complete form – the relationships between impresarios and theatre managements, map the movements of the impresarios and agents, and identify the contacts between the publishers (and their representatives) and the coastal area.

In the sixty-year period under consideration, we encounter theatres of diferent types and sizes along the Adriatic coast. Starting from the north, the frst to be taken into consideration is the Politeama Ciscutti of Pula (Pola), named after Pietro Ciscutti, a man viewed as a benefactor of the city, who built the new theatre in 1881 after demolishing the old one he himself had erected in 1854.1 On the seating capacity of the Politeama the sources disagree. It is likely to have had around 800 seats when the town had around 30,000 inhabitants, in spite of claims published in the *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano* that the theatre could hold as many as 2,800,2 or according to other sources, 2,200 or 1,800. Further down the coast we come across the Teatro Adamich of Rijeka (Fiume), with seating for about 1,000 (built when the town had a population of about 10,000)3 and, later,

<sup>1</sup> The theatre built in 1854 suffered losses for around twenty years and made a heavy dent in the founder's estate; "Quanto Pola deve a Pietro Ciscutti"; see *L'Eco di Pola*, 26.1.1890. In actual fact the new Politeama had opened, semi-unofficially, in 1880 with the equestrian company of Alexandro Stekel. It officially opened, however, with a performance of *Ruy Blas* on 24 September 1881.

<sup>2</sup> "The theatre is very fine. It holds 2,800 people and closely resembles the Teatro Dal Verme" ("Il teatro è molto bello, può contenere 2800 persone e ricorda assai il Dal Verme"); "Teatri – Pola", *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, anno XXXVI, no. 40, 2.10.1881, p. 358.

<sup>3</sup> On the Teatro Adamich, see the section devoted to it in Giovanni Kobler, *Memorie per la storia della liburnica città di Fiume*, Mohovich, Rijeka 1896, p. 34.

the Teatro Comunale, inaugurated in 1885 and with a seating capacity of 1,240.4 South of Rijeka, Zadar (Zara) founded its Teatro Nuovo in 1864,5 following the demise of the Teatro Nobile; it had a slightly greater seating capacity of around 1,500.6 Further south still, the smaller town of Šibenik (Sebenico), with its 7,000 inhabitants, had a theatre with limited operatic activity, also judging from what was written in the guidebooks of the period: "Teatro Mazzoleni. Open very rarely" (*Aperto assai di rado*).7 At the time the theatre was the property of the Mazzoleni family and had been founded by the tenor Francesco Mazzoleni,8 a singer who was in direct contact with Giuseppe Verdi and was also an uncle of the famous soprano Ester. It was later run by various distinguished members of the family, among whom the lawyer Enrico, Paolo (Francesco's brother),9 and the

<sup>4</sup> On the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka a good source is Nana Palinić, *Riječka kazališta*, Državni arhiv u Rijeci, Građevinski fakultet Sveučilišta u Rijeci, 2016, or the previous article Nana Palinić, "Riječka kazališta", *Vjesnik Državnog arhiva u Rijeci*, XXXIX (1997), p. 169–240. Ruck Lovorka, "Operni zivot u Rijeci u razdoblju od 1870. do 1930. godine"*,* in *Antonio Smareglia i njegovo doba*, edited by Ivana Paula Gortan Carlin, Polivalentni kulturni centar Istarske županije, Grožnjan 2000, pp. 167*–*212, also provides a list of the opera performances given in Rijeka from 1870 to 1930 at the Teatro Civico, the Anfiteatro Fenice and the Teatro Comunale. On the activities of the theatre in Rijeka, see also Radmila Matejčič, "Općinsko kazalište od osnutka do Drugoga svjetskog rata", in *Narodno kazalište Ivan Zaijc Rijeka*, Narodno kazalište "Ivan Zaijc" i Izdavački centar Rijeka, Rijeka 1981, pp. 25*–*37.

<sup>5</sup> The Deed certifying the foundation of the theatre (*Atto di erezione del teatro*), dated 16.1.1864, is preserved in HR-DAZD-252, folder 1.

<sup>6</sup> The management of the theatre in Zadar defined it as being of "medium capacity like for example the Teatro Armonia of Trieste" ("media capacità quale per esempio l'Armonia di Trieste"); see the Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to the theatrical agency of Sante Utili, Zadar, 6. 2.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>7</sup> Giuseppe Marcotti, *L'Adriatico Orientale*, Bemporad, Firenze 1899, p. 211.

<sup>8</sup> The theatre was subsequently named after him: "Desirous of seeing his homeland and relatives again, in July 1871 [Francesco Mazzoleni] makes his way to Dalmatia, and in Šibenik creates a splendid academy and devotes it to three virtuous aims. His fellow citizens receive him with great displays of affectionate esteem: and the board of the theatre, mindful that without Mazzoleni's most generous contribution this elegant temple of the Muses would not have arisen, and most grateful that he wanted to honour it in this way, in its first session unanimously names the theatre, which first had been called the Teatro Sociale, after the illustrious artist and fellow citizen." ("Desideroso di rivedere la patria e i congiunti, nel luglio del 1871 [*Francesco Mazzoleni*] si reca in Dalmazia, e a Sebenico dà una splendida accademia e la devolve a tre scopi pii. I suoi concittadini lo accolgono con grandi dimostrazioni di stima affettuosa: e la società del teatro, memore che senza il generosissimo concorso del Mazzoleni non sarebbe sorto quell'elegante tempio delle muse, e gratissima ch'egli l'abbia voluto in tal guisa illustrare, nella prima sua tornata ad unanimità intitola il teatro, che dapprima chiamavasi *sociale*, dal nome dell'illustre artista concittadino."); Luigi Maschek, *Manuale del Regno di Dalmazia*, Woditzka, Zadar 1876, vols. VI and VII, p. 240.

<sup>9</sup> See the entry "Mazzoleni, Paolo", in Daria Garbin – Renzo de Vidovich, *Dalmazia Nazione. Dizionario degli Uomini Illustri della componente culturale illirico-romana latina veneta e italiana*, Fondazione

pharmacist Giovanni (Paolo's son and Ester's brother), who would later succeed his father in the management of the theatre.

Further south was the more populous city of Split (Spalato), which had 10,787 inhabitants in 1860,10 and 15,700 in 1899, of which only 2,000 were Italian.11 Te frst functioning theatre was the Teatro Bajamonti, with a seating capacity of around 1,400–1,500, inaugurated on 27 December 1859,12 followed by the Teatro Nuovo, by which time the city had passed from an Italian administration to the Croatian government of Gajo Filomen Bulat. Te last theatre in this series is the Teatro Bonda of Dubrovnik (Ragusa), founded just a few years after the Teatro Bajamonti by the nobleman Luca Bonda in a town which, at the time, was not much larger than Šibenik. Te theatre, which aimed to "imitate the modern theatres of the principal cities of Italy",13 was also, in its constitution, a *teatro sociale* like those mentioned previously, with Bonda having quarter ownership and the remaining three-quarters in the hands of those who had bought the boxes. We have no information on its size, but the guide-books of the period speak of a "small but delightful theatre".14

Te principal theatres hosting the events featured in this research are here summarised in the following table:

Scientifico Culturale Maria e Eugenio Dario Rustia Traine, Trieste 2012, p. 309.

<sup>10</sup> The figure is taken from Mirjana Škunka, "Politische Aspekte des musikalischen Lebens von Split zur Zeit der kroatischen Wiedergeburt (1860–1882)", *International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music*, XX/2 (1989), pp. 141*–*67.

<sup>11</sup> These Italians for the most part retained the customs and traditions of the preceding Venetian domination, according to Marcotti: "While the suburbs contribute a large contingent of agricultural workers, Croatian for the most part, the cultured bourgeoisie, which is civilised and well-off, is almost exclusively Italian, and has strictly Venetian traditions and customs […]" ("Mentre i sobborghi portano un grosso contingente di agricoltori alla maggioranza croata, la borghesia colta, civile e facoltosa è quasi esclusivamente italiana, ha tradizioni e abitudini strettamente veneziane […]"); Marcotti, *L'Adriatico Orientale*, p. 227.

<sup>12</sup> "It has a capacity of between 1,400 and 1500; it has four tiers of boxes: 24 on the ground floor, 25 in the first and second tiers, and 8 in the third; the rest of the third tier is devoted to the gallery for the people." ("È capace dalle 1400 alle 1500 persone; ha quattro ordini di palchetti: 24 palchetti nel pepiano, 25 nel primo e secondo ordine ed 8 nel terzo; il rimanente del terzo è ridotto a loggione pel popolo."); *Illustrazione del Teatro Bajamonti in Spalato*, Oliveti e Giovannizio, Split 1860, p. 9, 20.

<sup>13</sup> "imitare i moderni Teatri delle principali Città d'Italia"; Programme. Dubrovnik, 25.11.1862, HR-DAD: Općina Dubrovnik, Izdvojeni spisi Kazališta, folder 1.

<sup>14</sup> "Bonda gegründete wohl kleine, aber nette Stadttheater"; see Reinhard E. Petermann, *Führer durch Dalmatien*, Hölder, Wien 1899, p. 474.


All of the above theatres stood in harbour cities, situated in an area that was inhabited by a population of mixed ethnicity, i.e. Italian and Croatian (but also German and Slovene in the case of the Istrian peninsula),22 and had been under Austrian domination for some

<sup>15</sup> The data on the number of inhabitants for each location are drawn from the guidebook Marcotti, *L'Adriatico Orientale*.

<sup>16</sup> According to the impresario Alberto Vernier, in the article "Per la pura verità", *L'Eco di Pola*, 28.11.1896, the number of inhabitants only three years previously, in 1896, was 38,000.

<sup>17</sup> The number given in a typewritten note of the theatre management of Rijeka in 1918 is 1,550: "Das hiesige Stadt-Theater kann ein Maximum von 1550 Besucher fassen", Rijeka, 5. 4.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>18</sup> The population was between 7,000 and 10,000 in the year of the theatre's foundation (see Katica Burić Ćenan, *Dokumentalistički pristup i obrada informacija o glazbenom životu grada zadra od 1860. do prvoga svjetskog rata*, doctoral dissertation, University of Zadar, Zadar 2016, p. 261) and 28,230 in 1902, according to the *Guida itinerario dell'Italia e di parte dei paesi limitrofi. Parte 3. Annuario.1896–1903*, Touring club ciclistico italiano, [Milano] 1902, p. 515.

<sup>19</sup> According to a note from the artistic direction of the Teatro Mazzoleni in the early years of the 20th century, it had 800 seats; see Sheet of paper "Teatro Mazzoleni – Sebenico (Dalmazia)", HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. On the other hand, the official advertisement of the theatre, again from the early years of the century, gives the figure as "around 1,000 seats" (*circa 1000 posti*), HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. Today the theatre has a seating capacity of 500; see http://www.hnksi.hr/stranice/hrvatsko-narodno-kazaliste-u-sibeniku/3.html.

<sup>20</sup> According to an article referring to the initial project, the figure is 1,800; see "Il nuovo teatro a Spalato", *Il Diritto Croato*, 30.1.1889. The number was subsequently rectified to 1,500; see "Il teatro comunale di Spalato", *Il Diritto Croato*, 2. 4.1890. 1,500 is the number of seats also given in Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita od 1860. do 1918*, Književni krug, Split 1991, p. 43 and Duško Kečkemet, *Ante Bajamonti i Split*, Split 2007, p. 213.

<sup>21</sup> Karl Baedeker's guide gives the number as 22,716 in 1891; see Karl Baedeker, *Southern Germany and Austria, Including Hungary, Dalmatia and Bosnia. Handbook for Travellers*, Dulau and Co., London 1891, p. 431. The number of inhabitants is said to be 16,000 in 1900. According to Kečkemet, around 1860 Split had about 13,000 inhabitants; Duško Kečkemet, *Antonio Bajamonti e Spalato*, Società Dalmata di Storia Patria, Venezia 2010, p. 35.

<sup>22</sup> "The whole coast of Istria", wrote Charles Yriarte in 1874, "is Venetian by tradition and origin; the whole of the countryside is Slavic, and this latter element constitutes over two thirds of the total population.

time. As is well known, the rule of the Serenissima Republic of Venice over this area ended in 1797, to be followed by the Habsburg period, which lasted until 1918. Although there was a brief Napoleonic interlude between 1806 and 1813, when Istria and Dalmatia were ofcially united by Napoleon to the Kingdom of Italy, after seven years the Austrians regained control of both the Istrian peninsula and the Dalmatian coast.

Tese theatres have been brought together to form a common subject of discussion, since they shared common organisational practices, procedures and customs that were distinct from those prevailing in the inland cities of Zagreb, Osijek or Ljubljana. While the hundreds of correspondences found in the coastal archives almost never mention the operatic life in the inland cities, this is in strong contrast to the close attention paid to what happened in their fellow cities, either with the purpose of imitating their good practices or perhaps, at times, just to criticise their work. Te impresarios and agents writing to the coastal theatres were attracted by the opportunity of ofering their services in one or other of the neighbouring theatres as well. Once they had arrived in the area, they entertained the idea of moving either northwards or southwards along the coast, rather than follow other routes. What these theatres had in common, in addition to the multi-ethnic context in which they operated, was that in the overwhelming majority of cases the opera seasons they presented were produced by Italian companies and impresarios. For all of these reasons, they have been grouped together and considered as a category: that of the 'theatres of the eastern Adriatic'.

All along the coastline there were also other very small Italian theatres for which the documentation available today is very scant. Poreč (Parenzo), which had a municipal theatre of 465 seats inaugurated in 1887, hosted just a few evenings of "*musica e canto*".23 Te same applied to the Teatro Bonetti of Mali Losinj (Lussinpiccolo), where opera performances are

The German element consists above all of employees and soldiers: representatives of the central power, who come from within Austria and often consider themselves as exiles in this remote land, unhappily comparing it to the delightful valleys of Styria and the fair provinces of the Archduchy of Austria. The language used in the cities is Italian; great efforts are made to introduce the use of German. In the towns of the coastline and those of the interior the small tradesmen speak Slavic owing to the need to make themselves understood by the farmers on market days." ("è veneta per tradizione e per origine; tutta la campagna è slava, e quest'ultimo elemento costituisce oltre due terzi della popolazione totale. L'elemento tedesco si compone soprattutto di impiegati e militari, rappresentanti del potere centrale, che, venuti dall'interno dell'Austria, si considerano spesso come esigliati in questo paese perduto, raffrontandolo con rammarico alle ridenti valli della Stiria e alle belle provincie dell'arciducato d'Austria. La lingua in uso nelle città è l'italiana; si fanno grandi sforzi per introdurvi la tedesca. Nelle città del litorale e in quelle dell'interno i piccoli commercianti parlano slavo per la necessità d'intendersi coi contadini, ne'giorni di mercato."); Charles Yriarte, *Trieste e l'Istria*, Treves, Milano 1875, pp. 46*–*47.

<sup>23</sup> See Sheet of paper (untitled) in HR-DAPA-28, folder 147. On musical life in Poreč, see Ivana Paula Gortan Carlin, "Kazalište Giuseppe Verdi' u Poreču od 1887. do 1918.", in *Zbornik radova Ruralna i urbana glazba istarskog poluotoka*, edited by Ivana Paula Gortan-Carlin, Katedra Čakavskog sabora

known to have been infrequent, while in the theatre of Rovinj (Rovigno), inaugurated in 1854, operas were produced with the orchestras "positioned in the stalls in front of the stage".24

At the Teatro Comunale of Labin (Albona), founded in 1843, there is no evidence of opera performances. Nor is there in Pazin (Pisino). Here, with minor exceptions, the events were mainly balls, social occasions, meetings, lectures, and demonstrations of Italian patriotism, given frst at the Teatro Lucigrai, then in the Sala Camus, and later still in the Teatro Depiera, demolished in 1909; the new Teatro Sociale was built in 1912.25 In Trogir (Traù) there was a small venue, but it was never used for theatrical productions, only for social dances during the Carnival season.26 Nor was there a real theatre in Korčula (Curzola), but just a small "Sala Teatrale".27 Concerning the Teatro Dojmi of Kotor (Cattaro, today in Montenegro), a very small number of programmes have been found that testify to performances of opera bufa, but in general no news of other productions has been found.28 Te same applies to the Teatro Sociale of Koper (Capodistria), the Teatro Biondi of Hvar (Lesina),29 and even the theatre of Makarska (Macarsca). We can therefore assert with reasonable certainty that even if further archival material were to emerge, any fresh information would not signifcantly alter the overall picture in statistical terms.

Tis widespread undergrowth of small-scale theatres, in which opera was, understandably, either very rarely presented or completely absent, serves to highlight, by contrast, the greater importance of the eight principal theatres listed in the table above, in which there was indeed a genuine and continual passage of singers, orchestral musicians and impresarios. A fnal note, however, must be added about the Teatro Bonda of Dubrovnik. Here, unfortunately, the complex and incomplete documentation does not permit us to broaden

za glazbu, Novigrad 2010, pp. 45*–*62 and the same author's *Glazbeni život Poreča i okolice 1880.–1918*, Master's dissertation, Filozofski fakultet, Zagreb 2005.

<sup>24</sup> "sistemate in platea davanti al palco"; https://pour.hr/it/informacije/o-kazalistu-kinu-antonio-gandusio [accessed 1. 9. 2022].

<sup>25</sup> If we except the 1904 production of Alfredo Soffredini's *Il piccolo Haydn*, performed by the students of the local gymnasium, the old theatre did not host opera companies. At the new theatre, however, there were performances in 1913 by the Castagnoli company of *La Favorita, Il barbiere di Siviglia, L'elisir d'amore* and *Don Pasquale*. On the theatre of Pisino, see Nerina Feresini, *Il teatro di Pisino*, Manfrini, Trento 1985.

<sup>26</sup> As mentioned in the Letter from the district captain of Split to the lieutenancy (*luogotenenza*) of Zadar, Split, 15. 9.1881, HR-DAZD-562, folder 1.

<sup>27</sup> On the theatrical and musical performances in Korčula, see Cvito Fisković, *"*Kazališne i glazbene priredbe u Korčuli u XIX stoljeću", *Dani Hvarskoga kazališta: Građa i rasprave o hrvatskoj književnosti i kazalištu*, I/1 (1975), pp. 123*–*201.

<sup>28</sup> In fact Kotor's dealings with music and Italian musicians were infrequent, as also indicated in Feri Pauer Peretti, "La vita musicale della Dalmazia", *Rivista dalmatica*, XXII/2 (1942), p. 12.

<sup>29</sup> A Statute of the theatrical society of Lesina, dated 1906, with the names of 33 members is preserved at the State Archive of Zadar in HR-DAZD-562, folder 3.

State of the art, archival material, and types of

sources

the scope of our study, or to make meaningful comparisons between this theatre and the state of afairs in the other cities of the Dalmatian coast.

#### State of the art, archival material and types of sources

Te majority of the documents referred to in this research are unpublished, given that over the years the subject has been tackled only partially. While it is true that there are studies in Croatian on some of the coastal theatres, for the most part these works refer either to the individual histories of the theatres or, more generally, to the musical life (not necessarily connected to opera) in the separate cities concerned. Some of these studies focus principally on the theatre 'building', detailing its architectural and constructional features, and explore neither the performance aspect nor the network with the other theatres. Tere are also studies on the Balkan area more generally,30 but they concentrate on diferent material from that of the archives consulted here.

As for the bibliography in Italian, it is practically non-existent and, for the most part, unscholarly. Moreover, if we refer to the literature of a few decades ago, we fnd material that has a strong political bias. Hostility towards the 'Slavic' element was already conspicuous in an anonymous report of 1932 found among the papers at the Teatro Verdi in Zadar. In this city the Teatro Sociale Giuseppe Verdi was apparently built "in the dark times of foreign domination" (*negli oscuri tempi della dominazione straniera*) as a sacred temple to the cult of art and the fatherland, and it "struggled in their name for over a half century against Slavic barbarity, which, after criminally allying itself with Austrian highhandedness and burning down the theatre built by Antonio Baiamonti, set up the Balkan Narodno Kazalište of Split against it, with the aim of destroying it". Te theatre of Zadar – the statement went on – continued up until 1914 in its role of "radiant beacon" (*faro irradiatore*) of Italic culture in the Slavic near-east and as a centre of attraction for all the Italians of Dalmatia, notwithstanding all the "dirty tricks" (*canagliate*) allegedly perpetrated by the enemies.31

Even texts from the 1950s are profoundly biased. An example is provided by Salvatore Samani, written at the time when the theatre in Rijeka, previously named after Verdi, was

<sup>30</sup> Tatjana Marković, for example, has for some years been working on the contextualisation of opera and national identity in southern European countries (see the projects *The Role of Opera in Constructing National Identity of Southeast European Countries* and *Opera and the Idea of Self-Representation in Southeast Europe*, both financed by the Austrian Science Fund for scientific research FWF).

<sup>31</sup> "lottò in loro nome per oltre mezzo secolo con la barbarie slava che, delittuosa alleata della prepotenza austriaca, incendiato il teatro eretto da Antonio Baiamonti, gli oppose per abbatterlo il balcanico Narodno Kazalište di Spalato". Typewritten report without title or signature, [Šibenik], 1932, HR-DAZD, folder 29.

re-dedicated to the composer Ivan Zajc. Samani was the author of *Il teatro nella storia di Fiume*, a lecture published by the Lega Fiumana of Padua in 1959: "Te Yugoslavs, for whom the name Verdi seemed not good enough," wrote Samani, "with an execrable afront, have dedicated it to that obscure music master already mentioned earlier, that Giovanni Zaitz, who for some years had been orchestral conductor in Rijeka during the Croatian occupation of 1848 and had then gone to Vienna before concluding his inglorious career in Zagreb".32 Te "obscure music master" with his "inglorious career" had thus already been judged and branded. Such material is highly prejudiced in its terminology and can be perhaps used only to contribute to sociological studies focusing on the tensions between the Italian and Croatian populations after the two World Wars. In general, the material in Italian, which sufers from a desire to reassert the degree of 'Italianness' in Dalmatia, abandons all pretence of detachment and objectivity. In other languages there is even less material. Tere is more information, however, on the periods preceding the second half of the 19th century.33 What is still lacking is an overall vision of the region, and to date the literature, though mostly of high quality, is partial and not focused on the subject in question. Considering, therefore, the lack of a reference bibliography, the present research has been carried out almost entirely on the basis of primary sources.

Te observations made here are the result of examining the substantial documentary material preserved in the State Archive of Pisino, the University Library of Pula, the State Archive of Rijeka, the Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, the State Archive of Zadar, the State Archive of Šibenik, the City Museum of Split, the Karlo Grenc Foundation, the State Archive of Dubrovnik and the State Archive of Trieste. Te manuscript and printed materials were digitalised and work was carried out on over 24,000 photographs. Te longest and most complex stage of the work consisted in collecting and selecting the material and comparing the diferent types of sources. Given the sheer quantity of materials examined, the reader of the published book may well remain unaware of exactly how much is hidden from view.

<sup>32</sup> "Gli jugoslavi cui pareva poco il nome di Verdi, con immondo sfregio, l'hanno dedicato a quell'oscuro maestro di musica, già ricordato, quel Giovanni Zaitz, che durante l'occupazione croata del 1848 era stato per alcuni anni direttore d'orchestra a Fiume e poi se n'era andato a Vienna per concludere la sua ingloriosa carriera in Zagabria."; Salvatore Samani, *Il Teatro nella storia di Fiume*, Lega Fiumana di Padova, Padova 1959, p. 21.

<sup>33</sup> See, for example, the published works of Ennio Stipčević, "Diffusion de l'opéra italien sur la cote Est de l'Adriatique aux XVIIe et XVIII siècles", in *D'une scène à l'autre, l'opéra italien en Europe: Les pérégrinations d'un genre*, edited by Damien Colas and Alessandro Di Profio, Mardaga, Wavre 2009, pp. 53–64, or "La cultura musicale in Istria e in Dalmazia nel XVI e XVII secolo. Principali caratteristiche storiche, geopolitiche e culturali", *International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music*, XXIII/2 (1992), pp. 141*–*52.

Te most interesting source of documentation, in terms of both quantity and novelty interest, is very likely the *fondo* (or record group) of the Teatro Mazzoleni in Šibenik, with its ffteen folders of material relating to the activities of the theatre, now preserved at the State Archive of that city. Tere is today just one study documenting the activities of this institution; it is in Croatian and by now not even recent.34 Te most disappointing situation, on the other hand, concerns the documentation for Dubrovnik. Te archivists do not rule out the existence of surviving correspondences, but they would be uncatalogued and comprised within the record group relating to the city council, which is indeed a very sizable collection of documents. In general, we can say that there is better documentation for the theatres that received public funding than for the private or semi-private theatres, where preservation is patchier. Tis can create problems when trying to make comparisons on various subjects connected to the management of opera, since the quantity of archival material in the various *fondi* of the respective theatres is uneven. As a rule, a theatrical *fondo* contains diferent types of document, not all relating to opera. In archives like these the documents dealing with opera are mixed up with those concerning spoken theatre, operetta, and also the general expenses of the theatre, not to mention correspondences not necessarily connected to the organisation of opera productions. Hence the pressing need to make a basic preliminary sort of the archival material and to work on a wide variety of sources.


<sup>34</sup> Ivo Livaković, *Kazališni život Šibenika*, Muzej Grada Šibenika, Šibenik 1984.

<sup>35</sup> John Rosselli, *Elenco provvisorio degli impresari e agenti teatrali italiani dal 1770 al 1890*, printout preserved at the Dipartimento delle Arti, University of Bologna, 1982.

<sup>36</sup> "Dizionario bio-bibliografico degli agenti teatrali attivi a Milano nell'Ottocento", in Livia Cavaglieri, *Tra arte e mercato. Agenti e agenzie teatrali nel XIX secolo*, Bulzoni, Roma 2006, pp. 303–402.

<sup>37</sup> For example, the proceeds from the entrance tickets (which went to the impresario), the rental of the boxes (from which the management profited), the money offered by the management to the impresario per evening, etc.

previous category. Given that we are here dealing with outgoing correspondence (from theatre management to impresario), the material either survives in copies or is collected in letter books. Not everything, however, is to be found in the letter books. What is missing would need to be hunted down principally in the archives of the Italian theatres, at least the most important ones, or in the archives of impresarios. We know that the latter option is the less likely, given that today there are very few surviving collections of an impresario's papers. Unfortunately the letter books relating to the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar are for the most part illegible, since the ink has faded. In this type of correspondence we may discover, for example, if the theatre owners (or, more generally, their managers) exerted any artistic infuence on the actions of the impresarios who organised the seasons, or if there were artistic preferences that distinguished the programming of one theatre from that of others.


Unfortunately we have no documentation on the stagings themselves; in other words, on the actual opera productions. We can therefore agree with what has already been noted by Jutta Toelle with reference to certain Italian theatre archives. Te *fondi* examined here rarely include documents that concern opera as an art form. For the most part they are technical documents whose main subject is money or purely and strictly organisational matters.39

<sup>38</sup> An early definition of the *borderò* is given to us by Consiglio Rispoli: "The accounts are done almost always between the impresario and the company at the end of the run of performances, based on the evenings' *borderò*, that is on the lists of the takings and common expenditures that are drawn up evening by evening by the ticket clerk and by the secretaries of both the impresa and the company" ("I conti si fanno quasi sempre tra impresario e compagnia al termine del corso delle rappresentazioni, sui borderò serali, cioè su' listini degli incassi e delle spese comuni, compilati sera per sera dal bigliettinaio e da' segretari dell'impresa e della compagnia"); Consiglio Rispoli, *La vita pratica del teatro*, Bemporad, Firenze 1903, p. 149.

<sup>39</sup> "Most of the documents consulted are about money, many about technical procedures, disputes over competence or political discord. Hardly once is opera addressed as an art form, and rarely are artistically or even musically based choices discussed." ("In den meisten der eingesehenen Dokumente geht es um Geld, in vielen um technische Abläufe, Kompetenzstreitigkeiten oder politischen Zwist. Kaum einmal wird die Oper als Kunstform thematisiert, selten werden künstlerisch oder gar musikalisch begründete Entscheidungen diskutiert."); Jutta Toelle, *Oper als Geschäft. Impresari an italienischen Opernhäusern* 

Even though certain printed documents found among the archival material are even trilingual (Italian, German and Croatian), such as the receipt slips used for sending telegrams and the correspondence cards widely used by the impresarios for communicating with theatre managements,40 most of the manuscript documents are in Italian. In fact, ever since the beginning of Napoleonic rule, Italian had been adopted as the ofcial language for the area in consideration. Moreover, the use of Italian has its own logic if we also bear in mind that most of the people corresponding with the theatres were indeed Italian. Over the years, however, the presence of Italian was to decline, also due to the policy of 'de-Italianising' Istria and Dalmatia encouraged by the Emperor Franz Joseph from 1866 onwards.41 Tis phenomenon was more pronounced in the cities of Šibenik and Split: in Šibenik Italian and Croatian mayors alternated in power from the year 1872, whereas in Split the administration of the city shifted from Italian to Croatian in 1882. Towards the end of the 19th century the Austro-Hungarian empire retained the use of Italian in the public administration of the coastal areas while trying to replace it gradually with German: a development that in fact never took place. Te Croatian spoken by the wider population was ofcially introduced into the schools and government ofces of Dalmatia only after 1912, in spite of ferce resistance from the Italian community.42

*<sup>1860–1900</sup>*, Bärenreiter, Kassel 2007, p. 13. Although Toelle refers to what she found in the archives of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Teatro Regio in Parma, the situation concerning the archival material of the coastal theatres is no different.

<sup>40</sup> The telegrams carried the trilingual heading "Aufgabeschein / Primka / Certificato di impostazione", while that for the postcards was "Correspondenz-Karte / Dopisnica / Cartolina di corrispondenza".

<sup>41</sup> On 12 November 1866 Franz Joseph had ordered the Crown Council to resist the influence of the Italian community resolutely: "His Majesty has ordered that the influence of the Italian elements still present in certain Lands of the Crown be contrasted in the most resolute way with the appropriate appointment of political and court officials and teachers, and with the influence of the press in South Tyrol, Dalmatia and the coastal regions, and that the Germanisation or Slavicisation of the relevant parts of the Country be pursued with all the energy possible and without any hesitation, depending on circumstances. His Majesty imposes an obligation on all central offices to act in this manner as planned". ("Se. Majestät sprach den bestimmten Befehl aus, dass auf die entschiedenste Art dem Einflüsse des in einigen Kronländern noch vorhandenen italienischen Elementen entgegentreten durch geeinignete Besetzung der Stellen von politischen, Gerichtsbeamten, Lehrern sowie durch den Einfluss der Presse in Südtirol, Dalmatien und dem Küstenlande auf die Germanisierung oder Slawisierung der betreffenden Landesteile je nach Umständen mit aller Energie und ohne alle Rücksicht hingearbeitet werde. Se. Majestät legt es allen Zentralstellen als strenge Plifcht auf, in diesem Sinne planmäßig vorzugehen."); see the text of the session of 12 November 1866 in *Die Protokolle des Österreichischen Ministerrates 1848/1867. V Abteilung: Die Ministerien Rainer und Mensdorff. VI Abteilung: Das Ministerium Belcredi*, Österreichischer Bundesverlag für Unterricht, Wissenschaft und Kunst, Wien 1971, p. 297.

<sup>42</sup> See Ivan Pederin, "La Dalmazia nelle relazioni di viaggio austriache e tedesche", *Aevum*, XLIX/5/6 (1975), p. 505.

Checking the truth of historical data is sometimes a complex process, requiring research on more than one level. One cannot, for example, always give credit to a theatre bill announcing an opera, since the work in question could have been cancelled at the last minute or replaced by another. Nor can one rely solely on an article in the newspaper advertising a season. One must necessarily also take into account any letters to the theatre management from the impresario, who would clarify how events had really taken place and disclose any last-minute changes to the programme. Te same is true for the opera librettos. Teir presence in the archive has no direct connection with the fact that the opera was actually performed. Te libretto may well be there merely because the opera had been proposed, without the matter being followed up. Besides, if a libretto failed to pass censorship, the opera was simply not staged. Te same also applies to the names of the singers. It could happen that the impresario would leave the names of renowned artists on the bill, only to replace them with ones that were much less distinguished. In some cases, even the identifcation of the impresario is a complex matter, given that contradictory information is found. While a given impresario may be announced as having won the contract for a given theatre in the newspapers, another impresario's name may be found for the very same season in the manuscript documentation. In the absence of further documentation with which to cross-check, one cannot be certain who had really been responsible for that season. In the reconstructions proposed in the present study, where the name of the impresario is lacking, this means that it was impossible, on the strength of the documentation collected, to trace the identity of the person who had contracted the theatre. In such cases the abbreviation "n.f." (i.e. not found) is used in the tables. Te same applies to the *maestro concertatore* (conductor) and *direttore dei cori* (chorus master). Teir names were not always reported in the newspapers. Nor did the newspapers always review all the performances of a specifc opera. While one is likely to fnd an article for the frst night, for the following nights what is very often printed is only a mention of the date and starting time. In cases where an opera was merely announced in the newspapers before the beginning of the season, without there being any confrmation of a performance on subsequent days, the indication "[*announced*]" is given in the table.

While such cross-checking of the sources on diferent levels certainly complicates and slows down the work of research, it is nonetheless an essential basis for a correct interpretation of what actually happened. Only by mapping the overall opera programming in the coastal region and making comparisons among the similar theatres is it possible not only to outline the individual micro-histories of each theatre, but also to delineate the trends, the broader lines of development over the course of time and the macro-histories. In general the seasons have been reconstructed with the assistance of the *borderò* (where available), documents that are useful also for understanding the takings and expenses, the correspondence between impresarios and theatre management, and the newspaper articles that advertised or reviewed performances. Teatre bills (again where available) were also taken into account in certain cases.

Unfortunately documents such as the "Prospetto del movimento musicale nei teatri d'Italia" (Summary of musical activity in the theatres of Italy), published by the *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano* are available for the coastal theatres only for a very short period of time.43 Here, for example, we would have found news of what was produced in the theatres of Rijeka, Split and Zadar (at the time considered as "theatres of Italy"), with complete lists of the singers engaged, along the lines of the *Gazzetta Teatrale Italiana*, which reported on the movements of both individual singers and whole companies. Certain short notices can be extracted from *Il Teatro Illustrato*, which included some scant information on Pula, Rijeka and Zadar. Among the printed sources, also referred to were various issues of journals such as *Euterpe*, *L'Arte Melodrammatica*, *La Scena*, or *Il Teatro*. Te ANNO online database was also consulted as a means of accessing journals such as *La Fama, Agramer Zeitung* or *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, among the various.

We may read the musical chronicles in Italian in *Il Nazionale* up until 1872, after which the newspaper was printed in Croatian (and changed its name to *Narodni List*), but in any case it did not provide regular reports of operatic events, especially since it was not obliged to do so.44 Tere were also other periodicals specifc to the area, such as *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, *L'Eco di Pola*, *Il Dalmata*, *La Rassegna Dalmata,* or *La Bilancia* of Rijeka and the *Gazzetta di Fiume*. *Il Piccolo* of Trieste was also consulted, as a means of making comparisons with the Teatro Comunale of Trieste and in the hope of fnding, every now and then, some information on the coastal theatres. Specifcally musical journals printed in the area could not be consulted because they did not as yet exist.45

Tese periodicals are therefore one of the sources used to recover data on opera productions. Unfortunately, in most cases what one succeeds in learning is just the bare information on the place, the date and the name of the opera performed, along with a few names from the cast engaged. Rarely is one given any news of special interest, such as on the interpretations of the singers (which would have allowed us to say more about the quality and type of artists engaged). In most cases the reviews in the newspapers are very general and, besides, written by journalists who were not necessarily specialists. To say that a singer has a "*buona scuola di canto*", or that he or she has an "*ottima e simpatica voce*", or to use expressions such as "*grande sentire drammatico*", tells us little about the real merits of an artist. Moreover, there were no correspondents who could forward their reports to non-local newspapers,

<sup>43</sup> See, just as an example, the "Prospetto del movimento musicale nei teatri d'Italia", *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, anno XX, no. 21, 25.5.1862, pp. 84*–*85.

<sup>44</sup> In spite of the change of name, for a time the newspaper retained the Italian subtitle *Il Nazionale.* Then from 1885 it was called just *Narodni List* and as such was published until 1920; see Ezio Giuricin – Luciano Giuricin, *Il percorso di un'eredità. La stampa della comunità nazionale nel solco della storia dell'editoria italiana nell'Adriatico orientale*, Unione Italiana-Fiume, Università Popolare-Trieste, Rovigno 2017, p. 29.

<sup>45</sup> For an overview of the first music journals in Croatia, see Zdravko Blažeković, "The First Music Journals in Croatia", *Periodica Musica*, IV (1986), p. 12.

which explains why news about the coastal theatres is so rare in the foreign press. Indeed, if anything is to be found there – at most a short notice – it will be in their "foreign news" section. In short, we have either periodicals that print just short items about a work having been performed, without any additional comment or appraisal, or other journals that provide complete reviews along the lines of the *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, though the latter case is much less frequent.

Generic and dry though it may be, all of this information was put together with the remaining archival data and subsequently organised and elaborated in accordance with certain important directives of research.

#### Directives of research

Tis research attempts to give an answer to a series of questions concerning the entire process of staging operas. It was a process that started with the recovery of funds: in other words, the money needed to set the wheels of the operatic organisation in motion.


Directives of research

the coastal areas was surely no easy matter, were the scores performed complete or were cuts and changes made before they were staged? And, leaving aside the repertoire operas, how might the new operas of local composers have circulated?

‒ Also important is to understand how opera companies and their materials actually moved around. How were the singers and orchestral players recruited in the area and what were their conditions of work? Who – in a hypothetical 'board' made up of the theatre management, impresario, publisher, *maestro concertatore* and conductor – were the ones actually choosing them?

Considering the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic diversity of the area in question, there is another matter that is totally distinct from the issues listed above, and that is whether the desire to organise seasons of Italian opera could be seen as a reassertion of 'Italianness' in the area. Or did opera perhaps belong to a category of its own, obeying its own laws and practices? Tough Italian opera had long been a transnational phenomenon, here perhaps it represented something more than the mere replication of a standard genre. Te question remains open and lends itself to a wide-ranging and interesting discussion. It will not, however, be tackled within this study, given that it is not directly connected to the organisational processes that I wish to focus on. It is worth remembering only that at the beginning of this historical period an independent Italian state was established (1861) and that at the same time the Balkan societies were also spreading their nationalistic ideologies. Increasingly vast swathes of the resident Italian, Slovenian and Croatian populations were becoming aware of the problem of 'the nation'. While the Italian nationalists were clamouring to hold onto the territories in which Venetian-language populations had lived for centuries, their aspirations were destined to clash with similar claims from the Slavic camp. 1861 was also the year in which, by command of the Emperor, elections were held for the Provincial Diet of Dalmatia, resulting in a victory for the Autonomist Party, which was accused of being pro-Venetian and which, at least in the early stages, controlled most of the coastal districts. As for the Habsburg government, which was already long used to struggling with the irredentist movement (now reinvigorated by the repercussions of the newly proclaimed Kingdom of Italy), it would seem to have changed its policy towards the diferent nationalities and created friction between the Italian, Croatian and Slovenian ethnic groups which had previously lived together in the region more or less peacefully.

When Giuseppe Verdi died in 1901, various coastal theatres adopted his name (Verdi being the national symbol *par excellence*). It would be interesting to know if there is another geographical area in Europe with a similar concentration of theatres named after a single composer. In the table below the theatres of Gorizia and Trieste have also been added, given that in certain respects the circulation of opera towards Dalmatia also included these two theatres. It is also worth noting that Gorizia and Trieste were still under Austrian rule until 1921 and 1918 respectively:


Even without counting the fact that various coastal theatres were inaugurated with Verdi operas (*Aida* in Rijeka, *Un ballo in Maschera* in Zadar, *Il trovatore* or *I lombardi alla prima crociata* in Split, *Ernani* in Dubrovnik, etc.) and the objection that Verdi was in any case the most frequently performed composer in that period, it is surely signifcant that the theatres of Gorizia, Trieste, Poreč and Zadar all immediately changed their name in 1901. In the case of Zadar the change of name was proposed by the councillor Giambattista Filippi at a meeting of the theatre's members and shareholders.48 In Trieste, on the other hand, it appears that an assembly was held on the very night the composer died, and on 29 January 1901 (just two days later) it was decided, with a resolution of the city's deputation, to name the theatre after Verdi.49 Te Teatro Comunale of Rijeka became the Teatro Verdi only later, in 1913, to mark the centenary of the composer's birth.50 As for Šibenik, the theatre

<sup>46</sup> According to Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita od 1860. do 1918*, Književni krug, Split 1991, p. 44.

<sup>47</sup> According to Duško Kečkemet, *Ante Bajamonti*, p. 213.

<sup>48</sup> At Zadar, the minutes of the meeting in question recorded the event as follows: "The councillor Giambattista Filippi takes the floor and proposes that in memory of the grand old man, of the master whom the whole world without distinction honours and whose death it laments, the name of 'Verdi' should be given to the theatre and the title 'Società del Teatro Nuovo' be changed to 'Società del Teatro Verdi'." ("Il sig. Consigliere Giambattista Filippi prende la parola e propone che in ricordanza del grande vecchio, del maestro che tutto il mondo indistintamente onora piangendone la morte, al teatro sia dato il nome di 'Verdi' e che quindi la dizione 'Società del Teatro Nuovo' sia mutata in 'Società del Teatro Verdi'."); Minutes of the meeting of the Committee, Zadar, 18. 2.1901, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

<sup>49</sup> Giuseppe Caprin, *Il Teatro Nuovo: XXI aprile 1801*, Schimpff, Trieste 1901, p. 14.

<sup>50</sup> The mayor or *podestà* communicated the decision to the theatre management of Rijeka as follows: "I have the honour to inform you that the Illustrious Municipal Council in its session of 14 April of the current year, as a corollary to its proposals concerning the commemoration of Giuseppe Verdi, has

named after Mazzoleni never made any changes. It merely sent the following telegram to the mayor of Milan at the death of Verdi: "In consternation the Teatro Mazzoleni participates with its soul in the intense grief of Italy and of the civilised people for the irreparable loss of Giuseppe Verdi, bright star, who with his sublime harmonies moved the world for over ffty years. Model of austere, untarnished, munifcent citizen".51 Te theatre perhaps had no interest in changing its name most likely for a very simple reason: in the management and among the shareholders there were still descendants of the tenor Francesco Mazzoleni, to whom the theatre was dedicated. Nonetheless, the interior of the building, which has survived as it was then, stood as an efective refection of the Italian community that had created it. It is enough to consider the eleven tondos embellishing the boxes, each bearing the profle of an Italian musician or writer.52

Nor did the Politeama of Pula change its name. In this case, the telegram was sent to the mayor of Milan by the Bolzicco impresa, which ran the theatre in 1901: "Impresa Politeama Ciscutti declares itself aficted in the general mourning for the death of the supreme Verdi. Impresa Bolzicco".53 Even though there was no change in the name of the theatre, the Italian orientation in Pula was nonetheless manifest. In the same year *Ernani* was performed for the frst time, and the widespread irredentist demonstrations in the hall obliged the Austrian police to cut scenes from Act Two of the opera from the following nights*.* 54 In Split,

decreed, again with a unanimous vote, that the name of the supreme Italian master be given to our Teatro Comunale. Henceforth the official title will therefore be: Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi. Abbreviations of the title are not to be admitted, and much less so is it permitted that the adjective 'comunale' be omitted." ("Mi pregio di comunicarLe che l'Inclito Consiglio municipale nella sua seduta del 14 aprile a. c. a corollario delle Sue proposte circa la commemorazione di Giuseppe Verdi ha deliberato ancora con unanime votazione che al nostro Teatro comunale venga dato il nome del sommo Maestro italiano. Il titolo ufficiale sarà quindi innanzi: Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi. Abbreviazioni del titolo non sono da ammettersi e tanto meno sarà da permettersi che l'aggettivo 'comunale' venga omesso."); see Letter from the *podestà* of Rijeka to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 18. 4.1913, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1. In addition, a bust of Giuseppe Verdi was made, to be placed in the theatre.

<sup>51</sup> "Questa società teatro Mazzoleni costernata, associasi coll'anima al dolore vivissimo d'Italia e delle genti civili per irreparabile perdita Giuseppe Verdi, astro luminoso, che colle sue sublimi armonie commosse il mondo per oltre cinquant'anni. Modello cittadino austero, intemerato, munifico"; Telegram from the theatre management of Šibenik to the mayor of Milan, 1901, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>52</sup> In contrast, for example, the 26 medallions at the Teatro Bajamonti in Split exclusively depicted Dalmatian personalities, among whom not a single composer; see Duško Kečkemet, *Ante Bajamonti*, p. 216.

<sup>53</sup> "Impresa Politeama Ciscutti al lutto generale per la morte del sommo Verdi annunciasi commossa. Impresa Bolzicco"; Marcello Bogneri, "Il Politeama Ciscutti nella storia di Pola. Vita di un teatro dal 1888 all'esodo nei testi dell'epoca", *L'Arena di Pola*, Gorizia 1987, p. 56.

<sup>54</sup> "[…] The performance, presented with extraordinary merit", the newspapers commented, "had enflamed the spirits to the extent of making them erupt many times. It was at the preparation for the third act when an explosion of joy and an ardent demonstration of patriotism was to mark one of the finest moments our Teatro Ciscutti can boast of. The first row of seats (*poltrone*) was reserved

on the other hand, the city had come under Croatian government in 1882 (as mentioned above), so there was evidently no incentive to make a change to "Teatro Verdi".55 In light of the fact that the Italian community was gradually losing political ground in the areas under examination, can we therefore speak of Italian opera ofering 'cultural resistance'? Or is this an exaggeration and the extent of political inspiration overestimated?

Tese questions open up broad vistas about which there is still today much discussion. In the present book, however, the matter is raised merely as a suggestion for further research, in the hope that stimulating studies on the subject may be forthcoming. Instead, we shall now turn our attention to examining in greater detail how the business of staging operas in the coastal theatres was managed and what it involved.

55 On the history of Split, see Grga Novak, *Povijest Splita*, Čakavski sabor, Split 1965, or the more recent Duško Kečkemet, *Prošlost Splita*, Marjan tisak, Split 2002.

for the officers of the Austrian navy. On that evening these officers in full uniform were enjoying the spectacle and were surely not expecting the hostile display about to be staged against them. At the second act of the conspiracy, while the singers on stage sang 'Questi brandi di morte sacrati…' [These swords sworn to death], brandishing them in front of the officers, a shower of tricoloured streamers fell onto the stalls from the gallery amid cries of 'Viva Italia'. In a single moment the excitement had overwhelmed everyone. The public shouted and applauded, flourished handkerchiefs and hats and insistently demanded a repeat of the whole conspiracy. But the chief constable rushed onto the stage ordering the artists not to present themselves to the audience. From then on, by orders of the police, *Ernani* was staged without the conspiracy. Naturally this did not stop the public from getting excited and acclaiming Italy as soon as they got to the third act." ("[…] Lo spettacolo presentato con decoro straordinario aveva acceso gli animi al punto di farli scattare parecchie volte. Era la preparazione per il terz'atto dove un'esplosione di gioia e una dimostrazione ardente di patriottismo dovevano registrare uno dei momenti più belli che vanti il nostro Ciscutti. La prima fila di poltrone era riservata agli ufficiali della marina austriaca. In quella sera questi ufficiali in alta uniforme si godevano lo spettacolo e non si attendevano certamente la manifestazione ostile che verso di loro doveva essere inscenata. Al secondo atto della congiura, mentre dal palcoscenico i cantanti intonavano 'Questi brandi di morte sacrati…' agitandoli verso gli ufficiali, dal loggione tra grida di 'Viva Italia', cadevano in platea una pioggia di stelle filanti tricolorate. In un momento il delirio aveva invaso tutti. Si gridava e si applaudiva, si agitavano i fazzoletti e cappelli e insistentemente si domandava il bis dell'intera congiura. Ma il commissario si precipitava in palcoscenico ingiungendo agli artisti di non presentarsi al pubblico. Da allora per ordine della polizia l'Ernani venne rappresentata senza la congiura. Naturalmente ciò non impedì al pubblico di agitarsi e di inneggiare all'Italia non appena si arrivava al terz'atto"); "L'Ernani nei ricordi", *L'Azione*, 25.10.1925, quoted in Bogneri, "Il Politeama Ciscutti", p. 208. Patriotic leaflets were distributed during performances of *Ernani* also at the Politeama Rossetti in Trieste in 1903. See Fabiana Licciardi, *Tutto esaurito nei cinema – teatri a Trieste durante la Grande guerra*, Lecture held at the Circolo Aziendale delle Generali Trieste, 21.3. 2016.

© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

### **1 Subsidising the opera seasons**

#### 1.1 Presence, provenance and amount of the endowment

Te entire process of producing and organising opera began by securing the fnancial resources needed to support the productions. Along the coast of the eastern Adriatic there were both theatres receiving public funding and unsubsidised theatres. In the former category we include those of Rijeka, Zadar and Split;1 in the latter, those of Pula and Šibenik.

Subsidising the opera seasons

ment

Presence, provenance and amount of the endow-

Before choosing the *impresa* to run the opera season and granting the concession, the theatre management had to make sure it had enough funds to make up the so-called 'endowment' (referred to in the documents as the *dote* or *dotazione*). Where did the money come from? If we except the theatre's ordinary income, which was usually very limited, it could come from either the provincial government (*luogotenenza*) or the municipality (*comune*), as well as from the membership fees (*canoni*) paid by the theatre's shareholders.

In the case of publicly funded theatres, the management started proceedings by sending a letter to the competent authority asking for fnancial support. Te letter declared the theatre's intention to organise a season of opera (the season in question would then be specifed) and made a formal application for funding, perhaps even asking for an increase in the subsidy in view of the greater demands of both the public and the imprese. After a variable period of time, the authority would respond with a letter either conveying the amount that would be granted, or, on the contrary, communicating the decision not to grant a concession. In the case of the provincial government (*luogotenenza*) of Dalmatia, the letter was signed by the district captain (*capitano distrettuale*), though formally the decision was actually the prerogative of the governor (*luogotenente*);2 in the case of the municipality it was signed by the mayor (*podestà*) and an *assessore* (a councillor in charge of the relevant department). Te endowment that came from the provincial government and the municipality could be subject to change from year to year, and was – above all – "voluntary", a point that was sometimes emphasised in letters to the theatre management. At Zadar, for example, the district captain drew attention to the fact that the endowment "was completely voluntary and such that it could even be reduced and even completely discontinued".3

<sup>1</sup> For Rijeka this meant the Teatro Adamich and then the new Teatro Comunale; for Zadar the Teatro Nuovo; and for Split the Teatro Bajamonti first and the Teatro Nuovo later.

<sup>2</sup> The district captain was the head of the political district called a district captaincy (or *capitanato distrettuale*). With the reorganization of 1868 Dalmatia was divided into twelve district captaincies.

<sup>3</sup> This was how the district captain wrote to the theatre management of Zadar communicating the grant of 500 florins in 1897: "His Excellency the Governor of the Kingdom has allocated, with the Decree

It is a well-known fact that state subsidies were discontinued in Italy from 1867 onwards.4 In addition, a ten percent gross tax was also applied to theatrical performances: a measure that prompted the impresarios to address a petition to the Italian parliament.5 Te theatres were subsequently subsidised by the town councils, except for the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, which saw its last municipal subsidy in 1873 and then nothing for the following 13 years.6 Later still, judging from what Consiglio Rispoli writes in his text on the practical life of the theatre, published in 1903, the endowment "disappeared from almost all the municipal budgets". Owing to the hardly thriving conditions of the municipalities, and also to the poor results obtained in the past, it was voted to abolish it or reduce it to derisory proportions.7 So if we bear in mind the situation aficting the Italian theatres in the second half of the 19th century, there is perhaps a case for saying that Zadar, in comparison, was not after all in such a poor fnancial state.

of 15 February of the current year N. 235/pr. in response to the application of the 10th of the current month N. 13, a subsidy amounting to five hundred (500) florins for the purpose of having several operas performed in the said theatre during the seasons of spring and autumn of the current year. In the meantime I invite the Esteemed Management to withdraw the above sum from this office, against a receipt provided with the appropriate stamp; I inform you with reference to Lieutenant's Decree of 22 September 1888 no. 2707, that this subsidy is to be considered as completely voluntary and such that it could even be reduced and even completely discontinued." ("Sua Eccellenza il Signor Luogotenente del Regno ha trovato con decreto 15 Febbraio a. c. N. 235/pr. in esito alla domanda dd. 10 corr. N. 13 una sovvenzione nell'importo di fior. Cinquecento / 500 / all'uopo di far eseguire parecchie opere nel teatro stesso durante le stagioni di primavera ed autunno dell'anno in corso. Nel mentre invito la Spettabile Direzione a voler ritirare, verso quietanza munita del competente bollo, da quest'ufficio il suddetto importo, Le partecipo con richiamo il luogot. Decreto 22 settembre 1888 n. 2707, che tale sovvenzione è da considerarsi come del tutto volontaria e tale da potersi anche eventualmente restringere ed anche del tutto sospendere."); Letter from the district captain to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 22. 2.1897, HR-DAZD, folder 25. Concerning the voluntary nature of the endowment, see also Prospero Ascoli, *Della giurisprudenza teatrale: studj*, Pellas, Firenze 1871, p. 47. Ascoli devotes an entire chapter to the endowments or subsidies from the treasury or municipality.


In Zadar it seems that already in 1861 the *Filodrammatici* (the amateur theatre company) ofered certain "entertainments" (*trattenimenti*) in the theatre with the aim of helping with the funding of opera. Te overall takings, however, were meagre.8 What is certain is that from the 1880s onwards, the municipality, the provincial government and the shareholders all contributed to the fnancing of the opera season. Te following table gives an idea of the subsidies received by the theatre, at least for the years in which it has been possible to track down the relevant documentation:


Giuseppe Sabalich, *Cronistoria aneddotica del Nobile Teatro di Zara*, 1781–1881, Nani, Zadar 1922, p. 270.

 In 1889 there appears to have been a grant of 300 florins from the provincial government only, but in this year the negotiations for an opera season came to nothing.

The subsidies were allocated, but the season did not take place owing to the fire at the theatre.

A figure equal to 15 florins multiplied by 48 shares.

For this year the theatre management had asked for 1,000 florins, but received only 700.

Immediately noticeable is a distinction in the subsidies assigned to opera, operetta and spoken theatre (or *prosa*) by the municipality. Spoken theatre got the lowest budget, followed in order by operetta and opera. As was normal in most theatres at the time, opera required the largest budget. Nonetheless the subsidies were evidently considered insufcient, if the presidency of the theatre lamented the unfortunate state of its fnances, made up of "periodic liabilities", in a letter addressed to the district captain in 1887:

"[…] Te Excellent Provincial Authority knows very well how limited the resources of our institution are. Excepting the contribution that the Most Excellent Imperial-Regal Lieutenancy granted annually with regular generosity, the theatre has no other fxed endowments. Tough the local municipality annually sets aside in the budget a minimum sum of 600 forins and a maximum of 1,000 forins, depending on the productions, except for a couple of years when it was possible to get the lower sum, from 1874 until now, for one reason or another, it has not been possible to obtain the endowment.

All of these periodic losses therefore exclusively burden the shareholders who must necessarily undertake to pay ordinary and extraordinary rental fees.13

Given that the grants received were viewed more as mere subsidies rather than as a genuine endowment, the need was felt to provide the theatre with an endowment fund. Te theatre's presidency (or board of directors) therefore proposed to alienate a part of the property that seemed to be less used: the boxes of the second tier. Te alienation would coincide with a second issue of shares, the proceeds of which would be set aside to provide an intangible endowment fund. Tis fund would be invested in public annuities and the annual interests accrued would be used exclusively to pay for the gifts made to the artists each season.

<sup>13</sup> "[…] L'Eccelsa Autorità Provinciale sa benissimo qualmente limitate sieno le risorse del nostro Istituto. Fatta eccezione dal contributo che con regolare generosità elargiva annualmente l'Eccelso I.R. Presidio Luogotenenziale il Teatro non ha altre doti fisse. Il patrio Comune bensì fissa annualmente nel preventivo una somma minore di fiorini 600 e massima di fiorini 1000 in conformità agli spettacoli, ma fatta eccezione per un paio d'anni che si potè percepire la minore dal 1874 a questa parte o per una o per l'altra ragione non fu possibile conseguire la dotazione. Tutte quante quindi le periodiche passività vanno a gravitare esclusivamente gli azionisti che fa mestiere tassano annualmente di canoni ordinari e straordinari."; Letter from the theatre presidency of Zadar to the district captaincy. Zadar, 29. 8.1887, HR-DAZD, folder 25. Mention of "losses" had already been made in 1868, when the directors of the theatre (Francesco de Stermich, Giovanni Dall'Oro and a certain Filippi) asked the Dalmatian diet for the theatre to be exempted from the provincial additional tax. This exemption, however, would have created a precedent for other theatres, and it was observed that certain shareholders of the theatre were also deputies at the diet itself. The application was therefore seen as a request for a privilege. See *Atti della dieta provinciale dalmata*, vol. VIII, Zadar, 1868, p. 384.

Moreover, attendance in the second tier of boxes could certainly be expected to increase, if only thanks to the participation of the owners.14

From 1889 it was possible to organise opera seasons in Zadar every year, almost without interruption. As we see in the table above, the endowment awarded by the municipality was usually higher than (even double) that granted by the provincial government. Te grant of the *Comune* for an opera season in the late 1880s came to around a thousand forins; that of the lieutenancy to less than half that amount; in the 1890s it was to become exactly half.15 From 1892 in fact the sum granted by the *Luogotenenza* was around 500 forins. We then have a 50% increase in the endowment of the *Comune* from 1896, when the annual grant was increased by 500 forins and became stable at 1,500.

In 1900 the endowment was dispensed in crowns (or Krone) and no longer in forins, owing to the change of currency. Te new mayor of Zadar, Luigi Ziliotto, granted a subsidy of 4,200 crowns (3,100 for a season of opera and 1,100 for plays or operetta). Te increase was also justifed by the prior request made by theatre management for the free use of electricity in the theatre.16 We must bear in mind that from 1892 an Austro-Hungarian forin corresponded to two crowns, hence the 3,100 crowns of the municipal endowment were equal to 1,550 forins and the 760 crowns of the government endowment to 380 forins. While the municipal grant slightly increased over the years, that of the regional government between 1899 and 1907 actually diminished.17 Moreover, in 1907 the regional contribution of 600

<sup>14</sup> See Report of the presidency of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar on the management from 1 April 1884 through 30 September 1886, Zadar, [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 25.

<sup>15</sup> According to Eurologisch, the historical currency converter of the Austrian National Bank, in the late 1880s 1,000 florins or gulden approximately corresponded to little more than 15,000 current euros. However, considering the number of variables involved in a similar calculation, the conversion cannot be precise; see https://www.eurologisch.at/docroot/waehrungsrechner/#/ [accessed 24.5. 2022].

<sup>16</sup> See Letter of the municipal administration to the theatre management, Zadar, 12.1.1900, HR-DAZD, folder 25. In actual fact, the increase had been requested for the year 1899, but was only accepted in the following year.

<sup>17</sup> For 1901 we have a reduction to 700 crowns on the part of the *Luogotenenza*, which was communicated to the theatre management as follows: "In responding to the request of 11 January of the current year no. 12 the imperial-regal Presidency of the *Luogotenenza* with its decree of 12 February of the current year no. 361/in has agreed to grant to your Esteemed Management, in conformity with the resources available for that purpose for the year 1901, the sum of 700 crowns as a subsidy to perform opera productions in the season of spring or autumn in the current year. The said sum can be collected at the office of the undersigned against a regular receipt provided with the appropriate stamp. The imperial-regal councillor to the *Luogotenenza* / Farale [?]" ("In evasione alla domanda 11 gennaio a c. N. 12 l'i.r. Presidenza luogotenenziale con suo decreto 12 febbraio a c. N. 361/in ha trovato di accordare ad Essa Spettabile Direzione in conformità ai mezzi all'uopo disponibili per l'anno 1901 l'importo di corone 700 a titolo di sovvenzione per eseguire delle produzioni d'opera nella stagione di primavera o d'autunno del corrente anno. Il detto importo potrà venir prelevato presso il sottoscritto verso regolare quietanza muniti del bollo competente. L'i.r. Consigliere di Luogotenenza / Farale [?]"); Letter from

crowns was allotted for "the performance of theatrical productions" (*l'esecuzione di produzioni teatrali*), without specifying what sort of theatre. Overall, however, the sums increased; see, for example, the 5,700 and 7,000 crowns assigned by *Comune* and *Luogotenenza* together in 1913 and 1914 respectively.18 An article in *L'Eco dell'Adriatico*, commenting on the state of the theatre in Zadar, reported that just for the opera season there was "a fne endowment; an endowment which, owing to the negligible expenses for services and lighting, can be considered, in comparison with the other theatres, much more substantial than what it really is".19

At the present state of research it would appear that the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka was the theatre receiving the highest subsidies, for in 1848 the endowment for opera with ballet amounted to 3,500 forins, which was further increased to 5,900 forins in 1853, and subsequently settled at around 8,000 forins in the years to come.20 In fact the sum of 3,500 forins was evidently considered to be "tight" (*ristretta*) and insufcient to guarantee a respectable season, if the large majority of those going to the theatre of Rijeka felt that "it is better – not only from the point of view of practical utility, but also from that of enjoyment – to attend a theatrical performance staged with decorum and performed with the spirit of art than a spectacle of opera entrusted to the throats of second-rate artists such as can be expected with the meagre endowment of 3,500 forins". Te theatre management thus proposed to the municipal council to maintain an annual endowment of 3,700 forins just for spoken theatre, whereas opera with ballet would be given every two years. Te endowment for opera might then amount to 5,900 forins: enough to engage singers of proven capabilities.21 We also have a fgure for 1890, for that was the year when the municipality of Rijeka granted an advance on the endowment of 6,500 forins (though the documentation does not clarify for which type of theatrical production).22

In any case the endowment for Rijeka proved to be higher than that for Zadar; and indeed also much higher than that for the Teatro Bajamonti in Split, which from 1860 received an

the Dalmatian Lieutenancy to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, [February 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 25.

<sup>18</sup> After the First World War the sum must have been even bigger, if in January 1922 the city council granted Aldo Mestrovich, impresario of the Teatro Verdi of Zadar, a subsidy of 8,000 lire for productions.

<sup>19</sup> "una bella dotazione. Dotazione che per le esigue spese di servizio, di luce, in confronto agli altri teatri, si può considerare molto più rilevante di quello che realmente è"; "Da Zara", *L'Eco dell'Adriatico*, 17–18.1.1907.

<sup>20</sup> Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the municipal council, Rijeka, 13.3.1853, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>21</sup> "valere meglio – non solo dal lato dell'utilità pratica, ma anche da quello del diletto – di assistere ad una rappresentazione drammatica messa in scena con decoro, e recitata con ispirito d'arte, anzichè ad uno spettacolo d'opera affidato a gole di artisti secondari quali possono esigersi colla ristretta dote di f. 3.500"; Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the municipal council, Rijeka, 13.3.1853, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>22</sup> Register of documents (*Protocollo degli esibiti*) (1885–1910), HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

annual subsidy from the city council of just 500 forins,23 though other sources speak of 800 forins a year until 1867. In September 1867 the possibility of reducing the grant from 800 to 400 forins was even taken into consideration: a decision connected to the local political situation (and particularly the language issue) and perhaps also to the difculty of fnding local musicians on which the incoming opera companies could rely.24 In any case, in comparison with the other theatres, these were very low sums. To put the fgures into better perspective, it is worth considering that in 1887, for example, the overall endowment of a theatre like the Teatro Comunale of Trieste amounted to 90,000 forins (or 180,000 lire) and that of a theatre like La Fenice in Venice to 120,000 forins.25 In Rome, in the preceding decade, the city council placed at the disposal of Vincenzo Jacovacci, the impresario of the Teatro Apollo, the sum of 200,000 lire (or 100,000 forins) for three seasons.26

Given that these payments depended on the availability of liquidity, the *Comune* might forewarn that it could not "make any commitment over the exact time of the payment".27 On its part, the theatre management might send a reminder letter to the municipality (or to the ofces of the provincial government) when it found itself still without the endowment money near the beginning of the season (or even at the end of it).28 On receipt of

<sup>23</sup> It is not made clear for what type of spectacle this sum was granted; see Grga Novak, *Povijest Splita,*  Čakavski sabor, Split 1965, p. 1081, cited in Duško Kečkemet*, Antonio Bajamonti e Spalato*, Società Dalmata di Storia Patria, Venezia 2010.

<sup>24</sup> Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita od 1860. do 1918*, Književni krug, Split 1991, p. 51.

<sup>25</sup> "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.10.1887. And wishing to extend the comparison to other theatres, one need only consider that La Scala in the previous decade received 225,000 lire (ca. 112,500 florins), the Burger Theater of Vienna 100,000 florins annually, the Opéra of Paris 123,000 florins, the Königliche Oper of Berlin 700,000 francs, and so on; see *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, XXVIII, no. 1, p. 131. The Teatro La Pergola of Florence, before 1858, received an endowment of 55,000 lire per year, which was considered very low and barely enough "to cover the evenings' expenses, which come to about 500 lire"; see Ermanno Salucci, *Manuale della giurisprudenza dei teatri con appendice sulla proprietà letteraria teatrale*, vol. I, Barbera, Firenze 1858, p. 97.

<sup>26</sup> Jacovacci had even asked for an increase of 100,000 lire, wishing to bring the total to 300,000 lire overall: a sign that he felt the allotted grant to be insufficient; see *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, XXVIII, no. 23, 8. 6.1873, pp. 184*–*85.

<sup>27</sup> "prendere un impegno nella precisa epoca di tale pagamento"; Letter from the *podestà* of Zadar to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 19.3.1888, HR-DAZD, folder 25. The payments from the treasury department were usually made in October, hence the theatre management would be able to collect the endowment in November.

<sup>28</sup> "Most Esteemed Administration!", the presidency of the theatre in Zadar wrote to the *Comune*, "With the productions of the spring season nearing their end, the undersigned presidency is honoured to address this appeal to this most Esteemed Administration that it be pleased to assign the endowment voted by the local council in support of the interests of the theatre and fixed by municipal budget for such productions at 600 florins. With a further mention of the considerable expenses made following the measures taken in matters of public safety, as well as those caused by the recent productions, the undersigned Presidency begs for the matter to be dealt with promptly." ("Spettabile Amministrazione!

the subsidy (payment was made by cheque), the theatre management provided a stamped receipt and responded with a letter of thanks. In the case of the provincial government the sum was collected directly from the district captain. In Zadar from 1892 onwards it was paid only after the defnition of the opera season and the completion of the contract with the impresario in question.29

Once the endowment had been cashed, it was assigned to the impresario for the operas that were due to be staged (or, if the payment was delayed, had already been staged). As a rule, the ways in which this payment was made were specifed in the contract drawn up between the theatre management and the impresario or previously indicated in the tender specifcations (if there had been one). Te endowment was generally paid in instalments: either three, four or fve, depending on the number of performances given. Te frst instalment was usually payable either at the arrival of the artists at the *piazza* or after the dress rehearsal;30 the second


Prossimo al suo fine lo spettacolo della stagione primaverile, la sottoscritta Presidenza si onora di rivolgere preghiera ad Essa Spett. Amministr[azione] acciò si compiaccia di assegnare la dotazione votata dal Patrio Consiglio a sovvegno degli interessi del Teatro e fissata dal Budget Comunale per congeneri spettacoli in fior 600. Con accenno poi alle rilevanti spese che in seguito ai provvedimenti attivati in linea di pubblica sicurezza, nonché a quelle accagionate dal recente spettacolo, la sottoscritta Presidenza prega per una preferente sollecita evasione."); See Letter from the presidency of the theatre of Zadar to the municipality of Zadar, Zadar, 4.5.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 25.

perhaps after the ffth performance, the third after half of the mandatory performances, and the fourth after the completion of the whole run.31 Te currency used was forins until the end of the 19th century, crowns or lire in the new century.32 Te instalments could all be of the same amount or difer from one another, depending on the agreements made. On receiving each instalment, the impresario would usually issue a receipt for the sum in question.33 In the case of the publicly subsidised theatres, the endowment the impresario received was usually the total of the various sums granted by the municipality, the provincial government and the shareholders.

Given that the municipality was involved as a funding body, cases of interference in theatrical matters were not unknown and, at times, led to friction with the citizens. Te *podestà* could even favour the election of certain people to roles of management, as happened in Rijeka in 1885, when the *podestà* played a part in the appointment of Maestro Adolfo Cimadori, as director of the theatre. In certain cases the *podestà* could make suggestions on the calendar of an opera season. For example, he saw ft to inform the theatre management that performances should be given in the frst half of May and no later, because with each passing day the season would get hotter and attendance at the theatre would drop.34 Or, on health grounds, he could suggest postponing the start of a season and waiting for an improvement in the sanitary conditions of the area. Tis happened in 1886, when Zadar was threatened with an outbreak of cholera. Te baggage of the companies coming from Italy would be subjected to disinfection, and this was naturally a cost that would discourage the arrival of artists from abroad, whoever they were. Besides, the onset of an epidemic would make the closure of the theatre advisable; and even if this measure were not taken, the public would stay away regardless. And if this happened, the artists would be left stranded at the *piazza* in difcult fnancial conditions and at the city's expense. Tese were all good reasons for the *podestà* to ask for the season to be post-

<sup>31</sup> See also, for example, the Tender specifications (manuscript) for the autumn season 1885 at the theatre of Rijeka, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>32</sup> On the problem of currency applied to the subject of opera in general, see Michael Walter's chapter "Geld und Münzen" in his volume *Oper. Geschichte einer Institution*, Metzler, Stuttgart 2016. I thank Professor Walter for the information on the changes of currency.

<sup>33</sup> On the wording of these receipts, see for example those issued by the impresario Domenico Valenti to the Teatro Mazzoleni. The formula was fairly simple: "I the undersigned here declare to have received from Signor Mattiazzi, bursar of the Teatro Mazzoleni the final instalment of the agreed endowment for the season with the operas Ugonotti and Ballo in Maschera, amounting to one thousand five hundred florins, as established by the contract." ("Dichiaro io qui sottoscritto di avere ricevuto dal signor Mattiazzi cassiere del Teatro Mazzoleni l'ultima rata della dote stabilita, per la stagione delle opere Ugonotti e Ballo in Maschera in fiorini millecinquecento, come stabilito dal contratto."); Šibenik, 5.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>34</sup> Letter from the *podestà* of Zadar to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 19.3.1888, HR-DAZD, folder 25.

poned.35 In most cases the theatre management would take such suggestions into serious consideration and follow the advice given.

Moreover, it is worth noting that the rights the municipality gained from the concession of the endowment also included the supervision of the theatre's artistic reputation, which was exercised by a special committee. Teatrical committees could be set up with the "right to dismiss unsatisfactory artists, insist on further rehearsals and postpone the staging of a production".36

#### 1.2 The funding possibilities without an endowment

Not all the theatres of Istria and Dalmatia, however, had the good fortune to count on a public subsidy for their opera seasons. As stated earlier, among the coastal theatres lacking this privilege were the Politeama Ciscutti of Pula and the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik. From April 1885 onwards we hear complaints that opera ran at a loss in Pula, with hints that the lack of an endowment did not help this state of afairs.37 "In every provincial city

The funding possibilities without an endowment

<sup>35</sup> "[…] One must also reflect", the mayor wrote to the theatre, "that the city is still always under the danger of an invasion of the contagion, that this danger would increase with the arrival in town of so many people probably coming from infected places, with baggage that with difficulty would be subjected to a fully effective and reassuring disinfection.[…] In consideration of all this, the present writer is of the opinion that the opening of the theatre in October with any production is not prudent and that it would rather be advisable to postpone to a later time, when the sanitary conditions even outside the province were better and all the present health reservations were removed." ("[…] Si deve inoltre riflettere, che la città sta ancora sempre sotto il pericolo di un'invasione del contaggio [*sic*] che tale pericolo aumenterebbe coll'arrivo in piazza di tante persone provenienti probabilmente da luoghi infetti, con bagagli dei quali assai difficile sarebbe una disinfezione pienamente efficace e tranquilla. […] La scrivente in riflesso a tutto ciò è d'avviso che l'apertura del teatro in ottobre con qualsiasi spettacolo non è prudente e sarebbe consigliabile di differirla piuttosto ad epoca più lontana, quando le condizioni economiche sanitarie anche fuori della provincia fossero migliori e fossero tolte tutte le attuali riserve sanitarie."); Letter from the *podestà* of Zadar to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 31. 8.1886, HR-DAZD, folder 25. On the epidemics in that area at the end of the century, see Rino Cigui, "Endemie ed epidemie in Istria alla fine dell'800", *Quaderni*, XXII (2011), p. 47*–*90; or Rino Cigui, "Antiche e nuove paure: le epidemie di colera a Trieste e in Istria nel secolo XIX", *Atti del Centro di ricerche storiche di Rovigno*, XXXVIII/1 (2008), pp. 429*–*504.

<sup>36</sup> "diritto di protestare gli artisti insufficienti e di esigere altre prove dello spettacolo, differendone il giorno dell'andata in scena"; see "Art. 33 Sorveglianza del Comune", in Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, pp. 25*–*26.

<sup>37</sup> "The evidence of the theatre's *borderò* [box office reports] gives us dispiriting figures. Opera, which is generally appreciated, has suffered a big deficit. […] The Teatro Ciscutti cannot be self-supporting, it needs the kind of assistance that we feel, in every respect, is due to it." ("I fatti del *bordereau* teatrale ci danno delle cifre scoraggianti. Lo spettacolo d'opera, di generale aggradimento, sottostò ad una forte rimessa. […] Il teatro Ciscutti non può fare da sé, ha bisogno di un aiuto che noi troviamo sotto ogni rapporto doveroso."); "Il Teatro", *Pola*, 26. 4.1885.

we see this fne season of opera", it was written, "and those happy citizens delight in the new melodies of Verdi, […] Meyerbeer and Gounod. We, on the other hand, can never delight in a *Forza del destino*, or a *Dinorah*, or a *Faust*, or many, many other operas of consequence that could be adapted to our needs".38 It was estimated that a good production for an autumn season could cost no less than 100,000 forins, a fgure very diferent from the 10,000 forins that were apparently proposed to organise the season in the city in 1887. At the time the fees – in lire – of a singer who performed in frst-rank theatres ranged from 10,000 to 30,000 lire, and the scores considered fashionable (*in voga*) cost from 1,000 to 5,000 lire.39 Te former director of theatrical journals Alfonso Pozzati, who had initiated a debate on the thorny issue of the endowment in *L'Eco di Pola*, provided a rough list of the minimum costs needed for a season:


n. 15 coriste, a for. 2

<sup>38</sup> "Noi vediamo in ogni città di provincia questa bella stagione d'opera e quei felici cittadini, bearsi alle nuove melodie di Verdi, […] Meyerbeer e Gounod. Noi invece non possiamo mai gustarci né una *Forza del destino*, né una *Dinorah*, né un *Faust*, né tante e tante altre opere di valore adattabili alle nostre esigenze."; "Il Teatro", *Pola*, 26. 4.1885.

<sup>39</sup> This estimate is based on singers active in Italy, without considering those working abroad, since "in America, singers of the stature of a Conti-Foroni, Percuoco or Del Papa are paid 60,000 lire for the run of a season. A season like the present one in Pula, costs more than 10,000 florins." ("cantanti della levatura d'una Conti-Foroni, d'un Percuoco, d'un Del Papa, in America vengono stipendiati per un corso di stagione con 60.000 lire. Uno spettacolo come l'attuale di Pola, costa oltre fior. 10.000."); see "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.10.1887.

<sup>40</sup> What is meant here is repertoire operas, not titles such as *Gioconda*, *Mefistofele* or *Faust*, for which the rental charges in 1887 cost 1,500 lire; see "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.10.1887.

<sup>41</sup> It was also noted that it would be difficult to have a soprano suited to all three operas, most likely implying that the figure is an underestimate.


To this sum of 10,980 forins one would have to add the expense of the chorus master, the stage band (mandatory for the scores that called for one) and the hiring of materials, as well as the rental of the theatre, the licence to perform, lighting, and the costs of a police ofcer, doctor, guards, fremen, attendants and advertising materials. If these items were included, the sum would come to around 12,000 forins. With a similar sum the impresario's earnings could be around 1,000 forins, provided that the evenings' takings came to around 600 or 500 forins. Te population of Pula, however, was not thought capable of flling the theatre sufciently to generate such revenue, unless the production was considered really worthwhile, but for that to happen one would need to spend more than 12,000 forins. Te result was a vicious circle: the proceeds would increase with a good audience; a good audience would only come to a good production; but to guarantee good productions more money was needed to start with.

An endowment would not only bring about an improvement in the quality of the productions, but could also make it possible to include a charity night within the opera season and make available to the city council the imperial box and another box alongside that of the political dignitaries "in honour of the mayor" (*ad onore del podestà*).43 It turns out that the Politeama did receive an endowment of 3,000 forins for the year 1887, but since the owner of the theatre, Pietro Ciscutti, had to spend 4,730.80 forins on building work to comply with the obligatory new fre regulations, he was in no position to use the money on opera.

Complaints duly appeared in the newspapers about the attitude of critics who were always ready to pour scorn on an opera production without any knowledge of the sums required to make it successful.44 Such grievances, it was concluded, would be justifed

<sup>42</sup> "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.10.1887.

<sup>43</sup> "Il Teatro", *Pola*, 10.5.1885.

<sup>44</sup> "For a start, coffee-shop critics never think with their wallet", one wrote, "nor with any practical knowledge of a contract or about the pages of a ledger, where those fateful black figures are lined up. It is easy to say: 'I don't like the performance, the singers howl like dogs': but one must make distinctions and note if other cities, if other audiences of higher standing, have tolerated and applauded productions and soloists like those that today appear on the stage at the Politeama Ciscutti" ("Intanto i critici da

only if there were to be an impresa with experience and ready to spend a large sum of money; only if there were to be an endowment of at least 10,000 forins and at least ffty season-ticket holders for the boxes and two hundred for the parterre (*platea*), seats (*poltrone*) and stools (*scanni*). "Please have the modesty and integrity to say frankly: Pula cannot, for the present, support opera production that is worthy of the traditions of the art and of truly great art."45

While an endowment of 2,000 forins was granted by the municipality in 1890,46 the request for a subsidy of 1,000 forins was turned down only two years later, adducing a justifcation, published in *L'Indipendente*, that hardly seemed objective. Te rejection was apparently to be attributed to an otherwise unspecifed "series of reasons that stem […] from a certain person who is involved in the [theatre's] management and who, with a perseverance worthy of another cause, has insulted people and institutions of the city".47 Te identity of this person in the management is not known.

While politicians in the city council might support the idea of subsidising the Politeama, at the same time they found solid reasons for not doing so. For example, the Honourable Guglielmo Vareton, the man who presented the Politeama's application to the city council, was in favour of providing a municipal subsidy, but at the same time deplored the idea that the money could beneft the private interests of an impresario. Te subsidy should be made in favour of the interests of the general population, which should be able to come to the theatre at a reasonable price and not be paying the exorbitant prices imposed by impresarios he considered unscrupulous. And so, for example, while he declared himself ready to vote in favour of an endowment of 2,000 or 3,000 forins for 1901, in the end, for a series of reasons, he himself voted against the proposal. In the previous year the Honourable Felice Glezer had also been a supporter of the subsidy and proposed that 2,000 crowns should be granted to the Politeama; nor was the Honourable Bernardo Benussi against the idea, but he pointed out that in the application presented to the *Comune* there were no "serious commitments" (*impegnative serie*) on the impresario's part. Moreover, he brusquely concluded one of his speeches in the council chamber by saying that "if these people want good opera

caffè non ragionano mai colla loro borsa né colla conoscenza d'un contratto alla mano o sulle pagine d'un libro-maestro, ove si vedono schierate quelle nere e fatali cifre. È facile il dire: 'Lo spettacolo non mi va, i cantanti sono cani': ma bisogna discernere ed osservare se altre città, se altri pubblici di maggior levatura hanno compatito ed applaudito spettacoli e virtuosi come quelli che in oggi figurano sulle scene del Politeama Ciscutti"); see "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.10.1887.

<sup>45</sup> "Si abbia la modesta coscienza di dire francamente: Pola non può, per ora, sostenere uno spettacolo di opera, degno delle tradizioni dell'arte e dell'arte grande e vera."; see "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.10.1887.

<sup>46</sup> "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 25.10.1890.

<sup>47</sup> "serie di ragioni che partono […] da un individuo che ha attinenza con tale direzione e che con una costanza degna di ben altra causa, ha vituperato persone ed istituzioni cittadine"; "Sovvenzione negata", *L'Indipendente*, 8.11.1892.

productions for themselves, they should pay for them by going to Trieste".48 Not surprisingly, the theatre's application was rejected.

In 1901 the management of the Politeama decided not to turn to an external impresario, but instead to manage the opera productions itself, in the expectation that it could count on the support of the citizenry and of "interested factors" (*fattori interessati*).49 Benussi, on behalf of the city's fnance committee, made his report on the request for a subsidy of 1,500 crowns made by the management of the Politeama. Once again, we fnd the usual pattern of declaring oneself to be in favour of the subsidy, but being against in practice. In theory the fnance committee was not opposed to the subsidy, but the subsidy would have to be "conditional" (*condizionata*),50 so he proposed that the request should be turned down. As for the Honourable Rocco, he was theoretically not against the subsidy, but in practice thought it better to "spend the money on mending the roads, which are in a precarious state".51 In such conditions the prospects of getting any funding continued to be remote. Nor was there greater success in 1904 when a request was made, in anticipation of producing opera during the Lent season, to be exempted from the expenses for fremen, guards and gas. For various years the management had repeated the application without any result.

In spite of this, the population displayed an interest in opera when good productions were given. Hence an article in the newspaper would propose that the municipality should come to an agreement with the theatre on a subsidy at least in the form of an exemption from expenses.52 Te exemption was not granted, however, not even two years later when the management asked the municipality for 2,000 crowns and to be released from the payment of lighting and surveillance for the opera season; the reason for the rejection was attributed to the fact that the performance of *La Gioconda* "was not consistent with the requirements of good theatre".53 Te management was granted an allowance for the use of gas and electricity and the cost of the fremen only in 1909, when the city council, in consideration of the guarantees ofered, granted a sum of up to 1,000 crowns for the rehearsals and performances of *Otello*. 54

<sup>48</sup> "se i signori vogliono dei buoni spettacoli per sé, se li paghino andando a Trieste"; "Consiglio di città", *Il Popolo Istriano*, 24.11.1900. Among those opposed to the endowment, ever since 1885, were Rizzi, Till and Dreossi, members of the municipal council of Pula.

<sup>49</sup> "La stagione d'opera al Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 19.5.1901.

<sup>50</sup> Unfortunately, from the available documentation it is not clear what those conditions would have to be.

<sup>51</sup> "spendere i denari per le strade che sono impraticabili"; "La stagione d'opera al Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 19.5.1901.

<sup>52</sup> "Per una stagione d'opera", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 4. 2.1904.

<sup>53</sup> "non fu corrisposto alle esigenze di un buon teatro"; "Cose del Comune", *Omnibus*, 18. 4.1906.

<sup>54</sup> "La seduta di ieri della Giunta comunale", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 17. 2.1909.

Among those campaigning against the concession of an endowment in the early 20th century were the socialists, who considered it a "luxury expenditure" (*spesa di lusso*). All the forins spent on the theatre, they claimed, could have instead been set aside for the salaries of workers in agriculture or industry. In short, the money for the endowment was seen as a part of public wealth that was subtracted from the general good and

consumed by singers and players, all people that in exchange hardly give you a new production of goods and don't even provide you with services that are useful, lasting and of general beneft, but instead give you a donation of trills, and often also of screams, tripping legs, syrupy violins or hammering drums, magic wands that carve the air, and other similar articles of substance. Not to mention those who take the lion's share: the impresarios, the intermediaries, hot air salesmen and extortionists, who like to use up the appropriated money in the gratifcations of "*viveurs*", out of which no possible utility can come to anyone.55

In short, the money for the endowment would merely serve to provide a little entertainment for a few men of privilege, while the rest of the population clamoured for the basic necessities of life. With these premises, over the years the Politeama Ciscutti had to manage without support and year by year fnd the minimal conditions for organising an opera season.

Nor did things go much better, as regards public funding, at the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, as eloquently attested by the despondent comment made by the theatre's director in a letter to Enrico Gallina, an agent in Trieste: "It is very tiresome being the director of these petty provincial theatres without an endowment, without an audience and with very few people who understand what a theatre is".56 In contrast with the glowing advertisements published in the newspapers ("Teatro Mazzoleni in Šibenik / Te favourite haunt of the choicest aristocracy / Teatre of great elegance / Luxurious electric lighting / Ample waiting room / Reading room / Bufet / Large smoking room / A regular venue for star performers and attractions"),57 the underlying reality of the organisation revealed

<sup>55</sup> "consumata da cantanti e sonatori, tutta gente che in cambio non vi dà già una nuova produzione di merci e neanche vi presta servizi utili, duraturi, di beneficio generale, ma vi regala dei trilli, e spesso degli strilli, degli sgambetti, delle violinate o tamburate, dei grandi trinciamenti aerei di bacchette magiche e altra roba sostanziosa del genere. Non parliamo poi di chi si fa la parte del leone, impresari, intermediari, soffiettatori e ricattatori, i quali sogliono il danaro preso consumare in godimenti di 'viveurs' dai quali nessuna utilità può provenire a nessuno."; "Piano con i soldi degli altri!", *Il Proletario*, 12. 6.1902.

<sup>56</sup> "È una gran noia fare il direttore di questi meschini teatri di provincia senza dote, senza pubblico e con pochissime persone che comprendono cosa sia un teatro."; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Enrico Gallina, Šibenik, 19. 9.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 6.

<sup>57</sup> "Teatro Mazzoleni Sebenico / Il ritrovo preferito della più eletta artistocrazia / Teatro elegantissimo / Sfarzosa illuminazione elettrica / Grande salone d'aspetto / Sala di lettura / Buffet / Gran fumoir /

a more complicated environment, one with no lack of difculties. At certain meetings of the boxholders, the fact that the Teatro Mazzoleni received no subsidies from the government or the municipality and yet succeeded in organising opera seasons *in spite of* the absence of public funds was almost celebrated as a badge of honour. We learn this from the minutes of a members' meeting held on 8 January 1889, at which the director Paolo Mazzoleni made his assessment of the situation after sixteen years of management.58 After mentioning the endowments bestowed on the various opera companies, and making a comparison between the resources of the theatres in Zadar and Šibenik (which instead had no public funding), he demonstrated that the theatre of Zadar, though rich in resources, had sufered a large defcit over thirty months, whereas the theatre of Šibenik, without revenues or subsidies, and without the possibility of counting on a third tier of boxes or commanding as large an audience as at Zadar, had nonetheless put on many productions of a high standard, and even had a cash surplus of 125 forins.59 A situation like this prompted the management to conclude: "we are not making a loss, and that is already a cause for satisfaction".60

In the absence of a subsidy from either the municipality or the provincial government, it was partly with the endowment of the shareholders and partly with the evenings' takings that the theatre paid not only the singers, the orchestral players engaged externally, and the local '*maestri*' (conductor, chorus master, etc.) and orchestral players, but also covered the costs for the rental of scores, scenery, costumes, properties and agents' fees, and the theatre's ordinary expenses, and perhaps even a small sum to reimburse the female chorus for the expenses of the basic wardrobe (*basso vestiario*). In Šibenik the box-owners nonetheless also paid for admission to the theatre.61 Te boxes of the frst and second tiers were held in ownership both in Šibenik and in Zadar.

In short it was the boxholders that kept the opera season running.

Sempre posto a grandi vedettes ed attrazioni"; Advertisement for the Teatro Mazzoleni, [n. p.], [n.d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>58</sup> Paolo Mazzoleni was the brother of the tenor Francesco Mazzoleni, founder of the theatre, and father of the famous soprano Ester Mazzoleni. He had a "long and intelligent communion with the most eminent artists and critics" (*lunga ed intelligente comunione con gli artisti ed i critici più eminenti*) of the second half of the 19th century; see [Commemoration of Paolo Mazzoleni], [Šibenik], [n.d.], HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>59</sup> See Report on the meeting held in the social hall of the Teatro Mazzoleni on 8.1.1889, Šibenik, 1889, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>60</sup> "noi non siamo in perdita, e già questo ci soddisfa"; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Enrico Gallina, Šibenik, 1.12.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>61</sup> See Letter from [Mazzoleni] to Lodovico Selles, [Šibenik], 8. 6.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

#### 1.3 The boxholders: identity and role

Where there was no chance of getting support from either the Comune or the provincial government of Dalmatia, the frst to be called upon to help out – and provide fnancial support for the opera productions – were the boxholders. At the theatres without public subsidy, like the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, the money paid out by the boxholders played a fundamental role in the organisation of opera. Also contributing to the overall endowment could be the revenue generated by the rental of certain boxes in the theatre.

Te boxholders (referred to as *palchettisti* or *palchisti*) were those who had either bought a box at the theatre or who had a subscription to a box. Owning a box often meant one had bought a share (*azione*), hence in this context the term *palchettista* or *azionista* (shareholder) or *socio-azionista* (company shareholder) came to mean the same thing. Tis box – which could be assigned by the drawing of lots 62 – could then be rented out; a third party was usually in charge of the rental of the shareholders' boxes.63 Each shareholder received from the theatre management a document proving his or her ownership.64

Te theatre of Zadar, for example, was divided into 48 shares. Each share corresponded to a ground-foor or frst-tier box, as well as an undivided 1/48 share of the whole building. Te price of a share was fxed between 1,500 and 2,000 forins.65 As a term of comparison, the theatre of Šibenik was divided into 38 shares and the price for each share was 1,650 forins. Of these 38 shares, 28 were purchased at the start, whereas 10 were still purchasable in 1915. Te sales were not carried out by the management, but by private citizens who might fnd themselves having to sell their shares over the years for a price much lower than the original one, even for just 1,200 crowns (or 600 forins, considering that 1 forin = 2 crowns), though this naturally depended on the position of the box associated with the share (better or worse, as the case may be). In 1915 the value of the share was lower than its original price and came to around 2,000 crowns. At the Teatro Fenice of Rijeka the value of a share was even lower only three years earlier, and could be bought for only 200 crowns.66 What could The boxholders: identity and role

<sup>62</sup> See Circular letter, [Zadar, n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 2.

<sup>63</sup> At the theatre of Zadar in the early 20th century, for example, this task was carried out by Signora Anna Bolcovich, who was officially assigned to the role of collecting the money for the rental of the shareholders' boxes; Circular letter of the Teatro Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, 30.3.1904, HR-DAZD, folder 22.

<sup>64</sup> At Šibenik each share gave the right to the ownership of a box, either on the ground floor or in the first tier, that was drawn by lot. Hence the shareholder (*azionista*) was also a boxholder (*palchettista*), for the two concepts were inseparable. The shares could be transferred to third parties. See chapter II of the *Statuto della Società del Teatro di Sebenico*, HR-DAZD-562, folder 1.

<sup>65</sup> See the deed certifying the foundation of the theatre, dated 16.1.1864, HR-DAZD, folder 1.

<sup>66</sup> See http://www.passaporto-collezionismo-scripofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1912-Teatro-La-Fenice-Fiume.jpg [accessed 19. 4. 2020].

also make the trading price fuctuate – even from one day to the next – was the number of events hosted at the theatre and the quality of its productions.67

Te boxholders took an active part in the funding of the opera season through the payment of a membership fee (*canone sociale*), which was periodically defned and voted by the members' assembly. Te members were also called upon to elect the management, which consisted of three directors and two deputies. Te boxholders comprised elements of both the old aristocracy and the more recent wealthy bourgeoisie. Politicians like Vareton and Glezer, whom we mentioned in the previous section, had their box in Pula. In Zadar the theatre was even attended by two mayors of the city, Count Cosimo de Begna68 and Nicolò Trigari,69 as well as by members of the Dalmatian Autonomist Party like Natale Filippi or Pietro Abelich (Abelić). Te city's nobility was represented by personalities such as Giuseppe Lantana or Giuseppe de Petris. Also present were the families of industrialists like the Luxardo. Tere were pharmacists, doctors like Beros, and theatre critics like Giovanni Salghetti at Šibenik, landowners and merchants, notaries and lawyers. Among the boxholders there were also women, though in smaller numbers. Some of the boxholders might be running a business that provided the theatre with services. For example, Ugo Fosco, a boxholder-shareholder at the theatre of Šibenik, had a printing house where the season's posters were produced. His workshop directly invoiced the theatre.70 Except in Split, the Italian community was strongly represented among the shareholders, above all in Zadar and Šibenik.71 In Šibenik, for example, many of the Italian and autonomist families who had contributed to the construction of the theatre were also boxholders: these included families such as the Fenzi, Frari, de Difnico, Galvani, etc.72 In Split, on the other hand, with the transition from the Teatro Bajamonti to the Teatro Nuovo, only a few of the former boxholders of the Bajamonti – autonomists for the most part – bought boxes at the new theatre. Tough duly informed by the administration of the mayor Bulat in 1888, many did not respond to the call.73

<sup>67</sup> An overall reputation for good productions contributed to increase the value of the shares. See various documents, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>68</sup> Cosimo De Begna was mayor of Zadar from 1866, as well as being a director of literary journals.

<sup>69</sup> Nicolò Trigari succeeded De Begna as mayor of Zadar on 23 February 1874; see Angelo De Benvenuti, *Storia di Zara dal 1979 al 1918*, Bocca, Milano 1953, p. 119.

<sup>70</sup> The letterhead and stamp on the invoice simply stated "Consorzio tipografico / Ugo Fosco & C.i / Sebenico"; HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>71</sup> The Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik had succeeded in purchasing various boxes directly from the Italian Società del Casino. See Luciano Monzali, *Italiani di Dalmazia 1914–1924*, Le lettere, Firenze 2007, p. 367.

<sup>72</sup> These families are mentioned also in Stefano Trinchese – Francesco Caccamo (eds.), *Adriatico contemporaneo: rotte e percezioni del mare comune tra Ottocento e Novecento*, Franco Angeli, Milano 2008, pp. 98*–*99.

<sup>73</sup> See Duško Kečkemet, *Ante Bajamonti*, p. 242. In Split the boxes belonged either to private individuals or to the city.

Te boxholders were convened for periodic meetings. As a rule, the presidency or theatre management would issue a circular letter indicating the place and date of the meeting, as well as its agenda. Te meeting could also be held at the home of one of the directors or members, not necessarily in the theatre itself. In Šibenik, for example, the members might be convened at the house of one of the directors, either Giovanni Mazzoleni or Antonio Bontempo. Te announcement of the meeting included a list of the shareholders, who were asked to sign against their name to confrm they had read the message. Te announcement was circulated usually with very short notice, often even the day before the meeting. At the Teatro Comunale in Rijeka, for example, the meetings with the theatre management were announced in the morning for the evening of the same day. It was not even unknown for a meeting to be held in the theatre itself after an act of the opera.74

For the actual meeting itself, at Zadar a printed sheet was prepared giving the names of the presidents at the top, the list of members present in the central part of the page and a formula at the bottom that read: "After establishing the correct communication of the circular [letter] of … [date], the right number and the legality of the numbers present, in relation to the subject indicated in the agenda, the session was opened to discuss what follows".75 Tis was duly followed by the subjects for discussion. Te discussion itself was recorded in the minutes.

If certain shareholder-boxholders were unable to attend, they could use a power of attorney; in other words, a document appointing a third person to act as a proxy on their behalf. We fnd many of these power of attorney documents, formulated in various ways. Tey could be just a couple of lines written by hand, a typewritten sheet, or a more complex pre-compiled form that included all the necessary clauses. As an example, here is the one sent in 1909 by the widow of the member Doimo Miagostovich to appoint their son Gregorio as their proxy:

Power of attorney with which I, the undersigned Ludmilla, widow of the late Dr. Doimo Miagostovich, in my specialty and as mother and guardian of the minor children Domenica Maria and Giovanni, appoint and establish as my proxy my son Dr. Gregorio Bogić of the late Giuseppe, that he may represent me at all the members' meetings of the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, and to that end I convey to him all the powers contemplated by § 31 of the Code of Civil Procedure, promising that everything carried out by my aforesaid proxy or his substitutes will be valid and irrevocable on the strength of the present power of attorney.76

<sup>74</sup> See Register of documents (*Protocollo degli esibiti*) 1885–1910, Rijeka, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>75</sup> "Constatata la regolare comunicazione della Circolare di data … pari N.ro e la legalità del Numero dei comparsi, in relazione all'oggetto posto all'Ordine del Giorno, viene aperta la Seduta onde deliberare intorno a quanto segue."

<sup>76</sup> "Mandato di procura col quale io sottoscritta Ludmilla v.a del fu Dr. Doimo Miagostovich nella mia specialità e qual madre e tutrice dei minorenni miei figli Domenica Maria e Giovanni, nomino ed istituisco in mio procuratore mio figlio Dr. Gregorio Bogić del fu Giuseppe affinchè mi rappresenti

I entrust Signor Pietro Katalinić to represent me at the meeting scheduled by the management of the theatre for the 29th of the current month, and I authorise him to vote on all the subjects on the agenda and on all the proposals that may be made.77

a tutti i congressi sociali del Teatro Mazzoleni di Sebenico, e a tale uopo gl'impartisco tutte le facoltà contemplate dal § 31 del Regolamento di procedura civile, promettendo di avere per valido e irrevocabile tutto ciò che sarà stato operato dal detto mio procuratore o suoi sostituti in base al presente mandato."; Power of attorney of Ludmilla Miagostovich, Šibenik, 7. 2.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4. We have powers of attorney that are both handwritten and printed. At Šibenik, for example, we find certain printed forms, pre-compiled as follows: "I, the undersigned, hereby appoint Signor […] as my attorney, to represent me in this case before any authority, and for this purpose I grant him the power to replace, settle, defer, refer, offer, accept oaths, take recourse, appeal, execute, adjudicate at the Auction, reach compromises in arbitration, whilst guaranteeing that his actions are valid […]" ("Io sottoscritto nomino in mio procuratore il Signor […] a ciò mi rapresenti [sic] in questa mia causa dinanzi qualsivoglia Autorità e gli accordo a tale scopo facoltà di sostituire, transigere, diferire, riferire, offerire, accettare giuramenti, ricorrere, appellarsi, esecutare, rendersi deliberatario all'Asta, compromettere in arbitri, promettendo di ritenere l'operato di lui per valido […]"). Another, more detailed and complex, power of attorney also circulated: "Power of Attorney. For […] and heirs, I confer upon Signor […] of […] a general and unlimited mandate to make representations both in and out of Court in all criminal and civil cases, whether active and passive, with the power to receive preliminary deeds, enter into disputes, reach settlements, compromise in arbitration, recede, replace, defer, offer, accept, report and take oaths, request and obtain time-limits, reservations, publicise properties, executions, seizures, sequestrations and any other legal security measures, as well as those relating to land registers; to compete in […] name at auction and adjudicate; to collect sums and issue receipts, to undertake any action he deem opportune in the best interests of the business transaction, even if such were to fall under the jurisdiction of the Court of the Empire or the Court of Administrative Justice, and agree to indemnify him for any competence and expense he may encounter at his domicile in […], obliging him to consider his actions as valid and irrevocable" ("Procura. Per […] ed eredi conferisco al Sig. […] di […] mandato generale ed illimitato affinchè egli rappresenti in Giudizio e fuori in tutte le cause penali e civili, attive e passive, con facoltà di ricevere primi atti, incoare liti, transigere, compromettere in arbitri, recedere, sostituire, deferire, offerire, accettare, riferire ed adire giuramenti, domandare ed ottenere termini, prenotazioni, intavolazioni, esecuzioni, sequestri, sequestrazioni ed ogni altra misura cauzionale di legge, nonché relativa ai libri fondiari; concorrere in […] nome all'asta e deliberare; incassare e quitanzare, intraprendere qualunque atto egli ritenesse opportuno pel miglior andamento dell'affare, fosse pure di competenza del Tribunale dell'Impero o della Corte di giustizia amministrativa, verso promessa di indennizzarlo di ogni sua competenza e spesa che fosse per incontrare al suo domicilio in […], obbligando di ritenere per valido ed irrevocabile il di lui operato"); in HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

77 "Do incarico al sig. Pietro Katalinić di rappresentarmi nella seduta fissata dalla Direzione del Teatro pel di 29 corrente, e lo autorizzo di votare su tutti gli argomenti all'ordine del giorno e su tutte le proposte che venissero fatte."; Power of attorney of Vincenzo Katalinić, Split, 28.11.1894, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

A proxy could represent more than one boxholder, for box-owners did not necessarily live in the same city as the theatre. In Split, for example, there were those who directly delegated as their proxy the mayor of the city, who at the time also happened to be one of the directors of the theatre:

Te undersigned, as owner of a box at the Teatro Comunale of Split, being domiciled in Graz, authorise Dr. Gaetano F. Bulat to represent her at the meeting of the boxholders that will take place within the month, and at any subsequent meeting, with the faculty to vote for her on any subject that will be brought to discussion.78

At the shareholders' meetings, the ownership of a single share gave the right to one vote, two shares to two votes, three to three, and so on.79 Tose who had disbursed more therefore had a greater say in the decisions. For the proceedings to be valid, a minimum number of members had to be present. At Šibenik the meetings were valid with half plus one of the members. In Zadar in 1884 a minimum of 25 shareholders had to be present.80 In Rijeka there were 102 boxholders in 1870, and the quorum for voting for the three directors of the management was fxed at 68, hence higher than the half plus one required at Šibenik or Zadar.

Usually these meetings started with the reading and approval of the minutes of the previous meeting, followed by announcements concerning the results of the preceding opera season or the appointment of new directors, auditors or other key fgures in the management. Proposals aimed at benefting the theatre could also be presented by the management or by members; or the status of the theatre as a social enterprise itself could be discussed. Also taken into consideration at times were requests for fnancial support from the widows of theatre workers, who appealed directly to the theatre management when they were left without any source of income.

Te association of boxholders could also be involved (more or less, as the case may be) in relations with the impresario.81 At times it was the impresario himself who appealed to it for the payment of a sum of money owed.82 Alternatively, a troupe leader (*capocomico*),

<sup>78</sup> "La sottoscritta quale proprietaria di un palco del teatro comunale di Spalato, essendo domiciliata a Graz autorizza il signor Dr. Gaetano F. Bulat a rappresentarla all'adunanza dei palchettisti che avrà luogo entro il mese corrente, ed a qualunque adunanza successiva con facoltà di votare per lei sopra qualunque oggetto che verrà portato a deliberazione."; Power of attorney of Carolina Mastrovich, Split, 22.11.1894, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>79</sup> After the first four shares, only the ownership of another four shares gave one the right to a further vote, another eight to two votes, and so on; see *Statuto della Società del Teatro di Sebenico*, Tipografia S. Anich, Šibenik 1870.

<sup>80</sup> See *Società del Teatro Nuovo di Zara*, session of 16 September 1884, HR-DAZD 562, folder 4.

<sup>81</sup> Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 37.

<sup>82</sup> For example, Bruto Bocci, who was one of the most important impresarios of operetta, wrote as follows to the management of Zadar: "In consideration of the desperate state of the company, the undersigned begs the honourable management to have the gentlemen shareholders urgently confirm the authorisation

following a disastrous season, might appeal to the management, begging it not to have to resort "to public charity" (*alla pietà cittadina*) and asking for sufcient funds to enable him to leave the theatre without having failed in his obligations.83

What was decided at these meetings? A number of things, for example: changes to the charter (or *statuto*); measures to be taken concerning possible lawsuits brought against the theatre's members; maintenance work on the theatre building; management of the autumn, carnival, Lent and spring seasons. It would establish the endowment to be assigned to the impresario and/or the concession of certain boxes.84 It would choose the operas for the next season and even the impresarios who would run them. As a rule, it made a selection from a short list of impresarios.85 In cases where several candidates had accepted the terms and conditions set out in the tender specifcations, it was the impresario ofering the best guarantees that would prevail. Te proposals were accepted with a majority of two thirds of the vote. Te boxholders could also establish the price of admission to the theatre.86 Ongoing contacts with theatrical agencies could also be discussed.

It lay in the power of the shareholders to choose the type of spectacle to be given at the theatre. As they were paying, they had the right to express their preferences. Tey were not just a consortium of spectators; they were a group of people acting as genuine patrons. Decisions concerning the proposal of operas were made collegially and the operas were subjected to collective approval, though clearly, with as many as 48 shareholders (as there were at Zadar in the early 20th century), one can readily understand that decision-making and coming to an agreement was a long and arduous business.

Te membership fee (or *canone*) was also paid by the boxholders of the publicly subsidised theatres like that of Zadar. Here the fee at the start of the 20th century was fxed at 40 crowns: less than the 50 at Šibenik, most likely precisely because the theatre could also rely on the subsidy.87 From a receipt, for example, we learn that in 1909 a shareholder at the Teatro Mazzoleni

for the concession requested." ("In considerazione allo stato miserando della compagnia il sottoscritto prega Ess'Onorevole Direzione a voler ripetere d'urgenza dai signori azionisti l'autorizzazione per la richiesta concessione."); Letter from Bruto Bocci to the theatre management of Zadar, [n. p.], [1885?], HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>83</sup> See Letter from Gaetano Benini to the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 20. 2.1882, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. In this case the theatre management of Šibenik donated 25 florins to the troupe leader to cover the travel expenses of himself and his family to Trieste.

<sup>84</sup> See for example the letter from Doimo Miagostovich to Enrico Viscardi, [Zadar, n.d.], which states that "the management grants the boxes of the third tier to the advantage of the company" ("La Direzione concede a vantaggio della compagnia i palchi di terza fila"); HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>85</sup> On the evidence of the available archival documentation, we can say that the theatres of the coastal region plausibly had an average of up to seven candidates per season.

<sup>86</sup> See Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 28. 7.1907, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>87</sup> In 1884 the presidency of the theatre had proposed an extra contribution of 10 florins per share to partially cover the expenses of restoring the theatre building.

paid the sum of 50 crowns "as a contribution to the expenses of maintenance and to the staging of a season, in accordance with the resolution taken at the general meeting of shareholders on 17 February of the current year".88 Indeed it turns out that at that same meeting a request was expressly made for an overall contribution of 1,400 crowns, to be divided among the 28 shares, meaning that each holder of a share would provide 50 crowns.89 Te management was then authorised to take out a three-month loan of 3,000 crowns to cover the preliminary expenses for the spring season. Te initial proposal was to approach the Banca Popolare Zaratina, but then the shareholder Francesco Inchiostri came forward and ofered to pay the required 3,000 crowns into the theatre's account at the same conditions given by the bank.90

Not always were the shareholders in agreement with what the presidency or management decided. Tere were those like Signora Natalia Dudan in Zadar, who voiced their opinions directly against their name on the circular letter convening the meeting, without waiting to speak at the meeting itself. She protested in no uncertain terms against the management for giving the then impresario an advance payment in cash.

Te undersigned doesn't believe the gentlemen presidents could be so stupid as to pay the impresa – without any advantage for itself – the instalment of the endowment before the due date established in the contract. But if that had really happened, there is no other remedy for so many ills and so many ridiculous meetings and circular letters than to have the money prematurely paid out by its presidents refunded, always assuming, that is, that a payment was indeed made. It would be high time for the presidency to stop making itself ridiculous, and along with it making the entire association ridiculous with further negotiations, circulars, meetings, etc. etc.91

<sup>88</sup> "quale contributo per le spese di manutenzione e allestimento d'uno spettacolo d'opera, e ciò in base al deliberato preso nell'adunanza generale degli azionisti del teatro ch'ebbe luogo il giorno 17 febbraio a. c."; Receipt for a contribution to the organisational expenses of the opera season, issued by Antonio Raimondi – owner of a share in the theatre – signed by the treasurer director Ugo Fosco, [Šibenik], 30.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 5. The expenditure for the maintenance of the theatre and that for the funding of opera constituted one item. At the meeting of the shareholders of the Teatro Mazzoleni the councillor Marco Inchiostri made the proposal that the two sums should be kept distinct, but his suggestion was not followed up. Any revenue from the opera productions would be used to cover the expenses of maintenance. See Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 17. 9.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>89</sup> This contribution was regulated by articles 23 and 24 of the theatre's statute.

<sup>90</sup> See Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 17. 9.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>91</sup> "La sottoscritta non può ritenere i sig. presidenti tanto imbecilli da pagare all'impresa, senza un proprio vantaggio, la rata della dotazione prima della scadenza stabilita nel contratto. Ma quando per avvero[sic] ciò fosse avvenuto oltre[?] rimedio a tanti mali ed a tante ridicole sedute e circolari non restandone che far rifondere dai suoi presidenti il denaro da essi prematuramente esborsato, semprechè esborso sia avvenuto. Sarebbe già tempo che la presidenza cessasse dal rendersi ridicola, e rendere con sé ridicola la società intiera con ulteriori trattative, circolari, sedute, ecc ecc"; see Letter from Natalia Dudan to the presidency of the theatre of Zadar, Zadar, 25.10.1869, HR-DAZD, folder 3.

An alleged incompetence of the management was also expressed in *L'Eco dell'Adriatico*, which wrote that it "clings to the frst opera season ofered, without looking at the artistic side" (*tiene al primo spettacolo che le si ofre, senza guardare al lato artistico*). Te directors were accused of being endowed with anything but artistic taste, "each one more anti-musical than the next; who let themselves be swindled by crafty impresarios" (*una più antimusicale dell'altra; che si lasciano minchionare da astuti impresari*).92

If the opera season went badly, the box-owners complained. Some even tried to ask for their membership fee (*canone*) back, as in the case of Innocente Monass in Zadar:

Esteemed management! On behalf of my wife, as owner of the box of Tier I no. 10, some time ago I paid the fee of 40 crowns for the opera season of 1906. Seeing now that, following the failure of *Rigoletto* and the cancelled performance of *Lucia di Lammermoor*, the whole opera season was thus reduced just to the performance of *Mefstofele*, and confdent that the impresario was not given any subsidy, seeing that he had not fulflled his respective contractual obligations, I request that this esteemed management return the said fee, especially in consideration of the fact that I understand that other boxholders have, quite rightly and justly, also refused their contribution.93

In the event, however, Monass didn't get his money back, because it was pointed out that the assembly of shareholders had voted that the sum was to be spent "on the overall number of productions given, or to be given, during the year 1906".94

<sup>92</sup> "The gentlemen boxholders", the article went on, "pay every year large fees that the Management imposes on them and they get the productions that they get: each of less artistic value than the one before. Let them go on paying, but at least let them not be forgetful of the glorious traditions of our forebears, who offered all that was finest that our Italian art could produce, with select artists, and made Zadar an artistic centre of excellence in the theatrical world." ("I signori palchettisti pagano ogni anno forti tasse che la Direzione loro impone ed hanno quegli spettacoli che hanno: uno meno artistico dell'altro. Continuino pure a pagare, ma almeno non siano immemori delle gloriose tradizioni dei nostri maggiori, i quali offrivano tutto quel che di più bello la nostr'arte italica produceva, con artisti eletti e che rendevano Zara un centro artistico molto pregiato nel gran mondo teatrale."); *L'Eco dell'Adriatico*, 17–18.1.1907.

<sup>93</sup> "Spettabile Direzione! A nome della mia consorte quale proprietaria del palco di I ordine n. 10 ebbi tempo fa a versare il canone di corone 40 per la stagione d'opera 1906. Visto ora che in seguito all'insuccesso del *Rigoletto* venne anche desistito dalla rappresentazione di *Lucia di Lammermoor*, e che quindi tutta la stagione d'opera si ridusse alla sola rappresentazione del *Mefistofele*, e certo che all'impresario sarà stata negata qualsiasi sovvenzione non avendo egli corrisposto ai relativi suoi obblighi contrattuali, prego Essa spettabile Direzione a volermi restituire il suddetto canone, ciò tanto più in quanto mi consta, avere anche altri palchettisti rifiutato con piena ragione e diritto il proprio contributo."; Letter from Innocente Monass to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 17.11.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 22.

<sup>94</sup> "per il complesso degli spettacoli dati e da farsi durante l'anno 1906"; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Innocente Monass, Zadar, 1906, HR-DAZD, folder 21.

At the Teatro Bonda of Dubrovnik the boxholders also played an active role in the choice of repertoire and companies, and they discussed the matter with the management, which again was made up of fve people.95 On the other hand, a place where boxholders had no say in the choice of the opera production was Rijeka. On this matter the newspaper *La Bilancia* also gave its own opinion by calling for a greater involvement, perhaps in the form of a committee that should include not only the boxholders but also the season-ticket holders of the parterre. For they too should have the right to examine the competing proposals and to express a defnite opinion to an already established delegation (*delegazione teatrale*), whose task it would be merely to verify the fnancial solidity of the participating impresarios and decide for or against. In other words, the body appointed to choose the operas and, later, to judge the productions at the dress rehearsals, should be exclusively this committee.96 Instead, with the move from the Teatro Adamich to the new Teatro Comunale, it was only members of the management that were allowed to take part in the assemblies, which were held in the theatre ofces (*cancelleria teatrale*).97 Tis explains why we do not fnd at Rijeka those printed forms used to convene the boxholders (with a list of names and a space for signatures), as instead we do at Zadar for example. For the meetings to elect the members of the management, on the other hand, both the boxholders and the season-ticket holders of the parterre were also invited to take part. Tose renting a whole box had the right to two votes; for half a box it was one vote; the season-ticket holders of the parterre also each had one vote. For the election to be valid, at least a third of those eligible to vote had to cast a ballot; and a candidate could be considered elected with at least a third of the number of votes cast.98

One might also expect a newspaper not known for its impartiality to ask the boxholders to vote for one or other candidate as director of the theatre. Indeed, in the elections for this position at Zadar, for example, the newspaper *La Bilancia* recommended voting for Lodovico de Adamich, Giovanni Prodam and Francesco Dall'Asta; as it turned out, they were all elected.99 Five years earlier, in *Il Giornale di Fiume*, there was a complaint that the boxes in Rijeka were rented at excessively low prices and that the management divided a box between three, four, even fve applicants. Te same paper asked for the rental of boxes to be put up for auction.100 Rather than having to see empty boxes, the management lowered their cost, which was in any case lower than that of theatres ofering productions of similar quality, such as that of Zagreb for example. At Rijeka the cost of a box ranged (depending

<sup>95</sup> Miljenko Foretić, *Kazališni život u Dubrovniku od 1882–1914*, [n.n.], Dubrovnik 1965, p. 9.

<sup>96</sup> "Teatro civico", *La Bilancia*, 3. 6.1875.

<sup>97</sup> See Invitation, Rijeka, 2.10.1908, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>98</sup> See Notice no. 26, Rijeka, 15.3.1894, Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, theatre collection.

<sup>99</sup> Together with Achille Franchi and Ernesto Brelich; "Teatro civico", *La Bilancia*, 5.3.1870 and 19.3.1870.

<sup>100</sup> "La questione teatrale", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 8. 4.1865.

on the tier) from 120 to 300 forins, whereas in Zagreb it was from 188 to 413 forins. Moreover, at Zagreb the box-owners were obliged to purchase at least twelve tickets for each subscription, whereas the rental conditions at Rijeka did not tie the boxholders to a given number of seasons or performances. Tey could simply go to however many performances they wanted. Te newspaper pointed out these details in answer to the complaints of a reader who clearly considered the price of the boxes to be too high.101

#### 1.4 Census of the boxholders at the coastal theatres

Below we have attempted to collect all the names of those who occupied the boxes at the theatres of Istria, Rijeka and Dalmatia over the long period in question. Unfortunately this census, based on the documentation available at the archives consulted, is incomplete. In the cases of Pula, Rijeka and Split we have a list for only one of the two theatres present in those cities over the almost sixty years of this research: hence at Pula only for the theatre that preceded the Politeama Ciscutti; at Rijeka, for the Teatro Adamich, but not the Teatro Comunale; at Split, for the Teatro Nuovo, but not the previous Teatro Bajamonti. Having lists for both theatres in each city would have enabled us, for example, to verify whether or not we fnd the same boxholders in both theatres. We shall also refrain from making any considerations regarding the origin of the names cited, given the difculty, in many cases, of understanding whether we are dealing with Italian or Croatian families. It is worth pointing out, though, that many Italian surnames were modifed through the addition of letters such as "k" or sufxes like "ic" or "ch" by the priests who were recognised as civil status registrars under Austrian rule. Hence families such as the Karaman or Giljanović, which we fnd in the tables below, were actually Italian and not Croatian, in spite of appearances.

Nonetheless, incomplete though these lists may be, they help us to understand who was going to the theatre at the time and who, in various ways, had some sort of decision-making infuence in the organisation of the opera seasons.102

Census of the boxholders at the coastal theatres

<sup>101</sup> "Teatro civico", *La Bilancia*, 14. 4.1876.

<sup>102</sup> On the question of the surnames, see also the comment made by Giulio Menini: "The surnames are a sincere indication of this confusion of feelings and of the forced denaturalisation of the peoples, for while the various Krekic, Ghiglianovic, Gospodnetic and Karaman are very Italian, equally fervent Croatians are the Arneri, De Borelli, Tommaseo, Marchetti, Tartaglia, De Cambi and Alberti, all of the purest and surest Italian origin." ("I cognomi poi sono un indizio sincero di questa confusione di sentimenti e della forzata snaturalizzazione delle genti, poiché mentre sono italianissimi i Krekic, i Ghiglianovic, i Gospodnetic, i Karaman, sono altrettanto croati ferventi gli Arneri, i De Borelli, i Tommaseo, i Marchetti, i Tartaglia, i De Cambi, gli Alberti, tutti di purissima sicura origine italiana."); Giulio Menini, *Passione Adriatica: ricordi di Dalmazia, 1918–1920*, Zanichelli, Bologna 1925, pp. 9*–*10.



#### 1.4.1 The boxholders of the theatre of Pula <sup>103</sup>

#### 1.4.2 The boxholders of the Teatro Adamich of Rijeka <sup>104</sup>



<sup>103</sup> The theatre in question is that founded in Pula in 1854 and functioning before the Politeama Ciscutti came into existence. The table is undated and drawn from Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 70. The source from which these data are collected is not cited. We know that the Rizzi, Glezer, Vareton and Wasserman families, for example, had a box also in the new theatre inaugurated in 1881; see Frank Wiggermann, *Vom Kaiser zum Duce. Lodovico Rizzi (1859–1945). Eine österreichisch-italienische Karriere in Istrien,* Haymon Ebook, Innsbruck 2017, p.n. v., [accessed through Google Books].

<sup>104</sup> These are the boxholders of the Teatro Adamich in the year 1867; see Sheet of paper listing the boxholders, Rijeka, 1867, Teatro civico zbiska spisa, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.






#### 1.4.3 The boxholders of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar


<sup>105</sup> The names are drawn from various documentation contained in the archival collection of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar; the material comes from various folders. The names with an asterisk appear after 1882.



#### 1.4.4 The boxholders of the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik

Tese boxholders were registered at the date of the building of the theatre, according to the contract of 28 February 1864:106





Te following table, on the other hand, ofers a reconstruction of the boxholder-shareholders of the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik and its directors from 1870 to 1917, for the years in which there are records. Where there are gaps in the columns "Box no." and "No. shares", this means that the relevant information has not been found.

 Counter-receipt, [Šibenik], 2.3.1864, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. Appearing instead of Francesco Mazzoleni in the Counter-receipt, [Šibenik], 15. 4.1864 is the name of Paolina Sisgoreo (always in HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a).


107 Possessing only one share pre-1896.


#### 72 Subsidising the opera seasons



In the early years Paolo Mazzoleni was the owner of just a single share, in spite of the fact that he belonged to the family of Francesco Mazzoleni, whom the theatre was named after.

> 109

#### © 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

#### 74 Subsidising the opera seasons





The information is drawn from HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

Census of the boxholders at the coastal theatres 77



© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

## **2 The search for an impresario**

### 2.1 The rules of game: the tender specifcations

Once the endowment was secured, the theatre management – at the theatres that required the document – prepared and published the tender specifcations (*capitolato d'appalto* or just *capitolato*). Tis was the document that laid down the conditions that the contractor (*appaltatore*) would have to comply with. As such, it immediately preceded the tender contract (*contratto d'appalto*). It was in this way that the ofcial search for the impresario to run the season would start.

The search for an impresario

The rules of game: the tender specifications

Te tender specifcations could have an ofcial appearance and be printed and circulated in the daily newspapers or artistic journals. We have the example of how the *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano* in 1889 advertised a public call for tenders in Rijeka:

Te competition for the concession of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka for the three-year period from 1 January to 31 December 1892 is now open. On the basis of the detailed conditions listed in the respective tender specifcations, which can be consulted at [the ofce of] this Civil Magistrate, as well as at the editorial ofces of the newspapers *La Bilancia* of Rijeka, *Il Trovatore* and the *Gazzetta Musicale* of Milan, bids, provided with a (Hungarian) revenue stamp of 50 *soldi*, will be accepted up until 6 pm of 9 November prox.

Te same must be presented to the management of the Teatro Comunale, in writing and sealed, with the heading:

"*Oferta per l'appalto triennale del teatro Comunale di Fiume*" and must be accompanied by the bid deposit (*vadio*) of 250 forins (two hundred and ffty Austrian forins) in cash (corresponding to 500 Italian lire): the which *vadio* will be forfeited to the municipal treasury if the bidder to whom the impresa is assigned should not appear for the signing of the relative contract, or should, at that meeting, not make up the sum lacking to form the prescribed security deposit (*cauzione*).

Te decision that will follow, no later than the frst half of December prox., is the exclusive preserve of the municipal delegation.1

<sup>1</sup> "È aperto il concorso per l'appalto del teatro Comunale di Fiume pel triennio dal 1° gennaio al 31 dicembre 1892. Sulla base delle condizioni di dettagli enumerate nel concernente Capitolato d'asta, ostensibile presso questo Magistrato Civico, nonché presso le redazioni dei giornali *La Bilancia* di

When not published in full, the newspaper might print the suggestion to contact the theatre management directly to obtain a copy of the *capitolato*, issuing a statement like the following: "For information on the endowment and on the tender specifcations, apply to the management of the theatre itself before the end of July".2 In Rijeka, for example, the document could be obtained from the secretary of the theatre management. It could also be consulted at the theatrical agencies. Alternatively, the *capitolato* could have a less ofcial appearance and take the form of a manuscript document, as for example in the "Conditions for the opera impresa in the Lent-spring season" of the theatre in Rijeka.3

Over the years the tender specifcations became increasingly detailed, as for that matter did the tender agreements and the artists' engagement contracts. In Rijeka, for example, the number of articles in the tender specifcations ranged from the 19 published in the year of the inauguration of the new Teatro Comunale (1885) to the 37 of 1909–1911. Te most comprehensive of all the tender specifcations hitherto discovered are those adopted in Rijeka for the three-year period 1909–1911, a model reused almost identically in the years 1912–1914 and 1915–1917. In this document each article was defned by a heading summarising the content. At Zadar, on the other hand, the various sections had no headings, but were simply numbered. Here again the size of the document was more or less the same: it had around 38 articles (from a previous, undated, version of 36 articles). In no case, however, do we fnd anything comparable to the tender specifcations of theatres of a diferent order, such as those for La Scala and the Teatro Canobbiana which consisted of 90 articles already in 1850.4

No tender specifcations have emerged for Pula, Šibenik and Split: none are preserved in the archival documentation investigated; nor is any mention made in the correspondence examined, or even in the periodical press. In this regard, we should remember that the

Fiume, *Il Trovatore* e la *Gazzetta Musicale* di Milano, si accetteranno relative offerte, munite di bollo (ungherese) di soldi 50, sino alle 6 pom. del giorno 9 novembre prossimo venturo. Le stesse sono da presentarsi alla Direzione del teatro Comunale, in iscritto e suggellate, colla soprascritta: '*Offerta per l'appalto triennale del teatro Comunale di Fiume'* e devono essere accompagnate del vadio di fiorini 250 (duecentocinquanta fiorini, valuta austriaca) in contanti (pari a lire italiane 500): il quale vadio decaderà in favore della Tesoreria Civica, qualora l'offerente cui verrà aggiudicata l'impresa non si presentasse alla firma del relativo contratto, ovvero anche non completasse in quell'incontro la somma mancante a formare la prescritta cauzione. La deliberazione, che seguirà, non più tardi della prima metà del dicembre prossimo, è riservata a beneplacito della Delegazione municipale."; Avviso di concorso [Call for tenders for the contract of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka], *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, anno XLIV, no. 43, 27.10.1889, p. 702.

<sup>2</sup> "Per le informazioni sulla dote e sul capitolato d'appalto rivolgersi entro il mese di luglio alla Direzione del teatro stesso"; *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, no. 31, 2. 7.1876, p. 229.

<sup>3</sup> See Conditions for the organisation of opera in the Lent and Spring season, Rijeka, 1862, 1863 and 1864, HR-DARI, DS 60, 4.

<sup>4</sup> *L'Italia Musicale II*, no. 59, 21. 8.1850, p. 233. At the time certain *capitolati* could even have over a hundred articles.

theatre of Pula did not usually receive municipal subsidies. Moreover, the lack of a *capitolato* is easily explained if a theatre management should decide to manage the opera season by itself without resorting to an impresario: there would obviously be no need to publish one. Tis happened at Šibenik several times over the years, when the director Mazzoleni himself undertook the organisation of the opera. A similar thing happened also in Zadar in 1898, when one of the theatre's directors, Demetrio Medovich, proposed to act as impresario. During one of the shareholders' meetings he declared that if they had nothing against it and did not fnd the position incompatible, he was prepared to take on the impresa on the condition that operas owned by Ricordi were produced. Te members voted in favour, unanimously.5 Hence there was no need, at least for the immediate present, to issue any tender specifcations. In this particular case, however, the situation must have changed within a short space of time, for the same shareholders of Zadar subsequently made Medovich stand down from holding a dual position (as both director and impresario).6 After Medovich had renounced the new position, the contract for the theatre was then defnitively taken on by the impresario Giorgio Trauner.7

Rijeka and Zadar are therefore the only two theatres for which it has been possible to recover a number of tender specifcations. In Zadar the *capitolato* was subsequently attached to the actual contract with the designated impresario. Te management there had printed a single version of the document, to which it made handwritten changes depending on the impresario and the season concerned. In this way certain articles could be cut or further matters not contained in the original printed version added in pen.

What were the common elements and main diferences between the *capitolati*? Te documents difered greatly from theatre to theatre, but they could also vary at the same theatre in diferent years. Also extremely variable were the order of their contents and the number of articles included. A study of the diferent *capitolati* helps us to grasp the topics tackled

<sup>5</sup> See Minutes for 1898, Zadar, 6. 2.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 24. By this time, compared to the past, a theatre management could assume a greater role in its relations with the impresario and, at the very least, appear as joint organiser of the opera season.

<sup>6</sup> "I have heard that some of the gentlemen shareholders […]," Medovich wrote, "believe, and I myself am now also convinced of the fact, that the position of director is incompatible with the condition of impresario; and given that I value the former more than the latter, I declare that I renounce the contract of the theatre for the next spring season that was offered to me and that I accepted." ("Ho rilevato che alcuni signori azionisti […] trovano, ed ora me ne convinsi anche io, incompatibile la carica di direttore con la qualità di impresario, e tenendoci io più alla prima che non alla seconda, dichiaro di rinunziare all'appalto, offertomi e da me accettato, del teatro per la prossima stagione di primavera."); Letter from Demetrio Medovich to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 6.1.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>7</sup> For various years Giorgio Trauner was in contact with the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar. Unfortunately, we know very little about his life except that he died in Milan at the age of 53; See *Ars et labor. Musica e musicisti*, vol. LXVI, Ricordi, Milano 1911, p. 803.

by these documents, and hence understand the instructions and needs of the theatres in the area vis-à-vis their impresarios.

#### Delivery of the theatre

It was customary for the *capitolato* to indicate the date on which the theatre would be handed over to the contracting impresario, perhaps with the formula "no later than" plus the indication of a specifc date. At Rijeka a clause was added, to the efect that the municipality would not be obliged to provide any objects or equipment other than those already there and included in the consignment.

#### Theatre spaces

Mention was made of the theatre spaces placed at the disposal of the impresario; this could also include a detailed description of all the rooms, also mentioning the furniture present. For example, in the *capitolato* issued in Rijeka in 1885 explicit reference is made to an inventory that would be delivered to the impresario at the moment the theatre was placed in his hands.8

Both at Zadar and at Rijeka the impresa had no right to run the theatre cafe or the cloakroom service, though this right was subsequently granted at Rijeka from 1909 onwards. Te spaces of the theatre could not be entrusted to third parties, and could only be used for the theatrical productions approved by the management. Naturally, in cases of damage or harm to the rooms or furniture, the impresario would have to take personal responsibility, just as he would have to pay for any alterations made to the stage or parts of the theatre for scenic or artistic reasons.

At the termination of the contract, the impresario would have to return to the theatre management the theatre's spaces, scenery, properties and various accessories in the condition in which they had been received, together with the inventories. Te exact day on which the theatre was to be returned was not specifed, at least not in the *capitolato* of Rijeka for 1885. Tis was a detail that could be specifed later, directly in the contract.

#### Duration of the contract

Te duration of a contract in the theatres of the coastal area was usually that of a season, which basically meant two or three months. More rarely it was triennial. Tis matches what

<sup>8</sup> Tender specifications of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 1885, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

Rispoli asserted in 1903: "Ordinarily it happens that the duration of an *impresa* is of one season only (two or three months at most). Rarely of a whole year. Extraordinarily of more than one year".9 As with any artistic or musical organisation (even today), having annual or triennial funding changed the perspective. While a three-year funding period guaranteed the management a lower expenditure of energy in the search for an impresario, an annual or seasonal contract had the advantage, in the event that the wrong impresario had been engaged, of providing an opportunity to remedy the mistake in a relatively short space of time and call in someone else. Limiting the contract to a single season was also motivated by the uncertainty of the endowment. Given that the theatre could not guarantee long-term funding, it was obliged to restrict the duration of the impresario's tenure.

At both Zadar and Rijeka a contract was generally drawn up for each opera season. Exceptions at Zadar were the years 1888–1891, when the concession was given to the impresario Paolo Massimini, and 1904–1907, when it was given to Giorgio Trauner. Rijeka, on the other hand, had a greater number of three-year contracts, even if – owing to lack of documentation – it is impossible to say, in certain cases, if we are dealing with a single three-year contract or a series of renewals to the same impresario for several individual seasons (amounting to three years overall). Te presence of the same impresario is attested from 1876 to 1878, from 1888 to 1890, and from 1903 to 1908. Most certainly triennial were the tender specifcations of 1890–1892, 1909–1911, 1912–1914, and 1915–1917. We also have evidence of a three-year contract in Rijeka for the preceding years of 1846–1848. Te larger theatres, like the Teatro Comunale of Trieste, generally ofered triennial or multi-year contracts already from 1861 onwards. As regards the specifc duration of the season, the tender specifcations of Rijeka (1885) give precise dates, using the formula "*dal … al*", in addition to mentioning the season itself.

For the three-year contract in Rijeka the contractor had the right to withdraw after the frst or second year, provided that advance notice of six months was given. One impresario who cancelled a (three-year) contract was Cesare Trevisan, who withdrew in 1880 because the committee refused to grant him a month's deferment to make up his mind on whether or not to continue the impresa.10

Te annual contract, as specifed for example at Rijeka from 1901, comprised all the productions of carnival, Lent-spring and autumn, hence extended beyond the single season. At the time of the Teatro Adamich, balls were given during the carnival season, opera in

<sup>9</sup> "D'ordinario accade che la durata d'una impresa è di una sola stagione (due o tre mesi tutt'al più). Raramente è di un anno intero. Straordinariamente di più anni."; Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 15. In certain Italian theatres the contracts could even have a duration of five or six years, perhaps with the possibility of rescission every two years; see Marcello De Angelis, *Le carte dell'impresario. Melodramma e costume teatrale nell'Ottocento*, Sansoni, Firenze 1982, p. 25.

<sup>10</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 1. 9.1880.

Lent-spring, and spoken theatre (*prosa*) in the autumn. Te impresario in question could, however, relinquish the running of all productions and outsource (for example) the balls, as indeed Cesare Trevisan did for the 1880 season.11

#### Domicile and presence of the impresario

It is in the early years of the 20th century that the tender specifcations began to introduce the obligation that the impresario should reside on the premises during the season and, if he should have to absent himself, must fnd a trusted person to stand in for him. Te *capitolato* of Rijeka in 1909 (and following years) stated that the impresario should establish his domicile in Rijeka, specifcally "in the ofce of the Teatre" (*nel gabinetto del Teatro*). In fact, there was a room in the theatre expressly reserved for the impresario. He, or his substitute, would also have to be present at the performances. Tis clause did not appear in the tender specifcations of Zadar, but in certain contracts with the impresario, at the top of the page, the 'place of stipulation' was indicated as "in the small chamber of the Teatro Nuovo" (*nel camerino del Teatro Nuovo*).12 Tough not formally specifed, it was a tacit convention that here too the impresario should have a room of his own inside the building.

At Rijeka the hope was expressed to engage a local impresario (or proxy), for the reason that locals ofered a greater guarantee that the contractual conditions would be observed and, moreover, would be satisfed with lower earnings, whereas an impresa from outside would demand higher pay in order to compensate for its expenses.13 On this matter Rijeka applied more conservative criteria than other theatres, not only in its choice of impresario, but also in that of the artists. Tey too should preferably be local.

#### Management of the productions and the prohibition to transfer the contract

In cases where the contract was taken on by more than one partner – of which there are a number of instances in the years covered by this research – the rule given in many tender specifcations is that only one of them must represent the impresa before the city author-

<sup>11</sup> "Notizie teatrali", *La Bilancia*, 18.12.1879.

<sup>12</sup> Contract between the presidency of the Teatro Nuovo and the impresario Carlo Vianello, Zadar, 22.3.1875, HR-DAZD, folder 4.

<sup>13</sup> A similar notion was expressed in the newspapers: "We would like it that any impresa should be obliged to appoint a person from the city to act as his guarantor and proxy" ("Noi vorremmo che si imponesse l'obbligo a qualunque impresa di nominare persona del paese come suo garante e procuratore"); "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 3. 6.1875.

ities, though it remained understood that all would be responsible and guarantors of the contract. Te impresa would not be permitted to transfer the contract without the consent of the municipal authorities and the theatre management.

#### General obligations for the impresa and regulations of the management

Te impresa would have to answer for all infringements of the law, authors' rights, general regulations, municipal regulations and theatre rules. It would have to comply rigorously with the orders of the theatre management on everything concerning the theatre, its running, backstage discipline, the fulflment of the contract and the theatre's special regulations.

#### Rights of use belonging to the municipality during the period of the contract

In the case of Rijeka, the city council was entitled to carry out all the repairs, improvements and renovations in the theatre that it considered necessary, without the impresa having the right to claim recompense or compensation. It could make use of the theatre to organise charity events, political meetings or lectures, again without the contractor having the right to claim compensation. On the other hand, the *Comune* could not use the theatre on the nights already programmed for the productions of the impresa. Implicit, therefore, was a form of respect for the calendar of performances already agreed upon with the impresario.

#### Number and type of performance

Usually indicated among the obligations of the impresario were the overall number of performances and the number of "new" and "repertoire" operas to be guaranteed.14 At Rijeka no mention of new operas is made in the tender specifcations of 1885, but only of "no less than two operas from the great repertoire by famous composers" (*non meno di due opere del grande repertorio, di rinomati maestri*). Tose of 1901 refer to one opera from the great repertoire (preferably among those not yet performed) and another two "chosen from among the best of the repertoire" (*scelte tra le migliori del repertorio*) for the Lent-

<sup>14</sup> As stated by Rosselli, repertoire opera had gained a foothold already in the 1840s; audiences were therefore abundantly accustomed to this distinction in the years under scrutiny; see Rosselli, *The Opera Industry*, p. 8.

spring season, with no less than 22 evenings of *opera seria*; for the autumn there would have to be no fewer than 20 performances of *opera seria*, *semiseria* or *bufa* or at least 30 performances of comic operetta or spoken theatre (*prosa*); all of which, it was specifed, with companies "of the frst rank" (*di rango primario*). In 1912 the indication for the Lentspring season was for 24 subscription performances of *opera seria*, *lirica* or *drammatica* (fewer, therefore than the 27 indicated in 1909) and as many non-subscription performances at a reduced price as there were operas in the general programme. Te overall number of performances was to be divided proportionately between each of the operas chosen. In the autumn season there were to be between 30 and 35 performances, which, at the discretion of the impresa, could be of opera, operetta or spoken theatre. Already in 1875 such quantities were considered adequate for a city like Rijeka. In addition to the mandatory performances, the impresa could give further performances, up to a maximum of 85. But if it staged more than 85 (without exceeding the absolute limit of a hundred), it would have to ask for the management's permission and pay all the expenses for lighting, heating and other related costs.

One directive was always that the opera productions should be in keeping with the standards of a frst-rank theatre, with costumes, properties and scenery that both fully corresponded to the period of the actions represented on stage and were also new for the mandatory operas (at least according to the tender specifcations for 1885 at Rijeka). Of particular interest was the clause specifying that the productions must be given exclusively in the Italian language. Initially, in the *capitolato* issued at Rijeka in 1901, this stipulation referred only to the mandatory operas; then, from at least 1909, it was extended to "all productions" (*tutti gli spettacoli*). At Zadar no mention was made of this, most likely because operas in other languages were not requested and it was implicit that operas were mainly sung in Italian.

At Zadar the impresario had to guarantee at least 20 performances per season and at least three diferent works: two that were new to the city, the third being a repertoire opera. Te third opera, the repertoire opera, could perhaps be omitted, provided that the other two were of "extraordinary importance and absolutely assured success".15 Te choice of operas had to be agreed upon jointly by theatre management and impresa (incidentally, the term "theatre management" (*direzione teatrale*) had replaced that of the "presidency" (*presidenza*) in the new tender specifcations of the theatre of Zadar).16 Deciding the right number of performances per season was an important matter, one that would directly afect the size of the audience attending each night. Te risk, with a higher number, was that attendance might drop.

<sup>15</sup> "straordinaria importanza e di successo assolutamente stabilito"; Tender specifications of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, Zadar, [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

<sup>16</sup> Tender specifications of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

#### Revenue of the impresa

Financially, what was the impresa entitled to? What income could it count on? While the impresa working in Rijeka in 1885 was very clearly guaranteed the revenue of the endowment (though the actual sum was left blank in the form), there was apparently no such clarity regarding the income from entrance tickets. What was written was just that the prices of the subscriptions and entrance tickets, the boxes available nightly and the stools (*scanni*) would be established in common accord with the theatre management. From 1900 onwards it was clearly written that the contractor would receive the takings from the entrance tickets and numbered seats and the income from the boxes, seats (*poltroncine*) and stools (*scanni*).17 Te *capitolato* of eight years later included the income from the parterre (*platea*), boxes and gallery (*galleria*), in addition to that from the season-ticket holders. Te rental of the refreshment bar (*bufet*) and cloakroom was included, as well as the endowment provided by the "municipal treasury" (*civico peculio*) of 8,000 crowns annually (7,000 if the contract were to last two years). Depending on the year of the *capitolato*, the payment of the endowment would be made either in four instalments or on the day of the last mandatory performance of the Lent-spring season.18 Electric lighting and heating were free of charge for the duration of the performances and rehearsals, up to a maximum of 85 performances.

Zadar, on the other hand, did not specify the size of the endowment in the tender specifcations. It merely referred to the "agreed endowment" (*dotazione convenuta*) to be paid in the usual four instalments. Here again, as at Rijeka, mention was made of revenue from the entrance tickets to the parterre, boxes and gallery (*loggione*), from the season-tickets (*abbonamenti di porta*), seats (*poltrone*) and stools (*scanni*), and from the rental of boxes (though only those of the third tier), seats (*poltrone*), stools (*scanni*) and chairs (*sedie*) in the parterre. Also included, in the modifed *capitolato* (probably post-1905), was a possible bonus for the impresa, paid by the theatre management at the end of the season, provided, of course, that the impresa had correctly fulflled all its commitments and justifed the trust placed in it.

<sup>17</sup> See Call for tenders for the running of productions at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 22.5.1900, Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, theatre collection. At the time the Teatro di Rijeka had about 700 seats in the boxes and parterre (*platea*) and 500 in the gallery (*galleria*).

<sup>18</sup> See Call for tenders for the running of productions at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 22.5.1900, Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, theatre collection; or Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale in the three-year period 1 January 1912 – 31 December 1914, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

#### Obligations of the impresa

As a rule, the section in the tender specifcations on the obligations (*oneri*) was much longer and much more detailed than that on the income. Among the impresario's expenses at Rijeka in 1885 were listed those for the surveillance and assistance of the fremen and guards; for the repair and cleaning of the rooms, furniture and other objects, all electric lighting appliances and "supplementary [lighting] with stearin candles"; and for smearing the sets with fre-resistant products (where prescribed). Also included were the ordinary and extraordinary evenings' expenses.19 Needing to be paid were the attendants, the machinist and assistants, the custodian, the wardrobe service, the printing (both prior and daily), and the box-ofce staf or "*bollettari*" (as they were called at the time).20 Also added were the costs of renting the music from the publishers, making copies or reductions, and transporting all the materials needed for the production. Curiously, only in the *capitolato* of Rijeka for 1885, and not in the later ones, was the need to pay copyright fees mentioned. From 1901, also added were the expenses for "special lighting efects" (*luce d'efetto*) on stage. Also included were the wages for the assistant electrician and those who turned on the safety lights (*lumi di sicurezza*) and heaters. From 1909, the "industrial tax" on theatrical productions was also charged to the impresario at Rijeka.21 As regards the scenery, the costs ranged from the mere smearing to the "assembling, disassembling, washing, priming and painting of the scenes, wing fats and borders (*arie*)" (*armizzo, disarmizzo, lavatura, imprimitura e pittura delle scene, quinte e arie*). Te list of the staf to be paid was now much longer than in the *capitolato* of 1885. Compared to those indicated previously, mention was also made of the doorman (*portiere*), the ushers (*maschere*) for stalls and gallery, the *scannisti* (stool providers) for stalls and gallery, the *palchinaie* (box ushers), the stage doorman and an electrician (and

<sup>19</sup> These expenses usually included the (already mentioned) lighting as well as the heating of the theatre, hence the provision of fuel for both electric lighting and heating.

<sup>20</sup> According to Rispoli's text, in certain parts of Italy the *bollettaro* or *bollettinaio* or even *bigliettinaio* was not, however, part of the staff paid by the owner of the theatre and the impresario. He was often a "speculator" who in turn depended on the "speculation" of the impresario. According to Rispoli, the theatre staff consisted of: "the custodian, a person held in the highest trust by the [theatre] owner, attendants, ushers for the boxes, caretakers of the seats, parterre and latrines, machinists, scene-shifters and men at the gridding." ("*custode*, persona di massima fiducia del proprietario, *inservienti*, *palchettai*, *guardiani* delle poltrone, della platea, delle latrine, *macchinisti*, *tirascene*, *uomini di soffitta*."); Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 27. The *bollettinaio* checked and collected the entrance tickets at the theatre and stood guard at the entrances to make sure spectators did not illicitly make their way to the galleries and boxes.

<sup>21</sup> In the case of Rijeka, the amount of this tax was not indicated in the tender specifications. We do know, however, that in Split in 1895 the government tax ranged from 20 to 30 florins and depended on the income that was presented by the impresa over a specific number of performances. See Letter from the theatre management of Split to Antonio Lana, Split, [n.d.].3.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

no longer, therefore, just an "assistant"). Also itemised now are the inspecting physician, the police commissioner, the inspector of the guards with four public security guards, and two police ofcers (*agenti*).22 Te nightly fees for opera performances were the same as for spoken theatre or operetta, but lower (by about half) than those for balls. Te *capitolato* of 1909 detailed, for the frst time, the exact fees for each category of worker. In addition, the impresarios would also have to pay for all the expenses of the contract: in other words, the notary's fees, stamps and various taxes. Tis applied at both Rijeka and Zadar.

At Zadar, the expenses the impresario faced were also innumerable: as well as those mentioned at Rijeka, he had to include the costs of staf members such as the poster distributor, the stagehands and the callboy (*avvisatore*),23 as well as that of contributing to the sickness fund (expenses never mentioned at Rijeka). In neither of the two theatres, however, was any mention made of the theatre inspector, the person hired to keep an eye on the artistic staf during rehearsals, and who, in cases of absenteeism, could also impose fnes.24 At the formal conclusion of the contract all the staf involved would have to be indicated in a special list; or at very least, the overall costs would need to be specifed. Strangely, this last clause was eliminated in the later surviving contract for Zadar.

Tese expenses could, however, be renegotiated. In 1876 we learn from a shareholders' meeting in Zadar that the presidency was authorised to waive the nightly expenses, in the event that the impresario was not satisfed with the takings from admissions, stools (*scanni*), and third-tier boxes excluding the large boxes (*palconi*).25 In 1884, again at Zadar, when negotiating with the impresario Alberto Vernier, the theatre management even ofered to take care of the expenses of routine lighting, the charity taxes, the cost of the police, fremen, and attendants at the door and at the gridding (*servizio di porta e softto*); furthermore, the

<sup>22</sup> The tender specifications for the three-year period 1909–1911 made a distinction between the sections indicating the theatre staff by introducing a separate section, entitled "Service staff" (*personale di servizio*), which explicitly listed the following as people to be remunerated: a chief machinist (*capo macchinista*), head of the grid crew (*capo soffitta*) and other stagehands skilled in operating the machinery and backstage area, a stage manager (*buttafuori*), a callboy (*avvisatore teatrale*), no fewer than four stagehands (*servi di scena*), specifying that they were to be "dressed in livery" (*vestiti in livrea*; in the preceding *capitolato* of 1885 the number of stagehands was not indicated), a doorman (*guardaportone*), an adequate number of ushers (*maschere*) at the entrance to the stalls, stools (*scanni*), gallery (*loggione*) and stage (*palcoscenico*), dressed in a manner approved by the theatre management, and four attendants for the boxholders (*palchettisti*); Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale in the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>23</sup> The *avvisatore* was an employee of the theatre who brought the singers and actors their correspondence and gave notice that the show was about to begin.

<sup>24</sup> The Teatro Comunale of Trieste, for example, has preserved the reports of the theatre inspector who regularly watched over the artists.

<sup>25</sup> See Meeting of the shareholders of the Teatro Nuovo, session of 5. 4.1876, HR-DAZD, folder 4.

impresa would be allowed "as many beneft nights as it liked".26 Compared to the other theatres, it was the presidency of Zadar that shouldered the most expenses, subtracting them from those charged to the impresario. No mention was made of the costs of renting the theatre, either at Rijeka or Zadar.27 Only at Split (and then only for 1895) is there any mention of a rental of 30 forins per evening.28

Naturally it was assumed that the impresario would also pay for the singers of the company, the chorus, orchestra, dancers and walk-on parts. As a rule, a separate section was dedicated to each of these categories in the *capitolati*.

#### The singing artists

Te principals (*artisti di canto*) were to be compatible "with the requirements and dignity of a frst-rank theatre"29 and with the part they had to play, thereby ensuring the success of the productions. Tey would have to gain the approval of the theatre management and, at Rijeka (according to the tender specifcations of 1909), also that of the conductor. Te approval also of the music publishers that owned the score, in addition to that of the *maestro concertatore* and conductor, is mentioned only in the *capitolati* of Zadar.30 At neither Zadar nor Rijeka is any mention made of which voices the impresario was to provide. On this matter, other *capitolati*, like those for the Teatro Comunale of Trieste for the 1861–1864 seasons, were much more precise. For example, they specifed the voice types (*prima donna soprano*, *mezzo soprano*, *basso profondo*, etc.) and added that these artists should have already achieved success in the leading theatres (*principali teatri*), which at the time meant at the carnival seasons of the San Carlo of Naples, La Scala of Milan, La Fenice of Venice, the Apollo of Rome and the Regio of Turin and at the theatres of Italian opera in Vienna, Paris, London and St Petersburg.31

<sup>26</sup> "quante beneficiate fosse per piacere all'impresa"; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Alberto Vernier, Zadar, 8. 8.1884, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>27</sup> For Rijeka an exception is the rent of 3,000 crowns that the impresario Carlo Polgar had to pay in cash to the municipal treasury in 1917; see Register of documents for the civil magistrate of Rijeka (*Protocollo assunto presso il magistrato civico di Fiume*), Rijeka, 11. 4.1917, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>28</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Split to Antonio Lana, Split, [n.d.].3.1895 HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/kut. I–XII.

<sup>29</sup> "alle esigenze e al decoro di un teatro di I° ordine"; Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale in the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>30</sup> See Art. 7, Tender specifications of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

<sup>31</sup> See Tender specifications for the three-year period 1861–1864, Trieste, [1860], I-TSmt, folder 104.

#### Orchestra

Te impresa would have to provide at its own expense a *maestro concertatore* and conductor, as well as a stage director (*direttore di scena*), whose duty it was to make sure nobody was absent on stage and to direct the mis-en-scène of the musical productions.32 Te orchestra, consisting of a number of players appropriate for the type of score, would also have to be paid for. Tere were cases, however, where – in the end – the theatre management shouldered this cost, so on this matter the document that really counted was the contract with the impresario. As always, the tender specifcations represented the theatre management's wishes, whereas in actual practice many of the issues dealt with, including those concerning the orchestra, were subject to revision.

Regarding the orchestral players, the tender specifcations of Rijeka for 1885 indicated precisely which orchestral instruments were needed, but left their actual number to the discretion of whoever flled in the *capitolato*. Tat of Zadar, on the other hand, merely gave a total number, without going into the specifcs of how many per instrument category. At the beginning of the 20th century, the number of players required was 40 (only slightly more than the 38 previously indicated), then went up to 42. At Rijeka the number required was already 40 in 1876, increasing to 50 in 1901; and in 1909 the forces were expected to have no fewer than 60 players, including – as far as the strings were concerned – 12 frst violins, 10 second violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos and 4 double basses.33 Te precise numbers were indicated only for the string section. In the course of a thirty-year period, therefore, the orchestra had increased by twenty players. If any productions happened to require even larger forces, the impresa would naturally have to deal with the additional requirements at its own expense.

Te impresario would also have to pay for the *banda* or stage band, for all those operas in which the composer introduced it.34 Moreover, if special instruments were indicated in the score, they were to be provided and could not be replaced with other instruments:35 a

<sup>32</sup> It was the stage director (*direttore di scena*), together with the scene designer (*scenografo*) and the conductor himself, who took care of the staging of the productions; see the description of his duties in the chapter of Gerardo Guccini, "Direzione scenica e regia", in *Storia dell'opera italiana*, edited by Lorenzo Bianconi and Giorgio Pestelli, vol. V, EDT, Torino 1987, p. 153.

<sup>33</sup> Art. 15, Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale in the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>34</sup> On the stage band, the connections between the various bands and their ties with the theatre, see Antonio Carlini, "Le bande musicali nell'Italia dell'Ottocento: il modello militare, i rapporti con il teatro e la cultura dell'orchestra negli organici strumentali", *Rivista Italiana di Musicologia*, XXX/1 (1995), pp. 85–133 and Jürgen Maehder, "'Banda sul palco'. Variable Besetzungen in der Bühnenmusik der italienischen Oper des 19. Jahrunderts als Relikte alter Besetzungstraditionen?"*,* in *Alte Musik als äesthetische Gegenwart, Kongressbericht Stuttgart 1985*, vol. II, Bärenreiter, Kassel-Basel 1987, pp. 293*–*310.

<sup>35</sup> Tender specifications of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 1885, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

clause that aimed to guarantee respect for the score and the instrumental forces specifed by the composer. Zadar also mentioned the impresa's obligation to provide pianos, accordions, organs, bells and other instruments that might be required for the productions, other than those already possessed by the theatre.

It is in the tender specifcations of Zadar that we fnd, for the frst time in the theatres concerned, a mention not only of the "new normal pitch" (*nuovo diapason normale*) to which the instruments must be tuned, but also of the orchestra's clothing. Te players would have to wear suits of a "dark colour" (*colore oscuro*), preferably black, while the *maestro concertatore* and conductor would wear a black tailcoat (*abito nero di gala*) and white tie.36 Te other *capitolati* more loosely mentioned that the players would have to dress "in a decorous manner" (*in modo decoroso*).

At Rijeka the tender specifcations mention a preference, all things being equal, for engaging players who lived stably in the city;37 the same clause also applied to the players of the civic band. When engaging or replacing them, preference should be given to citizens of Rijeka "and among these, to the more senior" (*e tra questi al più anziano*).38 We must bear in mind that Rijeka had no complete orchestral group. Te clause aimed both to guarantee the use of a local workforce and also to keep the costs down.

#### The chorus singers

Also referred to as the *massa* ('mass'). As with the orchestra there was an evident increase in the chorus numbers over the years. At Zadar, in the course of time, the chorus increased from 32 to 36 singers, made up of 24 men and 12 women. At Rijeka, on the other hand, it amounted to around 30 singers (18 men, 12 women) already in 1876, becoming 50 in 1901, and 60 in the following years, though without specifying how many men and women. As a rule, there were more men than women. It was understood that if, for any reason, more singers were needed, the cost would always have to be borne by the impresario. In addition to the singers, the chorus master (*maestro dei cori*) was also a cost charged to the impresario. Clearly, both the orchestra and the chorus had become larger, following the contemporary developments in the repertoire.

<sup>36</sup> See Art. 10, Tender specifications of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, Zadar, [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

<sup>37</sup> The tender specifications of Rijeka in 1885 mention not only orchestral players, but also chorus singers, painters, machinists, property-men and others who should be "stably resident in the city" (*stabilmente dimoranti a Fiume*); see Art. VI, Tender specifications of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 1885, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>38</sup> See Art. 17, *Convenzione tra il Comune di Fiume ed i 30 filarmonici firmanti nell'atto diretto alla Rappresentanza civica de pres. 10 Aprile 1878 nro. 2077*, p. 12, Rijeka, 1878, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 3.

#### Corps de ballet

Even the corps de ballet, along with the orchestra and chorus, increased in size over the years. Often the phrase used in the tender specifcations was that the corps de ballet would have to be "of a number corresponding to the importance of the opera" (*in numero corrispondente all'importanza dello spettacolo*), but nonetheless we do fnd more precise indications here and there. For example, at Rijeka, according to the tender specifcations of 1876, 12 ballerinas were required for the opera *Il Guarany*. Subsequently, judging from those of 1909, there would have to be 30. Artists under the age of 15 would not be allowed on stage for the ballets; for the opera, on the other hand, it was permitted, pending the approval of the theatre management.39 Zadar instead, called for 12 "skilled chorus ballerinas" (*ballerine distinte di fla*), again at the impresario's expense. Tis number remained unchanged, at least in the surviving tender specifcations.

#### Extras

As was always written, the number of extras or walk-on parts had to be sufcient for the needs of the season. For Rijeka this was specifed as being no fewer than 30;40 for Zadar a precise number was not given. Te extras had to have a leader, who was responsible for keeping discipline and reporting poor behaviour or absences to the theatre management.

#### Wardrobe and wigs; scenery and costumes

Te impresa would also have to provide a sufcient number of wardrobe and wig masters for the theatre's regular nightly duties. Regarding the scenery and costumes, the indication here was usually generic. In other words, the costumes, properties, footwear, scenery and stage machinery (*meccanismi*) of the operas and ballets had to be suited to the importance of the theatre or "in excellent condition" (*in ottimo stato*). At Zadar the mise-en-scène was to be "worthy of the decorum and propriety required by a city of culture and provincial capital".41

<sup>39</sup> See Art. 17, Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale for the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6. The same rule was given in the *capitolato* for the following three-year period.

<sup>40</sup> See Art. 18, Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale for the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>41</sup> "degna al decoro ed alla decenza richiesta da una colta città, capoluogo di provincia"; Art. 14, Tender specifications of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, Zadar, [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

#### The programme for the season

Te proposed programme (or *cartellone*) of the impresario would have to include a summary list of the productions that would be staged during the season (or over the three-year period in the case of a triennial contract). For the three-year period beginning in 1909 the impresa at Rijeka was obliged to give at least two operas from the great operatic repertoire annually, one from the customary repertoire, and one that had not yet been staged at Rijeka, but had been successfully received in other important theatres. Alternatively, instead of the 'new opera', it would have to stage two operas in addition to the other three indicated: one from the great repertoire and one from the customary repertoire. Hence, four or fve operas overall. Te choice of the programme lay with the theatre management on the basis of the list contained in the proposal.

As regards the deadline schedule, the impresario had to present the theatre management with the complete programme, including the list of the whole company engaged for the productions, no later than 15 January of the same year in which the season was to take place. Once the programme had been approved by the management, it had to be made public no later than a month before the day fxed for the frst performance.42 At Zadar the timing was much tighter. Here the season's programme had to be presented for the approval of the theatre management just 15 days before the frst performance of the season, though this became 20 days in the modifed tender specifcations. To us, who consider the time needed to plan an opera season today, such a schedule for programming might seem almost implausible. However, it is worth bearing in mind that a 15-day deadline was also specifed in the *Regolamento precettivo per li impresari e attori teatrali* (Mandatory rules for impresarios and actors of the theatre) in 1851. Indeed, according to this *Regolamento*, the impresario was obliged to submit to the government authorities a list of the productions due to be staged (undersigned by the *capocomico* or troupe leader) 15 days before the theatre opened.43

Even here at Zadar, naturally, the posters had to have the approval of the theatre management. Moreover, it was the theatre management that established not only the

<sup>42</sup> See Art. 23, Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale for the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6. On these deadlines, see also Radmila Matejčić, "Organizacija Općinskog kazališta", in *Narodno kazalište Ivan Zaic*, edited by Radmila Matejčić and Ljubomir Stefanović, Narodno kazalište "Ivan Zaijc" i Izdavački centar Rijeka, Rijeka 1981, p. 28.

<sup>43</sup> The productions would then, as was customary, have to be approved by the censorship and the local authority before being presented on stage. In the *Regolamento* mention is made of the "government authority" (*autorità governativa*) and not "municipal authority" (*autorità municipale*), given that, at the time of its publication*,* the management of the theatres in various areas of Italy was the preserve of the government. See Salucci, *Manuale della giurisprudenza*, p. 14.

order of the productions, but also the day the season opened, the dates for each single opera, and the starting time for the performances. Although these decisions were initially taken by mutual agreement, the phrase "in agreement with the impresa" (*d'accordo con l'impresa*) was subsequently removed from the modifed *capitolato*. 44 On this matter the management retained much more independence of choice. Again at Zadar it was also specifed that there were to be not more than four performances per week, except in exceptional cases.

#### Listing of the staf

A matter of fundamental importance was the listing of the staf that the impresario was required to provide. It would indicate the supporting and secondary parts (*comprimari*), the number of choristers and dancers, the extras, the stagehands, the stage director, the *maestro concertatore* and conductor, the scene designers, wardrobe masters, choreographers and the whole of the theatre staf. At Zadar this list was to be submitted no later than 40 days before the frst performance of the season, thereby giving the management time to reject anyone, if necessary. Initially the deadline had been 30 days; subsequently it was extended.45 If the contractor should not make any of the replacements ordered by the theatre management, there could be a reduction in the size of the endowment.

As a comparison, it is worth citing the situation at a theatre like the Teatro Comunale of Trieste, where the list of the leading singers had to be presented six or four months earlier. So the deadline of 40 days required at Zadar was much tighter. Even tighter was the state of afairs at Rijeka where, according to the tender specifcations of 1909, the impresa was asked to submit the list of all the staf making up the company assembled for the season no later than eight days before the frst performance.46

One clause added over the years was that approval of the *maestro concertatore* and conductor as well as the principal singers was needed from the publishers that owned the music due to be performed. Increasingly the publishers were gaining in power and becoming principal actors in the production and organisation of opera.47

<sup>44</sup> See Art. 4, Tender specifications of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

<sup>45</sup> See Art. 8, Tender specifications of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, Zadar, [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

<sup>46</sup> In the surviving tender specifications before 1909 there is no mention of when the list of staff had to be submitted.

<sup>47</sup> On the role of the publishers, and particularly Ricordi, see Stefano Baia Curioni, "Imprenditorialità privata e trasformazione dell'Opera italiana nell'Ottocento", *Sinergie*, LXXXII (2010), pp. 75*–*93.

#### Communication through notices and posters

As already mentioned, the impresa would have to submit to the theatre management copies of the posters and notices prior to their publication. Moreover, every morning the impresa would have to notify the management of the daily rehearsals. Indeed, we know that this actually happened at Rijeka, at least from 1888 to 1910, from the evidence of a notebook (preserved in the archival collection of the Teatro Comunale) listing the rehearsals for the management.48 Notifcation of the dress rehearsals had to be made with at least 24 hours' prior warning.

#### Rehearsals

At Rijeka the dress rehearsal was to be given with full sets and lighting, exactly as if it were a premiere, and could be attended not only by the people "on duty" (*di servizio*), but also by those indicated in the theatre's general regulations. In exceptional cases, according to the tender specifcations of 1909, the theatre management could exempt the impresa from giving a dress rehearsal. If the production should be found by the management to be unft to be presented to the public, it could even be suspended. Te impresa would have to comply with any changes or improvements requested by the management.

On this matter the tender specifcations of Zadar were more detailed than the others. Tey expected all the principal singers to sing "in full voice" (*a voce spiegata*) both before and during the dress rehearsal, precisely so that the theatre's presidency could get a true impression of the singers' abilities and their suitability to perform the parts given to them.49 In this way the presidency played an active role also in the choice of voices.

#### Contested artists and fnes

Te management could dismiss (*protestare*) an artist both in the course of rehearsals and during the season itself, no matter whether the disapproval was expressed by the audience or by members of the management itself. If this happened, the impresa would have to pro-

<sup>48</sup> In actual fact the notification was not strictly carried out on a daily basis, though we do find clear indications of the beginning of rehearsals, including timetables; see HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4. Again, this provision is not found in the *capitolati* prior to 1909; see Art. 24 of the Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale in the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>49</sup> See Art. 5, Tender specifications of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

vide a replacement at its own expense, regardless of the agreements made with the artist concerned and without any right to compensation.50 Other fgures could also be dismissed, including the conductor and *maestro concertatore*, the chorus master, the choreographer, the stage director and even the prompter.

It was the impresario's task to deduct from the artists' wages any fnes imposed by the theatre management. At Rijeka, according to the tender specifcations of 1885, the amount of the fne was split equally between theatre management and impresario.

#### Contested productions

If for any reason the public voiced its disapproval of a production, the theatre management was authorised to terminate it and withhold the payment of the endowment in proportion to the performances still to be given. On such matters the management could also withhold the impresario's deposit. Te impresa would have no right to compensation or damages and would be obliged to make changes or improvements to the production as soon as possible. It was only at Rijeka in 1909 that this subject began to be included in the tender specifcations; at Zadar this clause was not mentioned.

#### Changes to the productions and stand-ins

In cases of sickness on the part of any of the leading roles or of any changes to the production, in both cities (Rijeka and Zadar) the impresa was expected to inform the management and the public by putting up notices where the tickets were sold, in the theatre foyer, in the galleries and outside the door to the theatre itself. Nor could the impresa have anyone stand in for the principal singers except in situations of force majeure, both during a performance and in the course of the season. Te singer called in as a replacement would have to be "of corresponding merit and ability and chosen from the best available";51 and naturally, he or she would have to be approved by the theatre management. Te substitution could be extended in time solely in a case of force majeure.

<sup>50</sup> Similar rules applied to the supply of scenery, costumes, properties, footwear, jewellery, wigs, etc. and everything else concerning the staging. By "artists", the tender specifications of Zadar post-1901, at article 6, meant the "artists of song, dance and sound" (*artisti di canto, di ballo e di suono*), the conductor and *maestro concertatore*, the chorus master, the choreographers, the stage director and the prompter.

<sup>51</sup> "di merito e capacità corrispondenti e scelto fra i migliori disponibili"; Art. 29, Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale for the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

#### Nightly admission prices and cut-price performances

Te tender specifcations of Rijeka of 1885 and those of Zadar did not defne the prices of admission to the performances in any detail. Tey simply stated that they would be decided by the theatre management and the impresario in common accord. From 1909 onwards, on the other hand, those of Rijeka give detailed indications of the prices not only for the operas of the spring and autumn seasons, for spoken theatre and dances, but also for the 'popular' (i.e. cut-price) performances, for which admission was half the price of a normal evening. Te prices given were those for entrance to the parterre and boxes, entrance to the gallery, parterre seats (*poltroncine di platea*), stools (*scanni*), gallery seats (*poltroncine di galleria*), gallery stools (*scanni di galleria*), ground-foor boxes, mezzanine boxes, and 1st- and 2nd-tier boxes. For the autumn opera season the impresa was authorised to increase only the entrance price to the parterre and boxes. At Rijeka, for the non-mandatory performances the impresario fxed the admission price at his own discretion.52

Te theatre of Zadar specifed that these prices would have to be made known on both the general programme and the posters for each performance. Tis requirement was also respected at Šibenik, even if no tender specifcations to back it up have survived. For here the printed posters gave precise indications of the prices for the parterre and boxes, namely: the better seats (*poltroncine*) in the parterre and chairs (*sedie*), stools (*scanni*), gallery (*loggione*), and boxes of the 2nd and 3rd tiers. Also indicated were the reductions for children, students and non-commissioned ofcers (*sottoufciali*).

Te public had the right to return a purchased ticket and ask for a refund if the impresario had made changes to the production; and could do so right up until the same day as the performance.53

Special performances and galas, public festivities

In the case of performances featuring an artist of world renown, the impresa could, with the theatre management's consent, charge prices that were higher than usual. Tis could also happen in the event of a visit to the theatre of sovereigns and princes. At both Rijeka and Zadar the management could reserve for itself a specifc number of seats, on payment to the impresa of the established price. On feast days and public holidays in both cities the use of the theatre was to be granted free of charge (artists and staf included). At Rijeka, at least certainly from the year 1885, the impresario also had to donate the income from a regular non-subscription performance to a children's charity (the Pio Asilo di Carità per

<sup>52</sup> "La questione teatrale", *La Bilancia*, 13. 9.1875.

<sup>53</sup> Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 46.

l'Infanzia). In this way part of the proceeds of the opera season would be given to a worthy cause. At Zadar it was the theatre management that indicated which of the current season's performances was to be devoted to this purpose.

#### 'Veglioni' and Balls

Only the tender specifcations of Rijeka mention that during the carnival season the impresa could use the theatre for *veglioni* (masked carnival balls) and other ballroom events. Te latter could be prohibited by the management if they were judged to be incompatible with the importance and decorum of the theatre. Moreover, only the management could give consent for the theatre to be hired out to third-party companies. Once consent had been given, the impresario would be responsible for covering all heating and lighting costs and paying for any damages to the building or its furnishings.54

#### Beneft nights

Mention of beneft nights for the artists is made only in the tender specifcations of Zadar, which state that it was the theatre management's responsibility to choose which among the artists engaged should deserve to give a beneft night. Te management would also decide the date or dates of such performances in the course of the season.

#### Free admission to performances

Te tender specifcations could also specify who was entitled to free entry to performances. While the *capitolati* for Rijeka of 1885 mention only the theatre's doctors-surgeons or, more elusively, those who possessed "free tickets" (*biglietti franchi*), in later years they would also specify the mayor (*podestà*), members of the theatre management and the staf on duty designated by the authorities.55

<sup>54</sup> See "Disposizioni circa l'uso del Teatro Comunale in Carnevale"; Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale for the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>55</sup> In addition, at the beginning of the season five stools (*scanni*) in the parterre were reserved for the use of officials delegated by the authorities (as from the *capitolato* of 1909). It is in the article on free admission to the theatre, and then only at Rijeka (1901), that we find the clause obliging the impresario to deliver to the theatre management the libretto of each opera to be staged.

In the press there was much discussion on whether or not it was right to give free tickets to journalists. In 1871 *La Bilancia* of Rijeka had been the recipient of a ticket for a stool (*scanno*) and free entrance to the opera season from the theatre management, but the paper declined it in order to preserve its independence of judgement. Te newspaper made it public that it had sent the ticket back.56 On the question of free tickets for the press, the debate went on for years: was it right and proper for the press to accept free access to the theatres? In France and Italy some newspapers would side against the practice, but then nothing would be done to change the situation until the subject was once again raised at the frst skirmish between critics and impresarios. At the theatres that received an endowment from the government or municipality, it was claimed that free admission for journalists would neither prejudice their reputation nor constrain their independence, because the invitation was made not by the impresa but directly by one of the two above authorities. It was a diferent matter if free entry was granted by the impresa. In such cases, it was thought, the reports in the newspapers could be distorted, for the press would not remain indiferent to the kindness received and would feel duty-bound to return the favour by praising everything about the production.57

At Zadar the list of those given free admission was more detailed than at Rijeka. As well as, naturally, the staf on duty and at the theatre door, and the members of the management, it also included the theatre's electrical engineer (*ingegnere elettrotecnico*), the directors and theatre reporters of the local newspapers, the chief inspector of the fre brigade and, as was routinely included, the theatre's doctor. In fact the doctor was not only obliged to be present at both the dress rehearsals and performances, but also, on the management's instructions, expected to visit any singers or players who had called of sick (making a house call if necessary). In such cases, however, he wouldn't have to take any responsibility for their treatment, but just give his opinion on their state of health.58 In addition to free admission, the doctor was also assigned a parterre seat (*poltrona*) in the theatre, as was the engineer, the

<sup>56</sup> "La giunta teatrale", *La Bilancia*, 15. 4.1871.

<sup>57</sup> "[…] however much a writer on art may feel the delicacy of his duties," the *Teatro Illustrato* wrote, "he cannot, deep down, be at all insensitive to the courteous – though interested – gestures of an impresa, which, on its part, in such cases has the right to be treated politely by those he invites, just as a gracious lady doing the honours at her home has the right, if nothing else, to a compliment from the polite guest." ("[…] per quanto uno scrittore d'arte senta la delicatezza del proprio ufficio, non può essere in fondo a se stesso affatto insensibile alle cortesi – sebbene interessate – dimostrazioni di un'impresa, la quale, dal canto suo, in tal caso ha diritto di essere trattata ammodo dai suoi invitati, come gentile signora che fa gli onori di casa ha diritto, se non altro, a un complimento dall'ospite ben educato."). Even the editors of *Il Teatro illustrato* declared publicly that it no longer wished to accept free tickets to the theatres, so as to preserve its impartiality and independence; see *"*L'ingresso gratuito della stampa nei teatri", *Il Teatro Illustrato*, anno III, no. 34, 1883, p. 156.

<sup>58</sup> See Art. 17, Tender specifications of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

newspaper directors and the commanding ofcer on duty. A stool (*scanno*), on the other hand, was reserved for the journalists and the police ofcers on duty.

#### Cases of force majeure

It was a general rule that in the event of the opening of the theatre being delayed for reasons of force majeure (which were usually identifed as: fre, repairs to the theatre, failure of the electric lighting, public disasters and epidemics; all measures relating to public order, safety and hygiene; wars and revolutions; and the death or sickness of sovereigns and princes), or of a suspension of performances or a defnitive closure of the theatre, the impresario could claim neither damages nor compensation from the management. It would be relieved of all responsibility, but at the same time would get no payment. From 1909 the tender specifcations of Rijeka added that the endowment would be paid in proportion to the number of performances given, thereby ensuring remuneration just for what had already been done. Te only form of compensation that the impresario could claim, at least for the year 1901 at Rijeka, was the payment of 400 crowns for every missed performance if the electric lighting should fail.59

#### Employment agreements of the artists

A clause that was normally added asked the impresa to introduce into their contracts with the artists, *maestri concertatori* and conductors, orchestral players, dancers, chorus singers and other staf, a condition obliging them to abide by the rules given in the tender specifcations and any other regulations in force at the theatre or prescribed by the management.

#### Termination of the contract

In the tender specifcations of Zadar there was an article stating that if the contract were to be terminated prior to the agreed expiry date, for any reason at all, the theatre management would not be obliged to uphold any partial agreements that the impresa had concluded with singers, dancers, orchestral players, etc., with the season-ticket holders and renters of seats (*poltrone*), chairs (*sedie*) and boxes, or with the suppliers of theatrical services.60

<sup>59</sup> See Art 7, Call for tenders to run the productions of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 22.5.1900, Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, theatre collection.

<sup>60</sup> See, for example, Art. 31, Tender specifications of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

#### Rescission and measures in case of death

A clause not found at Zadar, but included at Rijeka at the beginning of the 20th century, concerns the measures to be taken in the event of the impresario dying. Te municipality of Rijeka would have the authority to immediately appoint an administrator for the current or following season, who would perform his duties at the heirs' expense and without any liability. Te law specifed that the heirs that accepted the inheritance would be obliged to pay of all debts existing at the time of the impresario's death (loans and artists' wages included).61

#### Measures to be taken in case the management should discontinue its activities

Again, it is only at Rijeka that we fnd a clause which specifed that, in the event of the theatre management ceasing to perform its functions, the impresario would have to acknowledge that the management's rights and responsibilities would be taken over by the municipal delegation or the person the delegation appointed to take charge of the administration.62

#### Amount of the endowment and payment of the instalments

Not all the tender specifcations specifed the precise amount of the endowment. One was more likely to fnd an indication of when the various instalments had to be paid. At Rijeka in 1885, for example, a frst instalment was paid at the arrival of all the artistic staf at the *piazza*; the second after the ffth performance; the third after half the obligatory performances; and the fnal one after the end of all the performances. Zadar also adopted a system of four instalments, though the actual times of the second and third payments were diferent and depended on the number of performances.63 On the payment of the instalments the tender specifcations of Zadar were stricter than those of Rijeka, for they obliged the impresa to prove to the presidency, at the due date for each instalment, that it had paid of the artists, orchestral players, dancers and choristers. If it should fail to produce the required documentation, the presidency could take it upon itself to make those payments up to the amount of the instalment in question. And if the money should not be enough,

<sup>61</sup> See Prospero Ascoli, *Della giurisprudenza teatrale: studj*, Pellas, Firenze 1871, p. 119.

<sup>62</sup> This was the final clause of the Tender specifications for 1909–1911 and 1912–1914 at Rijeka.

<sup>63</sup> At Split, on the other hand, in 1895 the first quarter was paid at the arrival of the baggage, the second after the second performance, the third half way through the season, and the last at the end of the season; see Letter from the theatre management of Split to Antonio Lana, Split, [n.d.].3.1895 HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

the remainder could be collected from the box-ofce receipts, evening after evening. At Zadar the actual size of the endowment was not specifed in the *capitolato*, for here we are dealing with a printed form that needed to be flled in. Rijeka, on the other hand, specifed the sum of 8,000 crowns in that of 1909.64

Also written into the tender specifcations was the provision that the management would neither advance to the impresario any sum of money, in any form whatsoever, nor grant any further subsidy if requested. Tis clause was not always respected, as transpired when the presidency at Zadar was accused of advancing the impresario money in 1869.65

#### The security deposit and penalties

Tere came a time when the contractor had to leave a security deposit as a guarantee for the fulflment of his obligations. A sum of money was to be paid into the theatre's treasury at the signing of the contract (this needed to be done shortly after notifcation of the concession).66 If the impresario failed, even only in part, in the obligations set out in the contract (in turn based on the tender specifcations), he would lose every right to his deposit. Te municipality of Rijeka could then freely make use of this sum and treat it as a fne, while the contract itself would become null and void. Te tender specifcations of Rijeka for 1885 left a space in which to write the amount of the penalty owed to the management. Te security deposit could also serve to pay the orchestra and chorus should the impresario fail to do so within the specifed deadlines. It would be returned only after the impresario had fulflled all his obligations, "including the proof that he has fully satisfed all the *masse* [i.e. orchestra and chorus]".67

Te actual amount of the security deposit varied considerably in the years under consideration. At Rijeka in 1861 – and in general throughout the 1860s – it was fxed at 1,000 forins,68 at a time when the endowment amounted to 6,000 forins; it remained the same

<sup>64</sup> This sum had probably already been stable for some years, for a letter from the impresario Raffaele Sforza to the theatre management of Rijeka tells us that he received 8,000 crowns for the year 1904 and another 8,000 for 1905; Letter from Raffaele Sforza to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 27. 4.1904, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6; and ditto for 6.5.1905.

<sup>65</sup> See the Message written by Natalia Dudan to the presidency of the theatre on the circular message of 25.10.1869, HR-DAZD, folder 3. On that occasion the presidency infuriated certain boxholders by granting the impresario an advance on the endowment.

<sup>66</sup> At Zadar, for example, the signing had to take place within eight days of the receipt of notification; see Art. 20, Tender specifications of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 29.

<sup>67</sup> "compresa la prova di aver pienamente soddisfatto tutte le masse"; Art. XVII, Tender specifications of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 1885, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>68</sup> See Letter from the theatre secretary Politei to the theatre management of Rijeka, Venezia, 21.1.1861, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

in the years immediately following, with the only diference that the endowment was now 7,000 instead of 6,000 forins.69 Over 25 years later, however, the deposit was increased by 600%, to as much as 6,000 forins (on the evidence of that made by the agent Rossegger in 1887). In the early years of the new century it remained stable at 6,000 crowns (note the change of currency). Te impresario would frst have to pay into the municipal treasury 2,000 crowns, either in cash or in "valuables" (*efetti di valore*), as a bid deposit (the *vadio*); and then complete the sum by transferring a further 4,000 crowns at the signing of the contract. Te theatre management could even demand a deposit of more than 6,000 crowns if this was considered necessary.70 While the deposit at Rijeka, from 1901 onwards, remained stable at 6,000 crowns, the endowment came to 8,000 crowns (in the case of an annual contract) or 7,000 crowns (for a two-year contract). At Zadar and Split, on the other hand, the deposit in the early years of the 20th century was fxed at 1,000 or 1,500 Italian lire (while the endowment continued to be paid in crowns).71 Bearing in mind an exchange rate of 1 Italian lira = 2,5 crowns (still valid at the time of the First World War), the sum in question corresponded to about 2,500 or 3,750 crowns respectively, hence lower than at Rijeka.

Observing the increase or decrease of the deposit over the years is not particularly signifcant unless it is compared to the size of the endowment. It is the relationship between the two fgures that conveys how much more difcult things had become for the impresario aspiring to run an opera season. Te situation had changed greatly since the time when Giuseppe Rossi-Gallieno, in his book on the economics of the theatre (written back in the frst half of the 19th century), could write that "the deposits that the theatrical entrepreneurs usually ofer when the contract is drawn up are negligible in size compared to the endowments".72 Particularly eloquent is the situation at Rijeka in 1923. Here those competing for

<sup>69</sup> See Contract between the theatre deputation of Rijeka and the impresario Cesare Trevisan, [1865], HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4. As a term of comparison for a larger theatre, it is worth bearing in mind that in 1861 the impresario Tommasi took on the running of the theatre of Trieste for a three-year period with a deposit of 10,000 florins against an endowment of 54,000: the deposit was therefore ten times higher; see Carlo Bottura, *Storia aneddotica documentata del Teatro Comunale di Trieste: dalla sua inaugurazione nel 1801 al restauro del 1884 con accenni al Teatro Vecchio dal 1705 al 1800*, Balestra, Trieste 1885, p. 414; or directly, Tender specifications for the three-year period 1861–1864, I-TSmt, folder 104.

<sup>70</sup> See the section "Deposito cauzionale", Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale in the three-year period 1 January 1909 – 31 December 1911, Rijeka, [1908], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>71</sup> Inserted in the printed form of the tender specifications of Zadar post-1901 is the handwritten figure of 1,000 Italian lire. However, on the evidence of a Letter from Gustavo Argenti to Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak [a name given in the documents in variant spellings: Giorgio De Nakich, Giorgio De Nakich d'Osliak, Giorgio Nachich d'Osliak]; Milano, 6.2.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6, the figure given is 1,500 lire.

<sup>72</sup> "le cauzioni che solitamente offrono gli intraprenditori di teatro all'atto della stipulazione del contratto d'appalto sono pressoché nulle per entità rispetto alle dotazioni"; Giuseppe Rossi-Gallieno, *Saggio di economia teatrale: dedicato alle melodrammatiche scene italiane*, Rusconi, Milano 1839*,* p. 44.

the contract would have to pay into the municipal treasury a bid deposit (*vadio*) of 5,000 lire, a sum that was then increased to form an overall deposit of 20,000 lire at the signing of the contract; in return, the impresa was assigned an endowment of lire 30,000.73 In other words, the deposit corresponded to two thirds of the endowment. Evidently, in the course of time, the size of the deposit had increased in relation to the endowment. Tis in turn meant that any impresario wishing to run an opera season would fnd increasing difculties unless he was supported by adequate fnancial liquidity.74

#### Liability of the contractor and competent jurisdiction

Te contractor would be personally liable to pay all damages to the theatre management or the municipality resulting from breaches of the contract, regardless of the cause. For the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, the disputes were submitted to the judicial authorities of Rijeka. Likewise, the last article of the *capitolato* of Zadar indicated Zadar as the competent court in any disputes between theatre management and impresa. (A similar clause is still found today at the end of many calls for tender in the artistic, theatrical and musical felds, along with the acceptance of the clauses of the call itself). As stated in the tender specifcations of Zadar, the commitments and conditions expressed in the *capitolato* were declared to be corresponding to, and forming an integral part of, the contract.

Also expressed was the general need to enforce the prescriptions of the political and municipal authorities, the disciplinary norms of the theatre regulations, and the laws and ordinances of the police. If the impresa should fail to fulfl the obligations included in the tender specifcations, it would naturally be considered as disqualifed.

Usually at the end of these tender specifcations we fnd no direct reference to any possible attachments (for example, those listing the theatre's employees or the nightly expenses for the orchestra according to type of spectacle), such as we fnd in the *capitolati* of other theatres.

Like all calls for tenders, the *capitolato* had a deadline, so it indicated the date by which the impresario (or his representative) was to present the proposal. As for the response of the theatre management conveying its decision, that was given within a variable time-frame. A deadline was not always specifed. For lack of documentation, we have no way of knowing if there was always a time-limit for the responses.

<sup>73</sup> Call for tenders, Rijeka, 19.1.1923, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>74</sup> As an extreme case (from the theatre management's point of view), already back in 1839 Rossi-Gallieno cited the theatre of Saluzzo, where the endowment of 1,500 francs was surpassed by a deposit of 2,000 francs; see Rossi-Gallieno, *Saggio,* p. 45. Clearly this went completely against the interests of the impresario.

How strictly was the impresario's proposal of an opera season supposed to follow the exact terms of the tender specifcations? Tere were even cases when the theatre management itself suggested that competing impresarios could make proposals that deviated from the specifcations, or even make fresh proposals.75 One possible instance could be when there was competition between diferent theatres in the same city. As indeed happened at Rijeka in 1914, when the Teatro Comunale faced the competition of a new theatre, the Teatro Fenice, which also intended to produce opera. Naturally it was impossible to anticipate how damaging the competition might be, but it was expected that there would be signifcant diferences between the two theatres in both their prices of admission and running costs, all to the disadvantage of the Teatro Comunale. And so, unless changes were made in the tender specifcations, it was foreseeable that the suitable competitors would either decline to come forward or propose conditions that were unacceptable. Te risk was that, with the inevitable bureaucratic delays (which were routine then as today), the Teatro Comunale would have no time to draw up an advantageous contract. Hence a more 'fexible' clause was inserted in the document, leaving the competing impresarios the opportunity to suggest conditions other than those indicated. Interestingly, a few years earlier, in 1911, the former impresa of the Teatro Comunale, Alpron-Battaglia, had already alerted the theatre management to this very problem: "We are also confdent", he wrote, "that in the event of a competing theatre making an appearance during the new three-year period, this Honourable Committee will wish to come to an agreement with the undersigned impresa to make any changes that may be made necessary".76 Under certain conditions, therefore, the *capitolato* was not necessarily a document in which all of its clauses were binding.

In the case of Rijeka the written proposals of the impresarios, duly provided with a taxstamp (or *bollo*),77 had to be delivered to the registrar's ofce (*protocollo*) of the civil magistrate. Te tenderers had to declare explicitly that they were fully aware of the terms of the *capitolato* and that they intended to comply with them in the event of the contract being assigned to them.78 Proposals made by telegraph, presented after the deadline, or lacking the

<sup>75</sup> See Letters from the *podestà* to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 12. 6.1914 and 11. 7.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>76</sup> "Siamo pure fiduciosi che nel caso durante il nuovo triennio dovesse sorgere un Teatro di concorrenza, codest'Onorevole Commissione vorrà mettersi d'accordo colla sottoscritta Impresa per prendere quei eventuali cambiamenti che si rendessero necessari"; Letter from the Alpron-Battaglia impresa to the civil magistrate of Rijeka, Rijeka, 31. 7.1911, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>77</sup> For the three-year contract of 1915–1917 of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, for example, a one-crown stamp was required. In 1923 stamped paper (*carta bollata*) of 1 lira was needed. The proposal had to be delivered to the secretary of the theatre commission of Rijeka in a closed and fire-sealed envelope.

<sup>78</sup> Nonetheless, as in the case referred to above, proposals would also be accepted that diverged from the terms of the *capitolato* or perhaps included new proposals, provided that they did not exceed the limits established in the document as regards both the number and quality of the productions and the contribution of the Comune.

prescribed bid deposit (*vadio*) would not be taken into consideration. In fact the proposal also had to be accompanied by a receipt from the municipal treasury confrming that the *vadio* had been deposited.79 Te decision on the proposals was left to the discretion of the municipal delegation. If, however, any proposal should call for important changes to the tender specifcations, a further decision would be needed, this time by the municipality.80 Even the *podestà* in person could make observations on the call for tenders.

As regards the selection processes, there is little information about how they were carried out and it is hard to say how much objectivity went into appointing the impresario. At times the theatre managements were accused of seeming to favour certain impresarios over others (for example, by allowing a discount on the security deposit) or even of having a joint interest in the impresa. Also subject to criticism was the amount of time given (too little) to present a project. Tender specifcations published ffteen or twenty days before the deadline clearly gave one insufcient advance notice to put together a strong project or make plans with the better singers. Another point commented on was that all of the proposals were to be delivered "under seal" (*sotto suggello*) and opened by the theatre management at one sitting, without the possibility of considering any possibly better ofers that might arrive after the deadline.81 Lack of documentation on these matters, however, prevents us from knowing whether or not these rules were always followed.

But now let us turn our attention to identifying the interested parties that responded to these calls and consider the proposals they made in their bid to secure the contract for an opera season.

#### 2.2 Provenance and identity of the impresarios

Te people who had a primary interest and need to understand the theatre's requirements (and to whom the tender specifcations were indeed addressed) were the impresarios and agents working in the area, whether or not they themselves could be considered as 'locals'. Even though, to quote John Rosselli, it is true that to be an opera impresario was becoming less a profession than a disease,82 there were still a number of impresarios and agents engaged in the business of organising opera seasons. In the area under scrutiny, it has been possible to unearth the names of 287 people working in that feld. And Provenance and identity of the impresarios

<sup>79</sup> The reference is to the tender specifications of 1915–1917. Here the *vadio* amounted to 2,000 crowns, as in the previous years. The deposit could be made either in cash or in valuables admitted by law as a deposit.

<sup>80</sup> See Call for tenders, Rijeka, 13. 7.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>81</sup> See "Sul concorso d'appalto al Teatro Comunale", *L'Arte*, anno III, no. 12, 20. 4.1872, pp. 45*–*46.

<sup>82</sup> Rosselli, *The Opera Industry*, p. 37.

surely this is not the complete number of those who were active in the second half of the 19th century and early 20th, for the calculation is based on the available archival material. At Šibenik the names of these impresarios and agents can be gleaned not only from the letters exchanged with the theatre management, but also from the lists of small expenses for correspondence and stationary that the management (in this case most likely Paolo Mazzoleni himself) drew up meticulously. In this way we have a fair idea of the contacts between impresarios and theatre, at least for the 1880s and 1890s. At Zadar, on the other hand, a well-ordered register was kept, giving, for each letter in arrival, the name of the correspondent, the date, the provenance, and even a concise summary of the contents. On the right-hand side of the register the same information about the response was inserted: here again with the content of the reply and the date. Unfortunately, however, the register is incomplete and survives only for the years 1879, 1884 and 1885. At Rijeka we come across various names in the register of documents called the *Protocollo degli esibiti (1885–1910)*. 83 For the other cities, where there are no such registers, the names are drawn solely either from the correspondence found in the local archives or from the newspapers.

Te only available list of impresarios working in the Italian area, that drawn up some years ago by John Rosselli,84 only marginally helps us to identify the people working in Istria and Dalmatia, both for chronological reasons (the historical period covered here extends right up to the end of the First World War) and because of the diferent sources used here to get the material. Te same can be said for the meticulous *Dizionario bio-bibliografco degli agenti teatrali attivi a Milano nell'Ottocento* by Livia Cavaglieri*.* 85 For most of the names listed in our study it is impossible today to recover any biographical data. Tey are fgures about whom there is no literature. If information has survived, it will be found solely in the primary sources.

Who, therefore, were the impresarios working in the area? Where did they come from? Did they have any specifc training to do their job? It is well known that the impresario often came from practical experience in the theatre, and those working in this particular geographical area were no exception. Being an impresario would be either an end-of-career job or an occupation that could be undertaken alongside a practical profession in music. Some of their names appear in the lists of singers sent to the theatre managements advertising the cast for an opera season, thereby reminding us that impresarios often performed as tenors, baritones or basses within the same company that they promoted. Examples are the baritones Ernesto Maurizi Enrici and Felice Brandini who wrote to Zadar from Bologna and Trieste respectively, or the bass Pietro Dussich [Dusich], also active at Zadar. Te name

<sup>83</sup> See Register of documents (1885–1910) (*Protocollo degli esibiti (1885–1910)*), HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>84</sup> John Rosselli, *Elenco provvisorio.*

<sup>85</sup> Livia Cavaglieri, *Tra arte e mercato. Agenti e agenzie teatrali nel XIX secolo*, Bulzoni, Roma 2006, p. 303.

of the impresario Rafaello Faini, who ofered his services at Šibenik, like that of Giustino Azzarelli, appeared in the list of tenors of the very same cast they were recommending.

Some were also instrumentalists, like Federico Monari Rocca or Nazzareno Perazzini. Carlo Mirco was frst clarinet at the Teatro Regio in Turin and La Fenice in Venice, yet he repeatedly ofered his services as impresario at Pula, Zadar and Šibenik, like his partner Giani, who also worked in the orchestra at La Fenice.86 In the same way we fnd *maestri concertatori* and conductors such as Luigi Bernardi at Pula or Guido Farinelli at Rijeka; dancers or choreographers like Francesco Razzani and actors of spoken theatre; not to mention lawyers, journalists and even shopkeepers like Luigi Dessanti. Tey could also have been born into families of impresarios or, like the more famous Alessandro Lanari, be married to singers and engage their wives in the cast: Giuseppe Castagnoli and Antonio Lana were good examples.87

Te standard of education of the various impresarios difered and the linguistic competence displayed in the surviving correspondence is fairly variable. For the letters in which the handwriting of the signature difers from that of the rest of the letter, we can assume that the impresario had a secretary, or at least someone who could be called upon to write a letter when needed. Some of the *borderò* (registers of the evening's takings) surviving at Šibenik show very plainly how scant the knowledge of Italian could be. Te person flling in the *borderò* for the performances organised by Ernesta Ferrara, a female impresario who came to Šibenik with the Becherini company in 1882, made blunders such as that of referring to the operas *Crispino e la Comare* as "Grespin e Lacomare", *Il barbiere di Siviglia* as "Barbiere Sivilia", *L'elisir d'amore* as "L'Elesin di Amore", *Pipelé* (or *Pipelet*) as "Pipele" and *La sonnambula* as "Sononbola" or "Sonambola", and even mentioning a certain "Il baccio al Diavolo".88

Many of these impresarios only dealt in opera; others also included spoken theatre and, towards the end of the century, operetta and variety shows (*varietà*). With the advent of the new century, cinema could also be added. Te agencies they founded could thus be said to be 'multi-specialised'. Te theatrical agencies always had to be authorised by the *Luogotenenza* or provincial government. One such multi-specialised impresario was

<sup>86</sup> Carlo Mirco was also a composer. His proposal (or his presence) is also documented at the Teatro Bonda of Dubrovnik in 1886 or 1887. His two brothers were also instrument players. See *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, XLVII, no. 44, 30.10.1892, p. 710.

<sup>87</sup> When Lana engaged his wife – the prima donna and *contralto assoluto* Barberina Rossi-Lana – for the opera season, *La Voce Dalmatica* was not slow to point out, with a touch of irony, that in actual fact she had not been genuinely engaged, "given that there was a legal document relating to her and the Signor Impresario in a certain book at their parish that makes any other one useless" ("essendovi una scritta relativa ad essa e al signor impresario, in un certo libro della loro parrocchia, che ne rende inutile ogni altra"); *La Voce Dalmatica*, vol. I, 1.12.1860, p. 220.

<sup>88</sup> *Borderò* for the Compagnia Becherini, Šibenik, July 1882, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

Eugenio De Monari, who was fairly active at Zadar and whose letterhead read "Eugenio De Monari & C. / Lirica – Operette – Prosa – Varietà – Cinematografa / Milano". Similar situations were found of impresarios who turned into agents that now ran opera, operetta and spoken theatre.

In certain cases the terms "impresario" and "agent" are used interchangeably in the documents: an aspect that complicates the job of analysing their work, making it not always possible to defne their activities with any precision. By defnition, as a rule, the agent negotiated on behalf of impresarios and singers, whereas the impresario merely managed a company of artists.89 Te two activities were not mutually exclusive and indeed could overlap at times. For example, the rubber stamp used by Ettore Bonturini, an impresario and theatrical agent who worked at Zadar between 1884 and 1892, specifed both qualifcations: "Ettore Bonturini / impresario / ed agente teatrale / Venezia". Likewise, the headed notepaper of Josip Karaman of Split: "agente ed impresario teatrale"; subsequently the text was supplemented with the further addition of "concessionata impresa pubblicità" (licensed advertising company), and later still "Cinema Elektra". In fact he also traded in photographic equipment, most certainly as a way of keeping up to date, at a time when opera was giving way to new forms of entertainment. His letterhead was in both Croatian and Italian.90

Karaman, who was from Split, was an example of a local impresario. In fact some impresarios could be natives of the Istrian or Dalmatian region and work in the area, whereas many others, the majority, came from outside. Enrico Viscardi, who was engaged to run the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, was, for example, among those who operated within a tighter radius, as also Giovanni Maraspin working in Rijeka.91 But we also have the case of local impresarios like Olimpio Lovrich, from Zadar, who went on to work in Trieste and only returned to Zadar (professionally speaking) to organise a single opera season.92 Similar was the situation of Antonio Lana of Zadar, who worked as an impresario abroad, above all in Spain, but who was repeatedly in contact with the theatre management of Split from 1893 onwards. Among the 'locals' from Pula and Rijeka we encounter the names of Alberto

<sup>89</sup> On the role of the theatrical agents, see John Rosselli, "Agenti teatrali nel mondo dell'opera lirica dell'Ottocento", *Rivista Italiana di Musicologia*, I/17 (1982), pp. 134–154. On the difference between the *impresario*, *capocomico* and *agente*, see also Franco Ferrari, *Intorno al palcoscenico. Storie e cronache dell'organizzatore teatrale*, Franco Angeli, Milano 2012, p. 19.

<sup>90</sup> Today in fact Karaman is principally remembered as a film director and photographer, best known for filming the coronation of Tsar Nicholas I of Montenegro; see Gian Piero Brunetta, *Storia del cinema mondiale*, Einaudi, Torino 2003, p. 1331.

<sup>91</sup> See "Origine del cognome Maraspin", in *LussinO*, Foglio della Comunità di Lussinpiccolo, 28, December 2008, p. 51.

<sup>92</sup> After the First World War, Olimpio Lovrich was engaged to run the 1923 season at the Politeama Ciscutti of Pula, but is not mentioned in the area in the previous seasons; see Bogneri*, Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 306.

Vernier, a theatrical artist who looked after the interests of Pietro Ciscutti, later becoming his secretary and administrator (with power of attorney) and subsequently, from 1894, the director of the Politeama of Pula, and was to be found almost continuously in the coastal region;93 that of Giuseppe Bini;94 and also that of Giuseppe Corbetta, impresario of the Politeama in 1901. We have no certainty, however, that Bini and Corbetta were really Istrian or Dalmatian. Te fact that their letters were addressed from one of the coastal cities does not necessarily mean that they came from the area. Indeed this was no guarantee even if the letters were numerous. A case in point is that of Natale Fidora, who was also known as a stage director and scene designer, and whose letters place him with a certain frequency in four diferent coastal theatres, but actually came from Adria in mainland Italy.95

Some impresarios came from important cities like Trieste, then probably the foremost centre for the coastal area, having taken over that role from Venice (which by this time boasted only about a dozen contacts with Istria and Dalmatia, most of which without lasting prospects). Te surnames of Triestine origin that emerge from the archives mostly point to families of Jewish origin: Curiel, Pesaro, Gentilli, Ullmann or Lattad, just to mention a few.96 Tere were also impresarios who wrote, and negotiated, from cities such as Bari or Ancona: cities that were seemingly distant, but now brought closer by the steamship. Examples are

<sup>93</sup> Vernier also owned his own theatre company. He handled various theatrical genres, from *opera semiseria* to vaudeville. In actual fact Vernier was not the only one to work on behalf of Ciscutti. The documents also give us the name of Francesco Lucerna, who was employed in the same capacity at the Politeama of Pula. For a period Vernier had also been secretary of the theatre of Rijeka in the early months of its reopening (1885), as well as impresario of the Anfiteatro Fenice and secretary of the Politeama of Pula (he is mentioned as such in 1888); see Bogneri*, Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 35 and "Alberto Vernier e Teatro Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 28. 7.1894. Vernier ended his career in 1900 and retired to Cagliari; see "Il ritiro di un impresario teatrale", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 12. 9.1900. At the time of Vernier's management, however, Girolamo Andrioli was indicated as owner of the theatre; see Bogneri*, Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 40. The owner's name appeared on the envelopes used for correspondence, which were then inscribed as follows: "Politeama Ciscutti – Pola / Proprietario: Girolamo Andrioli". Andrioli, who was a building contractor and timber merchant, was in possession of the Politeama from the year 1897; see Raul Marsetič, *Il cimitero civico di Monte Ghiro a Pola simbolo dell'identità cittadina e luogo di memoria (1846–1947)*, Unione Italiana Fiume, Università Popolare di Trieste, Rovigo 2013, p. 230.

<sup>94</sup> We encounter Bini at Pula. A man called Giuseppe Bini was also active as a choreographer in the same years. It is not known if this was the same person or just someone with the same name.

<sup>95</sup> Fidora was also impresario at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste in 1897. The *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano* of 1901 mentions him as the impresario at a concert at the Liceo Benedetto Marcello in Venice for which he offered his services free of charge as a stage director, also producing artists, scenery and costumes; *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, 1, 1901, p. 161.

<sup>96</sup> The name Raimondo Lattad is associated with that of a 19th-century actor. Again, we do not know if this was someone who happened to have the same name as the impresario Lattad or whether, most likely, it was the same person.

Nicola Guida or Antonio Quaranta for Bari and Ezio Carelli for Ancona, who negotiated with Šibenik through their theatrical agencies from 1919 onwards. As we can imagine, most of the journeys from Italy were made by sea, for obvious geographical reasons.

As an alternative to the sea route, one could also reach the coast from the hinterland. And indeed there were some Croatian impresarios who made contact from the theatres of Osijek and Zagreb, but they constituted a minority and rarely proposed productions of Italian opera. Zagreb and its theatre, which was hardly ever mentioned in the correspondences, seemed to remain extraneous to these circuits. Te same could be said of Ljubljana. Also very rare was the presence of impresarios from another important operatic centre, that of Vienna. If we except the tenuous presence of Ignaz Kugel,97 for opera we have no other references. More substantial, if anything, was their involvement in the world of operetta.

In terms of percentage, most of the impresarios were from Milan, or at least had their ofces in Milan at the time when they corresponded with the theatres of the Istrian and Dalmatian region. Tis should come as no surprise, because Milan was after all the heart and fulcrum of opera in Italy. If we look at the censuses of the city's population from 1861 to 1901, we see an exponential increase in the number of impresarios and theatrical agents, from just 14 registered in 1861 to 151 in 1901. In that same year of 1901 there were 691 throughout the whole of Italy. And of that number, as one can readily imagine, the women were a distinct minority, with only 9 registered as impresarios.98

#### 2.2.1 Women impresarios on the Adriatic coast

Among the legions of male impresarios, the women were indeed a rarity at the time. But there were a few sporadic cases. Apart from Ernesta Ferrara, whose role is not yet clear (we do not know if she really worked as an impresario, given that absolutely nothing is known

<sup>97</sup> At the time Kugel was based at Lindengasse 11 in Vienna, advertising in the press as follows: "The Ignaz Kugel theatre and concert agency at Lindengasse 11, Wien VII, is recommended for the procurement of engagements, as well as for the organisation of guest performances of outstanding artists, in the fields of spoken theatre and opera, as well as that of the Singspiel (Operetta); even for the completion – and respective reorganisation – of the stage personnel in general […]" ("Das Theater- und Concert-Bureau Ignaz Kugel Wien VII, Lindengasse 11, empfiehlt sich zur Vermittlung von Engagements, sowie zum Abschluss von Gastspielen hervorragender Künstler, sowohl auf dem Gebiete des recitirenden Dramas, der Oper, wie auch auf dem des Singpeles (Operette); überhaupt zur eventuellen Completierung – respective Reorganisation – des Bühnenpersonales im Allgemeinen […]"; *Neue Theater-Almanach für das Jahr 1895*, vol. VI, p. 62.

<sup>98</sup> See *Censimento della popolazione del Regno d'Italia al 10 febbraio 1901*, as quoted in Livia Cavaglieri, *Tra arte e mercato*, p. 245.

about her except that she signed a contract with the theatre management of Šibenik for the season of 1882),99 we have four cases of women connected with the running of opera. Associated with the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik we fnd a certain Lucia Gazzone, who signed engagement agreements, and was also *maestro concertatore* and conductor, which was extremely rare for the period:100 in the area in question it was unheard of for a woman to combine these professional qualifcations. In the context of mainland Italy the case of Emma Carelli, an impresario at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in 1912 (and before that a soprano), has already been studied,101 but that of Gazzone is not only diferent, but also earlier and probably even more singular.

Teresa Raineri Vaschetti, who was perhaps the wife of the impresario Antonio Vaschetti (who had been proposed to Zadar in 1897 by the agency of De Born & Anguissola), cited her experience as an impresario at the theatre of Ascoli Piceno when she proposed *Tosca*  and *Faust* to the theatre management of Split in 1906.102

At Pula in September 1892 Signora Giovanna Fischer, part-heir of the Politeama Ciscutti, also became impresario to the theatre for a three-year period.103 She was referred to as the "direttrice" and was remembered for having organised an opera season (staged after the theatre hadn't seen opera productions for eight years) that was apparently superior to that of the previous impresa.104

<sup>99</sup> In the newspaper *La Lanterna*, from Pisa, we read that "a new company of singers, run by Signora Ernesta Ferrara (Romana) and conducted by the distinguished Maestro Luigi Becherini has arrived unexpectedly, but much appreciated and without any publicity. The repertoire of the operas is attractive. It includes: Pipelè, Educande di Sorrento, Elisir d'amore, Barbiere di Siviglia, and Sonnambula"; *La Lanterna*, 1881, p. 5.

<sup>100</sup> It was Gazzone who personally engaged Mario Zagni, first flute of the orchestra for Šibenik in 1919; see Engagement agreement, Šibenik, 13. 9.1919, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>101</sup> See, for example, Augusto Carelli, *Emma Carelli: trent'anni di vita del teatro lirico*, Maglione, Roma 1932, or by the same author, *Emma Carelli impresaria del Costanzi*, Palatino, Roma 1962. More recent is the article by Donatella Gavrilovich, "Un bastimento carico di…opere liriche e scenografie: Augusto ed Emma Carelli, Walter Mocchi e le tournées in Brasile", in *Mosaico Italiano*, 2011, pp. 17*–*19.

<sup>102</sup> See Letter from Teresa Raineri Vaschetti to the Conte di Capogrosso, Milano, 4.1.1906, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII. In 1908 Raineri Vaschetti was also impresario at the Teatro Sociale of Crema for the carnival opera season of 1908; see [n.n.] *Teatro Sociale di Crema. Inventario degli atti d'archivio, sec. XVII-*1937, [n.p.], Bergamo 2012, p. 88.

<sup>103</sup> Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 32, and "Dichiarazione", *L'Eco di Pola*, 13. 8.1892.

<sup>104</sup> The newspaper *L'Eco di Pola* wrote that there was a formal opera season at the inaugural opening of the Politeama Ciscutti in October 1881, then nothing for another eight years until, from 1889–90 onwards, the "directress" of the theatre offered a complete opera season which was apparently superior in quality to that of the Giani & Mirco impresa, which, it was commented dryly, "honoured the old Teatro Ciscutti by giving *Jone* with the sets of *I due Foscari*" ("onoravano il vecchio teatro Ciscutti dando la *Jone* con le scene dei *Due Foscari*"); "Confidenze di casa", *L'Eco di Pola*, 29.10.1892. In actual fact there had been a few rare opera productions before the season in question. The letterhead used by Fischer for her

Before that, in 1874, we also have the case of Cleopatra Cajani, who was engaged to run the opera at Rijeka after the impresario Cesare Trevisan had abandoned the season.105 It was such a novelty that the newspaper *L'Arte* declared that it was the frst time a theatre had been taken on by "an impresario in a skirt" (*un impresario in gonnella*). It was then seen as the result of progress and "a step towards the emancipation of women" (*un passo verso l'emancipazione della donna*).106 However, at the announcement of the operas on ofer (*Le educande di Sorrento*, *Marco Visconti*, *Un ballo in maschera* and *Lorenzino dei Medici*) she failed to receive the desired encouragement and was criticised for not proposing an acceptable programme.107 Cajani was also expected to perform the duties of the stage director and stage manager (*buttafuori*),108 as had been done by her predecessor, the impresario Micheluzzi.109 About Cajani we actually know little, also because within a short time all references began to be made in the masculine, as "the impresario Cajani". Tere emerged the fgure of a possible husband (the "old impresario" Cajani of Perugia) who personally took over the impresa, but failed to conclude the season. In fact he asked for the contract to be terminated and partially paid of the artists.110 Te impresa was then taken over by the *maestro concertatore* and conductor Bartoli, making it the third time the role had changed hands in the course of the season.

correspondence read: "Direzione Politeama Ciscutti / Giovanna ved. Fischer / Telegrammi: Ciscutti – Pola"; Letter from Giovanna Fischer to the theatre management of Zadar, Pula, 4.12.1891, HR-DAZD, folder 7.

<sup>105</sup> Trevisan had apparently "disappeared into the fog" ("dileguò in nebbia"); "Stagione d'opera", *La Bilancia*, 26.1.1874.

<sup>106</sup> In actual fact there had been a few cases of "emancipation" in the Italian territory as a whole, if we think of the presence of Anna Stolzmann at the San Carlo of Naples at the end of the 19th century or, two centuries earlier, of Giulia De Caro at the Teatro San Bartolomeo in the same city; see Michael Walter, *Oper. Geschichte einer Institution*, Metzler, Stuttgart 2016, p. 79.

<sup>107</sup> "Too much mould! Enough, we shall see!" ("Troppi i rancidumi! Basta vedremo!"), wrote "Stagione d'opera", *La Bilancia*, 26.1.1874.

<sup>108</sup> At the time the *buttafuori* was the person who alerted the singers at the beginning of each act, making sure that everyone is ready and in the right place, checked the clothing of the chorus and extras, and gave signals for raising and lowering the curtain, changing the scenery and "activating the necessary machinery" (*attivare i meccanismi necessary*). He (or she) was obliged to be present at the final rehearsals of the productions and to notify the audience in case of interruptions or changes to the performance. See the *Regolamento per il servizio e buon ordine del palco scenico e degl'impiegati e inservienti del R. Teatro Rossini*, Zecchini, Livorno 1867, p. 21.

<sup>109</sup> "Fiume"*. L'Arte*, anno V, no. 5, 14. 2.1874, p. 4.

<sup>110</sup> Cajani's dealings, which were evidently not considered as exemplary, were described as follows: "already at the ninth performance at our municipal theatre he asked to be released from his contract for the current opera season, and that was after having cashed 7,000 florins of the endowment and about another 5,000 florins from the evening's receipts, with which sums he merely had to pay for two scores and two [out of the four] instalments to the artists. Against all expectations, the theatre management not only agreed to his unjustified demand, but even returned to him the deposit left as a guarantee for his obligations towards both the public and the artists, with the result that today he serenely enjoys the well-earned fruits of his efforts amongst us. […] as sly as Cajani was at disengaging himself, to

#### 2.3 The theatrical agents: their strategies of intermediation

Te letter addressed to the theatre's management or presidency in which the impresario customarily ofered his services could also be written by an intermediary who represented his interests. In such cases the name of the impresario could be indicated in full or even omitted. If the name was omitted, the agent would make a generic request, while nonetheless stressing the honesty of his client: "A theatrical impresario who is a client of mine, an honest and prosperous person, has instructed me to confer with your municipal theatre on his behalf […]";111 or "Entreated by an excellent client of mine, well known as a serious and solvent person, who would be willing to present, even immediately, exceptional proposals of opera productions for the approaching autumn season to your theatre, I warmly appeal to Your Lordship's proven courtesy to give me information on the matter".112 Or even: "I hasten to submit to Your Lordship's approval a splendid project for opera productions, on behalf of a renowned, honest and solvent company which can provide for itself every possible guarantee".113 In such cases the name of the interested party was never mentioned, though the agency was negotiating on his behalf. An agent might also simultaneously proThe theatrical agents: their strategies of interme-

diation

his own advantage, from all obligations towards the public, equally ill-advised, according to my way of thinking, were those who took on the task of running the season to its end with the resources that remained available to them" ("già alla nona recita del nostro civico teatro chiese di essere sciolto dal suo contratto relativamente all'attuale stagione d'opera, e ciò dopo d'avere incassati fiorini 7.000 della dotazione ed altri fiorini 5.000 circa dagli incassi serali coi quali importi non ebbe a pagare che due soli spartiti e due quartali agli artisti. Contro ogni aspettativa, la Direzione teatrale accondiscese alla sua ingiustificata pretesa non soltanto, ma gli restituì pure la cauzione da esso stata depositata a garanzia dei suoi obblighi verso il pubblico nonché verso gli artisti, dimodochè oggi gode pacificamente fra noi il bene meritato frutto di sue fatiche. […] quanto fu scaltro il Cajani nello svincolarsi con positivo suo vantaggio da ogni obbligo verso il pubblico, altrettanto a mio modo di credere furono sconsigliati quelli che si assunsero l'incarico di condurre lo spettacolo fino alla fine coi mezzi rimasti a loro disposizione"); "Corrispondenze", *L'Alba*, anno III, no. 18, 25. 4.1874, p. 4.

<sup>111</sup> "Un mio cliente impresario teatrale, persona onesta e facoltosa mi dà incarico perché io tratti cotesto teatro municipale per suo conto […]." Thus, for example, wrote Vincenzo Ceruso, who had a theatrical agency in Milan, to the Teatro Nuovo of Split; see Letter from Vincenzo Ceruso to the president of the theatre of Split, Milano, 9.1.1898, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII. Another example is that of the lawyer Michele Spano, who wrote from Milan to Split on behalf of an otherwise unspecified "client"; see Letter from Michele Spano to the management of the theatre of Split, Milano, 24. 2.1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>112</sup> "Sollecitato da un egregio mio cliente, noto quale persona seria e solvibile, che sarebbe disposto a presentare anche immediatamente eccezionali proposte di spettacolo d'opera per la p. v. stagione d'autunno a codesto teatro, interesso vivamente l'esperimentata cortesia della S.V. a volermi favorire informazioni in proposito."; Letter from Luigi Grabinski Broglio to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 29.5.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>113</sup> "Mi farò premura di sottoporre all'approvazione della S.V. uno splendido progetto di spettacolo d'opera, per conto di una rinomata ditta, seria e solvibile, la quale può offrire di sé ogni possibile garan-

pose two opera projects for the same season from two diferent impresarios, though this way of proceeding was probably not disclosed to their clients, who would surely prefer not to fnd themselves competing with other impresarios of the same agency.

Te frst agency was founded in Milan in 1870 by Icilio Polese and Pietro Ravizza.114 Ravizza was specialised in spoken theatre and in contact with the theatre managements of Zadar and Šibenik on various occasions. Te address of his Agenzia Teatrale Drammatica was Via Pantano 4 in Milan and the agency's publication, a weekly artistic and theatrical journal directed by Antonio Fiacchi, was *Il Piccolo Faust*. 115 Most of the agencies for which we have evidence in the coastal region had their ofces in Milan. Indeed it would be difcult to fnd any agencies working in Istria or Dalmatia that had permanent ofces. A "frst theatrical agency" run by Lodovico Selles with an ofce in Pula is documented only in 1914.116 At Zadar, the agency of Alessandro Meola was established only after the First World War "for the recruitment of variety artists, companies of spoken theatre and music and miscellaneous shows, operettas, comedies, etc. etc.", which, as his presentation suggests, was not directly concerned with the running of opera.117

Te business of the agencies handling opera productions was usually to form singing and dancing companies. Tey engaged the individual artists, the *maestri concertatori* and conductors, the chorus masters. Tey managed the choreographers; they dealt with the hiring of scores, costumes and properties; and they negotiated the buying and selling of new scores. Some agents also had a singing school, as in the case of the agent and singer Cesare Castelli, who sent to Dalmatia a brochure that advertised, together with his agency, "a school of singing and recitation at very reduced prices stafed by highly distinguished professors".118

zia."; Letter from Luigi Grabinski Broglio to the theatre management of Šibenik, Milano, 25.1.1901, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>114</sup> See Giovanni Azzaroni, *Del teatro e dintorni. Una storia della legislazione e delle strutture teatrali in Italia nell'Ottocento*, Bulzoni, Roma 1981, pp. 117*–*120.

<sup>115</sup> We have documentation for Ravizza's correspondence with Zadar between 1884 and 1894, and with Šibenik in 1885. His letterhead, as found in Dalmatia, read as follows: "Agenzia Teatrale Drammatica / Pietro Ravizza / di Erminia Magistrelli Azimonti / (Fondata nel 1868) / Milano 23, Piazza del Duomo, 23 / corrispondente / e / rappresentante / dell'agenzia / Il Piccolo Faust / Periodico Artistico Letterario / settimanale di Bologna"; and with another address, "Agenzia Teatrale Drammatica / di / Pietro Ravizza / v. Pantano 4 / Milano Rappresentanza in Bologna / Agenzia del / Piccolo Faust // Organo dell'agenzia / Il Piccolo Faust / Periodico artistico-teatrale settimanale / Direzione A. Fiacchi – Bologna".

<sup>116</sup> "prima agenzia teatrale"; see Letter from Lodovico Selles to the theatre management of Zadar, Pula, 9. 4.1914, HR-DAZD, folder 13.

<sup>117</sup> "per la scritturazione degli artisti di varietà, compagnie di prosa e musica e spettacoli variati, operette, commedie ecc. ecc."; see Letter from Alessandro Meola to the theatre management of Šibenik, 13. 4.1920, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. His letterhead reads: "Affari Teatrali / Alessandro Meola / Zara".

<sup>118</sup> "a limitatissimi prezzi una scuola di canto e declamazione impartita da distintissimi professori". As the brochure continued: "The agency run by Cesare Castelli and co. will be open from 9 to 5 pm every

As with the impresarios, it was important also for the agents to boast a widespread network of acquaintances. In the presentation of the theatrical agency L'Arlecchino we read that "we have the honour to bring it to your attention that our extensive contacts among the category of artists and our wide-ranging connections allow us to hope that in the management of the *impresa*'s interests we can ofer the best possible conditions and the greatest diligence and industry in safeguarding their benefts".119

In the coastal area we can witness the cases of various agents at work, engaged in both management-impresario and impresario-singer relations. A good example of the way the management-impresario contacts were dealt with is ofered by the agent Giovanni Simonetti from Trieste, who, perhaps more than any of the others, was connected with the theatres of the eastern Adriatic, as also transpires from the table in the next section (the *Census of the impresarios and agents in the eastern Adriatic*)*.* Simonetti was in contact with almost all the cities of Istria and Dalmatia and he ran the journal *L'Arte* with its associated theatrical agency.120 In 1908 he negotiated on behalf of the impresario Giulio Milani, with the object of securing an opera season at the theatre of Zadar: "Permit me to ask", Simonetti wrote, "if you would be happy to negotiate with the usual expert impresario Giulio Milani, who took on the opera season at this theatre […] from 5.9 to 25.10, for the running of the Teatro Verdi

day and will attend to the formation and engagement of singing and dance companies, of choral and orchestral ensembles, will procure theatres (municipal, social and private) for impresarios; will provide, in conformity with the *piazze*, suitable and reliable artists for the competent performance of the parts entrusted to them in the productions; will attain the greatest economies in both the artistic personnel and suppliers; and will take pains to ensure that the impresarios have all the moral and material support needed to begin and successfully conclude their theatrical enterprises." ("L'Agenzia sotto la ditta Cesare Castelli e C. sarà aperta dalle ore 9 alle 5 pom. in tutti i giorni e s'incaricherà della formazione e scritturazione di compagnie di canto e ballo, di masse corali ed orchestrali, procurerà agl'Impresari Teatri tanto Municipali che Sociali e privati, fornirà, secondo le piazze, Artisti idonei e sicuri per la buona esecuzione delle parti loro affidate negli spettacoli, procurerà le massime economie tanto nel personale artistico, quanto nei fornitori, e si adopererà onde gli impresari possano avere tutti gli appoggi morali e materiali al fine di iniziare e condurre a buon termine le loro imprese teatrali."); see Brochure of the Agenzia Teatrale Cesare Castelli, [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 7.

<sup>119</sup> "ci facciamo un pregio di portare a vostra conoscenza che le nostre estese relazioni nella classe degli artisti, e le nostre vaste aderenze ci permettono sperare che nella gestione degl'interessi delle Imprese potremo offrire i migliori partiti possibili, la massima diligenza ed attività nel tutelarne le convenienze"; Printed brochure of the theatrical agency L'Arlecchino, signed by Camillo de Clemente, for the theatre management of Rijeka, Firenze, 11.1869, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>120</sup> The only place in which we find no trace of him is Pula, the city from which an attack was launched on his periodical (*L'Arte* also had offices in Florence and Milan as well as Trieste), which was mercilessly defined by the anonymous detractor "Artù" as a "filthy, scruffy rag" (*lurido sì ma cencioso giornalucolo*) and a "*revolver* rag that lives off what the poor singers pay in order not to be censured and pay once again in order to be praised" (*giornalucolo* revolver *che vive alle spalle di quello che i poveri cantanti pagano per non venire strigliati e pagano ancora per essere lodati*); "Nostre corrispondenze", *L'Eco di Pola*, 19.10.1889.

in the usual autumn opera season and, if so, what the conditions would be."121 Tis was a typical way of beginning a correspondence with a theatre management, though in this case the impresario was not left nameless, for the good reason that Milani had evidently already proved his worth. Simonetti also ofered the Sonzogno impresa to Rijeka for performances of *Cavalleria rusticana* and *Pagliacci* in 1893. His agency services extended to the engagement of singers. And he even handled drama companies, like his colleague Enrico Gallina, who later became the representative of all the theatres of the Adriatic coast.122 Gallina began operating in the area only in the early years of the 20th century, whereas the time frame of Simonetti's career went back to 1877.

Another person who also handled drama companies was Giuseppe Ullmann. In fact all three of them (Simonetti, Gallina and Ullmann) had agencies in Trieste that managed opera, operetta and spoken theatre. Ullmann was from a Jewish family, the same that included both the impresario Rodolfo Ullmann,123 who was based in Trieste and also director of the Teatro Filodrammatico, and his brother Vittorio, who was secretary to Sarah Bernhardt and Maurizio Strakosch,124 as well as being director of two theatres in Paris (Téâtre de la Renaissance and Téâtre Sarah Bernhardt).125 Ullmann was in charge of negotiations at the theatres in Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia, Friuli and the provinces of the Veneto. Also from Trieste were Luciano Revere (the agency was called "Revere & Gallina") and the agent Pietro Anselmi, who was also a publisher and editor of the journal *Il Teatro. Giornale di Lettere, Arti e Teatri* with its ofces in Trieste and Venice*.*

Some theatrical agents owned artistic journals, which acted as the mouthpiece of the agency. It was even said that "the journal is for the agent what the code of law is for the lawyer".126 As well as introducing and publicising singers, thereby helping to build up their

<sup>121</sup> "Mi permetto chiedere se fossero propensi trattare col solito ed esperto impresario Giulio Milani che assunse la stagione d'opera a questo teatro […] dal 5.9 al 25.10, per l'appalto di codesto teatro Verdi per la solita stagione d'opera autunnale e nell'affermativa quali sarebbero le condizioni."; Letter from Giovanni Simonetti to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 1908, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>122</sup> See Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Riccardo Bovi-Campeggi, Šibenik, 27.11.1910, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. Enrico Gallina was an actor and brother of the playwright Giacinto Gallina.

<sup>123</sup> On Rodolfo Ullmann, see Paolo Quazzolo, "L'impresariato teatrale: Rodolofo Ullmann e il Teatro filodrammatico", in *Shalom Trieste: gli itinerari dell'ebraismo*, edited by Adriano Dugulin, Comune di Trieste, Trieste 1998.

<sup>124</sup> It was Strakosch himself who revealed that Vittorio Ullmann was also an "impresario in Cairo", thereby giving us an idea of the scope of his activities; Moritz Strakosch – Joseph Schürmann, *L'impresario in angustie: Adelina Patti e altre stelle fuori della leggenda, 1886–1893*, Bompiani, Milano 1940, p. 295.

<sup>125</sup> Fabio Zubini, *Civitavecchia*, Italo Svevo, Trieste 2006, p. 61.

<sup>126</sup> "il giornale è per l'agente quello che è il codice per l'avvocato"; "Medaglioni artistici. L'agente teatrale", *La Musica Popolare*, anno II, no. 30, 16. 7.1883, p. 120. The author of this article cannot have thought very highly of the profession if he wrote as follows: "The theatrical agent is, in origin, either a lawyer without clients, or a professor of literature without pupils – or perhaps even someone who, after

careers, its columns could also include other content, such as criticism of the political newspapers for example. Te articles could be paid for by the singers according to the type of piece: in short, the greater the outlay, the more important and visible the singers became.127 Various agents wrote to the managements of the coastal theatres also to ask for a subscription to their journal or for its renewal.128 Examples are the Curiel theatrical agency with *La Frusta Teatrale* or Lamperti with *La Rivista Teatrale*; a proposal to subscribe to *La Scena Illustrata* was also made. Te agent Sante Utili, who was based in Milan,129 was the owner of *Movimento Artistico*, a journal issued twice a month and distributed to theatre managements free of charge.130 Te agency of Giuseppe Bergamin, who was active not only at Rijeka but also at Zadar and Split, owned the G*azzetta Teatrale Italiana.* And Carlo Brosovich, who was also of Dalmatian origin, had his own journal, *Il Trovatore*, which he also directed.131

129 The agency also had branch offices in Rome, Naples, Turin, Florence and Bologna.

130 These journals were conceived not for the general public, but for a restricted circle of people working in that line of business. Singers would subscribe to them, and in that way – by paying – they could make themselves known to theatre managements before encountering the general public. On the subject, see also Cecilia Nicolò, *Emma Zilli. Una carriera di fine Ottocento*, NeoClassica, Roma 2019, p. 17*–*18.

131 Brosovich, whose agency had offices in Via Santa Radegonda 11 and Via Monte Napoleone 22 in Milan, was probably active in Trieste as well for a period of time, for some of his letters were addressed from the city. Among the other agents who owned artistic journals and also came into contact with the coastal

having had fun imitating the calligraphic hieroglyphics of others, other people's signatures, founds a miserable theatre journal with associated agency." ("L'agente teatrale è, in origine, o un avvocato senza clienti, o un professore di letteratura senza scolari – o magari anche un tale che, dopo essersi divertito ad imitare gli altrui geroglifici calligrafici, le altrui firme, fonda un giornaluccio teatrale con relativa agenzia.").

<sup>127</sup> The journal *Musica Popolare* described this phenomenon with irony and a touch of malice: "And so it happens that these journals have their articles costing either 20 or 100 francs. Those paying the latter sum, I hear, also have the right to a biography and relative portrait. […] The agent, naturally, has a certain amount of percentage on every contract concluded through him – but this *certain amount* may turn out to be higher the artist's actual fees. And the singer, hoping to make a career, pays up, perhaps even takes the bread out of his/her mouth and keeps quiet. […] Dear reader: you ask me if the agent at least knows something about singing, about music…No! Absolutely not! It's already a lot to ask if he can distinguish a bass from a…soprano.[…]"; ("Ed è così che quei giornali hanno gli articoli da 20 e da 100 franchi. Chi paga quest'ultima somma, credo, abbia diritto anche alla biografia e relativo ritratto. […] L'agente, naturalmente, ha un tanto per cento su ogni contratto concluso per suo mezzo – ma questo *tanto* può anche superare la paga dell'artista. E questi, sperando far carriera, paga, si toglie magari di bocca il pane e tace. […] Lettore: tu mi domandi se egli almeno s'intende di canto, di musica…No! Assolutamente no! È già molto se egli sa distinguere un basso da un…soprano. […]"); "Medaglioni artistici. L'agente teatrale", *La Musica Popolare*, anno II, no. 30, 16. 7.1883, p. 120.

<sup>128</sup> For example, in the 1870s the management of the Teatro Adamich of Rijeka subscribed to the *Rivista Teatrale Melodrammatica*, directed by Orlando Viviani and Angelo Chinelli. Mention is made of an Angelo Chinelli in the journal *Asmodeo*, 1888, p. 24, as a "*primo tenore assoluto*, a master of the art of singing and of the stage" ("primo tenore assoluto, maestro nell'arte del canto e della scena"). It is not certain that this is the same person.

Ten there were those who, like Conte Luigi Grabinski Broglio, had taken over other theatrical agencies – in his case the Cambiaggio agency in around 1896 – and still used the headed notepaper of the previous agency when writing to the theatres of the coastal region.132 Another situation could be that of the agent who didn't always act on behalf of third parties, but directly proposed his own services. An example was Curiel: "I ofer to take on the theatre for a period of time for performances of Italian opera sustained by expert artists, [and] given my long practical experience in theatrical matters as both agent and impresario, I can ensure the brilliant success of the enterprise".133 In this case, therefore, no intermediation was involved and the agent was no diferent from an impresario. As already stated, depending on the situation, either role could be assumed. As his letterhead promised, Curiel's agency catered for artists of all kinds ("besorgt die Zusammenstellung von Gesangs-, Vortrags-, Tanz-, Varietè-, und Zirkus-Compagnie"). It assembled the orchestral players and choristers needed to form the so-called "*masse artistiche*" and organised tours (also orchestral tours) both in Italy and abroad; it even managed the formation of wind bands. As appropriate for a truly international ofce, the agency corresponded in Italian, German and French.134

Some impresarios conducted their business in person, directly using the headed notepaper of their own agent. Giulio Milani, for example, used the letterhead of Giuseppe Bergamin, the agent who looked after his interests (evidently in parallel with Simonetti). Te same impresario could in fact be supported by diferent agents for diferent *piazze*, as in the case of Paolo Massimini, who was proposed by both Marco Curiel of Milan and Sante Utili;

theatres we can include Codecasa (director of *Nuovo Don Marzio*) and Vittore Deliliers (director of the *Rivista Melodrammatica*, then *Rassegna Melodrammatica*).

<sup>132</sup> On Luigi Grabinski Broglio, see Livia Cavaglieri, *Tra arte e mercato*, p. 341. He was director of the Teatro Manzoni in Milan for some years and author of *I teatri d'Italia e le principali piazze teatrali estere,* Milano, Società Teatrale, 1907. He also edited, together with Vambianchi and Adami, the special illustrated issue *Nel primo centenario di Giuseppe Verdi*, Milano, 1913. In 1916 he was the founder of "Silentium Film", a film production company. His name appears in the list of freemasons belonging to the VIII Agosto Lodge from 1886 to 1924; see Carlo Manelli – Eugenio Bonvicini – Sergio Sarri, *La massoneria a Bologna dal XVIII al XX secolo*, Youcanprint, [n.p.] 2014, p. 134. He took over the Cambiaggio agency, where Carlo Cambiaggio and his son Giorgio worked. Carlo's activities as an impresario came second to his career as a singer; see John Rosselli, *Elenco provvisorio.*

<sup>133</sup> "Offro di assumere per alcun tempo il teatro per spettacolo d'opera italiana sostenuto da valenti artisti, stante la mia lunga pratica in affari teatrali, quale agente ed impresario posso assicurare la brillante riuscita dell'impresa."; Letter from Curiel to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 27.10.1917, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>134</sup> The headed notepaper of his theatrical agency also survives in ASTs, LGT CL. b. 3653, fasc. 2379, 1917. On Angelo Curiel, Fabiana Licciardi devoted an entire section in her doctoral thesis *Echi nei* Theater-Kino-Varieté *di un confine in guerra: Trieste 1914–1918*, University of Trieste, 2016/2017, pp. 197–202 (*Angelo Curiel, agente impresario*), now published with the title *Theater-Kino-Varieté nella Prima guerra mondiale. L'industria dell'intrattenimento in una città al fronte: Trieste 1914–1918*, EUT, Trieste 2019 (the section on Curiel is at p. 198).

or that of Giulio Milani himself, or even that of the impresario Eugenio De Monari, who declared to the theatre management of Zadar: "I have three agencies whose services I use: Agenzia A. Bignardi, Agenzia G. Argenti & C. and Agenzia Deliliers".135 We also have the complementary situation of two agents simultaneously ofering the same impresario to the same theatre, most likely unaware of what the other was doing. Within a day of each other the agents Enrico Carozzi136 and Giuseppe Bergamin both ofered Zadar the same impresario, Giulio Rossi, and the same operas.137 In this case it is plausible to conjecture that it was the impresario who had mentioned the particular opera season he was interested in running and each agent simply made the move independently of the other.

It could also happen, however, that when two agents simultaneously ofered the same theatre the same impresario, they were in agreement and would divide the percentage between them. Tis happened at Šibenik in 1905, when the impresario Ernesto Guerra signed the contract with the Teatro Mazzoleni. Te agreement, it was pointed out, was "concluded with the cooperation of the agents Viscardi Enrico of Zadar and Enrico Gallina of Trieste, who are entitled to ownership of the 3% on the revenue, to be divided between them".138 Guerra's story is also a good illustration of another phenomenon: that of the impresario who frst gets himself represented by an agent working in the area, then decides to deal with a theatre independently, thereby efectively bypassing the agent. For after 1905 Guerra, entered into negotiations directly with the theatre management of Zadar, without frst contacting his agent Enrico Gallina. Tis naturally caused ill-feeling. "I am very sorry you have arranged matters directly with Guerra", Gallina wrote to Zadar, "not out of [fnancial] interest, but as a moral concern. I did so much to help Guerra gain permission to operate in these provinces with his company. It was I who engaged him there and attained an excellent deal for the management. And now Guerra, with scant delicacy, has put me to one side and that is not right. Enough! One lives and learns and next time I will know how to deal with things better."139

<sup>135</sup> "Io tengo tre agenzie della cui opera mi servo: Agenzia A. Bignardi, Agenzia G. Argenti & C. e Agenzia Deliliers"; Letter from Giorgio De Monari to [the theatre management Zadar], Milano, 13.1.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>136</sup> Enrico Carozzi, as well as being a theatrical agent, also traded in music, instruments and costumes, and directed the periodical *Asmodeo.*

<sup>137</sup> See Letter from Enrico Carozzi to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 29.1.1898; and Letter from Giuseppe Bergamin to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 28.1.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>138</sup> "stipulato colla cooperazione degli agenti Viscardi Enrico di Zara ed Enrico Gallina di Trieste ai quali spetta la proprietà del 3% sull'introito, da dividersi tra di loro"; Art. 11, Contract between the management of the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik and Ernesto Guerra, Šibenik, 1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>139</sup> "Spiacemi assai abbiate combinato direttamente con Guerra e ciò non per l'interesse ma per questione morale. Io ho fatto tanto per far accordare il permesso a Guerra di agire in codeste province colla sua compagnia. Fui io che lo scritturai costì facendo fare un ottimo affare alla Direzione. Ora il Guerra con poca delicatezza mi lascia in un canto e ciò non è giusto. Basta! Vivendo s'impara e saprò regolarmi

Gallina was apparently also sensitive to the competition of other agents, for he begged a certain Ugo Fano at Šibenik not to accept any ofers that might come to him from another agent based in Trieste "and that because I want to have the pleasure myself of serving, as always, this theatre", he wrote, "and also because I work with the tours of other excellent companies that I would naturally like to take there". He therefore begged Fano, as he had already done with Giovanni Mazzoleni, to honour him with his trust and to entrust his afairs with him because he would do everything possible to please the theatre management. It was not so much a matter of fnancial interest as of "self-respect" (*amor proprio*).140 As late as 1913 Mazzoleni called Gallina "our theatrical agent" (*nostro agente teatrale*): a sign that the agent had succeeded in maintaining good relations with the theatre for several years. Mazzoleni even called him the "representative of all the theatres of Istria and Dalmatia".141

Indeed Gallina had a privileged relationship with all the theatre managements of Istria and Dalmatia, as he himself liked to point out in his letters. "If your management should wish to give an opera season", he wrote, for example, to the theatre of Split, "I could also take charge of it, since it is worth considering that since we have a season at the Politeama here [in Trieste], this would make not only the formation of the company easier, but also the certainty of [fnding] replacements if the need should arise. For this type of production (the most difcult and that of greatest responsibility) we could form, as we always do at Zadar, a kind of partnership with your esteemed management, in which we would be responsible for staging the production." So, just to demonstrate how serious his agency was "with a frst experiment" (*con un primo esperimento*), Gallina ofered to take charge of its staging and would be content with a share of the profts if there were any.142 If the theatre management accepted the proposal, Gallina would personally make a visit to defne the details.

per un'altra volta"; Letter from Enrico Gallina to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 4.11.1908, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>140</sup> "e ciò perché voglio avere il piacere di servire io, come sempre, codesto teatro e poi perché lavoro al giro di altre buonissime compagnie che farei naturalmente passare per costì"; Letter from Enrico Gallina to Ugo Fano, Trieste, 25.1.1910, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>141</sup> "rappresentante di tutti i teatri d'Istria e Dalmazia"; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Riccardo Bovi-Campeggi, Šibenik, 27.11.1910, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>142</sup> "Se la Direzione intendesse dare spettacolo d'opera, potrei pure incaricarmene, facendo riflettere che avendo noi lo spettacolo a questo Politeama ci riesce molto più facile tanto la formazione della compagnia quanto la sicurezza dei rimpiazzi per ogni eventualità. Per questo genere di spettacoli (il più difficile e quello di maggiore responsabilità) potremmo fare, come facciamo sempre a Zara, una specie di società colla Spettabile Direzione, incaricandosi noi di allestire detto spettacolo."; see Letter from Enrico Gallina to the theatre management of Split, Trieste, 25.7.1912, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII. Enrico Gallina later teamed up with Luciano Revere and founded the agency of Revere & Gallina ("Revere & Gallina / Affari teatrali / Trieste / v. Sanità, 4, i.p / Telegrammi: Revere – Trieste / Gallina – Trieste". In the archives of Dalmatia a slightly different letterhead also survives: "Revere &

Te theatre managements dealt not only with individual impresarios and agents, but also with the agents' representatives instead of the agents in person. Each representative could also represent more than one theatrical agency in the area. Tis was the case, for example, of Guido Tambornino, who represented the agencies of Ernesto Iviglia, Roberto Zoppolato and Enrico Carozzi of Milan.143

At times it happened that the theatre management, on receiving a letter from an impresario, would reply with a recommendation to contact a trusted theatrical agency directly. In such cases the management's decision to deal only with the agent was purely a matter of convenience. When the impresario Giuseppe Borboni144 of Milan wrote to the theatre management of Zadar, the answer was that he should directly get in touch with Enrico Gallina in Trieste. Tat this was common practice in certain theatres is attested by Enrico Viscardi when he wrote to the theatre management of Split: "Managements have just one obligation: that of notifying the agent of any proposals that should come to them directly and to counsel the proposer to contact the exclusive agent for the negotiations".145 In another instance, Gino Monaldi, an agent from Rome, wrote to Zadar after learning that the contract for the opera season had been won by the impresario Eugenio De Monari. He therefore asked the management to put him in contact with the impresario, as he had "important proposals" to make, above all as the season was now imminent.146 Tis was surely another way the agent could acquire new impresario clients: by fnding them directly from the theatre managements.

An agent could also propose more than one client for the same opera season: if the frst client should either appear to be unresponsive in his correspondence or if his dealings some-

Gallina / affari teatrali / agenti / esclusivi dei teatri della Venezia Giulia"; Letter from Enrico Gallina to Carlo Battistelli, Trieste 26.5.1920, HR-DAZD, folder 27).

<sup>143</sup> See Letter from Guido Tambornino to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 29.12.1891, HR-DAZD, folder 7.

<sup>144</sup> Giuseppe Borboni was a Milanese impresario and director of the theatrical journal *L'Italia Lirica*, with associated opera agency.

<sup>145</sup> "Alle direzioni non incombe che un obbligo, quello di notiziare l'agente delle proposte che le provenissero direttamente, avvertendo il proponente di rivolgersi per le trattative all'agente esclusivo."; Letter from Enrico Viscardi to the theatre management of Split, Zadar, 4.11.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII. "When informing the agent", Viscardi went on, "the management may mention if it is interested in the opera production being proposed and give due instructions. This must be done, however, with the aim of not obstructing those negotiations that the agent had been previously carrying out in the interests of all the piazzas."; ("Nel notiziare l'agente la direzione gli accenna se desidera lo spettacolo che si propone dando le debite istruzioni. Questo deve avvenire però, allo scopo di non intralciare quelle trattative che preventivamente l'agente stesse facendo nell'interesse di tutte le piazze."); ibid.

<sup>146</sup> See Letter from Gino Monaldi to the theatre management of Zadar, Roma, 18.10.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

how aroused suspicion, the agent could immediately propose another one, who would be ready to step in and run the season.147 We also have instances of simultaneous negotiations in both channels; in other words, of two correspondences (agent-management, impresario client-management) being conducted at the same time. In such cases, where the impresario had direct contact with the management, the role of the agent was diminished.

Te agent usually retained a commission of 4% or 5% on the profts148 (it could go down to 3% just for the signing of the contract with the impresario).149 Hence the larger the client's income, the larger the agent's fee.

For the agent, not knowing one's impresario client thoroughly could be a risk. For if the impresario had frst been presented in a very positive light and should then fail to fulfl his obligations, the agent would lose in credibility. And this is precisely what happened to Sante Utili, who was embroiled in the '*Razzani fasco*', as we shall see below when we cover the opera seasons at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar. Other agents, like Paolo Rocca, preferred not take any risks and always presented impresarios whose work he had known for some

<sup>147</sup> An example of this manner of proceeding is given by Grabinski Broglio, who wrote to the theatre management of Zadar. "I have received your postcard of the 30th [May]", the agent writes to the management, "which came to me unexpectedly and genuinely gave me immense displeasure, since I believed it certain that Signor Romiti was neglecting to answer my letters because he was in direct communication with Your Excellency. While, therefore, I must disapprove of Signor Romiti's behaviour, which is certainly not consonant with your respectful preference and my concern, I hasten to inform you that I have ready another client who would take part and who had accepted just after Romiti's acceptance had arrived. This would be Signor Giulio Milani, a name that I submit to Your Excellency so that you may give me your approval, being most glad to resume the negotiations on his behalf." ("Ricevo la sua cartolina del 30 p. p. che mi giunge inaspettata e sinceramente mi produce immenso dispiacere, poiché ritenevo come cosa certa che il Signor Romiti trascurasse di rispondere alle mie lettere perché in diretta comunicazione colla S.V. Mentre dunque devo riprovare il contegno del Signor Romiti, non rispondente certo alla Sua deferente preferenza ed alla mia premura, mi affretto ad informarla che ho pronto altro cliente che concorrerebbe e che aveva accettato quando appunto era appena intravenuta l'accettazione del Romiti. Questi sarebbe il signor Giulio Milani, nome che sottopongo alla S.V. perché voglia darmi benestare, lietissimo di riprendere le trattative per suo conto."); Letter from Luigi Grabinski Broglio to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 1. 6.1903, HR-DAZD, folder 11.

<sup>148</sup> Even for operetta the percentage was no different. According to the contract between the presidency of the theatre of Zadar and Antonio Scalvini, director of the Scalvini Compagnia Italiana di Operette e Fiabe, "the presidency is authorised to withhold from the amounts paid out to Dr. Scalvini the commission of 4 per cent for the benefit of the agency of the journal *L'Arte* represented by Signor Giovanni Simonetti." ("la Presidenza resta autorizzata di trattenere sugli importi esborsati al dr. Scalvini la provvigione del 4 per cento a beneficio dell'Agenzia del giornale l'Arte rappresentata dal signor Giovanni Simonetti."); Zadar, [1877], HR-DAZD, folder 4.

<sup>149</sup> See Brochure of the Agenzia Musicale e Teatrale Luigi Bernini, Zadar, 1891, HR-DAZD, folder 7. A commission of 3% was applied also to contracts with companies of operetta, spoken theatre, balls, vaudevilles and equestrian events, and was calculated on the net income indicated in the *borderò.*

time: "You know by experience how I manage things", Rocca wrote to the theatre management of Zadar, "and that if I didn't know the person thoroughly, I would not venture to vouch for him".150

By cross-checking the correspondences surviving in the archives we have here attempted to reconstruct the clienteles of the principal agents working in the eastern Adriatic. As transpires from the table below, the impresario clients were principally proposed to the theatre of Zadar. Te table gives the surname and name of the agent; the journal he either ran or was associated with; his provenance; the agent's impresario client or clients; the year and the city of the theatre for which the client was proposed. At times it has been impossible to trace the clients whose names are not mentioned in the negotiations (in such cases they are given as "anonymous"). Moreover, the table only takes into account the impresarios involved in opera (*seria*, *bufa* or both). Each agent's overall clientele of those working in the area was in fact much wider.


<sup>150</sup> "Ella sa per esperienza come io tratti e che se non conoscessi a fondo la persona non mi azzarderei di farmi mallevadore per lui."; Letter from Paolo Rocca to Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak, Milano, 16. 6.1893, HR-DAZD, folder 7.




#### 2.4 Census of the impresarios and agents in the eastern Adriatic

In the following table are listed, in alphabetical order, the impresarios and agents who either proposed and/or negotiated and/or organised opera, or opera and operetta, or opera, operetta and spoken theatre (or *prosa*) in the area concerned. Omitted are the names of impresarios who solely organised spoken theatre (the *capocomici*), as well as those who solely managed operetta. Te following felds are included:


Census of the impresarios and agents in the

eastern Adriatic


Unfortunately, for many impresarios and agents it has not been possible to track down any biographical information; their name and surname are the only data available to us today. Years given in italics in the table were derived from the newspapers.151 Te data derived from documents other than those of the coastal archives are given in square brackets. An asterisk identifes the theatre managers and owners who also acted as impresarios at their own institutions.

<sup>151</sup> The newspapers might give the name and surname of an impresario and simply state that he had presented a proposal for a season at a certain theatre on a certain date, without any further information.

*prosa*



*prosa*



*prosa*



n.f. 1901 § § §

n.f. 1909 × × ×

n.f. 1892 § § §

n.d. § § §

**operetta**

× ×

*prosa*



**opera**

× ×

× × ×

1904 § § §

**operetta**

*prosa*



*prosa*



*prosa*



*prosa*



× × ×

**operetta**

*prosa*



*prosa*



*prosa*



*prosa*


Census of the impresarios and agents in the eastern Adriatic 153


*prosa*



n.f. 1901 × × ×

**opera**

× ×

**operetta**

*prosa*



*prosa*



§ ×

× ×

**opera**

**operetta**

× ×

× × ×

*prosa*



*prosa*



n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. § § §

**opera**

× ×

× ×

**operetta**

*prosa*



*prosa*



*prosa*


#### Census of the impresarios and agents in the eastern Adriatic 169


© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

### **3 Proposing the opera season**

#### 3.1 The contract proposal: requests and constraints

Tanks to the letters of impresarios and agents referring to their proposals for opera seasons and relative negotiations, we are in a position to understand if the impresarios can be distinguished from one another by any particular cultural sensibilities and if they adopted a specifc approach to artistic matters. Given that in this particular historical period the theatres were in most cases contracted out for a single season at a time, there was a greater turnover of impresarios and hence a greater circulation of artistic proposals. But how was a proposal for an opera season put together? What were the main questions that the impresarios might ask a theatre management when making the proposal?

Proposing the opera season

The contract proposal: requests and constraints

Te impresario would write to a theatre management ofering his services; and if approaching a management for the frst time, he would above all be careful about formulating the application correctly and making it as appealing as possible. From an analysis of the hundreds of letters in the archives of the area, we note that they have features in common. Certain questions are repeatedly made.

Tose who still had doubts about whether to ofer *opera seria* or something else1 would ask for information on the type of opera that would attract the biggest audience, "because unfortunately the impresario must try to please the public" (*perché purtroppo l'impresario deve cercare di accontentare il pubblico*), as Antonio Lana wrote to the presidency of the theatre in Split.2 Some impresarios immediately proposed specifc operas in their frst letter of negotiation, only perhaps to add "and if you should not like them, please tell me what would be more acceptable if the repertoire were changed".3 Tey were therefore prepared

<sup>1</sup> The term "opera seria" persisted in the correspondence and in all the documents of the period well into the 20th century, as a way of distinguishing it from opera buffa, for which a different type of budget was envisaged.

<sup>2</sup> "In my opinion I believe that operetta, being a more varied and entertaining spectacle, would be more appreciated by the generality, whereas the refined and cultivated public likes opera [seria] better. So it's a matter of seeing which of the two audiences is the one that goes to the theatre, and this is something the honourable presidency may well know." ("Per me credo che l'operetta sarebbe più adelata [*sic*] come spettacolo più variato e divertente per la generalità, però il pubblico fine e colto ama di più l'opera. Ora sta a vedere quale dei due pubblici sia quello che va a teatro e questo l'onorevole presidenza può saperlo bene"); see Letter from Antonio Lana to the presidency of the theatre of Split, Milano, 2. 2.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>3</sup> "e se non le piacessero, la S.V. dica quali sarebbero più accette cambiando repertorio"; Letter from the Ceruso theatrical agency of Milan to the theatre management of Split, Milano, 9.1.1898, HR-MGS:

to change the repertoire if it helped to win the contract. Te choice of repertoire was either made with a view to meeting the theatre's requirements (and securing the contract) or could depend on the size of the endowment. A further factor to be considered was the recurrence of a particular opera title in the past productions at a given theatre: one tried to avoid reproposing operas that had already been heard in the previous few seasons.4

Some requested a copy of the tender specifcations, which they had perhaps failed to fnd in the newspapers or at the agencies. And some – writing to theatres that ofered contracts for tender – would ask, long before the season concerned, when the new call for tenders would be published. But obviously among the main questions posed to the theatres that *hadn't* published tender specifcations (or asked by those who hadn't seen them if they existed) were those concerning the following subjects: the best period to give a run of performances; how long the season would last; how many performances could be given overall; and the maximum number of performances that could be given in the course of a week.

On the fnancial side, as well as learning about the security deposit needed to guarantee the contract between management and impresario (a contract without a security deposit had no legal value)5 and the taxes to be paid (both government and commercial taxes), they needed to know about the endowment and how much it amounted to. In the fnal contract, the endowment might even be accompanied by the concession of a certain number of boxes in the theatre.6 Whether the boxes were privately owned or could be rented out by the impresa was another important point to clarify. Also of interest was the number of season-ticket holders one could count on, the theatre's nightly expenses, with or without orchestra, and the boxofce takings when the theatre was full. Tis last fgure could perhaps be determined from the *borderò* (registers of the evening's takings) of the previous years.7 Also necessary was to know

Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>4</sup> There was those who would openly ask the management which operas had been performed in the previous years. For example, the impresario Girolamo Pesaro wrote: "Just so that I know what to do, I beg this honourable management […] to inform me about the operas that have been staged in the course of the last five years." ("Tanto per mia norma, prego quest'onorevole direzione […] informarmi le opere che si sono eseguite nel corso dell'ultimo cinquennio."); Letter from Girolamo Pesaro to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 17.12.1893, HR-DAZD, folder 8.

<sup>5</sup> If the impresario failed to have the sum at his disposal, he would have to borrow the money, either by requesting a personal loan or by opening a line of credit at a bank.

<sup>6</sup> See, for example, the contract between the theatre management of Split and the impresario Gabriele Ruotolo, 4.9.1905. HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/kut. I–XVII: "the Management undertakes to grant the use of the theatre free of charge for the whole duration of the season, as well as an endowment of 8,000 (eight thousand) crowns and 16 boxes" ("la Direzione si obbliga di concedere l'uso del Teatro gratis durante tutta la stagione, oltre ad una dotazione di corone 8.000 (diconsi otto mila corone) ed a n. 16 palchi").

<sup>7</sup> See Letter from Giuseppe Ullmann to the theatre management of Split, Trieste 11.1.1895. HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

the cost of the theatre staf, including stagehands (*servi di scena*), callboys, poster distributors (*fssatori cartelli*), box-ofce staf (*bollettinai*), doorkeepers (*portieri*) and custodians, not to mention the members of the local orchestra (for both opera seria and operetta – because a distinction was made), and to know how the staf was paid.

Naturally it was indispensable to have an idea of how many players the local orchestra had and what its forces were, so as to know whether it would be necessary to hire musicians externally; and to know the number of choristers for opera seria (as a rule the chorus for operetta arrived as a fully formed unit), if there was a machinist (with relative equipment), chorus master and prompter, and what the dimensions of the theatre were (height, depth, width, proscenium, stage, etc.). In response to these last requests the theatre management of Rijeka, for example, would directly attach a plan of the theatre. Some also asked for a plan of the seats, parterre and boxes. Or wished to know if there was electric lighting directly on stage. Also of interest was whether there were costumes and scenery and, if so, how big the sets were. Te presence of mechanical devices was defnitely seen as a plus for the theatre, though mechanisms for lifting scenery or properties were not always available in this particular area and these operations might still have to be done by hand. One impresario writing to Split also wanted to know which ports you could sail from, apart from Trieste and Venice, to help him calculate travel expenses.8 Posters from previous seasons could also be requested.

Some impresarios, like Torquato Lanzi, had prepared a printed sheet with a list of questions to be answered.9 Te agent Paolo Rocca also had one. Impresarios who hadn't received an answer from the theatre management, might send a second letter of proposal.10 All of

<sup>8</sup> See Letter from Antonio Lana to the theatre management of Split, Milano, 13.1.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>9</sup> The list was preceded by just a few lines: "I beg this honourable management to let me know, by return of courier, the conditions for contracting the theatre for the next season, and specifically to answer the following questions." ("Prego codesta Spettabile Direzione a farmi sapere, a volta di corriere, le condizioni d'appalto del Teatro per la prossima stagione, e precisamente rispondere alle seguenti domande."); Postcard from Torquato Lanzi, n.p., 16. 2.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 9.

<sup>10</sup> A certain Cosati addressed the theatre management of Šibenik as follows: "Illustrious Sir, I wrote to you from Piran proposing my singing company to give an opera production in your theatre with worthy artists, choosing those operas most suited to the environment and to the orchestral and choral elements that there might be in the city. Not having received an answer, I hereby send you my proposal again, [asking you] to indicate which type of opera may be the best suited, whether seria or buffa, in addition to the conditions, as I would like a secure agreement before coming to the *piazza*, and I beg you for a reply by return of courier, with all the clarifications that are necessary" ("Ill.mo Sig.re, da Pirano le scrissi proponendogli la mia compagnia di canto per dare in codesto teatro uno spettacolo d'opera con valenti artisti scegliendo quelle opere più adatte all'ambiente e agli elementi d'orchestra e cori che si potrebbero avere in città. Non avendo ricevuto risposta, le torno con la presente la mia proposta, e indicare quali opere sieno più adatte, serie o buffe, più quali le condizioni e vorrei prima di portarmi alla piazza un abbuonamento assicurato, pregandolo d'una risposta a volta di corriere, con tutti quei

these requests were made freely and were not necessarily in response to a call for tenders. With the information gained from this frst exchange of letters the impresario could then proceed to draw up a formal project.

In the frst exchange there was very rarely any mention of money. Meetings and negotiations – possibly conducted in person – were reserved for a subsequent moment. Indeed there were those who asked if they could present their project personally without having to explain everything in writing, as did Ermanno De Filippi, one of the many examples of an impresario-singer: "Te undersigned, wishing to produce an opera season, with artistic intents, begs this Esteemed Management to let him know if the Teatro Comunale would be free, and if so to telegraph him, so that he can immediately come there for the presentation of the project".11 A meeting face to face could not only help to avoid the misunderstandings that sometimes arose in a correspondence, but also consolidate the acquaintance between impresario and theatre management.

Te frst step for the impresario consisted in sending a letter with a simple proposal for an opera season. Usually the proposal would be made from one season to the next; for example, in May negotiations began for the autumn season. Some impresarios proposed opera seasons from one month to the next (or with an even shorter time frame), either because they were late in getting organised or because they hoped – or were certain – that things were going badly for a fellow impresario and a substitution would be welcome. A particularly audacious impresario like Alfredo Vecchi from Milan wrote to the theatre of Zadar on 27 March 1885 ofering his services for the imminent spring season: a matter of days, therefore. If the theatre happened to be free, he said, he would put forward a "project proposal" (*progetto di concorso*).12

Even at this frst stage of negotiations it could happen that the impresario or agent would write about wanting to bring a "frst-rate company" (*primaria compagnia*) or would drop the names of well-known singers in the hope of swaying the management's decision. For example, Conte Abriani of Milan, who also worked as an impresario, wrote to the theatre management of Split saying that he wished to bring the singer Giovanni Scarneo, giving as one of his reasons that Scarneo was keen to return to sing in his native

schiarimenti che sono necessari."); Letter from G. Cosati to the theatre management of Šibenik, Izola (Isola), 30.3.1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>11</sup> "Il sottoscritto, desideroso di allestire una stagione d'opera, con intendimenti artistici, prega codesta Spett. Direzione di fargli noto, se il Teatro Comunale sarebbe libero, ed in caso affermativo di telegrafargli, onde possa recarsi immediatamente costì per la presentazione del Progetto."; Letter from Ermanno De Filippi to the theatre management of Rijeka, [n.p.], [n.d.], HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1. De Filippi is mentioned as a baritone working both in Pula ("Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giovine Pensiero*, 2.11.1893, and "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giovine Pensiero*, 1. 6.1895) and Trieste in 1893 (*Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 59, 1893, p. 932). The *Agramer Zeitung* reports that De Filippi was active at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste, again as a singer, in 1900; See *Agramer Zeitung*, 27.3.1900, p. 4.

<sup>12</sup> Letter from Alfredo Vecchi to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano 27.3.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

town.13 But usually this sort of information was the subject of more advanced negotiations. Contrary to what one might expect, the extant documents suggest that it was not the general practice to mention the name of a well-known singer straight away. Opera singers had vocal qualities associated with specifc opera types and the theatre management could decide at the last minute to change the operas programmed for the season, meaning that the cast would also have to be changed. Besides, not all the impresarios had the singers immediately at their disposal, so they tended to await instructions from the theatre management before putting together a company.14 During these exchanges, expressions such as "swift decision needed urgently" (*urge pronta immediata decisione*) or "telegraph immediately" (*telegrafare subito*) were absolutely routine. Decisions had to be made rapidly so as not to compromise the smooth running of the organisation.

Te impresario would not necessarily ofer his services for a whole season. He might propose a limited number of performances and just one opera.15 On the other hand, those applying for a three-year contract might indicate the operas of the frst two years only, saying that it is best to wait and see which new operas would give a greater guarantee of success. Tis is well illustrated by the proposal of the Alpron-Battaglia impresa, which was competing for the three-year contract at the theatre of Rijeka in 1911:

<sup>13</sup> "For the forthcoming month of August I can have your fellow citizen Signor Scarneo, a distinguished artist and *primo basso* who would willingly come back to his home town to sing. If in that period the Teatro Comunale is free and should have a subsidy, I would be prepared to give a series of 8 performances of the opera-ballet *Faust* with artists all of established renown, with Signor Scarneo as protagonist (Mefistofele) and with a fine and select corps de ballet and a lavish staging." ("Pel p. v. mese di agosto posso avere il vostro concittadino sig. Scarneo, distinto artista I° basso che volentieri verrebbe a cantare nella sua città natia. Se per quell'epoca il Teatro Comunale è libero e avesse una sovvenzione, io sarei disposto di dare una serie di n. 8 rappresentazioni dell'opera-ballo *Faust* con artisti tutti di fama stabilita, col protagonista (Mefistofele) sig. Scarneo con scelto e bel corpo di ballo e sfarzosa messa in scena."); Letter from Geremia Abriani to the *podestà* of Split, Milano, 5. 6.1894, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII. The bass Giovanni Scarneo subsequently left the world of opera for that of spoken theatre; see Anna Busi, *Otello in Italia*, Adriatica, Bari 1973, p. 254.

<sup>14</sup> For example, the agent Sante Utili wrote to the theatre management of Zadar as follows: "To form the company of proficient singers, as I said above, a swift telegraphic response is imperative" ("Per formare la compagnia di valenti cantanti, urge come ho detto più sopra una pronta risposta telegrafica"); see Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 18.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5. Utili was thus waiting for confirmation from the theatre management and would select the cast only at a later stage.

<sup>15</sup> "[…] For the month of November," wrote the impresario Felice Brandini from Trieste, "I propose to give at the theatre of Zadar 8 or 10 performances of *Carmen* – provided that there is a sufficient endowment, given that the expenses for the renting and artists are great" ("[…] mi faccio avanti pel mese di novembre di dare al teatro di Zara 8 o 10 recite di Carmen – qualora ci fosse una dotazione sufficiente essendo molte le spese di noli ed artisti"); Letter from Felice Brandini to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 7.10.1884, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

And we will begin by ofering for the next Lent season of 1912 an absolutely enormous programme, namely four new operas for this theatre: *Giulietta e Romeo* by G. Gounod, *Tzigana* by F. Leoni, *Matrimonio segreto* by L. Cimarosa, and *I maestri cantori* by R. Wagner […]. For the grand Lent season of 1913, given the celebrations for the centenaries of Verdi and Wagner, we would like to give a masterpiece by each of these two great masters. By Verdi either *Don Carlos* (which would be new) or *Rigoletto* with an outstanding lead; and by Wagner, *Tristan* or *Tannhäuser*, also adding *Isabeau* by P. Mascagni, given that this opera has been a great success in Italy. For the third year we think it is wise to postpone defning the programme, and to wait and see what novelties in the meanwhile will give a greater guarantee of good results, and also depending on the artists one could fnd available.16

Tere were times when the singers themselves ofered their services to theatre managements without going through either agents or impresarios. And we also have instances of proposals being made directly by composers of opera, as in the case of Antonio Orsini, who wrote to the theatre management of Zadar hoping to give three performances of his new opera *Per l'amore*, a production that had already been postponed some time previously. Orsini promised that the performance would be of high quality.17 Another example of a

<sup>16</sup> "E cominciamo coll'offrire per la prossima stagione Quaresima 1912 un programma addirittura monstre, e cioè quattro opere nuove per questo Teatro e precisamente: Giulietta e Romeo di G. Gounod, Tzigana di F. Leoni, Matrimonio segreto di L. Cimarosa, ed I maestri cantori di R. Wagner […]. Per la grande stagione quaresima 1913 ricorrendo il centenario di G. Verdi e di R. Wagner pensiamo di dare un capolavoro, d'ognuno di questi due grandi maestri. Di G. Verdi il Don Carlos (nuovo) oppure il Rigoletto con un protagonista eccezionale; e di R. Wagner, il Tristano oppure il Tannhäuser, aggiungendo l'Isabeau di P. Mascagni dato che quest'opera abbia un buon successo in Italia. Per il terzo anno crediamo opportuno di aspettare a compilare il programma in attesa di quelle novità che in questo frattempo daranno maggiore garanzia di buon esito, ed anche a seconda degli artisti che si potranno avere disponibili."; Letter from the Alpron-Battaglia impresa to the theatre management of Rijeka, 31. 7.1911, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>17</sup> "I, the undersigned, present a respectful request to Your Excellency asking to be granted the Teatro G. Verdi in the first fortnight of April to perform for three nights my opera entitled *Per l'amore*, which should have been staged months ago, and which could not be performed on account of the rigours of the weather. I, the undersigned, also add that the above opera will be given with the utmost quality. Renewing my thanks, also for the generosity that Your Excellency has always shown towards the undersigned, with sincere respects, your most devoted Antonio Orsini, master of music." ("Il sottoscritto porge rispettosa domanda alla S.V. Ill.ma onde voglia concedergli il teatro G. Verdi nella prima quindicina del mese di aprile per rappresentare per tre sere la sua opera lirica dal titolo *Per l'amore* che già si doveva rappresentare mesi or sono, e che in causa ai rigori del tempo non ha potuto rappresentarla. Il sottoscritto aggiunge inoltre che la sudetta opera sarà data decorosissimamente; rinnovando i ringraziamenti e di tanta generosità che ha la S.V. Ill.ma verso il sottoscritto con distinta osservanza. Devotissimo. Antonio Orsini. M° di musica."); Letter from Antonio Orsini to the theatre management of Zadar, Šibenik 25. 2.1914, HR-DAZD, folder 24.

composer, and not an impresario, writing directly to a theatre is that of Luciano Caser: "My impresario agrees to come to the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka with artists and orchestra to give a staging of my opera *Lia* conducted by myself in person".18 Antonio Smareglia also directly addressed the theatre of Rijeka to propose his new opera *Nozze istriane*, stating: "An impresario of my acquaintance whom I fully trust would like to give 8–10 performances of my opera *Nozze istriane* at the Teatro Comunale". It would appear to have been the impresario, therefore, who had the idea of performing his opera. Te request was then followed by the questions typically asked in the circumstances: about when the theatre would be available, if the orchestra and chorus would be complete, and so on.19 Tese were rare cases, however, for most often it was the impresario, or an agent working for him, that made the proposal.20

What did the impresarios declare in these letters? What information did they give the theatre managements? Basically, their list of artists (when they had one) and operas. Te operas would then be agreed with the management. What type of operas did the impresarios propose? And on what grounds? First of all, we must bear in mind that opera bufa

20 We do have other cases of composers directly writing to a theatre management, but with a special motivation, such as that of composing the music for the inauguration of the theatre. See the request from Enrico Zanotti concerning the opening of the theatre of Rijeka in 1885 or that of Ermanno Basadonna, who offered to write an overture and prologue for the same event in Rijeka in 1885.

<sup>18</sup> "Il mio impresario è d'accordo di venire al teatro Comunale di Fiume con artisti, orchestra a dare una rappresentazione dell'opera mia *Lia* da me diretta personalmente". Luciano Caser generously agreed to donate 10% of the net takings to the Red Cross or to the unemployed of Rijeka; see Letter from Luciano Caser to the theatre management of Rijeka, [n. p.], 16. 4.1915, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1. The composer was about to stage his opera at the Politeama Rossetti of Trieste and he attached the advertising flyer of the event as a guarantee for the theatre management of Rijeka.

<sup>19</sup> "Un impresario mio conoscente di cui ho piena fiducia avrebbe intenzione di dare 8–10 rappresentazioni della mia opera *Nozze istriane* a codesto teatro comunale". The request continues as follows: "The said impresario begs me to ask this honourable management if it is disposed to grant the theatre for the said performances; and if so, also when the theatre would be available and if at Rijeka it has a good full orchestra consisting of 50 players and a chorus consisting of about 16 women as sopranos and contraltos and 20 men as tenors and basses. The impresa would naturally take care of all the rest. I beg you to inform me of the theatre's conditions; the impresario would intend to do the projected production within the month of May approximately. If the arrangement is feasible, he would come immediately to Rijeka to settle the matter […]" ("Il suddetto impresario mi prega di chiedere a codesta spett. Direzione se fosse disposta a concedere il teatro per le suaccennate rappresentaz.; inoltre quando il teatro sarebbe eventualmente disponibile e se a Fiume si può avere una buona completa orchestra composta di circa 50 esecutori e un coro composti di circa 16 donne tra soprani e contralti e 20 uomini (tra tenori e bassi). L'impresa naturalmente penserebbe a tutto il resto. Prego di volermi comunicare quali sono le condizioni del teatro e l'impresario deciderebbe di poter fare la progettata esecuzione entro il mese di maggio circa. Se la combinazione è fattibile egli verrebbe immediatamente a Fiume per definire la cosa […]"); Letter from Antonio Smareglia to the theatre management of Rijeka, Trieste, [n.d.], HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

cost less than opera seria. *Grand opéra* was also staged, but was more expensive than all the rest. So the choice of the type of opera to propose often depended on how large the endowment ofered was.

Many impresarios copied out the same letter by hand, repeating identical lists of singers and repertoire over and over again. Some had specifcally prepared a brochure to be sent to the theatre, thereby saving them the trouble of repeating the same letter dozens of times. Tere were also pre-printed forms that could be more or less detailed. Regarding the eastern Adriatic, we have the case of Pietro Minciotti, director and administrator of the Compagnia Lirica Internazionale, who had a three-page model printed. On the frst page was a very brief request to the theatre for information: "Most Excellent Sir / I would be exceedingly grateful if you would inform me of what period your theatre would be free for a run of unscheduled performances of the Compagnia Internazionale di Opere owned by Signori Samuele Lewis and Wilhem Tom. / With greatest respects / Yours sincerely / Pietro Minciotti / N.B. Te reply must be addressed to the Teatre of …".21 Te second page gave a list of the operas and artists, comprising the names of the *maestro concertatore*, assistant conductor (*maestro sostituto*), and prompter (*rammentatore*), the number of orchestral players and chorus singers, and the ownership of the music, costumes, scenery and properties. Te third page contained a sheet to be detached and returned to the sender, listing all the months of the year; against each month the management was asked to indicate the days when the theatre was free.

Even the Compagnia Sociale Lirica Donizetti, managed by the impresario and tenor Giustino Azzarelli, had its own printed brochure with the standard listing of the artists, this time with the added statement in the centre of the page declaring the company's ownership of costumes, properties, piano and harmonium. Tis could be seen as a further inducement to engage companies of this type, for ownership of these materials meant extra security and no need to hire them. Tis was followed by the repertoire, with the addition of a clause saying that other operas could be staged "at the request of the managements" (*a richiesta delle Direzioni*). Also specifed in the brochure was that the company would reserve "the right to make any changes in the artistic personnel necessary to provide a better outcome".22 Artistic personnel and repertoire also featured in the letterhead

<sup>21</sup> "Pregiat.mo Signore / Le sarei sommamente grato se volesse indicarmi in quale epoca sarebbe libero il suo Teatro per un corso di rappresentazioni straordinarie della Compagnia Internazionale di Opere di Proprietà dei Signori Samuele Lewis e Wilhem Tom. / Ossequiandola / Devotissimo / Pietro Minciotti / N.B. La risposta dovrà essere indirizzata al Teatro di …"; Brochure of the Compagnia Lirica Internazionale, [n.p.], [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>22</sup> "il diritto di eseguire quei cambiamenti nel personale artistico necessari al migliore andamento"; Brochure of the Compagnia Sociale Lirica "Donizetti", [n.p.], [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 5. Giustino Azzarelli, who was also a tenor in the Crotti Opera Company, offered opera seria, semiseria and buffa. He wrote to Zadar from Gorizia in August 1885 and in the same year wrote also to the theatre management of

of Luigi Bolognese, who ran a company that produced opera, comic operettas, zarzuelas and theatre for children, and ofered its products in Šibenik and Split in 1895. As for the Celebre Compagnia Lillipuziana di Canto directed by Ernesto Guerra, the repertoire was pre-printed on its letterhead in such a way that the reader got an immediate idea of the type of operas on ofer before having to look any further. Any impresario that either didn't have a precise set of operas to ofer or simply did not wish to specify a repertoire that could be restrictive, simply used his own name printed at the top, with or without an individual logo. Finally, there were those – like Giulio Milani – who chose to print their photo alongside their name.

It could happen that the impresario included his own wife in the cast. A case in point is that of Giuseppe Castagnoli, who hoped to make her sing at Šibenik for the 1909 season. He reported that he was in negotiations with a tenor, "truly a big name" (*veramente di cartello*), who had sung in various theatres in Italy and abroad with great success and had recently returned from a triumph in Florence, a "very good" (*buonissima*) soprano for *La traviata* and *Il trovatore*, who would certainly be appreciated in Šibenik, and a bass and baritone he referred to as "jewels" (*gioielli*), about whom he had already spoken in a previous letter to the management. He concluded by saying that his own wife (*la mia signora*) was prepared to take the stage in the part of Azucena "so that you alone will be able to judge her" (*che loro soli potranno giudicarla*).23

It was in the impresario's interest to show that the artists were frst rate and not only had experience, but also exerted a strong appeal on the audiences they encountered. For an impresario it was also important to demonstrate not only that he himself was solvent, and hence already had funds of his own, but also that he had made many contacts in the opera world. Tis was a quality that increased the chances of being selected to run the opera season. And this is what Antonio Lana, the impresario from Zadar, tried to stress when he wrote to Gajo Filomen Bulat, the *podestà* or mayor of Split and also director of the new theatre, in the hope of being engaged to open the new Teatro Nuovo in 1893:

I have excellent relations with all the artists from the highest to the lowest; with the music publishers; with troupe leaders of all kinds; managers of operetta companies; property men,

Rijeka to apply for the position of secretary at the theatre. Azzarelli's company, however, was evidently not considered as being "of stature" (*di rango*) if in *L'Eco di Pola* it was marked out as eminently worthy of a "modest country town" (*paesello di provincia*) but unsuited "to an aristocratic environment such as that of the Politeama" (*ad un ambiente aristocratico quale è quello del Politeama*); see "Teatrali", *L'Eco di Pola*, 9.5.1891.

<sup>23</sup> Letter from Giuseppe Castagnoli to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Mali Losinj (Lussinpiccolo), 18.11.1908, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9. Giuseppe Castagnoli was also a singer, whom we find in the role of Bartolo in *Il barbiere di Siviglia* at Šibenik in 1908. His was one of various cases in which the husband acted as his wife's agent, prompted partly also by the need to administer her earnings.

machinists, scene designers, theatrical shoemakers, wardrobe masters, not only in Italy but also abroad, and I can obtain special conditions from everyone, because thank God I have always had honest dealings and they are fond of me.24

Lana had received news of the inauguration the year before, through Antonio Ravasio, the *maestro di cappella* in Zadar.25 So in the hope of obtaining some engagement in the feld of Italian opera, he tried to put himself in a good light with his old friend Bulat, parading his record of employment all over the world: six years spent at El Liceu in Barcelona, three years at the Real Teatro de São João in Oporto; three years at the San Fernando of Seville and then another three at Saragozza; three times at Palma de Mallorca, three times at Valladolid, not to mention San Sebastian, Bayonne, Montpellier, Narbonne, Toulouse and Marseilles. From 1879 to May 1889 he had worked at the Teatro Real of Madrid, which he liked to stress was the "frst of Europe" (*il primo d'Europa*).26 He had also been at the Teatro ex Ducale "di Reggio in Modena", where he brought an opera company on behalf of otherwise unspecifed "*signori*", declaring that they had been highly satisfed with him and were even prepared to issue him with "a fne certifcate of honour" (*un bel certifcato onorevole*). His hope was to be preferred "to the many bunglers that are in the theatre business, especially here in Milan" (*ai tanti pasticcioni che ci sono negli afari teatrali, massime qui in Milano*). On the subject of bunglers he cited the case of the Jewish impresario Paolo Massimini, who had walked out on an opera company in Spain and absconded. After presenting himself, therefore, as an excellent and conscientious model one could trust, Lana then went on to the usual appropriate requests, asking for details about the theatre, information on boxes and galleries, and all the building's measurements (height, depth, breadth), the numbers in the chorus and the orchestra, conductors, etc.

Having contacts and important ongoing collaborations with renowned artists was what was expected of an impresario. For example, Girolamo Pesaro, an impresario from Trieste, who wrote to Bulat with more or less the same motivations as Lana (i.e. to open

<sup>24</sup> "Sono in ottime relazioni con tutti gli artisti dai più grandi ai più piccoli; cogli editori di musica; coi capocomici di tutti i generi; direttori di compagnie d'operette; attrezzisti, macchinisti, scenografi, calzolai teatrali, vestiaristi non solo d'Italia, ma anche dell'Estero e posso avere delle facilitazioni da tutti, perché grazie a Dio ho trattato sempre con onestà e mi vogliono bene."; Letter from Antonio Lana to Gajo Filomen Bulat, Milano, 18.3.1893, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>25</sup> Subsequently the news was confirmed by a certain Meneghello, a violinist in the orchestra of La Scala, and Pietro Stermich, son of Nicolò Stermich (both Dalmatians), that the theatre would be inaugurated first with a Slavic opera, then an Italian one; see Letter from Antonio Lana to Gajo Filomen Bulat, Milano, 18.3.1893, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>26</sup> For his reputation in successful enterprises in Spain Lana was known as "Don Ciccio". He was renowned as someone "with a good nose" (*un buon naso*); see also Sabalich in *Cronistoria annedotica*, p. 244. Lana had already taken on the contract at the theatre in Zadar in the autumn of 1859, where he also appears to have met with the public's approval.

the new theatre with a frst-rate opera production), boasted that he had dealings with artists who had "performed in the leading theatres of Italy and abroad" (*calcato primarii Teatri d'Italia ed Esteri*).27 Some impresarios even accompanied their letters of proposal with newspaper clippings as evidence of their former activities and successes in preceding seasons.

Some impresarios made up their companies as they went along. Others – the minority – ofered their services with already formed companies, complete with *maestri*, scores and costumes for various operas, and perhaps even a few orchestral musicians; in this case the theatre management could choose the most suitable works from a short list of proposed operas. From the documents we learn, for example, that from 1895 the presidency of the theatre in Split asked the impresario to propose six to eight operas, from which three or four would be chosen. In the case of an operetta season, the proposed list should have as many as twelve titles, from which six to eight would be selected.28 Te presidency (or theatre management) would negotiate with more than one impresario in this manner, so that if the negotiations broke down, it could always fall back on another proposal that seemed more suitable.29

<sup>27</sup> Letter from Girolamo Pesaro to Gajo Filomen Bulat, Trieste, 21.12.1893. HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>28</sup> The theatre management of Split wrote as follows to Antonio Lana: "in making an opera proposal you need to offer six or eight operas, from which the management would choose 3 or 4; whereas if you should limit yourself to making a proposal just for operettas, you should offer us six of the more recent ones and six of the best older ones so that we can choose from 6 to 8" ("Nel fare una proposta d'opera bisognerebbe che si offrisse sei o otto opere delle quali la Direzione sceglierebbe 3 o 4; mentre se si limitasse a farci una proposta per operette, dovrebbe offrirci fra le quali sei delle più recenti e sei delle migliori più vecchie affinchè possiamo scegliere dalle 6 alle 8"); Letter from the theatre management of Split to Antonio Lana, Split, [n. d.].3.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>29</sup> We read, for example, in the minutes of the shareholders' meeting of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar: "1. The Presidency is authorised to go ahead with the negotiations for the opera season with the impresario Osvaldo Mazza, and is also authorised to settle with him on the basis of the endowment of 2,600 florins. 2. The Presidency is likewise instructed to negotiate at the same time with the impresario De Giorgi of Milan, raising the endowment with him to 3,000 florins. 3. If both negotiations should fail, the Presidency remains authorised to arrange and conclude transactions for any other proposal, even of spoken theatre, with a limit for spoken theatre of an endowment no higher than a thousand florins or of a promise of eighty-five florins a day […]" ("1. La Presidenza viene incaricata di spingere le trattative per lo spettacolo d'opera coll'impresario Osvaldo Mazza, ed autorizzata anche a concludere seco lui sulla base della dote di fiorini 2.600. 2. Resta egualmente incaricata la Presidenza di trattare contemporaneamente coll'impresario De Giorgi di Milano aumentando con lui la Dote fino a Fiorini 3.000. 3. Qualora fallissero entrambe le trattative resta autorizzata la Presidenza a combinare e concludere per qualunque altro spettacolo anche di prosa, con limite per la prosa di una dote non maggiore di fiorini mille o d'una assicurazione di fiorini ottantacinque al giorno […]"); Meeting of the shareholders of the Teatro Nuovo, Zadar, 6. 9.1869, HR-DAZD, folder 3.

### 3.2 Asking for references on impresarios and artists. Solvency of the impresarios

#### 3.2.1 References requested by the theatre managements

What guarantees would the theatre managements require of their impresarios? How did they protect themselves from risk? In his book on the economics of theatre, back in 1839, Giuseppe Rossi-Gallieno would write: "Either the contractor is a man who is solvent, suitable and well-intentioned […] or he is insolvent or incapable of fnding the necessary capital, and he will abstain from presenting projects, thereby leaving an opening free to the competent".30 Before aspiring to the coveted contract one therefore had to give proof of solid expertise. At times the managements asked for references and gathered information from other theatre managements about the conduct of individual impresarios or artists, before signing contracts and working with them. References might also be requested for the singers who had been engaged by the same impresario.

At Rijeka, for example, in 1912 the management asked the theatre of Cesena for information about Pasquale la Rotella, who was to be the conductor and *maestro concertatore* in the opera season of the following year managed by the Alpron-Battaglia impresa. Cesena answered with enthusiasm and assurances that the choice would not be a mistake:

Maestro Cavaliere Pasquale La Rotella gave an excellent account of himself. Young, dynamic, highly intelligent, with a wide and deep musical culture, he prepared and conducted *La Fanciulla del West* with verve, precision and vivacity of colour, such as to meet with the unanimous approval of the public and also deserve the strongest praises from the composer, who was present at the performance. We are therefore fully convinced that if he is invited to conduct the very important season mentioned by your honourable management, he will not be unequal to his task and to the just expectations of the public.31

Asking for references on impresarios and artists.

Solvency of the impresarios

<sup>30</sup> "O l'appaltatore è uomo solvibile, idoneo e ben intenzionato […] o egli è insolvibile od incapace di trovare il necessario valsente, e si asterrà dal presentare progetti, lasciando quindi libero il varco ai capaci."; Rossi-Gallieno, *Saggio*, p. 46.

<sup>31</sup> "Il M°Cav. Pasquale La Rotella ha fatto qui ottima prova. Giovane, energico, intelligentissimo, di una cultura musicale vasta e profonda, ha concertato e diretto 'La Fanciulla del West' con uno slancio, con una precisione e vivacità di colore, da incontrare l'unanime favore del pubblico, e da meritare anche i più vivi elogi da parte dell'Autore, intervenuto allo spettacolo. Siamo quindi pienamente convinti che se sarà chiamato a dirigere la importantissima stagione, a cui accenna codesta Onorevole Direzione, egli non risulterà inferiore al compito suo ed alle giuste aspettative del pubblico." Letter from the theatre management of Cesena to the theatre management of Rijeka, Cesena, 8.10.1912, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

In the past it had been the theatre management in Rijeka itself that was contacted to give a report on impresarios that had worked there. It was the recipient, for example, of a request for information on Luigi Cesari, the impresario who had inaugurated the new theatre in 1885. Another request concerned Augusto Rossegger, this time from the Teatro delle Muse of Ancona and the Teatro Regio of Parma, wishing for information on his "ability, intelligence, solvency and honesty" (*capacità, intelligenza, solvibilità ed onestà*).32 In 1892 it was the civil magistrate of Rijeka that sent the Teatro Comunale in the same city a formal request for information about the impresario Sciutti d'Arrigo, who had recently worked there. It asked the management if Sciutti d'Arrigo "was endowed with the means required to run an important theatrical impresa" (*fosse provvisto di mezzi onde condurre un'importante impresa teatrale*) and if he had always respected the obligations undertaken with the theatre. On the initiative of a certain Conte Domini, the theatre management replied to the magistrate that they were unaware of whether or not Signor Sciutti had the necessary resources, but that the impresario in question had always honourably fulflled his contract with the city's theatre.33

As for the Teatro Mazzoleni in Šibenik, it instead sent a direct request for information about a group of singers then working at the Teatro Bonetti in Mali Lošinj (Lussinpiccolo) in March 1911. Te Teatro Bonetti responded with a favourable report, praising the singers for both their artistic qualities and trustworthiness: indeed they had earned the afection of the public "which comes to the performances in great numbers, applauds them and admires them all without exception for the beauty of their voices, intonation and ensemble". A special note was also added regarding the impresario Giuseppe Ponzio, here described as a man who is serious, courteous and "very reputable in business matters" (*correttissima negli afari*). In short, the current production at the Teatro Bonetti had so interested the audience – it reported, seeming to wish to win over the Šibenik management – that even Archduke Karl Stephan himself also expected to attend.34 In reply, the Teatro Mazzoleni expressed its thanks for the information and reported that it had entered into agreements with the impresa, to their mutual satisfaction. It also expressed the wish that an entente between the two theatres could be possible in the future as an easier way of ensuring good productions.35 In this way, therefore, the impresario Ponzio was given an excellent endorsement, one that unquestionably put him in an advantageous position compared to other competitors aspiring to run the season at Šibenik.

<sup>32</sup> Register of documents (1885–1910), Rijeka, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>33</sup> See Letter from Carl Oziani to [Signor Cavaliere], Rijeka, 23. 7.1892, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>34</sup> "che accorre numeroso allo spettacolo, li applaude e li ammira tutti indistintamente per la bellezza delle voci, per l'intonazione e la fusione"; see Letter from Alberto Gilberti to the theatre management of Šibenik, Mali Lošinj, 26.3.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>35</sup> See Letter from [Giovanni Mazzoleni] to the management of the Teatro Bonetti of Mali Lošinj, [Šibenik], 2. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

Not always, however, was the outcome of these enquiries so benefcial, even when the references were favourable. Te next year the Teatro Mazzoleni asked the theatre in Piran (Pirano) for information on the impresario Cesare Matucci and his company, which was due to perform at Šibenik. Mazzoleni had received an anonymous letter warning him that Matucci's company had no conductor (*maestro*) and no tenor, and also lacked choristers. Te very same day Mazzoleni sent letters to two diferent recipients asking for explanations: one to Piran, the other directly to Matucci himself. To the theatre in Piran he wrote: "I am certain that I will receive the frankest information, also on the abilities of the *prime donne*, from your honourable management".36 To Matucci, on the other hand, he issued the following warning: "I must seriously warn you that if your company should not be in better condition than it was the last time it would undoubtedly be discharged" ("*devo avvertirla seriamente che se la Sua compagnia non fosse in condizioni migliori di quando è stato l'ultima volta, verrebbe senz'altro protestato*").37 Alberto Muscas38 from Piran gave reassurances about the impresario and Mazzoleni thanked him for the news: "I am pleased that what has been written to me from Piran concerning the Matucci company is not the case, and I am most grateful to you for the information that you kindly gave me, and I ofer you my most heartfelt thanks".39 Mazzoleni, however, was subsequently forced to change his mind on the matter, because the impresario Matucci and his company simply failed to turn up in Šibenik on the appointed day, without giving any notice, thereby somehow confrming the content of the anonymous letter. Te tickets for the evening's performance had been sold out, so in this instance Mazzoleni demanded as compensation not only the penalty of 1,000 crowns, but also the damages resulting from a failure to fulfl the contract.40 It is

<sup>36</sup> "sono sicuro che le informazioni più sincere, anche sulla capacità delle prime donne, le avrò da codesta Spettabile Direzione"; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to the theatre management of Piran, [Šibenik], 16. 2.1912, DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>37</sup> Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Cesare Matucci, [Šibenik], [n.d.], DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>38</sup> We have no information on the identity of Alberto Muscas. In the *Egida* he is generically described as an "instructor of the theatre company" (*istruttore del corpo drammatico*) for an entertainment of theatre and song; see "Pirano", *Egida*, anno II, no. 56, 21.5.1905.

<sup>39</sup> "Ho piacere che quanto mi è stato scritto da Pirano riguardo alla compagnia Matucci non corrisponda al vero, e Le sono gratissimo per le informazioni ch'Ella gentilmente mi ha dato e Le esprimo i miei più sentiti ringraziamenti."; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Alberto Muscas, [Šibenik], 21. 2.1912, DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>40</sup> "Having accepted all your proposals," Mazzoleni wrote to Matucci, "I had to take for certain your arrival at the *piazza*, to the extent that I circulated the posters announcing the first performance on the date that you had indicated in a letter; instead, you not only did not arrive here, but also did not find it necessary to even let me know of your decision, with the result that I was forced to telegraph the director of the theatre in Piran asking for news, to which he answered "Company Still Here Matucci Will Reply". I must attribute your silence to a misadventure with the post, since I cannot admit that a troupe leader can commit such an unspeakable action towards a management. In any case, while reserving the due steps to be taken towards the managements of other theatres, I notify you that on the

interesting to note that in the past Matucci had already worked at the theatre in Šibenik, and on that occasion had proved his worth. But unfortunately in this case, in spite of the reassurances given, Mazzoleni was forced to acknowledge that his fears were borne out. Even a good reference, therefore, was not necessarily a sufcient guarantee.

At Zadar, on the other hand, when in 1897 the theatre management asked the Teatro delle Muse in Ancona for information on the impresario Marchetti, who had worked there some years previously, Ancona answered that the impresario certainly "fulflled his commitments" (*adempito ai suoi impegni*) and would have a "fair ability to run an impresa" (*capacità discreta per condurre un'impresa*), but he was unfortunately devoid of his own resources and sometimes "was assisted by people who were solvent" (*venne assistito da persone solvibili*).41 Te fact of having solvent people or wealthy partners close at hand naturally made the impresario look less vulnerable when theatre managements were making their choices. So when the theatre management of Zadar asked the Teatro Piccinni of Bari for a reference on the impresario Nicola Guida, following the anxious enquiries of a soprano who was afraid of not being paid by him (see also below, section 7.2. *Contracts with singers*), the management in Bari answered that "as far as solvency is concerned, he actually has no capital himself, but he is full of self-respect in the fulflment of his obligations, so he has a partner who provides it when needed".42 Hence the "partner" (*socio*) would save the

basis of § 12 of the contract you have incurred a penalty amounting to 1,000 (one thousand) crowns and if the production should not be staged at Šibenik within the first week of March, until which time I will keep the theatre at your disposal, I will hand over all the documents to the theatre's lawyer so that he may take the necessary measures. I repeat that I continue to think this is some oversight, so before proceeding I urgently await clarifications on the subject." ("Avendo accettato tutte le Sue proposte, io dovevo ritenere sicuro il Suo arrivo sulla piazza tanto è vero che pubblicai i manifesti anunziando il debutto nella data che con lettera da Lei mi era stata indicata invece Ella non solo non è venuto ma non ha trovato necessario neppure di parteciparmi la Sua decisione tanto che fui indotto di telegrafare al direttore del teatro di Pirano domandando notizie egli mi rispose «compagnia ancora qui risponderà Matucci». Io debbo attribuire a un disguido postale il Suo silenzio poiché non ammetto che da parte di un capocomico possa essere commessa un'azione così inqualificabile verso una direzione. Comunque, riservandomi i passi dovuti verso le direzioni degli altri teatri La avverto che in base al § 12 del contratto Ella è incorso in una penale dell'importo di Corone 1.000 (mille) e ciò qualora non andasse in iscena a Sebenico entro la prima settimana del marzo decorso il qual termine fino al quale io tengo il teatro a Sua disposizione consegnerò tutti i documenti all'avvocato del Teatro perché faccia i passi necessari. Ripeto che sempre mi tengo si tratti di qualche svista e prima di procedere attendo urgentemente schiarimenti in proposito."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Cesare Matucci, Šibenik, 1.3.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>41</sup> Letter from the administrative deputation of the Teatro delle Muse of Ancona to the theatre management of Zadar, Ancona, 29.1.1897, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>42</sup> "in quanto a solvibilità veramente non ha capitali, ma pieno d'amore proprio nell'adempimento dei suoi impegni; perciò ci ha un socio che all'occasione lo provvede"; Letter from the management of the Teatro Piccinni of Bari to the theatre management of Zadar, Bari, 4. 2.1897, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

situation and, when required, supply the necessary liquidity. Guida's agent, Achille Bignardi, unsurprisingly stressed that his client was a "serious, highly competent and solvent person" (*persona molto seria, capacissima e solvibile*); and that the theatre management of Zadar, to which Guida had applied for the contract of a season, could ask for references directly "from the mayor of Bari and from the presidency of the Teatro Piccinni of Bari", which indeed it did.43

Clearly it was in the interests of the agents to provide their clients with excellent presentations, so an agent's reference didn't count for much, as it was deeply biased. It was obvious, for example, that the agent Luigi Grabinski Broglio would tell the theatre management of Zadar that he had "a *capable*, *solvent* and *honest* client, who would like to compete for your theatre's contract to give an opera season there": he couldn't have done otherwise.44 But while Grabinski Broglio presented his clients, the impresarios Giorgio Trauner and Ettore Forastiero, as "people well known in the theatrical world for their seriousness and solvency, having always been contractors of very important theatres",45 it didn't necessarily mean that the managements of those same theatres were of the same opinion. Diferent opinions could also be given on the same impresario. When the theatre management of Zadar directly asked the director of the Teatro Filodrammatico in Milan for information on Giorgio Trauner, he answered that he couldn't honestly "guarantee anything on the solvency of the man" in question (*nulla garantire sulla solvibilità della persona*), and that he didn't believe him to be very well-of, "but regarding all the seasons done at my theatre, I have never been aware of any trouble; everything has always taken place with order and punctuality".46 At the same time Zadar also sought another opinion, this time from the Teatro Coccia of Novara, and here the response was not so good: "Trauner did not give much evidence of reliability here, on the contrary… nor do I believe him to be all that solvent".47 With a letter of this type the theatre management already had something to work with when deciding whether or not to entrust the season to a particular impresario.

<sup>43</sup> "un cliente *capace*, *solvibile* ed *onesto*, il quale desidererebbe concorrere nell'appalto di codesto teatro per darvi uno spettacolo d'opera"; Letter from Achille Bignardi to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 29.1.1897, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>44</sup> Letter from Luigi Grabinski Broglio to the president of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, Milano, 11.11.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>45</sup> "persone assai note nel mondo teatrale per la loro serietà e solvibilità, essendo sempre rilevatari di teatri importantissimi"; Letter from Luigi Grabinski Broglio to the president of the theatre of Split, Milano, 12.3.1904, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>46</sup> "ma davanti tutte le stagioni fatte al mio teatro, non ho mai verificato alcun inconveniente, tutto è sempre proceduto con ordine e puntualità"; Letter from Giacomo Brizzi to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 29.1.1897, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>47</sup> "Il Trauner qui non ha dato prova di serietà, anzi…e nemmeno lo credo tanto solvibile"; Letter from the management of the Teatro Coccia of Novara to the theatre management of Zadar, Novara, 31.1.1897, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

Believing a person to be insolvent naturally discouraged one from entrusting him with any activity that carried a margin of fnancial risk. Tis was such a manifest truism that various theatrical agencies would begin their negotiations with theatre managements with a classic statement such as "an *excellent* and *most solvent* client of mine wishes to compete for the contract of your theatre"48 or "My agency, which is well-known in the theatrical world, holds reliability as a founding principle in business matters and hence promotes only enterprises that are *serious*, *honoured* and *solvent*, always wishing to make a good impression on the esteemed managements that honour them with their trust".49 As for the agent Paolo Rocca, he hastened to point out that a deal could be concluded with "Signor Riva Vittorio [who will be] impresario at Pula in October, a man *of great afuence* and the greatest honesty".50 And more in the same vein.

#### 3.2.2 References proposed by the impresario

At times it was the impresarios who indicated who could provide information on their account, as a means of reinforcing their application. And there was all the more reason to do so if the person under scrutiny was a woman, who would clearly fnd herself at a disadvantage in this profession at the time. Addressing the Conte di Capogrosso, president of the theatre of Split, Teresa Ranieri Vaschetti wrote as follows: "If Your Excellency should wish to acquire information about me you can contact the Illustrious Signor Cavalier Cesari, mayor of Ascoli Piceno (in the Marche) where I have run the theatre twice already and where lately I have staged Puccini's *Tosca* with great results."51 It was the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, however, that collected the largest number of references, most likely because it was there that the number of applicants was highest and the competition fercest. And as could be expected, most of the references came from Lombardy. Te impresario Giulio

<sup>48</sup> "un mio *ottimo* e *solvibilissimo* cliente desidera concorrere all'appalto di codesto teatro".

<sup>49</sup> "La mia agenzia, ben nota nel mondo teatrale, ha per base assoluta la serietà degli affari e perciò non propone che imprese *serie*, *onorate* e *solvibili*, desiderando farsi sempre onore presso le spettabili direzioni che l'onorano della loro fiducia."; Letter from Giuseppe Levis on behalf of the Enrico Carozzi theatrical agency to the theatre management of Split, Milano, 12. 2.1898, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>50</sup> "il sig. Riva Vittorio impresario di Pola nell'ottobre, persona *facoltosissima* e della massima serietà"; Letter from Paolo Rocca to Jozip Karaman, Milano, 27. 8.1914, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>51</sup> "Se la S.V. volesse domandare mie informazioni può rivolgersi all'Ill. Signor Cav. Cesari sindaco di Ascoli Piceno (Marche) ove io ho già avuto due volte la Direzione di quel teatro e ultimamente ho fatto la Tosca del M° Puccini con grande esito."; Letter from Teresa Raineri Vaschetti to the Conte di Capogrosso, Milano, 4.1.1906. HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII. Information on Teresa Raineri Vaschetti could also be obtained at Trieste from certain "sig.ne Stancic e Mollich"; see Letter from Angelo Chinelli to the theatre management of Split, Milano, 24.12.1900, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

Milani spontaneously stated that "from the Esteemed Management of the Teatro Grande of Brescia you may have all the information on my seriousness, ability and solvency, for I've been at the theatre for 40 years".52 Te impresario Giovanni Battista Righini, writing from Milan to Zadar, indicated as a possible referee none other than Baron Emilio Morpurgo of Trieste, since he (Righini) had formerly worked at the Teatro Rossetti in the city. Again from Milan the impresario Razzani made it known that: "If Your Excellency should like to acquire information on my account, please have the goodness to write to Pula, to Signor Cavaliere Ciscutti, for whom I provided the opera productions for the opening of his new Politeama in the autumn of 1881".53 A similar statement arrived from the impresario Domenico Valenti, again writing to Zadar: "If you want information about how I stage the operas, you can write to the theatre managements of Codogno, where I gave *Aida* last month, to the management of Lecco, where I have been for 5 years running, as in many other theatres; indeed it is very likely that for Lent I will be granted the Teatro Sociale of Gorizia, where I have been twice before, and if I do get it, this year I will give *Aida*."54

Ten there was those who sought leverage from long-standing acquaintances with members (past or present) of the theatre management itself or with semi-permanent members of the theatre's artistic staf, as in the case of Antonio Lana mentioned above. Lana, who aspired to run the season at Zadar, boasted his acquaintance with the *maestro concertatore* Antonio Ravasio, as well as "my friend Giuseppe Perlini", one of the wealthiest industrialists and landowners of the city, "Nicolò Trigari, Pietro Giotta and, if they were alive, many others with whom we spent our youthful years together and amongst whom there were surely almost all their parents, who were my good friends".55 Such 'friendships' could indeed give one the extra edge and be decisive when it came to winning a contract.

<sup>52</sup> "Dalla Spettabile Direzione di questo Grande Teatro di Brescia, Loro potranno avere tutte le informazioni sopra la mia serietà, capacità e solvibilità, poiché da 40 anni sono in teatro". Milani declared that he had run "all the larger theatres of almost the whole of Italy; and of those in Milan I have had them all, without excepting La Scala" ("tutti i più grandi teatri di quasi tutta Italia, intanto quelli di Milano ad eccezione della Scala, li ho avuti tutti"); Letter from Giulio Milani to the theatre management of Zadar, Brescia, 18. 2.1908, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>53</sup> "Quando poi alla S.V. piacesse attingere informazioni sul mio conto, si compiaccia scrivere a Pola al sig. cav.e Ciscutti pel quale fornii lo spettacolo d'opera in occasione dell'apertura del suo nuovo Politeama l'autunno del 1881"; Letter from Francesco Razzani to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 9.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>54</sup> "Se vogliono informazioni di come metto io in scena i spettacoli, possono scrivere alle direzioni teatrali, di Codognio [*sic*], che il mese scorso o [*sic*] dato l'Aida, alla direzione del teatro di Lecco che ci sono stato 5 anni di seguito, e come in tanti altri teatri, anzi facilmente combinerò per la quaresima il teatro Sociale di Gorizia ove sono stato altre due volte, e se combino questo anno le darò l'Aida"; Letter from Domenico Valenti to Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak, 8.1.1896, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>55</sup> "…l'amico Giuseppe Perlini, Nicolò Trigari, Pietro Giotta e se fossero vivi tanti altri coi quali abbiamo passato assieme i nostri anni di gioventù e fra i quali ci erano di certo quasi tutti i genitori loro, ch'e-

In like manner, the agents also gave the names of possible referees for themselves. Enrico Viscardi, when negotiating with the theatre of Šibenik, mentioned that the theatre management of Zadar – and in particular a certain "Signor Nachich" – could "act as a guarantor" (*farsi mallevadori*) for his "correct behaviour in all his business afairs" (*corretto modo di procedere in tutti gli afari*).56 Viscardi's work had been greatly appreciated and further confrmation was given by Zadar to the Teatro Bonda of Dubrovnik: "Signor Viscardi is a person who, with his pragmatism and honesty, has succeeded in gaining our trust".57 As for Enrico Gallina, he declared to the management at Split that information about him can be obtained "not only from the management of Zadar, but also from those of Pula, Rijeka, Šibenik and Poreč (Parenzo), as well as those of our own theatres".58 Te agents could also suggest referees for their clients as well as for themselves. Regarding his client Eugenio De Monari, Gustavo Argenti mentioned in a letter to the theatre management of Zadar that "you may get information on Signor De Monari from Casa Sonzogno", thereby indicating that the publisher could testify to the impresario's good conduct.59 And there were others, like the agent Giovanni Simonetti, who recommended contacting singers. When it came to endorsing his client, the impresario Rinaldo Rosini, for the season in Zadar in 1896, Simonetti wrote to the theatre management saying that they could get information about him by contacting the bass Camillo Fiegna: "he has known Rosini for many years, both as an artist and as an impresario, and he has nothing but words of praise for him. He is certain that he will deliver an excellent production that will satisfy everyone".60 In short, anyone who could say a positive word about the impresario's work – singers, directors of theatres, barons and other high-ranking personalities, fellow colleagues or agents, publishers – could be used as a means of strengthening the application.

rano miei buoni amici."; Letter from Antonio Lana to the presidency of the theatre of Zadar, Milano 1. 7.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>56</sup> Letter from Enrico Viscardi to the theatre management of Šibenik, Zadar, [n.d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>57</sup> "Il sig. Viscardi è persona che colla sua concretezza ed onestà ha saputo acquistarsi la nostra fiducia"; Letter from [illegible sender's name] to the theatre management of Dubrovnik, [Zadar], 16.12.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 24.

<sup>58</sup> "la Spett. Direzione può averle tanto dalla Direzione di Zara, quanto da quelle di Pola, Fiume, Sebenico, Parenzo e da quelle di questi nostri teatri"; Letter from Enrico Gallina to the theatre management of Split, Trieste, 25. 7.1912, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>59</sup> "Dalla Casa Sonzogno potrà avere informazioni sul conto del sig. De Monari"; Letter from Gustavo Argenti to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 13.1.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>60</sup> "egli conosce da molti anni il Rosini – quale artista e quale impresario e non ha che parole di lode per lui. Egli è certo che darà uno spettacolo ottimo che soddisferà tutti."; Letter from Giovanni Simonetti to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 9. 2.1896, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

#### 3.3 Theatre network of the eastern Adriatic

When writing to Istria and Dalmatia the impresarios would try to secure more than one *piazza* in the area. Given that the journey was a long one, they would hope to organise a complete tour of the region, not just a single date.61 Moreover, the companies needed to have a substantial number of performances guaranteed or paid for. Anyone who had already secured the theatre of Pula would therefore try to move down the coast towards Zadar. For example, the impresarios Mirco and Giani, who in March 1876 had produced *L'elisir d'amore* and *Don Pasquale* in Pula, took the company to Zadar the next month (we come across Mirco alone even further down, at Šibenik, but only in later years). Te Brandini impresa, which was working in 1884 at the Teatro Armonia in Trieste62 and subsequently at the Politeama Ciscutti of Pula, wrote to Zadar ofering eight or ten performances of *Carmen*. Te impresario Umberto Braida, who took over the Politeama of Pula a few years later, also contacted Zadar saying that he was about to propose Antonio Smareglia's *Nozze istriane* and *Abisso*: "I would be prepared", he wrote, "to give, after Pula, 10 performances of the opera *Nozze istriane* at your theatre; for that I would beg you promptly to kindly inform me if you are prepared to let me use the theatre for 13 December of the current year (alternatively, I am prepared to give *Nozze istriane* before Pula, that is from 25 September until 21 October). And what would be your most reasonable conditions? Alternatively, I would also be prepared to do this on a percentage basis". It was understood that Braida would bring the whole company of artists, complete with the music, scenery, costumes and properties, while the theatre management would have to provide an orchestra of "at least 44 good players" (*minima di 44 suonatori buoni*), a chorus of 20 male and 10 female singers, "and all the rest" (*e poi tutto il resto*).63

Anyone who had already secured a few performances in Zadar, would then aim to go down the coast at least as far as Šibenik or Split. Te impresario Domenico Valenti, who

Theatre network of the eastern Adriatic

<sup>61</sup> On the subject even the director of the Teatro Mazzoleni in Šibenik gave the following advice: "I suggest that if you should ever find yourself with your company in a city of Istria or Dalmatia you could negotiate for a run of performances also at Šibenik, whereas it wouldn't be worth your while to come all that distance just for this city." ("Le partecipo che qualora Ella si trovasse con la sua compagnia in una città d'Istria o Dalmazia si potrebbe trattare per un debutto anche a Sebenico, mentre non potrebbe convenirLe di venire da tanta distanza esclusivamente per questa città."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Pietro Tosti, Šibenik, 3.10.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>62</sup> See Rodolfo Kraus, *Grandezza e decadenza di un teatro scomparso*, Società Editrice Mutilati e Combattenti, Trieste 1931, p. 77.

<sup>63</sup> "io sarei disposto di dare dopo di Pola 10 recite nel loro teatro, dell'opera Nozze Istriane, per un tanto prego alla loro correntezza di volermi informare se loro sarebbero disposti di cedermi il teatro per 13 dicembre a. c. (oppure sarei disposto di dare le Nozze Istriane prima di Pola cioè il 25 settembre sino il 21 ottobre) e quali sarebbero le loro più miti pretese, oppure io anche sarei disposto di fare questa combinazione a percentuale."); Letter from Umberto Braida to the theatre management of Zadar, Pula [1914], HR-DAZD, folder 12.

was working in Zadar in 1896, made no mystery of his desire to conclude his season at the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, and he was assisted in this scheme by the agent Enrico Viscardi, who was working at the theatre in Zadar. Viscardi, who was in regular contact with Doimo Miagostovich, one of the directors of the Teatro Mazzoleni, often proposed opera productions at Šibenik and was also keen to have an exclusive rapport: "For your information, a word of advice," he wrote to Miagostovich: "do not accept proposals that don't come from Zadar. Because the proposals I can make all originate from there already being an agreement with Zadar, hence a production that one can know about and without [*illegible*] because [the distance] from Zadar to Šibenik is negligible and I will ofer you everything that comes my way in Zadar".64 What is again implied here, therefore, is that the production would move southwards, with complete cast, scenery and equipment.

Te idea of "concluding the season" at a theatre further south or of "fnishing the month" also transpires from the words of the agent Enrico Gallina. When he also wrote to the theatre in Zadar, stressing that the opportunity had arisen to give the theatre management full satisfaction, he did so in the following terms: "After the Guerra company I may (I repeat, may) be able to induce the Caimini-Zoncada company to accept 20 performances, that is to say from the 5th through to the 24th of May. If your management could come to an agreement with Karaman of Split (to whom I shall write), one could also do 15 performances in Zadar and the other 12 to fnish the month in Split. What is needed, however, is a good percentage and a reasonable assurance".65 Te city of Split frequently received proposals to host opera productions that had been rehearsed and staged at the theatres further north. In his negotiations with the theatre in Split conducted by telegram, Giuseppe Ullmann wrote: "With Zadar now settled, would you grant [the] theatre [for] two performances of *Barbiere*?"66 Annibale Cicognani of Milan, who in 1893 had undertaken to ofer productions of *L'ebrea* and *Don Sebastiano* at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, proposed the very same operas to the management in Split, also adding *Cavalleria rusticana*. If the management should accept, he would send his partner Christofdis to Split to negotiate

<sup>64</sup> "Per sua norma, un consiglio, non accetti proposte che non partono da Zara. Perché le proposte che le posso fare io partono tutte dall'aver già combinato Zara quindi spettacolo che si può conoscere e senza […] perché da Zara a Sebenico son miserie ed io tutto quello che mi capita a Zara lo propongo"; Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Doimo Miagostovich, [Zadar], 20.12.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>65</sup> "Dopo la compagnia Guerra potrei (dico forse) indurre la compagnia Caimini-Zoncada ad accettare 20 rappresentazioni e precisamente dal 5 a tutto il 24 maggio. Se la direzione potesse mettersi d'accordo col Karaman di Spalato (al quale scriverò) si potrebbe anche fare 15 recite a Zara e le altre 12 per finire il mese a Spalato. Occorre però una buona percentuale e una modesta assicurazione."; Letter from Enrico Gallina to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 7. 2.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>66</sup> "Avendo stabilito Zara vorreste accordare teatro due rappresentazioni di Barbiere?"; Telegram from Giuseppe Ullmann to the theatre management of Split, [n.p.], 26. 6.1894. HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

in person.67 Te Camber impresa was also happy to bring to Zadar and Split everything staged at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka in the spring season of 1894.68 And fnally, Alberto Vernier wrote to the theatre management in Split from Pula as follows: "I convey to this honourable management the list of a magnifcent *spettacolo lirico danzante* that is at present being performed at this Politeama and will be in Zadar in October, and could come to Split in November [as it is] booked for the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka in December".69

In most cases the journey was from north to south and not the reverse, or at least this is what the surviving documentions suggest. A company's tour could set of from Trieste, pass through Pula, Rijeka, Zadar and Dubrovnik, and end up back in Gorizia and Udine. Not necessarily all the theatres were visited in geographical order. In 1900, for example, the Francioli opera company70 travelled from the Teatro Minerva of Udine to Pula, and from there made its way to Split (skipping the theatres of Zadar and Šibenik) before crossing to Ancona by steamer.71

For many impresarios, however, the objective of grouping together a series of theatres remained wishful thinking, for if we check their actual movements along the coast (see above, section 2.4. *Census of the impresarios and agents in the eastern Adriatic*), we note that only a small number succeeded in winning contracts at other theatres as well. On average the cost of these tours for the impresario was greater than that for companies working on the Italian mainland. And if we also bear in mind that it was often impossible to raise the price of admission to the theatre, these journeys represented a risk in any case: the advantages were not proportionate to the risk of damages. Te many costs shouldered by an impresario (or by a theatre management itself when it acted as an impresa) could have been reduced if there had been a close network between the theatres. Tat such cooperation was sorely needed already in 1870 is attested by these lines sent to Mazzoleni by the singer Antonio Feoli:

I will begin by informing you that at present I still fnd myself confused concerning the autumn entertainment, while the theatre management of Zadar, being very meticulous and slow in making up its mind, obstructs every other operation, and we will always go from bad

<sup>67</sup> See Letter from Annibale Cicognani to the municipality of Split, Spezia 12.5.1893. HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>68</sup> See Letter from Camber & C. to the municipality of Split, [n.p.], 18. 4.1894, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII, and Letter from Camber & C. to the theatre management of Zadar, [n. p.], 18. 4.1894, HR-DAZD, folder 8.

<sup>69</sup> "Rimetto a quest'onorevole direzione l'elenco di un grandioso spettacolo lirico danzante che agisce attualmente a questo Politeama e che sarà l'ottobre a Zara, e potrebbe venire il novembre a Spalato [*perché è*] scritturato per il dicembre al teatro comunale di Fiume."; Letter from Alberto Vernier to the theatre management of Split, Pula, 13. 9.1894, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>70</sup> The name is given in the documents as Francioli, Franciuoli or Franciolli.

<sup>71</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 25.11.1900.

to worse, as long as unity is lacking between the various presidencies of the theatres. Never, no never, will any good come out of it; and by always leaving things to the last minute we'll have to pay for rotten merchandise instead of good, and cast more and more discredit on poor Dalmatia. 'Unity makes strength' [they say], yet we are disunited. All the worse for us. […] And these games played by the theatre companies will happen frequently if the various theatre managements of Dalmatia won't come to an agreement.72

Te problem evidently persisted, however, if some forty years later the theatre management of Šibenik wrote to the Teatro Bonetti of Mali Losinj as follows: "It would be desirable to have an agreement between our theatres also in the future, because in that way we could have good productions more easily".73

In 1884 an attempt had been made by Pietro Ciscutti to create a network between the theatres of Pula, Rijeka and Zadar over the organisation of opera productions. Ciscutti was a blacksmith who came from the Veneto and, it would appear, scantly educated but full of resources.74 As he wrote to the management of Zadar four years after the founding of his Politeama (in his Italian which was grammatically fawed but decisive in tone), "Te proposals that are made to us, we would make them to you as well, and vice versa; in your correspondence you could say 'after Zadar you could add in Pula', and in that way the huge expenses for travel and transportation would be reduced".75 Ciscutti, who professed to be almost certain of winning the contract to inaugurate the theatre in Rijeka in 1885, was convinced that

<sup>72</sup> "Comincerò col significarle, che attualmente ancor'io mi trovo imbrogliato circa il trattenimento autunnale, mentre la Direzione teatrale di Zara essendo assai mitticolosa [*sic*] e tarda nel risolversi inceppa ogni altra operazione, e sempre andremo di male in peggio, mentre mancando l'unione fra i vari corpi Presidenziali dei Teatri, mai e poi mai avremo alcunchè di buono e sempre riducendoci agli ultimi momenti dovremo pagare per buona, mercanzia avariata, e screditare sempre più la povera Dalmazia. 'L'unione forma la forza' e noi siamo disuniti. Dunque peggio per noi. […] E questi giuochetti di compagnie accadranno spesso se le varie direzioni teatrali della Dalmazia non si porranno d'accordo."; Letter from Antonio Feoli to Paolo Mazzoleni, Split, 6.10.1870, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>73</sup> "Sarebbe desiderabile anche per l'avvenire un'intesa tra i nostri teatri perché in tal modo si potrebbero avere più facilmente buoni spettacoli."; Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to the Teatro Bonetti of Mali Losinj, Šibenik, 2. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>74</sup> Ciscutti began his career buying land and building houses. First he built a theatre of modest dimensions in Pula, on land where the Augustinian convent once stood, then built a bigger one in the neighbourhood of Port'Aurea: the one later named after him as the Politeama Ciscutti; see Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 6. Ciscutti was also an impresario at the Teatro Rossetti in Trieste and the agency associated with the newspaper *L'Arte* of Trieste used him to engage singers; see "Confidenze di casa", *L'Eco di Pola*, 7. 7.1888.

<sup>75</sup> "Le proposte che verrebbero fatte a noi, noi le faressimo anche a loro, così a viceversa loro nel carteggio potrebbero dire, dopo Zara, potreste combinare Pola che allora le immense spese di viaggio e trasporti sarebbero diminuite."; Letter from Pietro Ciscutti to the theatre management of Zadar, Pula, 3.5.1884, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

a Rijeka-Zadar-Pola agreement could be a way of guaranteeing excellent productions. Tere would be no new stagings and the rehearsals would be faster. Te impresa would transport "staf and props" (*personale e mobiliare*) just as they were from one theatre to the next. To a great extent the idea was approved by the theatre management of Zadar. And a frst practical testing of the scheme was attempted with the Meridionale operetta company, which was due to stop of in Pula in October 1884 and then move to Zadar in November for the reopening of the theatre (which had been temporarily closed on the orders of the minister: changes were being made to the structure and furnishings as a fre precaution).76 Both Dubrovnik and Šibenik subsequently also agreed to the idea of creating a network.77 Ciscutti had often pointed out the difculties many impresarios had in coming to Pula for a "run of performances",78 difculties that would be alleviated if those companies could work in more than one theatre. Tere would be real savings in travel and transportation. Tis point was also stressed by Alberto Vernier – whose decisions and achievements were, among other things, respected and supported in the pages of certain local newspapers – to one of the directors of the theatre of Zadar, when he ofered his services "to try and see if it will be possible to connect any of the initiatives of Rijeka and Trieste with Zadar and Pula, as I have also been charged to do by C. [*sic*] and Ciscutti."79 "My position as a director of this Politeama", Vernier emphasised, "and not as a theatrical agent, prompts me to attempt this business cooperation; so you may rest assured that in this project I merely have a few expenses and many annoyances".80

<sup>76</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Francesco Lucerna, Zadar, 28.7.1884, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>77</sup> Alberto Venier, Ciscutti's administrator, was to write to the theatre management of Zadar: "[…] I have the honour of informing you that at the same time as your letter […] I received one from Dubrovnik and another from Šibenik, which concur with my offer and agree to link together the seasons of the said theatres." ("[…] ho l'onore di comunicare loro che contemporaneamente alla loro lettera […] ne ho ricevuta una da Ragusa ed altra da Sebenico, che convengono nella mia offerta e che approvano di legare assieme gli spettacoli per i succitati teatri."); Letter from Alberto Venier to the theatre management of Zadar, Pula, 2. 8.1884, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>78</sup> By "*corso di recite*" what is meant here is a series of between 20 and 24 nights.

<sup>79</sup> "onde tentare se sarà possibile di collegare alcuna delle speculazioni di Fiume e Trieste con Zara e Pola avendo avuto incarico di ciò anche dal C. e Ciscutti"; and subsequently in the same letter he added: "From October through to 20 December of this year we have an obligation here to give 40 performances with 3 different types of theatre, i.e. 14 [nights] of spoken theatre, 12 of operetta and 14 of opera seria, As of now I ask you if you might consider [*illegible*] in the contracting of any of these three types or even of all three if you think it easy to arrange." ("Dall'ottobre a tutto il 20 dicembre anno c. qui noi abbiamo l'obbligo di dare 40 rappresentazioni con 3 generi diversi di spettacolo, cioè 14 [serate] di prosa, 12 di operette e 14 di opera seria, fin d'ora le propongo se credono di a[…]dire alla scritturazione di qualcuno di questi tre spettacoli, ed anche di tutti e tre se credono cosa assai facile a combinarsi."); Letter from Alberto Vernier to Giuseppe Perlini, Rijeka, 3. 6.1887, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>80</sup> "La mia posizione come direttore di questo Politeama mi spinge a tentare questa cooperazione negli affari, non già come agente teatrale; per cui si persuadano che io in questo progetto non ho che qual-

Te death of Ciscutti in 1890, however, probably put an end to this project. Moreover, it is worth noting that Split is never mentioned in this discussion, most likely owing to the closure of its theatre after the fre it sufered. But in any case, even if Ciscutti had lived longer, a collaboration with Split would have been difcult after the opening of the new theatre in 1893, for the city had begun to stage operas in Croatian as well, following a specifc political agenda: a development that would have made it more difcult for travelling companies performing Italian opera to visit that particular venue.

che spesa e molti disturbi."; Letter from Alberto Vernier to the theatre management of Zadar, Pula, 13. 8.1884, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

### **4 Choosing the impresario**

#### 4.1 The contract

After the theatre management had chosen the impresario to run the season, the next step was to draw up the contract (*contratto d'appalto*). Te contract could be drawn up either between the theatre management and the impresario or between the theatre management and an agent acting for the impresario. Until there were signatures on the contract, whatever had been decided by correspondence (or even in person) remained at the stage of negotiation – albeit an advanced stage of negotiation.1 Like the tender specifcations, the contract could also be extremely variable in the quantity of its contents. Moreover, the contract did not necessarily reproduce the previously published specifcations in every detail, for amendments could be introduced during the drafting. One example concerned the size of the orchestra and chorus: as a rule, the tender specifcations called for a larger number of players and choristers than that subsequently defned in the contract. Another point that could be modifed concerned the way the expenses were shared between the impresario and the theatre management. Te contract had to be signed in front of two witnesses.

Choosing the impresario

The contract

Tirty-six contracts (including preliminary agreements and drafts) have been discovered relating to the running of opera seasons in the coastal area in the period considered. Tey are listed here in chronological order.


<sup>1</sup> The agent Enrico Viscardi often liked to point this out: "Concerning your advice not to take on definitive commitments, rest assured, for working as I do as an agent, by very habit every proposal made or received always remains at the stage of negotiation and cannot assume the character of an accomplished fact until the time when the contract is not only authorised, but also signed." ("Riguardo alla sua raccomandazione di non assumere definitivi impegni si tranquillizzi pure, che agendo io come agente, per consuetudine stessa, ogni proposta fatta o ricevuta si ferma sempre allo stato di trattative e non può assumere carattere di fatto compiuto, se non quando sia, non solo autorizzato, ma ben anco firmato il contratto."); Letter from Enrico Viscardi to the theatre management of Šibenik, Zadar, n. d., HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.


<sup>2</sup> This contract is not among the archival documents, but is mentioned in the Register of documents (*Protocollo degli esibiti*) (1885–1910), Rijeka, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>3</sup> Only the draft copy of the contract survives.

<sup>4</sup> Contract not signed by Stehle; it survives only in a copy.


In view of the number of seasons that took place in the period concerned and the number of theatres involved, the quantity of surviving contracts is meagre. All things considered, there should be over 150 contracts (this is most likely a substantial underestimate), which means we have just 24% of the expected amount (i.e. less than a quarter). Tis absence can be ascribed to various factors. Tey include the negligent preservation of the documentation on the part of the theatres at the time, or the subsequent relocations of archival materials over the course of more than a century. Further explanations are that specifc opera seasons were either run by the theatre itself (hence without an impresario) or, in the case of the smaller theatres which lacked an endowment, were assigned without a contract on a basis of trust. Tis last reason, though the least probable of the various conjectures, cannot be ruled out.

### 4.2 The licence to perform and censorship

Once the impresario had been chosen, the titles of the proposed operas decided, and the contract with the impresario signed, the theatre management applied directly to the lieutenancy of Zadar for permission to perform the works. Alternatively, the request could be The licence to perform and censorship

drawn up and presented by the impresario himself. Te law was clear on this point: according to the *Regolamento pei Teatri del 1850*, section 3, no theatrical production of "any name" (*qualsiasi denominazione*) could be performed for the frst time on stage without the prior permission of the lieutenant (*luogotenente*). Te performance had to be given in conformity with the permission granted and not deviate from it in any way.5

Te application was formalised in a letter using a somewhat standardised text indicating the place and the title of the production, the period in which the event was expected to begin (or relevant season), and a request for the return of the librettos that had passed censorship. At the start of the 20th century the application was accompanied by a tax stamp (*bollo*) of 2 crowns, in addition to which another stamp of the same value had to be included that would (subsequently) be attached to the licence. In some cases the application was drawn up by the theatre management and only signed by the impresario, who nonetheless handled the matter of paying for the stamp.6 In others the theatre management dealt with everything. An example of the latter is the application made by the management of the Teatro Mazzoleni for performances of *La traviata* and *Il trovatore* in 1909:

Te undersigned hereby requests the Excellent Imperial-Royal Liutenancy to grant the licence to give certain performances of the operas "Traviata" and "Trovatore" in the Teatro Mazzoleni, and at the same time submits the librettos of the said operas for the approval of the theatrical censorship. Te production will be staged by the theatre management and will begin in the frst half of forthcoming April. Te undersigned begs this Excellent Authority to return the librettos as soon as possible and to send back the respective licence through this Illustrious Imperial-Royal District Captaincy.7

<sup>5</sup> Concerning the works to be performed, sections 3 and 4 of the *Regolamento sui teatri del 25 novembre 1850 n. 454* established that they must be made available for censorship; see the *Bollettino generale delle leggi e degli atti del governo per l'Impero d'Austria*, anno 1850, parte quarta, Wien, 1850, pp. 1977–1978.

<sup>6</sup> See the preparation for *Sonnambula* and *Rigoletto* at Šibenik in 1911. The theatre management wrote to the impresario Giuseppe Ponzio: "I am sending you an application for the lieutenancy. You have nothing else to do but sign it and add a stamp for 4 crowns and two librettos of the operas you intend to give […]. Send the application by registered post to the lieutenancy; the stamp must not be affixed to the application, but inserted in the little envelope attached. The address is the following: Eccelsa I.R. Luogotenenza Dalmata Zara Dalmazia." ("Le mando una domanda per la Luogotenenza, Lei non ha che da firmarla, unire un bollo da 4 corone e due libretti delle opere che intende di dare […]. Spedisca raccomandata la domanda per la Luogotenenza, il bollo non sia applicato alla domanda, bensì unito nella piccola busta inchiusa. L'indirizzo è questo: Eccelsa I.R. Luogotenenza Dalmata Zara Dalmazia."); Šibenik, 31.3.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>7</sup> "La sottoscritta fa domanda ad Essa Eccelsa I.R. Luogotenenza di voler concedere la licenza di dare in questo teatro Mazzoleni alcune rappresentazioni delle opere 'Traviata' e 'Trovatore', e rimette nello stesso tempo i libretti di dette opere per il visto della censura teatrale. Lo spettacolo verrà allestito in regia della direzione teatrale, e incomincerà nella prima metà del prossimo aprile. La sottoscritta prega

If the licence was approved, the director, every member of the company and all the staf involved in the production would have to strictly comply with the existing rules on matters relating to policing and safety in theatres. Te provisions concerning taxation and donations to public charities would also have to be respected.8 So once the Teatro Mazzoleni received a positive answer from the censors, it then applied to the city council to be assigned a police commissioner and public safety guards – usually two or three in number. It also asked for the municipal aqueduct to be supplied with water in compliance with the fre regulations. Te impresa then had to pay 4 crowns to the Captaincy (*Capitanato*) for each performance: sums that were assigned to the police ofcer in charge of surveillance during the performances.9 At Šibenik, given that the seasons were not always run by an impresario, the police commissioner and guards could be paid directly by the director of the theatre.10 In purely practical terms the payment was sometimes actually carried out by the theatre's custodian Rocco Scotton.11 Te police commissioner and guards could also be engaged in surveillance at carnival dances (*veglioni*) as well as the opera season. Te expense of this type of staf was considered excessive by Paolo Mazzoleni, who duly made a complaint about the matter in a letter to the municipal government of Šibenik. Te actual costs were directly

8 In accordance with the government notification of 9 October 1845 no. 21613.

codesta Eccelsa Autorità di voler restituire quanto prima i libretti e rimettere la relativa licenza col tramite di questo Inclito I.R. Capitanato Distrettuale."; Request for a licence to perform opera addressed to the lieutenancy of Zadar, Šibenik, 17.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>9</sup> Message from the district captaincy to the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 5. 4.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>10</sup> In the 1870s the expense for the police commissioner amounted to around 9 florins. For 1871, for example, the archives include a receipt from the then chief of police who thus declared his fee for surveillance work: "The undersigned declares that he has received from Signor Francesco Fenzi, director of the local theatre, the sum of 8.50 florins for the surveillance provided in the theatre by the police guards during seventeen evenings of opera and ballet, as well as another 50 *soldi* for the same work on the evening of the 25th of the current month at an extra performance. In total 9 florins. Tommaso Ercegh [*sic*] Chief of Police" ("Dichiara il sottoscritto di aver ricevuto dal sig. Francesco Fenzi direttore del teatro locale l'importo di fiorini 8,50 per la sorveglianza prestata in teatro dalle guardie di Polizia durante diciassette sere di rappresentazione d'opera e ballo nonché altri soldi 50 per lo stesso titolo nella sera del 25 corrente qual spetacolo [*sic*] straordinario. In tutto fiorini 9. Tommaso Ercegh Dirigente Polizia"); Receipt from Tommaso Ercegh (?), chief of police, Šibenik 29. 6.1871, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>11</sup> We deduce this from a receipt given by Scotton to the theatre management: "I the undersigned declare to have received from the Direzione of the Teatro Mazzoleni two hundred and forty-five (245) florins and this because I paid the commissioner and police guards, the lighting technician (*illuminatore*), all the attendants, the […], for the cost and making of the prompter's box and for my services as custodian during 27 performances […]" ("Dichiaro io sottoscritto di aver ricevuto dalla Direzione del Teatro Mazzoleni fiorini duecentoquarantacinque (245) e questi per aver io pagato il commissario e le guardie di polizia, l'illuminatore, gl'inservienti tutti, le […], per la spesa e fattura della cuffia del suggeritore e per le mie prestazioni come custode durante le 27 recite […]"); Šibenik, 18.5.1885. HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

fxed in Vienna, a city where the theatres enjoyed public funding, unlike certain theatres in Dalmatia, which had much greater difculty in coping with the expense.12

12 In response to a letter from the municipality of Šibenik, Paolo Mazzoleni observed: "1. That the Imperial-Royal police department in Vienna could very easily have fixed the duties of its own police commissioners and guards in charge of the surveillance of public spectacles even at a much higher price, given that they are theatres that have government subsidies and whose abundant takings reach the substantial sum of several thousands of florins nightly 2. That for the theatres of Zadar and Split the price fixed by their municipalities for police surveillance cannot be considered onerous, since, in addition to the admission price, which is higher than that of our theatre, and certain revenues that we lack, as well as the fact that the income at carnival dances (*veglioni*) almost always exceeds the very respectable figure of 1,000 florins – whereas here, including the sale of boxes, it is never more than 200 florins even at the best *veglioni* –, they also have an annual subsidy from their respective municipalities, which, recognising how much the light of civilisation comes from the theatres, consider themselves duty-bound to subsidise them, as is customary wherever the governments do not grant an endowment 3. That the theatre of Šibenik, not receiving subsidies from the government or municipality, not having its own income or the other resources of the aforementioned theatres, should in proportion, instead of paying for the police commissioner and guards according to the price fixed in Vienna and elsewhere, not even comply with the old custom. But given that, according to the regional government decree of 22 February 1867 no. 2302/233, it has been established that the tax must be paid at the customary rate of each single city, the present theatre management will not deviate in the future from what it has done hitherto. It is fitting that this Honourable Municipal Administration should know […] that great are the difficulties which the theatre management must face […] in order to hire the services of some reasonable opera company, since it cannot offer even a small endowment; that very onerous are the expenses the theatre company has incurred (expenses that it cannot repeat with any frequency); that with the increase in nightly expenses we will find ourselves in the painful need of having to keep the theatre closed; that […] an open theatre is not only a matter of moral benefit for our city, but also gives many poor families the bread to eat. The above comments will be sufficient to persuade this Honourable Municipal Administration that increasing the difficulty […] of keeping the theatre open would be like depriving oneself of both a school of civilisation and a means to obtain material advantages; and that, not trying to help the theatre (as other municipalities do) will surely not [*illegible*] to its detriment and that of the city.") ("1. Che l'i.r. Direzione di polizia in Vienna poteva benissimo fissare le competenze ai propri commissari di polizia e alle guardie per la sorveglianza ne' pubblici spettacoli anche a un prezzo maggiore di molto, trattandosi di teatri che hanno sovvenzioni governative, e i cui fortunati introiti raggiungono seralmente la cospicua somma di parecchie migliaia di fiorini 2. Che ai teatri di Zara e di Spalato non può riescire oneroso il prezzo fissato da quei comuni per la sorveglianza di polizia, poiché, oltre il prezzo d'ingresso maggiore a quello del teatro nostro, oltre alcuni redditi che a noi mancano, oltrechè l'introito né veglioni passa quasi sempre la cifra rispettabilissima di fiorini 1.000 – mentre qua nei migliori veglioni, compresa la vendita de' palchi, non si oltrepassò mai i fiorini 200 – hanno un sussidio annuo dai rispettivi comuni, i quali, conoscendo quanta luce di civiltà viene dai teatri, si credono in debito di sovvenirli, come usasi, dovunque i governi non accordano una dote 3. che il teatro di Sebenico, non ricevendo sussidi dal governo e dal comune, né avendo redditi propri, né altre risorse dei nominati teatri, dovrebbe in proporzione, anziché corrispondere al commissario e alle guardie di polizia sulla base del prezzo fissato a Vienna e altrove, neppure attenersi alla vecchia consuetudine. Ma giacchè col deliberato Luogotenenziale 22 febbraio 1867 n. 2302/233 venne stabilito competere una tassa nella *misura di consuetudine* 

Once granted, the licence applied to all the other theatres of the "dominion", so there was no need to ask for a new licence if the production moved to another venue: hence a licence for librettos obtained in Zadar was valid also in Šibenik and Split,13 but not, however, in Istria or Trieste, even though they were (respectively) an Austrian province and city. In Rijeka, on the other hand, the permission to begin performances in 1916 was granted directly by the civil magistrate.14 Judging from what the director of the Teatro Mazzoleni writes, the authorities in Dalmatia would seem to have been quite strict.15 Without the licence to perform, any performances programmed would be cancelled. Te district captain also pointed out that the licence could be withdrawn if there were demonstrations of any kind in the course of performances that might compromise the public order and disturb the enjoyment of the spectators. Te authority in charge of public safety was authorised to intervene not only during the performances but also at the dress rehearsals, in time to make any necessary comments on the staging, costumes or even the music itself. For this reason the mayor (*podestà*) was duly informed of when these rehearsals would take place. Rejecting a licence could also be warranted, for example, by the choice of an inappropriate day to start a particular season, such as when the Magnani company declared its intention to begin its run of performances on the evening of Holy Saturday. In this case the lieutenant made it known that by doing so they would introduce a novelty (*innovazione*) that would ofend the religious sensibilities of the population.16 In other cases, the licence could be denied simply because the text of a libretto was not approved.

*d'ogni singolo paese*, la Direzione teatrale non si allontanerà in avvenire da quanto in proposito fece fin qui. Giova che questa Spettabile Amministrazione Comunale […] che sono grandi le difficoltà a cui la sottoscritta va incontro […] accaparrarsi qualche discreta compagnia, non potendo offrire neppure una piccola dote; che sono fortissimi i dispendi ai quali si è sobbarcata la società del teatro, dispendi che non possono rinnovare di frequente; che coll'accrescere le spese serali saremo nella dolorosa necessità di tener chiuso il teatro; che […] il teatro aperto è non solo di giovamento morale al paese nostro, ma dà pane a parecchie famiglie povere. Le suaccennate osservazioni basteranno a persuadere questa Spettabile Amministrazione Comunale, che accrescere le difficoltà […] che il teatro sia aperto sarebbe togliersi una scuola di civiltà, un mezzo di materiali vantaggi; onde, non potendo aiutare il teatro, come fanno altrove i Comuni, non vorrà certo co[…]rare e al suo danno e a quello del paese."; Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to the municipal government of Šibenik, Šibenik, 14. 4.1872, HR-DAŠI-Općina Šibenik 1972, BR. 306.

<sup>13</sup> Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to Augusto Girardi, Šibenik, 3.10.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>14</sup> Letter from the *podestà* of Rijeka to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 25. 4.1916, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>15</sup> Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to Cesare Matucci, Šibenik, n.d., HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>16</sup> Letter from the Dalmatian lieutenancy to the Teatro Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, 4. 4.1912, HR-DAZD, folder 22. In actual fact the impresario Francesco Calcagno, who ran an Italian company of comic opera and operetta, had also asked Zadar in 1908 to begin the season on the day of Holy Saturday, as (he

How did the Austro-Hungarian administration proceed in its acts of censorship? In the latter half of the 19th century the ofce of lieutenant censor (*luogotenente censore*) was held by the lieutenant of Dalmatia, in other words Lazar Mamula.17 Mamula would return the librettos to the chief of police – in this case, Giuseppe Gariup in Zadar18 – together with the licence to perform and any necessary changes, along with an additional clause such as "respect the corrections" (*osservate le correzioni*). Furnished with this "permission clause" (*clausola di permesso*), the librettos would then be returned to the impresarios – or troupe leaders (*capocomici*), in the case of spoken theatre. From the extant licences of the age – documents noted for their standardised language and formulas – we can deduce that the censuring authority gave at least fve diferent types of response: "without restrictions" (*senza restrizioni*), "observe the corrections" (*osservate le correzioni*), "omitting the deletions" (*omesso il cancellato*), "observe the corrections and omitting the deletions" (*osservate le correzioni ed omesso il cancellato*), and simply "not permitted" (*non si permette*). Some librettos, if rejected, were banned for the whole province. A rejected libretto could, however, after a certain period of time, reapply for a licence. For example, Verdi's *I lombardi alla prima crociata* was prohibited until 1848 by the censors of Zadar, only to be rehabilitated in 1854.19

To get an example of how the censors worked on the librettos, we can look at an instance of censorship in *I masnadieri*, in which specifc changes to the text were indicated. In Act Two, Scene 1, the lieutenant censor decreed that instead of the lines for the chorus "*La fossa, la croce / Ne manda un avviso: / La vita è veloce / T'afretta a goder / Lasciamo i lamenti / Di stupido rito*", the following should be inserted: "*La fossa vorace / Ne manda un avviso / La vita è fugace / T'afretta a goder / Lasciamo i lamenti / Di lugubre rito*". Further on, two lines from Scene 7 were changed from "*Trionfar d'una schiava ciurmaglia / Ne farà disperato* 

wrote) it was the "custom everywhere" (*consuetudine dappertutto*) for inaugurating the Spring season; Letter from Francesco Calcagno to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 4. 4.1908, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>17</sup> Lazar Mamula, the governor of Dalmatia, was an Austro-Hungarian baron and general. See Peter Broucek, "Mamula Lazarus Frh. von", in *Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950* (ÖBL), vol. VI, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 1975, p. 45.

<sup>18</sup> Gariup, who had previously been superior commissioner of police in Ljubljana, was appointed chief of police in Zadar in 1853; *Il Corriere Italiano*, anno IV, no. 55, 9.3.1853.

<sup>19</sup> Gastone Coen, *C'era una volta una ducal città*, Comunità degli italiani di Zadar, [Zadar] 2008, p. 64. The archival collection relating to the Teatro Nobile of Zadar preseves an approval of *I lombardi* dated 23.12.1854. In the same month and in the previous one, both *Lucia di Lammermoor* and *Il nuovo Figaro*  were also authorised. In the following year the operas passing censorship included *Poliuto*, *Belisario*, *Il trovatore*, *Roberto Devereux*, *Ernani*, *La Cenerentola* and *Il ritorno di Columella da Padova.* Some lines from *Marino Faliero* were omitted and replaced with others, hence "*omesso il cancellato*"; *Il birraio di Preston* was given approval with an "*osservate le correzioni*"; and *Crispino e la Comare* was a case of "*osservate le correzioni ed omesso il cancellato*".

*valor*" into "*Non temiam l'ineguale battaglia! / Il trionfo sia premio al valor*".20 Te reference to the cross (*croce*) in the frst instance was evidently considered inappropriate. In general, over-explicit references to religion or words such as "church" (*chiesa*) or "God" (*Dio*) were replaced with vaguer terminology, even if the original words were neither used in any derogatory sense nor associated with anything unftting.21 As for the words "*stupido*", "*ciurmaglia*" (rif-raf) and "*disperato*" they were evidently viewed as 'sensitive'. Tis was six years after the London premiere of the opera and before the frst performance at La Scala in Milan on 20 September 1853. We do not know if it was Mamula himself who made these changes, or whether he had someone else working on the texts. If the latter, what is certain is that the person concerned remained consistently anonymous in the correspondences. We are therefore in no position to say whether the changes stemmed from personal considerations or the instructions of superior authorities.

What is also true is that the meaning and efect of certain words could change over the years. Among Verdi's operas, *Ernani* also encountered difculties, though more often this happened after the end of the performance. In 1903, following the frst performance of the opera at the Teatro Comunale in Trieste, the Austrian authorities denied permission for further performances citing the vague motivation of the "order and safety of the people in the theatre" (*ordine e sicurezza delle persone in teatro*).22 If one were to explore the question in greater depth, it would be interesting to try and make a comparison with how censorship

<sup>20</sup> The document was signed by Lazar Mamula after the typical expression "The librettos are hereby returned" (*Si revertono i libretti*) and the date 11.1.1853. On the censorship of *I masnadieri*, see also Roberta Montemorra Marvin, "The censorship of 'I Masnadieri' in Italy'", *Verdi Newsletter*, XXI (1993), pp. 5*–*15 and Roberta Montemorra Marvin, "The censorship of 'I Masnadieri' in London'"*, Verdi Newsletter*, XXV (1998), pp. 20–23. We can also compare the Austro-Hungarian censorship of Verdi's operas with models of censorship applied in Rome before the Unification of Italy. On the subject, see the studies by Andreas Giger, "Social Control and the Censorship of Giuseppe Verdi's Operas in Rome (1844–1859)", *Cambridge Opera Journal* XI/3 Nov. (1999), pp. 233*–*65, or Linda Fairtile, "Censorship in Verdi's 'Attila': two case-studies", *Verdi Newsletter*, XXIV (1997), pp. 5*–*7.

<sup>21</sup> On this subject, see Michael Walter in the chapter "Zensur" in *Oper. Geschichte einer Institution*, Metzler, Stuttgart 2016, p. 266: "The following words, especially in Italy and the Habsburg Monarchy, were automatically subject to censorship in a libretto, out of consideration for the church: *Dio* ("God") thus became *cielo* ("skies") or *nume* ("deity"), *angeli* ("angels") became *celesti* ("the heavenly ones"), *chiesa* ("church") became *tempio* ("temple")." ("Es gab vor allem in Italien und in der Habsburgermonarchie Begriffe, die in einem Libretto aus Rücksicht auf die Kirche automatisch der Zensur zum Opfer fielen: "Dio" ("Gott") wurde so zu "cielo" ("Himmel") oder "nume" ("Gottheit"), "angeli" ("Engel") zu "celesti" ("die Himmlischen"), "chiesa" ("Kirche") zu "tempio" ("Tempel"). On this subject see also, by the same author, the more recent "Zensur und Political Correctness auf der Opernbühne", *LiTheS*, XIII/16 (2020), pp. 58*–*74.

<sup>22</sup> See Paolo Quazzolo, "L'impresariato teatrale: Rodolfo Ullmann e il Teatro filodrammatico", in *Shalom Trieste: gli itinerari dell'ebraismo*, edited by Adriano Dugulin, Civici Musei Storia ed Arte, Trieste 1998, p. 236.

was applied in other types of city in mainland Italy and understand the diferences; in other words, to establish whether or not the lieutenancy of Dalmatia, in comparison with other environments, was particularly restrictive, and if so about what. In Dalmatia the lieutenancy had control over all the theatres, whereas in the newly-formed Italy, after Law no. 1630 was passed in 1864, censorship was to become – at least theoretically – more a matter of bureaucratic procedure.23

After the librettos had been examined, the two copies submitted for censorship were returned. How long before the performance, one might ask, were the librettos sent back? Much, of course, depended also on how prompt the impresario was in presenting them in the frst place. At times the timing was very tight. An extreme case is related in a letter from the impresario Josip Karaman in Split to the management of the Teatro Verdi in Zadar. In Split the impresario Lombardo was due to stage a performance of operetta on 5 March 1909, but three days earlier the librettos still hadn't been submitted for censorship. So Karaman asked Demetrio de Medovich, director of the theatre of Zadar, for a particular favour: that of taking the librettos to the lieutenancy in person, with an appeal for the matter to be dealt with immediately, for Lombardo would be in Zadar on 3 March to collect them. At times the return of the librettos could take place even one or two days before the frst performance; in very extreme cases on the morning of the day itself.

Te practice of censorship certainly continued in the area at least until 1919. Te man now signing the censorship licences, in place of Baron Mamula, was Pietro Kasandrić, a Dalmatian bilingual poet and historian of journalism.24 But in the years around the end of the First World War the documented cases did not directly concern opera, but variety entertainment, a genre that had become increasingly consolidated. Te censors complained of "obscene songs" (*canzonette oscene*) that caricatured "personalities and events of political and military life" (*personalità ed avvenimenti della vita politica e militare*).25 In November 1919 the comedian Bianchi was issued with a fne of 100 crowns directly by Maggiore Gracco Golini at the territorial garrison in Šibenik. Te artist in question had used inappropriate language, mocked the very institution of censorship, and announced the performance of a play whose text had not been submitted to the control of the censor. All of this was considered unseemly and irreverent. Also prohibited was the practice of wearing the

<sup>23</sup> See Gabriele Moroni, *La censura sulle opere di Verdi*, Createspace, [n.p.] 2015, p. 55. In accordance with royal decree (Regio Decreto 1630 of 14.1.1864) the prefects (*prefetti*) had the authority to license the performance of stage works within the confines of their respective provinces.

<sup>24</sup> Compared to Mamula, Kasandrić had perhaps a more specific training. His main area of study was Dalmatian journalism from 1848 to 1860. Among his various works, he also translated and annotated a volume of Serbian and Croatian folk songs (Istituto Veneto di arti grafiche, Venezia 1913).

<sup>25</sup> It was a certain Colonello Capone who directly asked the theatre management of Šibenik to prevent the variety troupe engaged by the theatre from performing this repertoire; Letter from Capone to the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 2. 7.1919, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

uniforms of the army or navy on stage. Te fne would have to be collected by the theatre management itself.26 A few months later another reprimand was levelled against Bianchi's company, this time against the farse *Il Callista*, which had again been staged without prior clearance from the competent ofce. Te production, which was deemed "scurrilous and vulgar" was cautioned through the theatre management of Šibenik. Te letters from the territorial garrison point out that in the event of further violations, the artists could also be expelled from the area.27


As well as the licence to perform, another document that had to be requested from the lieutenancy of Dalmatia, at least at the end of the 19th century, was a *licenza d'agilibità* or certifcate of use. Again, in the request for this document it was necessary to indicate the number of performances, the relevant time of year and the titles of the works to be staged.28 It was only thus – after obtaining both the licence to perform (following the procedures of censorship) and the certifcate of use – that one was ready to stage operas with all the necessary papers in order.

Staging opera performances was also subject to the current fre regulations, which intensifed above all after the notorious fre at Vienna's Ring Teater in 1881 and that of the Téâtre Municipal in Nice in the same year, events that drew particular attention to the question of safety in theatres. Tere were various incidents in the coastal area too, for theatres caught fre there as in other parts of Europe: the problem was indeed widespread at the time.29 Here, however, the spectre of arson also raised its head. Te Italian press attributed the events to political causes and claimed that they happened because the Italians were not welcome in the area. We have the example of the Teatro Bajamonti in Split, which was burned down in 1881, so the rumour went, by the Austrians after all the Italian schools in the city had been made to close the year before. Tese were Austrians who supported the Croatian National Party (the very next year the city would actually come under Croatian administration).30 Te theatre was depicted as a "true symbol of the irredentism of the Dalmatians, destroyed a few decades later by Austro-Croatian fre".31 Many sources, reporting public opinion,

<sup>28</sup> An example is the request made by the impresario Luigi Dessanti for the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar: "The undersigned Luigi Dessanti, resident in Zadar, who has taken on the impresa of the local Teatro Nuovo for the forthcoming opera season with a regular contract, respectfully requests this Excellent Royal Lieutenancy that a regular certificate of use be issued for it to give a run of 24 opera performances to take place in the months of April and May of the current year, with the operas Bohème and Otello, and others if the circumstances should require it […]" ("Il sottoscritto Luigi Dessanti residente in Zara; avendo con regolare contratto assunta l'impresa del locale Teatro Nuovo per l'imminente stagione lirica fa rispettosa istanza, presso questa Ecc. S.R. Luogotenenza perché gli venga rilasciata regolare licenza d'agibilità onde dare un corso di 24 rappresentazioni liriche da esperirsi nei mesi di aprile e maggio anno corrente, con le opere Bohème e Otello ed altre nel caso le circostanze lo esigessero […]"); Letter from Luigi Dessanti to the lieutenancy of Dalmatia, Zadar, 11. 4.1897, HR-DAZD-562, folder 3.

<sup>29</sup> *La Musica Popolare* even published a list of as many as 32 theatres burned down just in the year 1882; *La musica popolare*, anno II, no. 3, 18.1.1883, p. 12.

<sup>30</sup> "It's not the first time that Bajamonti says that the theatre was burned down and he repeats it every time. *It was burned down* means that it didn't just happen by accident. But who Bajamonti was, the newspapers *Il Dalmata*, *L'Avvenire* and *La Difesa* do not say" ("Che Bajamonti dica che il teatro venne incendiato non è la prima volta e ogni volta lo ripete. *Venne incendiato* significa che non si sia trattato di un puro caso. Ma chi sia stato Bajamonti, *Il Dalmata*, *L'Avvenire*, *La Difesa* non lo dicono"); see Duško Kečkemet, *Il Teatro Bajamonti*, p. 260.

<sup>31</sup> "vero simbolo dell'irredentismo dei Dalmati, distrutto alcuni decenni più tardi dal fuoco austro-croato"; Alessandro Dudan, *La Dalmazia nell'arte italiana*, Treves, Milano 1921, p. 339.

believed the event to have been intentional: "It was necessary to snatch power from the Italian Autonomist Party, and this was achieved. Te aim was to sacrifce its chief, and this was done without scruple. And along with his name it was necessary to destroy his most brilliant work, and the fre at the Teatro Bajamonti accomplished their aspiration".32 Te theatre of Šibenik, on the other hand, had already burned down twenty years earlier, and was rebuilt in 1870. In Zadar, after an attempt to burn the theatre in 1870, the theatre presidency even ofered a reward of 1,000 forins plus 2,000 lire to anyone who succeeded in discovering the culprit.33 In view of the frequency of these fres, regardless of whether or not they were started with malicious intent, on 17 January 1882 the lieutenancy of Dalmatia took the problem in hand and conducted an investigation into the theatres of the area. It recorded the following assessment of the fre precautions:

Cattaro – teatro quartieroni interdetto [interdicted] Lesina – teatro adottate misure di sicurezza [safety measures adopted] Makarska – teatro interdetto Ragusa – teatro Bonda adottate misure di sicurezza Sebenico – teatro Mazzoleni [adottate misure di sicurezza] Zara – teatro Nuovo [adottate misure di sicurezza] [Zara] – teatro Paravia (nobile) – non consta che sia stato fatto [it seems not to have been done] [Zara] – Anfteatro Manzin – non consta che sia stato fatto34

It goes without saying that a theatre pronounced as "*interdetto*" could not go ahead with any theatrical performances. Te Politeama of Pula, not mentioned in the list, complied with the new regulations in 1887: Ciscutti had external staircases built for the theatre on the orders of the municipality.35 In 1895 the district captain Rossetti, on a visit to the building, made a report on his inspection to the lieutenancy.36 Two years later he drew up a set of

<sup>32</sup> "Bisognava strappare il potere al partito autonomo-italiano, e lo si ottenne. Si voleva sagrificare il suo capo e lo si fece, senza scrupoli. Bisognava distruggere col suo nome l'opera sua più geniale; e l'incendio del Teatro Bajamonti compì il loro voto"; "Per Antonio Bajamonti", *Il Piccolo*, no. 6590, 19.1.1900.

<sup>33</sup> "A villain, who has not yet been identified, attempted to set fire to the fine Teatro Nuovo. He sneaked in and tried to start the fire in three different places, using a few bunches of matches, which he had placed near the wings of the stage and in other places. It was a miracle that his infamous plan was foiled by chance." ("Uno scellerato che non si è potuto ancora scoprire, ha tentato di dare fuoco al bellissimo teatro Nuovo. Introdottosi di soppiatto cercò di appiccare il fuoco in tre punti diversi, servendosi di alcuni gomitoli di cerini, che aveva disposti presso le quinte del palcoscenico e in altri luoghi. Fu un vero miracolo se il suo infame proposito andò sventato dal caso."); "Estero", *L'Euterpe*, anno II, no. 9, 3.3.1870, p. 7 and "Mosaico", *L'Euterpe*, anno II, no. 10, 10.3.1870, p. 7.

<sup>34</sup> Lesina. District captain, [Hvar-Lesina], 17.1.1882, HR-DAZD-562, folder 1.

<sup>35</sup> "Il binoccolo sulla città. Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 8.10.1887.

<sup>36</sup> Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, pp. 44*–*46.

theatre regulations in which he ordered all the scenery used at the Politeama Ciscutti to be coated with fre-resistant materials. Tis rule, however, was not binding in all the theatres of the coastal cities. For example, Italian companies working in Zadar, Šibenik and Split were not obliged to carry out this procedure. Some believed that adding a fre-resistant coating damaged the materials, given that the impregnated paper lost its elasticity and was liable to tear; the impresarios often complained about this.37 In 1903 a municipal delegation (*rappresentanza comunale*) from Pula drew up a petition aimed at abolishing the obligation, pointing out the various inconveniences.38 Te actual cost of coating was shouldered by the impresario running the theatre, for it was his duty to comply with all fre regulations. In Šibenik, on the other hand, it was the theatre management that made an ofcial request to the municipality directly for fremen, security guards and other personnel, and requested that the municipal acqueduct be supplied with water.39

Although eforts were made to comply with the rules, attention to the problem over the years was not always high. In 1913 in Zadar the ofcers of the inspection police heard various complaints from the fremen engaged in the surveillance of the theatre: the fre hoses were allegedly in a poor state, showing signs of rotting, and certain hosepipes were apparently unusable. It also appeared that the "Minimax" fre extinguishers in certain parts of the theatre were defective and that one of them had no water in it. All were circumstances that could have been fatal in a fre. Te management of the theatre was therefore instructed to return to a state of compliance.40

One document found in the theatre archives is the *Vorschläge des Niederösterreichischen Gewerbevereines betrefend die Sicherung von Teatern gegen Feuersgefahr* (Proposals of the Lower Austrian Trade Association concerning the safeguarding of theatres against fre hazards),41 a booklet that was evidently distributed for the beneft of theatre managements and that aimed to inform about, and promote, conformity with the regulations. Moreover, in 1907 the lieutenancy of Lower Austria, on the strength of a conclusion arrived at by the provincial theatrical committee, established that a plan of the theatre marking all the exits should be printed at the back of the programmes distributed to the public, along with short instructions on how to use them. One drawback of all these highly proper obligations, however, was that they added yet another burden on the impresarios wishing to produce opera in full respect of the rules.

<sup>37</sup> Bogneri*, Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 65.

<sup>38</sup> "Notiziario cittadino", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 28.10.1910.

<sup>39</sup> Request for the sending of security staff for the performances of the Compagnia Lirica Lillipuziana, Šibenik, 13.5.1906, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>40</sup> The same report also noted that unauthorised people were allowed access to the stage and that there was no inspection room for the police officer; Report from the police section of the district captaincy to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 8.5.1913, HR-DAZD, folder 23.

<sup>41</sup> *Vorschläge des Niederösterreichen Gewerbevereines betreffend die Sicherung von Theatern gegen Feuersgefahr,*  Verlag des Niederösterreichen Gewerbevereines, Wien 1882.

#### 4.3 The opera seasons in Pula

Regarding the situation in Pula, unfortunately no tender specifcations or contracts have survived. If we take into account the presence of external impresarios and the seasons contracted out in the city, a minimum of at least forty contracts should have been concluded during the period. We know that as well as opera seasons featuring Italian companies, the Politeama also hosted troupes of German spoken theatre and operetta. In fact the audience frequenting the theatre at the end of the 19th century – at least judging from reports in *Il Diritto Croato –* consisted largely of non-Italians. So it was mainly the "Slavs", along with the Germans, who championed and applauded the Italian artists, more indeed than the actual Italian audience that allegedly represented the "Latin heritage" (*coltura Latina*).42

In the frst ten years of its existence the Politeama ofered performances of opera less frequently than from 1890 onwards.43 Te building was inaugurated in 1881 with a performance of *Ruy Blas* and, like every self-respecting ofcial opening, among those attending were not only various dignitaries from the town, but also one of Archduke Karl Albrecht's sons in the imperial box.44 Te emperor, Franz Joseph, was also to come and visit, though only in the next year. But in choosing to make the inauguration a gala night, Ciscutti, the founder of the Politeama, made what was considered to be his frst mistake. From the contemporary reports we gather that this frst performance was inadequately prepared. Te choruses had succeeded in rehearsing just one evening. And rehearsals with the orchestra, made up entirely of musicians from the band of the Austrian navy (some of whom were completely new to opera), went "uncomfortably" (*con disagio*). "Everything conspired, therefore, to turn the frst performance into a dress rehearsal", was the assessment of a certain Minuto Secondo writing in the journal *L'Arte*. 45 Arriving at the opening night with an opera that was poorly rehearsed and patched together in a rough-and-ready manner was something that also seemed to have happened again some years later; indeed we fnd more than one such occurrence over the years. In 1900 the impresa staging a production of *Rigoletto* had its performances suspended because they failed to meet the artistic expectations of the theatre, which (it pointed out) "did not have The opera seasons in Pula

<sup>42</sup> "Il placito di Carlo Magno e i Croati nell'Istria", *Il Diritto Croato*, 24.10.1888.

<sup>43</sup> Even though there appears to be no trace of opera productions for the years 1896 and 1897, at least judging from the newspapers.

<sup>44</sup> "Teatri – Pola"*, Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, anno XXXVI, no. 40, 2.10.1881, p. 358.

<sup>45</sup> "Tutto quindi concorreva a rendere la prima recita una prova generale"; "S.M. L'imperatore Francesco Giuseppe al Ciscutti", *L'Arte*, 21. 9.1882, quoted in Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 18. The season had been organised by Francesco Razzani, who was not new to the theatre in Pula, given that four years earlier he had been engaged to stage a ballet of his own composition in the Lent season; *L'Arte*, anno VII, no. 6, 29.3.1876.

the artistic direction of the production".46 Concerning a previous *Faust*, brought there by the Barlani-Dini impresa and conducted by Giulio Buzenac – who happened to be a pupil of Ponchielli47 – the reports spoke of a work that was "barely pieced together" (*imbastito appena*), one whose "strange beauties could be appreciated" (*si potè gustare le pellegrine bellezze*) only after the fourth night. Before fnally achieving some form of artistic stability this *Faust* changed two baritones and four sopranos (for the role of Margherita), all at the public's expense. *La Favorita*, the next opera in that season, saw the replacement of two tenors and two female voices; *Carmen* that of two baritones, not to mention the baritone's part being turned into that of a bass.48 In spite of all this, the theatre was well-attended and the earnings from the season in question (1890) actually amounted to almost 19,500 forins.49 Tis was money that circulated in the town and was enjoyed by all, "from the shop-keeper to the last extra" (*dal negoziante all'ultima comparsa*). And yet, "the luxury of opera production" (*il lusso d'uno spettacolo d'opera*), when not sustained by substantial capital, was often loss-making for the organisers. For in spite of the large takings, the impresa involved sufered a heavy defcit.50

One way of economising was to make use of local resources in the productions, thereby saving on transportation costs. Tis was what was done in 1891 by the impresario Angelo Fantuzzi, who employed the manpower available in Pula and ordered the stage materials and equipment for the season directly on site. By doing this he above all hoped to win the approval of the citizenry. Unfortunately we have no information on how this particular season went. We only know that the impresario was moved "by the best intentions of pleasing the public" (*dal miglior buon volere di accontentare il pubblico*) and would have done a lot more if he had been assisted by "a greater share of the evenings' takings" (*il concorso più generoso per la cassetta*).51 After all, it was also the box-ofce receipts that enabled the impresario to cover his many expenses.

Complementing the eforts of the impresario, attempts were also made in Pula to organise opera seasons with the help of specially created citizens' committees. For example, the project for an autumn season in 1901 was to be launched if the impresa was supported by a committee working with it and guaranteeing the success of the season with strong fnancial backing. Details of the project would be decided by the committee itself. In the

<sup>46</sup> "del quale spettacolo non aveva essa la direzione artistica"; "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 28.12.1900.

<sup>47</sup> Giulio Buzenac (1858–1925) was a conductor and formerly director of the Teatro Civico and conductor of the municipal orchestra of Cagliari.

<sup>48</sup> *"*Confidenze di casa", *L'Eco di Pola*, 17.10.1890.

<sup>49</sup> To be precise, the earnings came to 19,498.74 florins over the course of forty days; "Teatralia"*, L'Eco di Pola*, 13.12.1890.

<sup>50</sup> "Teatralia"*, L'Eco di Pola*, 13.12.1890.

<sup>51</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 24.10.1891.

event, productions of *Mignon* and *Carmen* did indeed take place.52 Te intention, however, was also to stage Giovanni Rossi's *Sangre mezclada*, an opera that had never been performed (meaning that it would be a world premiere). Tis part of the project, however, had no follow-up.53 Another instance of a citizens' committee being created to organise opera regarded the staging of Antonio Smareglia's *Nozze istriane*, which was moreover a work on a local subject. "We all hope", the newspapers wrote, "that the project being aired in many circles of the city will soon enter the decision-making stage and that the said committee will be set up to realise the idea and give the score a performance of the very frst order, as both Smareglia's glory and the city's artistic aspirations demand".54 In this case the project did come to fruition in the spring of 1908: *Nozze istriane* was actually performed.

We have a third example of the citizenry possibly having to shoulder the costs in order to guarantee performances of opera: for December 1907 when both *Rigoletto* and *La favorita* were due for performance. It was reported that the negotiations would certainly be successful because the citizens themselves would pay 15 crowns a head for 10 performances.55 In this case, unfortunately, we do not know how the matter ended. All that is known is that *La favorita* was given a year later, without saying that this was also with fnancial support from the public; indeed an impresario called Pietro Pedrazzi is now mentioned as being the organiser of the season.

Among those who had difculties going to the opera there were some who notifed the newspapers, in the hope that extra performances would be organised at reduced prices. Tis certainly also happened in Pula. In September 1894 the opera and ballet company of Giovanni Ansaldo had come to town, to give a few nights of opera bufa, followed by *Pagliacci*, imported directly from the Anfteatro Fenice of Trieste with Gaetano Cimini conducting.56 Many local families, which had not been able to attend the event, contacted *L'Eco di Pola* in the hope that a fourth performance (in favour of the city's less afuent citizens) might be added.57 Popular evenings of opera, with cheaper tickets, were therefore organised.

<sup>52</sup> "Per una stagione d'opera al Politeama", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 23. 8.1901.

<sup>53</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 8. 9.1901. In fact the opera is still unknown today. Nor is it possible to have detailed information on the composer Giovanni Rossi, apart from the fact that he appears to have been an amateur musician. See Pierluigi Forcella, *Opere e operette a Bergamo: Ottocento – Novecento*, Edizioni Villadiseriane, Villa di Serio 2005, p. 50 and 178.

<sup>54</sup> "Noi facciamo voti che il progetto che viene ventilato in parecchi circoli cittadini passi ben presto nel periodo risolutivo e venga istituito il detto comitato che certo saprà concretare in forma pratica l'idea e dare allo spartito una esecuzione di primissimo ordine quale la esigono la gloria dello Smareglia e le esigenze artistiche della città."; "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 12. 4.1906.

<sup>55</sup> "L'opera", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 25.10.1907.

<sup>56</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 27.10.1894.

<sup>57</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 27.10.1894.

Te newspapers might also inform the impresario simply of the public's desire to hear a given opera again: "[…] we have received the request", the *Giornaletto di Pola* wrote, "if it would still be possible to give another performance of *Lucrezia Borgia*. We convey all these wishes to the impresa".58 Te journalist might also try to interpret popular feeling by asking the impresario directly from the pages of the newspaper for extra performances of a given opera. Te papers often made appeals to the citizenry, encouraging it to go to the theatre; and here and there one reads the occasional complaint about the low attendance at certain productions. It is also worth remembering that the cinema was emerging also in Pula in the early years of the 20th century: a phenomenon that certainly competed with evenings at the opera.

Tere was the case of Alberto Vernier, who organised the arrival of various opera companies in Pula, before leaving the position to Alessandro Bolzicco for a few years. Te impresario was publicly praised in the columns of the newspapers,59 only subsequently to be accused by *Il Piccolo della Sera* in 1896 of having pocketed the municipal subsidy (which evidently had been granted for the year in question). Vernier duly defended himself publicly from the insults and from accusations of having cheated the public, as well as from the rumour that he had been denied the subsidy for the following year:

Indeed, all the authorities without exception did nothing but encourage the owner and myself, for it is certain that without the selfessness of the former of wishing to sacrifce substantial sums to bring the theatre to the solidity of the leading [theatres] of the monarchy, and without my modest cooperation, Pula would have been left without a theatre. […] For the productions given in the two years in which I have had the privilege of running the theatre, I need merely appeal to the good memory of the public, which remembers things much better than the aforementioned journalist and knows that, for the variety, quality and quantity of the productions given, I need fear no comparison with my predecessors.

As regards *Traviata* and *Fra Diavolo* (two operas in two evenings), I merely recall that the company had just been, to great applause, at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, a theatre that

<sup>58</sup> "[…] ci perviene la domanda se fosse ancora possibile di dare ancora una rappresentazione della Lucrezia Borgia. Rivolgiamo tutti i desideri all'impresa."; "Il Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, anno II, no. 306, 11.5.1901.

<sup>59</sup> "When we think that the impresa of A. Vernier, regardless of expense and without the support of anyone, is capable of staging similar spectacles, we cannot help but feel for it that lively sense of admiration that our newspaper here expresses on behalf of the whole population." ("Quando pensiamo che l'impresa A. Vernier non badando a spese e a sacrifizi, senza l'appoggio di nessuno, è in grado di allestirci simili spettacoli, non possiamo fare a meno di provare per essa quel vivo senso di ammirazione che ora a nome di tutta la popolazione, il nostro giornale le porge."); "La compagnia Zucconi-Pilotto al nostro Politeama. Il 'Fra Diavolo', la 'Traviata'", *L'Eco di Pola*, 16.11.1895.

has ten times the resources of the theatre in Pula, and that a member of the company was Cavalier Lombardi, who now sings with such success in Trieste!60

Tat in Pula, "in spite of its 38,000 inhabitants", it had not been possible to put on productions of a certain splendour, was something well known even to "the women in the square" (*le femminette di piazza*), and was well known also to the theatre owner and the impresarios who succeeded one another over the years, given that "not even once can one succeed in not making a loss, sometimes even of conspicuous sums" (*non una sola volta si riescì a non perdere, e talvolta anco somme vistose*).61 Unfortunately this predicament seemed not to improve even with the impresario Bolzicco from Udine, who we fnd more or less permanently at the Politeama from 1901, even though he simultaneously worked at other *piazze* (like Gorizia, for example, in January 1903). One step taken to make up for the losses was that of abolishing the tickets at reduced prices for the employees and the city's companies. Naturally by taking this measure Bolzicco hardly endeared himself to the public, which had already been annoyed by another incident: at a performance of *La bohème* in 1903, his colleague Luigi Bernardi had the soprano taking the role of Mimì replaced with another novice. Tis action was considered particularly tactless towards the public, because the substitution had not been communicated with proper announcements, but simply with a handwritten notice posted in the theatre foyer.62 What was defned a "shameful opera season" (*disgraziata stagione d'opera*) at the Politeama turned out, in March 1903, to be disastrous also for the artists who found themselves stranded in Pula without the necessary means for returning home. With the intention of coming to their assistance, it was decided to give two performances of *Un ballo in maschera* for their exclusive beneft. For the occasion Bolzicco made the theatre available free of charge, Smareglia agreed to conduct the event, and the orchestra of the navy waived their earnings for the rehearsals; even the printers and the billposting company cooperated at no cost. Te public was once again invited to come to the performances in large numbers, in an attempt to save the situation.63

61 "Per la pura verità", *L'Eco di Pola*, 28.11.1896.

<sup>60</sup> "Anzi tutte le Autorità indistintamente non fecero che incoraggiare il Proprietario e me, perché è certo che senza l'abnegazione del primo di voler sagrificare una ingente somma per portare il Teatro al livello di sicurezza dei primari della Monarchia, e senza la mia modesta cooperazione, Pola sarebbe rimasta senza Teatro. […] Per le produzioni date nei due anni nei quali mi onoro di esser alla Direzione del Teatro, non ho che appellarmi alla buona memoria del Pubblico, il quale ricorda le cose molto meglio che non lo faccia il sullodato corrispondente e sa che, per varietà, qualità e quantità degli spettacoli dati, non ho a temere alcun confronto con i miei predecessori. Rispetto poi alla *Traviata* e al *Fra Diavolo* (due opere in due sere) ricordo solo che la compagnia proveniva, applauditissima, dal Comunale di Fiume, Teatro che ha decuplicate le risorse che ha questo di Pola, e che della compagnia faceva parte il cav. Lombardi che ora canta con tanto successo a Trieste!"; "Per la pura verità", *L'Eco di Pola*, 28.11.1896.

<sup>62</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 16.3.1903.

<sup>63</sup> "Due rappresentazioni al Politeama Ciscutti"*, Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 4. 4.1903.

Soon after, fresh attempts were made to organise a production of *Ernani* by entering into negotiations with the artists engaged in the opera season who had already sung in the opera at the Politeama Rossetti of Trieste. While the artists agreed, the political authorities let the impresario know that permission to produce the opera in Pula would not be given; so the project came to nothing.64 At the same time, the theatre management had initiated negotiations to stage *Aida* and *Il trovatore* in the following Lent season with both Ricordi in Milan and the Broglio theatrical agency, though they were conditional on the acceptance – by the municipality of Pula – of a request for subsidy.65 Te Comune evidently did accept, for it turns out that the season actually took place. Te same thing possibly happened two years later, when in 1906 the theatre, presented with the proposal of an opera company ofering 18 evenings, asked for, and obtained, a subsidy of 5,000 crowns from the municipal government, in addition to being exonerated from all charges and taxes for lighting and security guards.66 It is not known, however, which productions the subsidy was designed to cover: whether those of March or the following performances of opera bufa with the Compagnia lirica lillipuziana.

From this moment until the period of the First World War, two passages of the aforementioned Compagnia lirica lillipuziana are worth noting: frst in 1906, then, in the following year, when there was another 'Lilliputian' company, that of the brothers Guido and Arnaldo Billaud. In May 1907 the Billaud company gave various titles of opera bufa, diferent from those proposed by Guerra in the following October, even though the repertoires of the two companies were practically identical.

While the 'Lilliputian' companies were thus engaged, negotiations were started with a "very well-known impresa" in Milan to organise the opera season of the following year. Te idea was to stage both *Fedora* and Massenet's *Manon* or a combination of *Fedora* and *Faust*. A certain interest was also expressed for *Lohengrin* and *Otello*, though it was feared

<sup>64</sup> "L'Ernani proibito", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 30–31.5.1903. As the newspapers of the time recall, the performance of *Ernani* at Pula back in 1888 had inflamed the patriotic ardour of the audience: "[…] when at the third act the plotters intone the popular chorus *Siamo tutti una sola famiglia*, some four thousand spectators erupted into such applause that the theatre seemed about to collapse. Three times an encore was clamoured for, but seeing that the demonstration of applause was too insistent, orders were given to drop the curtain. Many went away, but many stayed. An attempt was made to continue with the fourth act, but woefully, as soon as the curtain was raised, a salvo of whistling made it drop again. To no avail! A fourth encore was wanted." ("[…] quando al terzo atto i congiurati intuonarono il popolare coro *Siamo tutti una sola famiglia*, quei quattromila spettatori proruppero in tale applauso che pareva crollasse il teatro. Per tre volte si acclamò il bis ma visto che la dimostrazione applauditiva era troppo costante si fece calar la tela. Molti se ne andarono ma molti restarono. Si tentò di proseguire col quarto atto, ma disgraziatamente appena alzato il sipario un subisso di fischi lo fece ricadere. Inutile! Si voleva il quarto bis."); "In teatro", *L'Eco di Pola*, 24.11.1888.

<sup>65</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 16.3.1903.

<sup>66</sup> "I denari dei contribuenti", *Omnibus*, 15. 2.1906.

that this might lead to "parodies" of the operas, as might well happen in other small theatres of the coastal region. In some newspapers there was talk of Massenet's *Werther* instead of *Manon*. Te performers for *Manon* would be the same as those who had given it at the Teatro Minerva of Udine shortly before: hence further confrmation of how productions from Friuli and Julian Venetia could then move to Istria or Dalmatia. In the end no opera by Massenet was given, for the choice fell on Smareglia's *Nozze istriane* mentioned above.67 To conduct the work they brought in Gialdino Gialdini, a musician of a certain stature who, before coming to Pula, had appeared at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka and before that in Trieste.68 Gialdini – who even then was better known as conductor than composer – was also invited to conduct the orchestra of the navy in *La Wally* in 1909. He evidently succeeded in enjoying a good rapport with both the owner of the Politeama and its impresarios if the following year he succeeded in having his own one-act opera *La bufera* performed in Pula*.* 69

Te seasons in which Alessandro Bolzicco played a leading role in the organisation of opera at Pula thus unfolded until we come to a performance of Strauss's operetta *Sangue viennese* (Wiener Blut) during which an irredentist demonstration took place that cost the impresario his career and even forced him to leave Pula immediately. Te ballet dancers on stage were representing "Te Great Nations", and at the entrance of the couple representing France and Italy there was apparently an outburst of clapping accompanied by "voices of approval" (*voci di plauso*) that forced the orchestra to stop playing. Te police commissioner gave orders for the audience to evacuate the theatre, but to no avail. He therefore ordered the orchestra and soldiers present to depart. Te Magnani opera company, which was performing the work, had to leave the city; and the theatre was closed.70 Te afair caused a

<sup>67</sup> "La serata a teatro", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 30.3.1908.

<sup>68</sup> He was also director of the conservatoire of Trieste until May 1915. On Gialdino Gialdini, in addition to the biographical entry devoted to him in the Dizionario Enciclopedico Universale della Musica e dei Musicisti, Le biografie, vol. III, Utet, Torino 1983, p. 188, see Annalisa Sandri, *…e Massenet disse, "Bravissimo!!". Gialdino Gialdini e il suo tempo*, Pizzicato, Udine 2001, or Albano Dini–Vivaldo Pagni, *Gialdino Gialdini. La vita-le opere*, Società Musicale Gialdini, Pescia 1995.

<sup>69</sup> On this little-known work, see Corrado Ambiveri, *Operisti minori dell'Ottocento italiano*, Gremese, Roma 1998, p. 78. The opera was given the next year at Pescia, birthplace of the composer and conductor.

<sup>70</sup> Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 117. See also "Una proibizione inaudita – Pola senza teatro", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 23. 4.1912, concerning the restrictive measures taken by the lieutenancy against performances at the Teatro Ciscutti. The population was witnessing a "*spettacolo di repressione*". In the *Giornaletto di Pola* of 24.12.1912 we read: "After the attack on our schools and after the attack even on our industrial school, because it produces Italian workers, having got rid of the municipal prerogatives and slavicised the offices, the time has now come to destroy the theatre, this training ground of our civilisation. But yes, it is said in certain circles that there is no need for Italian theatre in Pula. For those wanting entertainment there is the theatre of the Narodni Dom. That, you could say, is patriotic theatre; never mind if they also hold highly inflammatory speeches against the Hungarians …" ("Dopo la lotta alle nostre

stir also because Bolzicco, who by then was sixty-eight and had worked in Pula for sixteen years, had never provoked quarrels. Evidently the times were changing and the political friction with the Italian community was starting to be felt. Bolzicco duly tried appealing to the lieutenancy of the Littoral against the "order of eviction from the kingdoms and lands represented at the Council of the Empire".71 But whatever the outcome of his appeal, he was no longer found working in the area.

With the onset of the First World War the Italian population protested, angered because it felt excluded from the earliest performances of operetta with German companies (from 1914 onwards operetta was no longer sung in Italian in the city). Tis development, contrary to the interests of the Italian community, had already been anticipated in 1911 when an article in *La Fiamma* expressed the fear that the Politeama would be sold not to a consortium of local citizens but to a non-Italian. It speculated that the future owners might want to get rid of the theatre: "Let us imagine what will happen to this great and unique theatre of ours when it has fallen into foreign hands. Today, excepting certain brief Teutonic (or Hungarian or Japanese) parentheses, the theatre gives performances of Italian opera and theatre with Italian actors. Tomorrow we could have the surprise of seeing that Italian spectacles have become a parenthesis".72 It would therefore not be absurd to hypothesise that within a short space of time the theatre could become "a trilingual or quadrilingual institution" (*un istituto trilingue o quadrilingue*), a "new instrument for corrupting" the city's character (*nuovo* 

scuole, dopo la lotta persino alla scuola industriale, perché produce operai italiani, infrante le prerogative municipali, slavizzati gli uffici è venuta l'ora di abbattere il teatro, questa palestra della nostra civiltà. Ma già, si dice in certi circoli che a Pola non occorra il teatro italiano. Per chi vuol divertirsi v'è il teatro del Narodni Dom. Quello sì che è il teatro patriottico; non importa se anche vi tengano i discorsi più infiammati contro gli ungheresi…"); "Pola ex lege", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 24. 4.1912. On the closure of the theatre, see also "Il teatro chiuso…fino a nuovo ordine", *La Fiamma*, 27. 4.1912.

<sup>71</sup> "nozione di sfratto dai Regni e paesi rappresentati al Consiglio dell'Impero"; See Grazia Tatò, *Trieste, Gorizia e l'Unità d'Italia*, Deputazione di storia patria per la Venezia Giulia, [Trieste] 2012, p. 167.

<sup>72</sup> "Immaginiamoci che cosa accadrà di questo nostro massimo ed unico teatro quando sarà caduto in mani straniere. Oggi, salvo qualche breve parentesi teutonica (o ungherese o giapponese) vi si danno spettacoli di opera e di prosa italiani con attori italiani. Domani potremo avere la sorpresa che gli spettacoli italiani siano una parentesi." And the article went on: "And let it not be said that, as the city is Italian, no impresario will be so much at war with his own pockets as to banish from the theatre not only the Italian language but also the public. Among the most assiduously attended productions, we have seen certain German operettas that were a parody of the art. The eminent impresario Bolzicco could tell us something about this. And we ourselves have seen the flower of our intellectuals attend all such performances with edifying persistence." ("E non si dica che, essendo italiana la città, nessun impresario sarà in tanta guerra colle proprie tasche da bandire dal teatro, colla lingua italiana, anche il pubblico. Noi abbiamo veduto fra gli spettacoli più frequentati certe operette tedesche che erano una parodia dell'arte. Qualche cosa in proposito potrebbe raccontarci l'egregio impresario Bolzicco. E noi stessi abbiamo veduto il fiore dei nostri intellettuali assistere con un'assiduità edificante a tutte codeste rappresentazioni."); *La Fiamma*, anno I, no. 23, 26. 8.1911.

*strumento di corruzione*), bringing with it an increase in "the number of humiliations" one would have to put up with (*crescere per esso il numero delle vergogne*).73

In the same year an article appeared in the *Giornaletto di Pola*, protesting against the much-feared foundation of a Croatian National Teatre in Istria. Te foundation of what was to be called the "Croatian Provincial Teatre" was the idea of the administration of the theatre of Zagreb and would avail itself of repertoire, artistic staf and scenery from the Croatian capital itself.74 Te Italian community therefore felt threatened, and duly shifted the discussion to opposing the Croatian plans. Te language used was indeed tough, evoking ideas of confrontation and combat: "Tis Slavic tenacity needs to be well understood by the Italians", it warned, "who must (how and where possible) prevent and paralyse the conquering work of their national adversaries". Italian theatre, according to the writers, had no formidable competitors in any other national theatre and would surely have no reason to fear the Croatian national theatre.75

Such hostility didn't come from nowhere. A few years earlier an imposing rally was held at the Politeama Ciscutti to contest the planned institution of a Serbo-Croatian secondary school (*gymnasium*) in the eminently Italian town of 'Pisino' (today Pazin); the honourable Felice Glezer had sent a long telegram of protest to the Prime Minister in Vienna, emphasising that since the region had been occupied by the "Latin race" (*razza latina*) for thousands of years, it therefore belonged to it "by right of fact" (*per diritto di fatto*). Hence it would not be possible to surrender this territory to "other guest peoples" (*altre genti ospiti*).76 Bearing

<sup>73</sup> *La Fiamma*, anno I, no. 23, 26. 8.1911.

<sup>74</sup> The article went on to pour scorn on the role of Croatian literature and its repertoire for the theatre: "We know how little Croatian literature amounts to, in spite of all its literary ambitions, made up as it is of imitating works from other literatures, when it doesn't also pass off, under its name, the equally wretched Serbian literature. All the poorer is the Croatian theatre repertoire, which for the most part is limited to imitations of German, French and Italian works, concocted mainly by Dalmatians of Italian background, in spite of the fact that the Croatian newspapers speak of famous plays and celebrated national playwrights. But the Croatians have no intention of halting on the road towards the national conquest of the province; here again they make this effort aided by their brothers, indeed by the government of Croatia." ("Si sa a che poca cosa si riduca ad onta di tutti i conati letterari, la letteratura croata, fatta di imitazioni di opere delle altre letterature, quando non passa sotto il suo nome la pur meschina letteratura serba. Tanto più povero è il repertorio drammatico croato, che si limita in massima parte a versioni o imitazioni di lavori tedeschi, francesi e italiani, fatte per lo più da dalmati di coltura italiana, sebbene i giornali croati parlino di rinomati drammi e di celebri drammaturghi nazionali. Ma non perciò si arrestano nella via della conquista nazionale della provincia i croati, che fanno ora questo sforzo, anche qui aiutati dai fratelli, anzi dal governo della Croazia."); "Il teatro nazionale croato", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 31.10.1911.

<sup>75</sup> "Questa tenacia slava deve essere ben compresa dagli italiani che devono, come e dove è possibile, prevenire e paralizzare l'opera conquistatrice dei loro avversari nazionali."; "Il teatro nazionale croato", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 31.10.1911.

<sup>76</sup> "the projected institution of a secondary school in Pisino on the part of the imperial government", Glezer wrote in his message, "as well as constituting a grave and unprovoked offence towards all Italians, by

this in mind, it is clear that any change in the programming of opera or operetta in Italian would be viewed with disfavour.

Tose frequenting the theatre in those very years nonetheless agreed that the Politeama failed to satisfy the needs of a changing city. What was required was an overall refurbishment of the interior, including the creation of a new gallery "with seats" (*a sedie*), to provide access to members of the public who, for various reasons, had been excluded.77 A need for renewal was widely felt. In the following years, up until the end of the War, ownership of the Politeama changed hands various times, with some owners obliged (in spite of themselves) to take on the impresa as well – as happened in 1913. Teodoro Mattiassevich, who is mentioned as part-owner and administrator, at his death in 1916 handed the reins to Vincenzo Viezzoli, who ofcially asked the lieutenancy for the Politeama's certifcate of use (*licenza di esercizio*) to be issued in his name.78 Even a certain Petinelli featured as owner and impresario for various years.79 When the War came to an end, the co-owners of the Politeama were Stipanovich, Viezzoli and Cirillo Metodio Koch.

Te end of the War brought a mood of deep unrest, with control of the city divided between German and Austrian soldiers. By then the Politeama had given up proposing to organise seasons of Italian opera, most certainly also for fnancial reasons. Performances of

damaging their rights, tends to create artificially a foreign culture in favour of the few who, for just a few decades, have brought discord among the Istrian people in order to achieve specific political aims in the future; that this projected school offers fresh proof of the government's intention to deprive the Italians of their national patrimony in order to favour a few political agitators who are their enemies; that the Italians contribute to the expenses of the state in an exorbitant manner in proportion to the costs sustained by the other peoples who came to this region, to whom the government is generous with all kinds of concessions, especially in the field of education – whereas to the Italians it does not even recognise the right to set up, even with its own money, an Italian university at Trieste, also prohibiting the establishment of other educational institutions that correspond to the needs of Italian culture, the oldest and one of the most illustrious in the world […]"; ("la progettata istituzione da parte dell'imperiale governo di un ginnasio serbo-croato a Pisino, oltre che costituire una grave offesa, non provocata, a tutti gli italiani, intaccando i loro diritti, tende a creare artificialmente una coltura straniera a favore dei pochi i quali da alcuni lustri hanno portato la discordia fra il popolo istriano per conseguire in future evenienze noti fini politici che questa progettata istituzione offre una novella prova della tendenza del governo, di spogliare gl'italiani del loro patrimonio nazionale per favorire pochi agitatori politici nemici degli stessi, che gl'italiani contribuiscono alle spese dello Stato in esorbitante proporzione di fronte a quelle sostenute dalle altre genti sorvenute in questa regione, verso le quali il governo è largo di ogni sorta di concessioni specialmente nel campo scolastico – mentre agli italiani non riconosce neppure il diritto di istituire anche con i propri denari una università italiana a Trieste, negando d'altronde altri istituti di educazione corrispondenti ai bisogni della coltura italiana la più antica e una delle più illustri del mondo […]"); Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, pp. 52*–*54.

<sup>77</sup> "L'annata teatrale", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 5. 6.1913.

<sup>78</sup> Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 135.

<sup>79</sup> Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 306. The Politeama had been bought by Viezzoli, Pregel, Petinelli and Mattiassevich on 15 April 1910; Marsetič, *Il cimitero civico di Monte Ghiro a Pola*, p. 606.

German operetta did, however, continue and it was precisely during one of these events that tensions between the diferent ethnic groups in the city came out into the open. On the evening of 20 October 1918, a group of Italian demonstrators gathered and marched through the streets of the city singing patriotic songs. In the course of the march the group became larger, eventually amounting – according to the local journalist Rodolfo Manzin – to "a few hundred" (*alcune centinaia*) in number. Armed with sticks this crowd burst into the theatre, invading the parterre and generating confusion among the Austrian ofcers seated to watch the show. Te intention was to stop the performance, but the ofcers insisted that the show should continue and that the demonstrators be ejected. As Manzin reported, "the news that the show was continuing inside, with us in the street hearing the singing of the German singers, was enough to stoke our fury".80 Tis statement is revealing of how the War had exacerbated the tensions; the fury (*pazzia*) caused by seeing that the Politeama had by then fallen into the hands of what was efectively the political enemy led to a second, sudden incursion that almost ended in the destruction of the theatre: "the frst wings of canvas and paper caught fre and the spectators escaped from the parterre, while others tried to reach the stage, which by then was overwhelmed with smoke".81 Tis resulted in a setback for performances, albeit a temporary one. In any case the War had caused a general decline in the organisation of theatrical productions. And what the War failed to do was completed by the outbreak of Spanish fu that followed immediately afterwards, ensuring that the situation was further complicated.82

#### 4.3.1 Census of the opera seasons at the Politeama Ciscutti of Pula

Te seasons at the Politeama Ciscutti have been reconstructed with the aid of the articles collected in Marcello Bogneri's book (*Il Politeama Ciscutti di Pola*), the periodicals *Il Proletario*, *Pola, Il Giornaletto di Pola, Südösterreichische Nachrichten, L'Eco di Pola, Il Popolo Istriano, La Fiamma, Omnibus* and *Il Diritto Croato*, and information found in the state archives of Zadar and Šibenik. In italics are indicated the seasons realised in the theatre founded by Ciscutti before the Politeama.

<sup>80</sup> "La voce che dentro lo spettacolo continuava, e noi dalla strada si sentiva arrivare la musica ed il canto degli interpreti tedeschi, ci fece montare la pazzia."; Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 140.

<sup>81</sup> "le prime quinte di tela e carta prendevano fuoco e dalla platea gli spettatori scappavano, altri tentavano di raggiungere il palcoscenico ormai invaso dal fumo."; Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 140.

<sup>82</sup> On musical performances at the Politeama Ciscutti in the period following the First World War (and the 1930s in particular), see for example Lada Duraković, "Glazbeno-scenske izvedbe u pulskom kazalištu 'Ciscutti' u tridesetim godinama dvadesetog stoljeća", in *Međunarodni znanstveni skup Čakavskog sabora "Boje zavičajnosti"*, Rovinj, Žminj 2003.


#### The opera seasons in Pula 223


<sup>83</sup> *Cavalleria rusticana* and the first act of *Lucia di Lammermoor* were performed on the same night.

<sup>84</sup> *Cavalleria rusticana* and the third act of *La bohème* were performed on the same night.


<sup>85</sup> Extra performances.

<sup>86</sup> Eight extra performances.


#### 4.4 The contracts and opera seasons at Rijeka

In the period covered by this study (1861–1918) there were two theatres operating in Rijeka: frst the Teatro Adamich and then the Teatro Comunale. Before the birth of the Comunale, the principal season for opera was that of Lent-spring. Typically, 12 evenings were devoted to operetta, 14 to opera seria and 14 to spoken theatre. Since both German and Hungarian operetta companies also visited Rijeka, the theatre was well attended by the German-speaking section of the population, as in Pula.87 Every year the opera season of Lent-spring was interrupted for ten consecutive days during the carnival period, when balls were held exclusively.88

For its "ambitions, splendour and taste" (*esigenze, lustro e gusto*) the Teatro Adamich was compared to the theatres of Brescia, Pavia, Piacenza and Novara, all cities with a bigger population than Rijeka.89 It appears to have been frequented by a very diverse audience, ranging from ofce employees and soldiers to men from business, banking and the liberal professions, not to mention "shop assistants and demanding pensioners" (*commessi di banco e pensionati esigenti*).90 Tis type of spectator made up the ranks of the season-ticket holders. Judging from the reports in the papers, it was a somewhat unruly audience: noisy, intolerant and easily distracted, with the power of making things difcult for the impresario, for example by zealously booing the singers.91 A caustic description in the newspaper The contracts and operas seasons at Rijeka

<sup>87</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 26. 6.1871.

<sup>88</sup> It was claimed that the balls were actually detrimental to the opera season, since the money spent on the dancers came from savings made by the impresario in engaging the singers; "La questione teatrale", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 8. 4.1865, p. 120*–*21.

<sup>89</sup> See "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 11. 6.1870.

<sup>90</sup> "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 4. 6.1870.

<sup>91</sup> The lack of discipline was described as follows: "At distinguished theatres, like that of Rijeka, it is in perfectly good taste to enter your box half way through the first act and chatter throughout the performance, keeping silent only in the more dramatic moments, that is if the spectators in the parterre

*La Bilancia* defned these spectators as entering the fray in swarms, "guided for the most part by a leader who was not openly acknowledged, but tacitly accepted". Tis leader, in accord with other spectators, would whistle at (i.e. boo) the singers and thereby insist on their replacement.92 Tis was the type of public with which the impresarios who succeeded one another over the years had to deal.

Te newspaper *La Bilancia* became a sort of channel of communications between season-ticket holders and the theatre management. Suggestions from spectators were expressed in its columns: such as which the operas they would like to see programmed,93

should demand silence. In turn the impatient and distracted public of the parterre which usually keeps up a constant chatter, if by any chance it should hear that some dandy in the boxes or gallery venture to gently whisper a few words that might disturb the show, then immediately a hundred voices launch into a prolonged hissing, and sometimes even a salvo of huffing and blustering! […]" ("Nei teatri distinti, qual è quello di Fiume, è di perfetto buon gusto entrare nei palchi a metà del primo atto, e di chiacchierare per tutto lo spettacolo, tacendo solo nei momenti più drammatici, semprechè lo spettatore di platea imponga silenzio. A sua volta il pubblico insofferente e distratto della platea che di solito si mantiene in continuo cicalio, se per avventura è avvertito che nei palchi o nelle gallerie qualche damerino s'arrischia di sussurrare qualche parola a fior di labbra, che potrebbe turbare lo spettacolo, tosto cento voci fanno sentire un prolungato sibilio, e qualche volta una salva di oh! Di uh! […]"); "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 4. 6.1870.

<sup>92</sup> "guidati per lo più da un capo, non dichiarato, ma tacitamente accettato". The article goes on: "When two or three of these leaders…get it into their heads to whistle at a singer, they had no trouble coming to an agreement with their companions and the outcome is guaranteed. Recent among us is the example that in this way one can whistle at a tenor, only to have to wait twelve days for his replacement, with another of not much greater merit or greater celebrity." ("Quando due o tre di questi capi… hanno il capriccio di far fischiare un artista, se la intendono di leggieri co'suoi e l'impresa è sicura. Ed è recente fra noi l'esempio, che in questo modo si potè fischiare un tenore per attendere dodici giorni la sua sostituzione, con altro di non molti maggiori meriti, né di maggior fama."); "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 4. 6.1870. The presence of an organised sector of the audience was also noted at Pula, when during a performance of *Un ballo in maschera* in 1893, numerous *claqueurs* annoyed the public with somewhat insistent applause ("Teatralia", *Il Diritto Croato*, 11.10.1893). The same *claque* seems to have been still active ten years later, as attested by the following: "the attempts at applause were launched by the chorus boys sent into parterre and by a *claque* installed in the gallery" ("i tentativi di applauso partivano dai ragazzi dei cori inviati in platea e da una *claque* insediatasi in galleria"); "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 11.3.1903.

<sup>93</sup> An example was when both season-ticket holders and theatre-goers asked the theatre management "to designate Marchetti's *Ruy Blas* as the fourth opera of the season, especially since it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a bit of the new among so much of the old." ("di destinare per la quarta opera della stagione il *Ruy Blas* di Marchetti, tanto più che un po' di nuovo tra tanto vecchio non istarebbe male."); "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 30.3.1872. In the event, they were humoured on this occasion, only later to complain about the programming of the same opera two years later: it was said that the public had reached "satiety". And so, to forestall the danger of seeing the theatre deserted, the impresa was advised by the journalist of *La Bilancia* to resort to "patchwork nights" (*centoni*), i.e. evenings in which the best parts of the four operas programmed for the season were strung together; "Teatro Civico", *La Bilan-*

or about the starting time for performances (this also happened in Pula in the *Il Giornaletto di Pola*). Both season-ticket holders and other patrons of the theatre made a public request for performances to start at 8 pm instead of 7.30: indeed, at 7.30 the theatre was often still empty.94 At the same time, there were articles in *La Bilancia* that either encouraged the public to attend performances95 or complained about its absence when it didn't go.96 If the public attended performances in greater numbers, it was argued, the need for a municipal subsidy would be less pressing. And with the renting of the boxes, the season would be at least partially paid for. Nonetheless, it was thought that even in the worst scenario, the municipality could be called upon to help the season with a subsidy of around a thousand forins. Such a sum, the theatre management believed, would not be refused by the municipal delegation, "as a way of safeguarding the propriety of the stagings" (*a tutela del decoro delle scene*).97

#### 4.4.1 Cesare Trevisan in Rijeka

Among the frst names we fnd organising opera seasons in Rijeka in the 1860s is that of the impresario Cesare Trevisan,98 whose management eventually turned out to be somewhat controversial. In 1862 he declared his good intentions directly on the posters for the opera season, by proclaiming that he was honoured to be running the theatre and that he would do his best to "deserve the public sympathy" (*meritarsi il pubblico compatimento*). Furthermore, he gave evidence of having recruited some frst-rate orchestral players by list-

*cia*, 8.5.1874. In all likelihood the scenery and costumes for *Ruy Blas* came directly from La Fenice in Venice, as they did two years earlier; "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 6.5.1872.

<sup>94</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 10. 4.1872.

<sup>95</sup> The encouragement was given with statements such as: "we must surely give a word of praise to the impresa, which spares no effort or expense to stage the operas with the greatest possible decorum, and we stress that it would be truly deplorable if our public should not encourage it with a plentiful attendance." ("dobbiamo poi tributare una parola d'encomio all'impresa, che non risparmia fatiche e spese per allestire lo spettacolo col maggior decoro possibile, e asseriamo che sarebbe invero cosa deplorabile che il nostro pubblico non la incoraggiasse con un numeroso concorso."); "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 2.3.1877.

<sup>96</sup> As when the following was written: "we like to believe on this occasion there will be no repeat of the painful events that happened on other occasions in similar circumstances: that the reputable theatre public should stand out… for its phenomenal absence!" ("amiamo credere che in tale occasione non si ripeterà il doloroso fatto verificatosi altre volte in circostanze consimili, che il rispettabile pubblico teatrale brilli…per una fenomenale assenza!"); *La Bilancia*, 27.3.1877.

<sup>97</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 3.12.1878.

<sup>98</sup> On the impresario Cesare Trevisan, see the doctoral dissertation of Elisabeth Probst, in progress at the Institute of Musicology of the Karl-Franzens-Universität of Graz. Trevisan also worked at the theatres of Udine and Trieste in the same years.

ing some of their names: "Te orchestra will be made up of the fnest musicians in the town and by gentlemen from outside, En. Cagnoni, C. Mirco, Al. Moschini and son, Fr. Lorenz, G. Mixa, En. di Mayer Grego, etc".99 At the time Cagnoni and Mirco were well-known orchestral players who were greatly favoured by many impresarios of the Venice-Trieste-Istria/Dalmatia circuit. By publishing their names he therefore made a show of having made a potentially winning choice. In fact the criticisms didn't arrive until three years later, when he signed a new contract with the theatre (despite the fact that *La Scena* announced that the impresario would be Carlo Gardini).100

Te performance of Bellini's *I puritani* that Trevisan organised in 1865 was described as "unworthy" (*indegna*) of the stage, especially considering the money he was said to have had at his disposal. Te theatre apparently had a subsidy of 8,000 forins, to which were added over 3,000 forins from the season tickets, plus another 4,000 forins from the nightly admissions. In other words, a total 15,000 forins for 30 performances, which was no excuse for a poor production. Trevisan provided artists in large numbers, but, according to his detractors, quantity was no guarantee of quality;101 and the impresario had enough money to ensure a higher standard. In actual fact, the contract signed in that year mentioned an endowment of 7,000 forins, which was not a particularly big sum.102 It also specifed that the choice of singers was left to the impresa, and that the leading roles could be dismissed (*protestati*) either by the management in the course of rehearsals (as was customary) or within three performances if they failed to win the audience's approval.103 As none of the singers in the company seem to have been sacked, we deduce that the opinion mentioned above on their quality could be attributed to the critic writing in the journal. Te orchestra was to be constituted "in agreement with the conductor" (*d'accordo col direttore*), who, in the

<sup>99</sup> "L'orchestra sarà composta dei migliori professori del paese, e dai forestieri signori En. Cagnoni, C. Mirco, Al. Moschini e figlio, Fr. Lorenz, G. Mixa, En. di Mayer Grego, ecc."; Programme of the Lentspring season 1862, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>100</sup> Carlo Gardini, founder of the artistic journal *L'Arpa* in 1853, also worked as an impresario at La Fenice in Venice as well as the Teatro Comunale of Trieste (we find him active in the autumn season of 1868, after having had contacts with Rijeka in the previous years; Filippo Danziger, *Memorie del Teatro Comunale di Trieste dal 1801 al 1876, raccolte da un vecchio teatrofilo*, Stabilimento Grafico Appolonio, Trieste, 1877, p. 99). In 1877 he ran an opera company in Berlin for a season of Italian opera; *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 19, 1877, p. 295. He did the same also in 1889; *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 13, 1889, p. 198.

<sup>101</sup> "Teatro Civico", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 8. 4.1865, p. 108.

<sup>102</sup> As customary, the contract also indicated when the various instalments of the endowment were to be paid. As for the cautionary deposit, it amounted to 1,000 florins. The prices of admission and season tickets that formed part of the impresario's revenue were also clearly indicated.

<sup>103</sup> We find the same conditions in the subsequent contract with the impresario Carlo Gardini (1867) with the difference that in the latter the names of the singers were precisely indicated, with the exception of one who "was still to be engaged" (*da scritturarsi*).

season concerned, was Giuseppe Alessandro Scaramelli, a musician known to have worked for a time at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste and who was due to conduct at the opening of La Fenice in Venice in the following year.104

In the pre-contract with Trevisan – the preliminary agreement or *compromesso*; which, we must remember, was a document that preceded the ofcial contract – it was asserted that musicians from the city of Rijeka were to be preferred, a point already stipulated in the tender specifcations.105 Not always, however, was this an efective policy, for it was noted at times that the local musicians were weak and not necessarily up to the task of playing the operas scheduled. In the event of there being an insufcient number of local musicians, from 1867 onwards it was stated, specifcally in the contract with Carlo Gardini,106 that the impresario had the obligation to engage, at most, four orchestral players from outside. As for the chorus the maximum was fxed at two external singers, who would also have the duty of acting as section leaders. As it stood, the clause seemed to beneft the impresario, by imposing a limit to the expenses he would sustain in engaging foreign manpower. Te theatre management, which provided the impresario with no other funding except the endowment, did however relieve him from the expense of remunerating the local musicians of the Istituto Filarmonico, which provided fve players.107

Trevisan was under contract to stage fve operas (in 1867 the number was reduced to four). While three of the operas were specifed in the contract, the fourth and/or ffth were "to be decided" (*da destinarsi*) by common agreement between management and impresario, as was the custom at the time.108 Te number of performances remained fxed at 30 in both contracts (1865 and 1867). As a rule, the number of beneft nights (fve or six) and the maximum uninterrupted run of a single opera were also indicated. Te season and the titles of the scheduled operas were usually stated at the beginning of the document. As regards

<sup>104</sup> Giuseppe Alessandro Scaramelli, violinist, had an active career as *maestro concertatore* and orchestral conductor. He was *maestro* of the municipal band and *direttore tecnico* of the Istituto Filarmonico of Rijeka. He came to the city after working for a long time in Trieste, following the refusal of the Teatro Comunale there to guarantee him a salary and a permanent position; see Filippo Danziger, *Memorie del Teatro Comunale*, p. 90. In 1866 he was engaged by the impresarios Bonola and Brunello to conduct the opening of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice; see "Scritture e disponibilità", *La Scena*, anno IV, no. 23, 4.10.1866, p. 94. On the Scaramelli dynasty, see the interesting chapter Giuseppe Radole, "Gli Scaramelli. Tre generazioni di primi violini direttori d'orchestra", in *Ricerche sulla vita musicale a Trieste (1750–1950)*, Edizioni Italo Svevo, Trieste 1988, pp. 39*–*65.

<sup>105</sup> Preliminary agreement (*Compromesso*) between the theatre management and Cesare Trevisan, Rijeka, 16. 2.1865, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>106</sup> Contract between the theatre deputation and Carlo Gardini, Rijeka, 3.3.1867, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 9.

<sup>107</sup> We thus have clear evidence that in this period the theatre recruited its orchestral players from the city's Istituto Filarmonico.

<sup>108</sup> Contract between the deputation and Cesare Trevisan, Rijeka, 10.3.1865, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

the date of the frst performance, initially only the month of the beginning of the season might be indicated; the precise date, and the specifc opera to open the season, would be fxed at a later stage (it was a matter that would be decided between the *compromesso* and the subsequent, better-defned contract). Te *compromesso* with Trevisan consisted of eleven short articles compared to the subsequent 17 more detailed articles of the contract proper.109 While the *compromesso* refers generally to the season opening in "mid March" (*metà di marzo*), the contract gives both date and inaugural opera: "Te frst performance will be staged on about 18 March with Otello".110

Next the ballet would be established, as well as the number of ballet performances. Te chorus numbers were fxed at twelve males and eight females (numbers that would remain the same in the Gardini contract of 1867), saving the possibility of boosting them for specifcally-mentioned operas. A few years later the minimum number of choristers would be increased: the contract with Giovanni Mangiamele in 1870 already calls for 20 male and 10 female choristers. Te impresario is also reminded that he would have to shoulder the nightly expenses: a reminder expressed in general terms without detailing the amounts and types of expense. As customary, instructions were also given to guarantee the decorum of the costumes, properties and scenery. Te impresa could make use of existing scenery and equipment belonging to the theatre, but would be responsible for any damage. Te contract would then have to be submitted to the municipal delegation for approval.111

Tanks to the discovery of the contract that the impresario Natale Fabrici concluded with the theatre management of Rijeka back in 1848, we are in a position to make a comparison between the obligations mentioned above and the clauses included in the past. While the earlier contract was certainly more detailed (it had 27 articles), the commitment for the impresario was lighter: only three operas compared to the fve that Trevisan had to promise. Accordingly, the endowment, fxed at 3,500 forins, was also lower. No reference, however, was made to a cautionary deposit. Another diference was that in the earlier contract the city magistrate of Rijeka specifed the name and surname of the orchestral conductor, thereby avoiding last-minute surprises.112 Te impresario would have to procure as many external orchestral players as were lacking in the city, in consideration of the fact that the military

<sup>109</sup> The number of articles in the contracts increased over the years, as did that of the tender specifications. While the contract with Cesare Trevisan has 17 articles, already that of two years later with Carlo Gardini has 24 articles that specify in greater detail what was required of the impresario.

<sup>110</sup> "La prima rappresentazione anderà in scena al 18 circa di marzo coll'Otello"; Art. 2, Contract between the theatre management and Cesare Trevisan, Rijeka, 10.3.1865, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>111</sup> Register of documents (*Protocollo degli esibiti*) (1885–1910), Rijeka, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>112</sup> Here we have the proof that Scaramelli had already worked at the Teatro Adamich almost twenty years previously. It was clearly stated that "the orchestra will have to be conducted by that excellent musician Alessandro Scaramelli of Trieste." ("L'orchestra dovrà essere diretta dal bravo professore sig. Alessandro

band would not be available that year.113 Once again, this attests the city's dependence on centres like Trieste for the recruitment of its musicians.

#### 4.4.2 Mangiamele, Ubaldi and the inadequacy of the endowment

Cesare Trevisan was reported as having been reconfrmed as impresario in Rijeka for the year 1870,114 but in actual fact the contract was won by the impresario Giovanni Mangiamele, who secured an endowment of 12,000 forins, a sum that included the money granted by the municipal treasury. Te amount was considered "huge" (*ingente*) in Rijeka's *La Bilancia*. 115 One assumes it was Mangiamele himself who directly replied to this comment, expressing his grievances in a newspaper article and supporting them with a few fnancial calculations. Without mincing his words, the impresario begins by deploring the fact that Rijeka had neither an elementary music school nor a municipal band, and was hence a city "without a history" (*senza storia*), a city that could certainly devote itself to trade and make money, but would be incapable of talking about theatre and music: a sure sign of the "decline of the population" (*regresso della popolazione*).116 What followed is a long – and for us extremely useful – outline of the expenses, leaving out costs of the principal singers. By producing this list he tried to demonstrate that the endowment is not only not "huge", but even inadequate.

He started with the secondary singers (*comprimari*), which cost 1,200 francs. As regards the chorus, considering the type of theatre in which the season was to be organised, it was necessary to have at least 42 singers, 30 men and 12 women: numbers that could be reduced to 24 and 10 respectively, if one really wanted to economise. An interesting thing mentioned by Mangiamele is that only a few of these singers could read music; the rest would

Scaramelli di Trieste."); Contract between the magistrate of Rijeka and the impresario Natale Fabrici, Rijeka, 11.3.1848, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 8.

<sup>113</sup> Contract between the magistrate of Rijeka and the impresario Natale Fabrici, Rijeka, 11.3.1848, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 8. This contract followed an agreement between the impresario and the assistant police officer Enrico Dall'Asta.

<sup>114</sup> The report was in *Il Palcoscenico* on 7. 2.1870. On the other hand, the journalist writing on theatrical affairs in Rijeka's *La Bilancia* was convinced that the real impresario would be neither Trevisan nor Mangiamele but "the usual impresario of the previous years known to everybody and above all to the city treasury." ("il solito impresario degli anni scorsi che tutti conoscono e più di tutti la cassa civica."); "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 12. 2.1870.

<sup>115</sup> In addition to this assessment (which amounted to an a priori judgement of the impresario responsible for managing the endowment), the article in the paper also complained of alleged irregularities in the financial management of the former theatre management, which had been entirely left in the hands of its president; "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 11. 6.1870.

<sup>116</sup> "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 11. 6.1870.

even be illiterate.117 It is worth remembering that we are here dealing with a territory in which, according to the last Austrian census of 1910, as many as 62.8% of the inhabitants over the age of ten could neither read nor write. Te phenomenon was less marked around the islands and along the coast (42%), and more pronounced in the hinterland, in towns such as Bencovaz (81%) and Tenin (84%). 63.7% of the illiterate would be of Slavic origin, 17.4% of Italian. In the years in which Mangiamele was operating, these percentages could have been even higher.118 If one were to use the singers from the town, one would have to calcolate around 100 lire per head, amounting to 3,400 lire/francs for the whole season:119 a pay much lower than what would be required to have a good choral group. Regarding the orchestra, we learn that it lacked at least four violins, a frst clarinet, a bassoon, a frst trumpet, two double basses, an oboe and a double horn, as well as the conductor. Te orchestra would need 40 players, each paid 120 lire, which would bring the total to 4,800 lire. For the conductor one should calculate at least 1,000 lire.120

As regards the music, the scores of three repertoire operas could be had for 450 francs, whereas a new score (Mangiamele used the examples of *L'africana* or *Don Carlo*) would cost as much as 2,500 francs: hence a substantial diference.121 Te costumes would call for another 2,000 francs. If scenery was not available, and this was certainly the case at the Teatro Adamich, another 600 lire would have to be added, in addition to ca. 500 lire for properties. A further 500 would have to be given to the prompter and chorus master, who would have to be two distinct people and not just one (the jobs would sometimes

<sup>117</sup> "The last chorus numbered 18 choristers, who did more than was humanly possible, overburdend with rehearsals as they were, and were paid so badly that they got at most 20 cents per evening engaged. Only six of these could read music a little, the others all sang by ear, and what makes it easier to employ their services is that they can't even read the alphabet. If one wishes to be exacting, one has to pay." ("Gli ultimi coristi erano 18, i quali fecero di più di quanto umanamente potevano sopra caricati da prove, pagati sì male, che il massimo ottennero 20 spiccioli per sera impiegata. Soli sei di questi conoscono qualche poco la musica, gli altri sono tutti orecchianti, e ciò che rende più facile il loro servigio si è che non sanno leggere nemmeno l'alfabeto. Per essere esigenti è duopo pagare."); "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 11. 6.1870.

<sup>118</sup> Antonio Renato Toniolo – Umberto Nani, "Dalmazia" in *Enciclopedia Treccani*: http://www.treccani. it/enciclopedia/dalmazia\_%28Enciclopedia-Italiana%29/ [accessed 14. 4. 2020].

<sup>119</sup> The terms *lire* and *franchi* are used almost interchangeably here. In fact "1 lire = 1 franc" was the exchange rate also according to Adolph Lehmann, *Allgemeiner Wohnungs-Anzeiger*, Wien 1914, p. 12. I thank Professor Michael Walter for this information.

<sup>120</sup> "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 11. 6.1870.

<sup>121</sup> "and if one aims to have *Il profeta* 1,500 lire would not be enough; and acknowledging the distortion that the musical publishers Ricordi, Lucca and Strada exist only for the pomp and splendour of Italian music, I will limit the overall cost for four scores to 1,300 lire." ("e se si prefigge il *Profeta* non basterebbero lire 1.500; ed ammettendo io la stortura che gli stabilimenti musicali Ricordi, Lucca, e Strada esistono per sola pompa e lustro della musica italiana, limiterò la complessiva spesa pei quattro spartiti a lire 1.300."); "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 25. 6.1870.

be combined to economise). Te list went on with 500 lire for the chief machinist (who would have to be brought in from outside because Rijeka had no one), 150 lire for "Madame Police, for it to smile, watch and keep quiet",122 200 lire for the printer. Also required was a sum for the prima donna's carriage (*calesse*), without which "her artistic susceptibility would be ofended" (*ne andrebbe ofesa la suscettibilità artistica*), amounting to more than 200 lire (on the evidence of what was spent in the previous season), and 2,000 forins for gas lighting. To all of this one would have to add the expenditure for the theatre staf, which Mangiamele, with forbearance and a touch of disdain, called the "throng that is poorly paid and duly renders a poor service" (*turba che meschinamente pagata, rende essa pure meschino servigio*):

Entrance staf (*Controllo*) lire 60. Firemen lire 75. Six doormen lire 220. Ticket distribution lire 80. Five in wardrobe department for both sexes 220. Tirty extras lire 230. Cleaner post-performance l. 20. Two stagehands l. 30. *Patinista* l. 15 Te stage manager l. 60. Te orchestra attendant l. 40. Te callboy l. 40. Te custodian l. 40. Te gas technician l. 20. Te heating technician l. 15. Two assistant machinists l. 30. Workers at the scenes, at the grid (*Facchinaggio alle tele, alla softta*) l. 140. Cost of oil for the gridding l. 40. Another l. 240 for many candles to be distributed every night to the frst actress, two to each artist, half to each chorister, and eight to the royal box, etc.123

All of the expenses were calculated for a season of sixty days. From the resulting table it is very clear that an endowment of 12,000 forins would be completely inadequate. If we were to add up everything he listed, the total would come to 44,165 lire (or in 1870 about 22,082.50 forins; or, even assuming the exchange to be 1 lira = 0.40 forins, 17,666 forins):

<sup>122</sup> "madama forza pubblica, perché sorrida, guardi e taccia"; "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 25. 6.1870.

<sup>123</sup> "Controllo lire 60. Pompieri lire 75. Sei portinai lire 220. Dispensa biglietti lire 80. Cinque sarti per ambo i sessi 220. Trenta comparse lire 230. Domestica alla ritirata l. 20. Due servi di scena l. 30. Patinista l. 15 Il detto butta-fuori l. 60. Il servo d'orchestra l. 40. L'avvisatore l. 40. Il custode l. 40. L'inserviente al gas l. 20. L'accenditore l. 15. Due macchinisti di sussidio l. 30. Facchinaggio alle tele, alla soffitta l. 140. Acquisto olio per la soffitta l. 40. Altre l. 240 per tante candelle [*sic*] da somministrarsi ogni sera alla prima attrice, due ad ogni artista, mezza per ogni corista, ed otto al palco regio, ecc." To these expenses were added "the expense for the offstage musicians which, for the sake of economy, I will restrict to just one opera, and I would also like to conjecture that the audience will be tolerant to all the company of artists and that there should be no need to replace anyone, in which case the impresario would have to pay up in person" ("la spesa del corpo di musica fra le quinte che per economia restringerò ad una sola opera e voglio altresì ammettere l'ipotesi che il pubblico sia per fare buon viso a tutto il corpo degli artisti, e non si riscontri il bisogno di rimpiazzare alcuno, nel qual caso dovrebbe l'impresa rimettere del proprio"); "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 25. 6.1870.


in any case much higher than what was ofered with the endowment.124 Yet if we summarise the costs in a table, the result would be something like this:

Te diference between the total given by the impresario (44,165 lire) and the expenses set out above in the table is 19,370 lire, so we must assume that this higher total would also include the fees for the principal singers (always the biggest item in the budget of an opera season), the stage band and perhaps also the cost of heating (not indicated). In spite of this public denunciation of the real state of afairs, with its accompanying detailed expenditure list, the following year the contract was given – with an unchanged endowment of 12,000 forins – to the impresario Giovanni Ubaldi, a man who was not new to the theatre in Rijeka, given that he had already run the 1864 season. Making the costs public had been to no purpose: the city council either would not, or could not, take action.

Concerning Ubaldi the newspapers relate an unpleasant incident that was most likely connected precisely to the inadequacy of the endowment, given that in 1864 the funds came to as little as 6,000 forins, just half of what Mangiamele had been given. In fact it transpires that the impresario was unable to pay the last *quartale* to the company engaged in a production of *Faust*. When, considering the circumstances, the singers refused to perform without any guarantee of being paid, the theatre management entreated them

<sup>124</sup> "Il nostro Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 25. 6.1870.

to see the season through to its conclusion: they would receive moral support and a possible mediation to ensure that their eforts were rewarded. Te singers, however, asked for something more solid. In response to which, they were summoned to the magistrate's ofce where they were ordered to perform as usual as per contract, under pain of being literally led to the theatre by force.125 And this is precisely what happened: the men were escorted by guards, the women by an usher. What happened later confrms to us that in this period singers still risked going to jail if they failed to fulfl their obligations. At the beginning of the performance the entire cast went to the front of the stage while a certain Contadini, a bass, explained about how they had not been paid and submitted the matter to the judgement of the public. Te audience's reaction was to protest against the management and leave the theatre. Te singers were taken of to prison, though freed immediately afterwards.126 Unfortunately we do not know how things turned out for Ubaldi, for the sources are silent on the matter. What is certain is that the main issue was once again a lack of money: it had spoiled the season and placed both artists and impresario in a very uncomfortable position.

#### 4.4.3 The 1870s and the new three-year contract

Just a few years later, the problems Ubaldi encountered would still appear to be unresolved. In its 1871 season the theatre management found it necessary to reject the whole wardrobe for *Gli Ugonotti* provided by the Pirola costume workshop in Milan, believing that the costumes, especially those for the choruses, were undignifed. Pirola was thus forced to supply a whole new wardrobe at its own expense.127 In 1872 the theatre contracted out the season to an impresa from Rijeka, inviting it to make a fresh proposal for a season in the following year as well. At the same time the theatre had received another application from Cesare Trevisan,128 who was indeed to return to the city, but only a few years later. Tere was also a year when the conductor Alessandro Bartoli, together with a few orchestral players, made a bid to run the theatre for a season of opera bufa, but they failed to make any mention of the cautionary deposit to be left as a guarantee for the city council. For this reason their request was not taken into consideration.129

<sup>125</sup> *Il Diavoletto*, anno XVII, no. 101, 30. 4.1864, p. 403.

<sup>126</sup> *Il Diavoletto*, anno XVII, no. 101, 30. 4.1864, p. 403.

<sup>127</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 16.5.1871.

<sup>128</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 24.1.1873.

<sup>129</sup> "Il Teatro"*, La Bilanci*a, 8.1.1875. Bartoli most likely was building on the recent experience of running a season abandoned by the Cajani impresa, which (in turn) had stepped in when Trevisan had walked out.

It was only in 1875 that a three-year concession was approved by the theatre management and accepted by the municipal council. Tis time there was no mention in the tender specifcations of any subsidy from the city council. Te impresario would therefore have to sustain himself with the income from the public.130 While some believed that the municipality should not be expected to cover the theatre's expenses, given that only the more afuent sectors of the population enjoyed its benefts, others instead – convinced that the theatre was not only attended by the wealthy – loudly clamoured for the council to contribute as a matter of principle. Most of the cities that had stopped giving their theatres endowments were those of the big urban centres, where large audiences could be guaranteed. Very diferent was the situation of a small town where the audience was unvaried and even the most skilled impresario could hardly hope to earn more than a few thousand forins. Before the end of the century Rijeka had a population of around 10,000.131 Comparisons were made with nearby Trieste, a city with ten times the population in the 1870s: 100,000 inhabitants, including a large contingent of foreigners that visited every year. Te comparison was not limited to the Teatro Comunale, but also extended to various private theatres in that city where the seasons were satisfactorily subsidised.132

In the tender specifcations for this year, the choice of operas was now imposed on the impresario, as was the period in which they were to be given. Te impresario was also forbidden to change the price of admission, nor was he allowed to give any other performances than those scheduled; in other words, no additional nights from which to draw a further proft. A reasonable increase in the entrance prices would have been seen not only as timely, but also fair, since the current prices were considered to be low.133 Te maximum earnings

<sup>130</sup> As an article put it, "Once the endowment for the theatre has been removed, the theatre enterprises find themselves face to face with the public, which ends up by being their sole supporter. In this way the interests of the former are interconnected with those of the latter, and vice versa, the interests of the public are interconnected with those of the enterprises. […] If the impresa offers good productions, the public responds by coming in large numbers to support its efforts: hence, money for the theatre's coffers. If the impresa offers substandard productions, the public stops going to the theatre, and the coffers suffer conspicuously." ("Una volta che si è levata la dotazione al teatro le imprese si trovano di fronte al pubblico, il quale va a diventare il loro solo ed unico sostenitore; gl'interessi delle prime si collegano per tal modo, cogli interessi del secondo e viceversa gli interessi del pubblico si collegano cogli interessi delle imprese. […] Offre l'impresa buoni spettacoli, il pubblico vi corrisponde all'accorrere numeroso a sostenere gli sforzi della medesima: quindi lucro per la cassetta teatrale; offre l'impresa spettacoli scadenti il pubblico si astiene dal frequentare il teatro e la cassetta sensibilmente ne soffre."); "Da Fiume", *Il Teatro*, anno IX, no. 240, 12. 9.1875, p. 2*–*3.

<sup>131</sup> See the table in the opening section of this book: *Theatres and the management of opera in Istria and Dalmatia: the project*.

<sup>132</sup> "with a tidy sum" (*con una bella somma*), according to the article in "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 2. 6.1875.

<sup>133</sup> "In few large cities, where the needs of the public are as strong as they are here, is the admission price to theatrical performances, especially musical spectacles, as low as it is in Rijeka." ("In poche città

to be had from the renting of boxes would be 12,000 forins; the other receipts of the opera season, including the sale of season-tickets,134 could be around 8,000 forins (those for spoken theatre 6,000 forins); the proceeds from balls could amount to 1,500 forins; and those from the rentable spaces, about 2,000 forins. In all, the total would come to 29,500 forins. Te expenditure, however, would be higher: just for the Lent and spring opera season it would be no less than 20,000 forins;135 that for spoken theatre with a distinguished cast, 9,000 forins; so in all 29,000 forins. Hence almost as much as the income. But in addition, one needed to consider the cautionary deposit, amounting to 4,000 forins, to which one should add a further 4,500 forins to pay the frst *quartale*, and another 4,500 forins for the second *quartale*, due only a few days after the beginning of the season.

Te same calculation could be made in lire, given that these sums could be expressed in two diferent currencies at the time. Te cautionary deposit the impresario was obliged to advance was fxed at 10,000 lire (equal to 4,000 forins in 1875), in addition to the previous bid deposit (*vadio*) of 1,000. Considering the income from the theatre (which, by its very nature, was uncertain), this was a large sum. An impresario wishing to work at Rijeka would have to be provided with 10,000 lire for the deposit and a further 10,000 for the expenses needed to open the Lent-spring season: 20,000 in all. Even if one deducted the ca. 4,000 lire one could earn fom the carnival balls (1,500 forins, as noted above), there would still be 16,000 lire to pay out. It was not easy to fnd an impresario who was either able or willing to advance such sums. From a fnancial point of view, the *piazza* of Rijeka was considered to be – at least in 1875 – "ruined" (*rovinata*). Business with impresarios was not going well. For how could one expect an impresario to take on the risk of running a theatre where the obligations were onerous and the profts limited and uncertain? Te management required the impresa to provide not only an opera season costing at least 70,000 lire, but also provide a company "of the frst-rank" (*di primissimo rango*) costing between 19,000 and 21,000 lire, for 40 performances in all. All things considered, the theatre would be hard pressed to fnd someone willing to do the job.136 Besides, the impresarios knew very well that Rijeka had neither a chorus nor a permanent orchestra, meaning that musicians would have to be hired externally. With such premises it is hardly surprising that, on 30 September 1875, only

maggiori, dove le esigenze del pubblico sono tanto forti quanto presso di noi, il prezzo di ingresso alle rappresentazioni teatrali, in particolare agli spettacoli di musica, è tanto basso quanto a Fiume."). The observation was made in "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 3. 6.1875.

<sup>134</sup> At Rijeka in 1879 the contract fixed the season-ticket prices at three-fifths of the nightly ticket price all together; "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 5.3.1879.

<sup>135</sup> According to an estimate in "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 1. 6.1875, one needed between 18,000 and 24,000 florins to organise an opera season. A "middling opera season" (*stagione d'opera discrete*), on the other hand, would cost between 12,000 and 14,000 florins; "Redditi del Teatro Civico di Fiume"*, La Bilancia*, 11. 8.1875. In 1875, 25,500 florins was the equivalent of 63,750 lire.

<sup>136</sup> "Da Fiume", *Il Teatro*, anno IX, no. 239, 12. 8.1875, p. 3.

one competitor answered the call for tenders published by the theatre. "Te future impresario of the Teatro Civico of Rijeka", it was wearily remarked in the press, "either was never in possession of his mental faculties or has lost them", given that he would have to accept conditions that would a priori ruin him.137 In spite of all this, the three-year contract was assigned to the impresarios Stancich and Micheluzzi, both citizens of Rijeka, who would clearly have to roll up their sleeves.138

Te season-ticket holders were now asking to have more new operas, and fewer of the over-familiar works such as *Norma*, which did not give the hoped-for success. Teir request was clearly satisfed, for already in 1877 as many as two new operas were given: *Il Conte Verde* by Giuseppe Libani and *Alda* by Lionello Ventura.139 It was the custom to send the boxholders a printed circular detailing the programme of the operas to be staged in the current year. Tis programme could, however, be subject to sudden change and an opera could be rescheduled even from one day to the next, as happened in the case of Libani's *Il Conte Verde*, which was postponed by a few days.140 What Stancich and Micheluzzi were obliged to do was to stage the customary four operas and give an overall total of 30 performances. Of the four *opere serie*, two were to have dance numbers. Te forces needed were 40 orchestral players, 40 choristers, a children's chorus of 12, a ballet corps of female dancers and a stage band.141 In this year (1877) Rijeka hosted an exceptional series of operas, for not only was the operetta season replaced by opera bufa, when the company of Luigi Becherini was invited to the city (fve years later he would go to Šibenik), but also an extra opera season was given in October, conducted by the celebrated Luigi Ricci.

In the seasons in which he worked in Rijeka, Ricci collaborated both with Stancich and Micheluzzi and with Giovanni Miazzi, an impresario who some years earlier had come to the public's attention by planning to set up a warehouse in the city for pianos and harmoniums imported from Vienna.142 Miazzi proposed repertoire operas, but also two works by

<sup>137</sup> "Il futuro impresario del teatro Civico di Fiume o non è stato mai in possesso delle facoltà mentali o le ha perdute"; "Da Fiume", *Il Teatro*, anno IX, no. 241, 5.10.1875, p. 4.

<sup>138</sup> Giovanni Stancich worked as a machinist at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste; *Verbali del Consiglio della Città di Trieste*, Tipografia del Lloyd austro-ungarico, Trieste, 1877, p. 268.

<sup>139</sup> Both composers attended performances at the theatre. In the case of *Alda* Venturi himself directed the staging. As it turns out, this opera was not exacty a novelty; it was new only for Rijeka, for it had been heard eight years previously at the Comunale of Trieste; "Cronaca Locale. Teatro Comunale", *Il Teatro*, III, no. 27, 30. 9.1869, p. 107. On the background to the composer's payment of 3,000 francs to the impresario Luigi Scalaberni to have his opera staged at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna, see Carlo Matteo Mossav, "Una 'messa' per la storia", in *Messa per Rossini: la storia, il testo, la musica*, edited by Michele Girardi and Pierluigi Petrobelli, Quaderni dell'Istituto di Studi Verdiani, V (1988), p. 51.

<sup>140</sup> The opera came to Rijeka after being already staged in 17 theatres in Italy.

<sup>141</sup> It is worth considering that there hadn't been a wind band in the city for over ten years, so even in this case the musicians would have to be recruited externally.

<sup>142</sup> "Pianoforti", *L'Euterpe*, no. 48, 2 December 1870, p. 3.

Petrella that were both included in the Lent-spring season 1879: *I promessi sposi* and *Le precauzioni*. 143 However it was in the repertoire opera that the impresario and conductor got into trouble. Te newspapers talked about "an extraordinary defciency of the orchestra" (*straordinario difetto dell'orchestra*), all attributable to the impresa. For instead of resorting to external players, as former impresarios had done, "in a generous spirit" (*con animo generoso*) – it was commented ironically – he had promoted a number of local musicians from secondary positions to principal ones, "for reasons that we would like to believe were purely patriotic" (*per viste che vogliamo credere puramente patriottiche*). Te promotions were evidently premature. Te theatre management, which had already nurtured doubts about forming an orchestra in this manner, had questioned Ricci himself, who however gave reassurances on the matter. But the results did not meet Ricci's expectations.144 Even in the following season attempts were made to form both orchestra and choruses with local musicians (as indeed specifed in the tender specifcations), but the steps taken by the impresario Cesare Trevisan to implement this policy came to nothing, because this time the musicians of Rijeka rejected the conditions he proposed. Trevisan was thus forced to engage the entire orchestra and most of the chorus externally (only seven local singers accepted his ofer): a solution that most likely met with the approval of the theatre management.145

Tese were the last years of the Teatro Adamich's existence. We have reports of a fnal opera season brought to the city at the Teatro Fenice in 1882, after which the Teatro Adamich was demolished.146

#### 4.4.4 The inauguration of the new Teatro Comunale; famous names at Rijeka

With the new Teatro Comunale, one conspicuous diference in the way the seasons were run is that operas began to be performed also in the autumn season. Although opera was not necessarily given every year in both seasons (spring and autumn), this option was nonetheless available. In fact the management of the new theatre would have preferred to do opera in the autumn and instead give performances of operetta and spoken theatre in the spring. For it was in the spring that most Italian theatres programmed their opera seasons, mean-

<sup>143</sup> *Il carnevale di Venezia* ossia *Le precauzioni* is the complete title of the three-act opera buffa by Errico Petrella first performed in 1851.

<sup>144</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 10.3.1879.

<sup>145</sup> "Impresa Trevisan", *La Bilancia*, 25.11.1879. Trevisan, who was returning to Rijeka after innumerable seasons spent there, was by then considered to be an expert impresario, given that he had been in the business for almost twenty years and had worked at various theatres, including La Pergola in Florence.

<sup>146</sup> The Teatro Adamich hosted opera until 1883 and was then demolished; Lovorka Ruck, *Operni zivot u Rijeci*, p. 184.

ing that costs were higher and it was more difcult to secure the good singers. Moreover, at Rijeka many plays were staged in private theatres during the summertime, so by the end of the season audiences would have had enough and, for variety, be more inclined to listen to opera in the months that followed.147 In spite of these considerations, the evidence points to the presence of opera seasons in both spring and autumn: a sign of the good fortune to have the resources – or courage – to organise both.

As was to be expected, the new theatre was inaugurated in grand style with two 'grand operas': *Aida* and *La Gioconda*. And for the occasion the conductor invited was Gaetano Cimini,148 a man who was not new to audiences in Rijeka and who would return to the city some ten years later for further seasons. During the preparatory stages, it was soon understood that the cost of performing the two operas would depend principally on the quality of the cast: if given with "celebrity artists" (*artisti celebrità*), it would be 52,000 forins; if given with "distinguished artists" (*artisti distinti*), about 42,000. Taking into account the prices of admission and the boxes, calculating average receipts per performance of 500 forins, and assuming the rental of four ffths of all the boxes, a reliable estimate of the overall income for the whole season would be 16,000 forins. Tis would have meant applying to the municipal treasury for a subsidy of 36,000 forins (or 26,000 at the very least). Given that the city would not agree to expenditure of this order, alternative plans were put forward.

If, instead, one should stage *Aida* with 16 ballerinas and the repertoire opera *Ernani* with "distinguished artists" (in other words, not using "celebrities", but cheaper singers), an orchestra of 50 and an overall chorus of 56, the total expenditure would come to 30,000 forins. For two repertoire operas with ballet and the same number of orchestral and choral forces, the cost would again be 30,000 forins. If, as a further hypothesis, it was decided to give only repertoire operas such as for example *Faust* and *La favorita*, the expense would drop to 27,000 forins. And fnally, should one consider giving *Faust*, *Rigoletto* and *Lucia di Lammermoor*, while at the same time reducing the orchestral and choral forces and making use of the scenery already possessed by the theatre, the expense would diminish further to about 25,000 forins. To summarise, assuming that the theatre's income was 16,000 forins (as conjectured above), the municipal subsidy would have to be as follows: 14,000 forins for a project with *Aida* and *Ernani* or for two repertoire operas with ballet; 11,000 forins for *Faust* and *La favorita* with ballet; or 9,000 forins for *Faust*, *Rigoletto* and *Lucia di Lammermoor* with reduced orchestra and choruses and using the theatre's scenery. Te table below presents the various options for the 1885 opera season:

<sup>147</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the municipal government, Rijeka, 30.11.1885, HR-DARI, Archival collection of the municipality.

<sup>148</sup> On Cimini, see the biographical entry in Carlo Schmidl, *Dizionario universale dei musicisti*, Sonzogno, Milano 1937, p. 346.


By ofering *Aida* with the ballet, the theatre management reckoned it could count on an income of 16,000 forins (because it would attract a good audience), whereas the same could not be guaranteed if only repertoire operas (already heard by most of the audience) were given. It was not implausible, therefore, that an inferior production might turn out to be only slightly less expensive, just as expensive, or even more expensive for the municipal treasury than a higher-quality production. For the choice of project, the theatre management deferred to the wishes of the municipality. But it nonetheless pointed out that the opening of a theatre would be "a solemnity that endures through the centuries, constituting a baptism and leaving a perennial memory",149 and that responsibility for the future of the newborn building would rest on this baptism. Te theatre management should run the season on behalf of the municipality. And though it could, as customary, entrust the project to an impresario (against a congruous deposit), it doubted that it would ever fnd one able to shoulder the burden of the inauguration, since every impresario would want to know the precise nightly expenditure or staf costs or lighting expenses: information that the management was unable to provide. Moreover, the search for a suitable impresario would take too long if the intention was to hold the inauguration in October 1885. And if the beginning of the season were postponed, the costs would increase the closer one got to the carnival season – notoriously the season preferred by the frst-rank theatres for organising opera – thereby putting the city council in genuine difculty. Entrusting the productions to an impresa would generate uncertainty about the income and expenses of the season, which the theatre management wished to avoid, so it proposed to run the events on its own, well aware of the countless problems this would entail.150 Te *podestà* (mayor), on his part, opted for the project comprising *Aida* and *Ernani*, while at the same time expressing the hope that *Ernani* could be replaced with a score that was new to Rijeka. It was fnally agreed that the endowment would

<sup>149</sup> "una solennità che passa attraverso i secoli, ne lascia battesimo e memoria perenne"; Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the municipal delegation, Rijeka, 17. 6.1885, HR-DARI, Archival collection of the municipality.

<sup>150</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the municipal delegation, Rijeka, 17. 6.1885, HR-DARI, Archival collection of the municipality.

amount to 14,000 forins.151 Concerning *Ernani* there was, in fact, a change of plan, for the theatre management concluded that any repertoire opera staged after *Aida* could not hope to stand comparison (in terms of audience attention) and would therefore jeopardise the success of the season.

In the end it was agreed to contract out the running of the theatre and give the responsibility for the season to the impresario Luigi Cesari.152 In due course, however, things started to go wrong and the theatre management terminated the contract for a failure to respect the tender specifcations. While there was apparently no objection to the choice of soprano, a certain Medea Borelli, among the other singers the mezzo-soprano Güttemberg was dismissed (*protestata*), and the same fate befell the baritone Guglielmo Caruson. Indeed the theatre's season-ticket holders objected not only to Caruson, but also to the bass Curti, forcing the impresario Cesari to replace them with the baritone Dufriche and the bass Roveri.153 In the meantime, in the very same year, though this time in the perhaps less turbulent milieu of operetta, two German operetta companies – those of Alfred Freund and Albert Schiller – made a frst appearance in Rijeka, both ofering their services.154

After this stormy rebirth of the theatre, a three-year contract (for 1887–1890) was assigned to Augusto Rossegger, an impresario who had previously worked at the Teatro Comunale and the Filodrammatico in Trieste,155 and who now appointed none other than Pietro Ciscutti from Pula to act as his proxy. In the meantime, De Domini, Prodam, Gelletich, Scarpa and *maestro* Adolfo Cimadori were appointed directors of the theatre. Tey would grant an endowment of 8,050 forins to the next impresario, Francesco Sciutti d'Arrigo, to run both the opera season and that of spoken drama.156

In the same years, Ferdinand Strakosch, brother of the better-known Maurice Strakosch, Adelina Patti's impresario, was operating at no great distance. While Rossegger was working in Rijeka, Strakosch ran the Lent-spring seasons of 1887–88 and 1888–89 at the Comunale of Trieste. He arrived in Rijeka in 1893, while at the same time remaining active in Trieste.157

<sup>151</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the municipal delegation, Rijeka, 25. 6.1885, HR-DARI, Archival collection of the municipality.

<sup>152</sup> Luigi Cesari was an orchestral player before becoming an impresario of important theatres, including the Teatro Comunale of Bologna and La Fenice in Venice (where he ran the 1898–1899 season); *Musica d'oggi*, Ricordi, Milano 1921, p. 222.

<sup>153</sup> Register of documents (*Protocollo degli esibiti*) (1885–1910), Rijeka, anno 1885, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>154</sup> Freund was to contact the management of the theatre in Rijeka again ten years later, in 1895.

<sup>155</sup> *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, LXII, 1887, p. 42. Among other things, Rossegger also managed comic operetta companies, such as that of Giovanni Gargano. When he retired from the theatrical world, he became an accountant in the Milan branch of the Adriatica insurance company.

<sup>156</sup> The sum was apportioned as follows: 5,050 florins for comic operetta and possibly also *opera semiseria e giocosa*; 3,000 florins for spoken theatre.

<sup>157</sup> *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 45, 1892, p. 711.

His stay was brief because already in March 1894 he rescinded the contract with the theatre management stating that he could no longer fulfl its commitments.158 He was immediately succeeded by the Camber impresa for the spring opera season. In line with the tendency whereby impresarios, once they set foot in the area (or even before they arrived, i.e. as soon as they knew they were due to work in Istria or Dalmatia), tried to contact other *piazze* and travel southwards, Strakosch also made the efort to reach Zadar, but withdrew after learning that the profts at that theatre would be low: "In Rijeka I heard much praise for the *piazza* of Zadar and the Teatro Nuovo, yet now", Strakosch wrote to their management, "I receive a letter from signor Simonetti telling me that for 20 performances 12,000 forins can be made. I beg you to write to me more on the subject because, if your theatre really gives no more than this fgure, I for certain will defnitively abandon the deal".159 Accustomed as he was to earnings of an altogether diferent kind ofered by theatres of superior rank, he simply decided it was not worth the trouble. It was under Strakosch's management that Rijeka saw Verdi's *Otello*, an opera that the theatre management had already proposed to the previous impresa in 1889, but which got no further than the project stage until 1893. And that was not all, for it was again Strakosch in 1893 who engaged the famous Paul Léhrie for the lead role in *Amleto*, moreover with the conductor Vittorio Maria Vanzo, a name well known to the public for having given the Italian premiere of *La Walkiria* (Die Walküre) two years earlier.

In the last decade of the 19th century various important singers performed at the theatre. Not only Léhrie, but also Gemma Bellincioni in 1890 (a singer who was proposed for the theatre four years later, together with her husband Roberto Stagno, by the agent Ignaz Kugel of Vienna), and Enrico Caruso in the spring season of 1898*.* Fifteen years later Tito Schipa, engaged by the Alpron-Battaglia impresa, also made an appearance. To complete the list of prominent fgures visiting Rijeka, it is worth mentioning that Giacomo Puccini made the trip to the city in 1895, leaving on 3 May with his wife Elvira and stopping of in Venice and Trieste on the way, in order to be present at a performance of *Manon Lescaut*. 160 On this occasion the invitation made to the composer would appear to have been made by the impresario himself, Rafaele Sforza.161 Sforza had taken up his position at the Comunale

<sup>158</sup> Register of documents (*Protocollo degli esibiti*) (1885–1910), Rijeka, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10. The reasons for the termination of the contract are not indicated.

<sup>159</sup> "A Fiume mi è stata molto decantata la piazza di Zara ed il Teatro Nuovo, ed ora ricevo una lettera del sig. Simonetti con la quale mi dice che in 20 rappresentazioni si possono introitare 12.000 fiorini. Pregola di scrivermi alcunchè in proposito perché, se realmente il suo teatro non da [*sic*] che questo risultato io certo rinunzio per sempre all'affare."; Letter from Ferdinand Strakosch to the theatre management of Zadar, Zagreb, 9. 6.1893, HR-DAZD, folder 7.

<sup>160</sup> Julian Budden, *Puccini. His Life and Works*, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002, p. 149.

<sup>161</sup> "Signor Puccini, in order to satisfy the keen wishes of the aforementioned impresario, put in an appearance on the evening of 4 May. A gala night like this is not easily forgotten […]. An ovation was accorded to the illustrious composer right from his first arrival on stage." ("Il signor Puccini, per appagare il

in that same year of 1895 and was to stay for many years, more or less continuously until 1908, though sharing his duties with Giovanni Maraspin in 1900.162 Te contract for 1895, however, was clearly not for more than one year, because a call for proposals was published the very next year. Sforza won the competition once again, and the same happened in 1897, the year in which, after being reconfrmed as impresario, he brought *Tannhäuser* to Rijeka for the frst time.

As was also the case at many other theatres, attempts were sometimes made at Rijeka to make savings on opera productions, but when this led to performances bordering on the unacceptable, the spectators protested. It was said that on certain evenings there was not even an orchestra, though it is not clear whether this meant that the singers were accompanied by just a piano. When the impresario Corbetta arrived in 1901, after a badly run season in Šibenik in 1899 and following an equally unsatisfactory run in Pula in 1901 itself, the theatre management received a letter from audience members complaining of the absence of the orchestra in certain opera performances: "It is not at all clear how the estimable theatre management can allow the impresa to do without the orchestra in the so-called 'grand nights' just for the saving of a few forins". Te production in question, that of *Maria Stuarda*, was duly condemned as completely monotonous: "without the appeal of a little bit of music it is enough to make you lose all desire to go to the theatre".163 In this case the theatre management was judged to be guilty of favouring the impresa over the public.

We have already seen that the season-ticket holders wielded a genuine power to change the management's choices, for example by asking for certain operas to be programmed rather than others. Tis also happened in 1910 when a group of season-ticket holders, expressing the wish to hear *La Wally* again instead of another night of *Aida*, wrote to the management asking it to take prompt action and have the said opera performed.164 In this case, however,

vivo desiderio del sullodato impresario, fece atto di presenza la sera del 4 maggio. Una serata di gala come questa non si dimentica leggermente […]. Un'ovazione è stata fatta all'illustre maestro fin dal suo apparire in scena."); "Giacomo Puccini a Fiume", *Il Cosmorama*, 16.5.1895, p. 4, cited in Cecilia Nicolò, *Emma Zilli. Una carriera di fine Ottocento*, NeoClassica, Roma 2019, p. 94.

<sup>162</sup> From 1891 to 1894 Maraspin was already working at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, but not as an impresario.

<sup>163</sup> "Non si capisce come la spettabile direzione teatrale possa permettere all'Impresa per il lucro di pochi fiorini, di sospendere l'orchestra nelle cosiddette grandi serate" and, further on, "senza lo svago di un poco di musica è tal cosa da far perdere la volontà di frequentare il Teatro."; Letter from frequenters of the theatre of Rijeka to unspecified recipient ["Egregio Signor Cavaliere…"], Rijeka, 19.10.1901, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>164</sup> "The undersigned subscription holders of Group B, wishing to hear *La Wally* again as soon as possible, appeal to this esteemed management, also on behalf of many others, that it may promptly take steps in this regard, especially since the opera met with general favour both for its intrinsic value and for the excellent performance; and to do this in substitution for an Aida […]" ("I sottoscritti abbonati del turno B, desiderosi di riudire quanto prima la Wally, si rivolgono anche a nome di molti altri, a code-

the tender specifcations actually specifed an equal distribution of the operas billed, so the management was unable to satisfy the request.165

#### 4.4.5 The Alpron-Battaglia management and the War years

With the new opera repertoire, there also arrived a need for bigger orchestras, and there came a time when it was considered necessary to enlarge the space for the orchestra in the theatre. Te civil magistrate therefore asked the theatre management what the work would cost. At the same time there had also been complaints about the orchestra being too loud, making it difcult to hear the singers. To solve this problem a partition separating the orchestra from the parterre was repositioned.166 Tere also continued to be a debate on the quality of the productions, but with the available documents it is hard to understand if the problem was caused by the savings the impresario was alleged to have made, or if instead the theatre management was particularly fussy and hard to please in its aspiration for excellence. Much depended also on the actual competence of the board of directors. Te fact that it included composers or professional musicians undoubtedly increased the chances that it would insist on high professional standards. When the impresario Attilio Alpron – who ran the theatre of Rijeka from 1909 – was about to stage *Fedora*, the theatre management went as far as to prohibit the production from being publically announced before the dress rehearsal, which was when the management would give its approval: the directors had been dissatisfed with a partial rehearsal of the opera and were reluctant to give their authorisation. Te impresa, on its part, insisted that the opera was presentable and added that the *maestro concertatore*, Luigi Cantoni, was of the same opinion. Te management therefore yielded on this issue, though with the proviso that the opera would be immediately suspended if the audience showed its disapproval.167 Another dispute between management and impresario erupted in the following year, when Alpron began to negotiate with conductors not among those indicated when initially tendering for the contract. Te theatre management got wind of the matter and made it clear that it regarded the original proposal as binding and that Alpron was not to change any of the names. Te choice would have to fall on one of those proposed earlier: Polacco,

sta spettabile Direzione perché voglia disporre con sollecitudine in questo senso, tanto più che l'opera per il suo valore intrinseco e per l'ottima esecuzione incontrò il favore generale; e ciò in sostituzione di un'Aida […]"); Letter from the subscription holders of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 17.3.1910, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>165</sup> In the autumn season this distribution was to be carried out over a total number of 14 opera performances.

<sup>166</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the civil magistrate of Rijeka, Rijeka, 28.12.1911, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>167</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to Attilio Alpron and Francesco Battaglia, Rijeka, 4.11.1911, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

Mascheroni, Zuccani, Ferrari, Barone or Vitale. Of these names, Edoardo Mascheroni had shown an interest in returning to Rijeka after conducting the entire Lent-spring season of 1911, giving as many as 50 performances (incidentally this was the season in which Strauss's *Salome* was cancelled because of its poor reception at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste).168 Alpron, however, was already thinking of engaging Pasquale La Rotella; and indeed he succeeded in the attempt, perhaps also thanks to some excellent references obtained by the conductor in the meantime. In this case, therefore, the impresario had his way over the theatre management and even managed to confrm La Rotella for the opera season of the following year.169

Like many others, the Alpron-Battaglia impresa also found itself having to ask for an increase in the endowment. In 1914 the municipality authorised the future contractor (whoever it may be) to raise the price of the entrance tickets in exceptional cases, provided that the productions were considered of outstanding quality, and always after gaining the consent of the theatre management.170 Te admission prices were considered minimal ("such that with difculty one could fnd in other theatres of the importance of our own", wrote a certain Meynier from the theatre management) and the audience turnout was good, so the increase – according to Meynier – would not damage attendance (since "the poorer part of the population could always take advantage of the obligatory performances at reduced prices").171

With the onset of the War, the question of admission prices became a secondary issue. Te problem was not so much audience attendance as the difculty of fnding the artists to form the opera companies. In fact, a well-known clause in the contracts for singers stated that in every case of force majeure (i.e. a fortuitous event), such as fooding, fre, "waged war" (*guerra guerreggiata*), general strikes, or any other circumstance that might make the closure of the theatre either necessary or have it imposed by the authorities, the entire salary would be suspended until performances were resumed. Tis was valid throughout the Italian territory. And if such a "fortuitous event" should take place in "a city that was politically foreign, but geographically Italian" (as was the case with Rijeka), the impresario would be obliged to repatriate those same artists.172 In light of these clauses, the singers would be without a safety net if they travelled to Rijeka. And even if the frontier were open, no one

<sup>168</sup> *Riječki novi list*, 4. 4.1911.

<sup>169</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to Attilio Alpron, Rijeka, 10.9.1912, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>170</sup> See Letter from the *podestà* of Rijeka to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 11. 7.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>171</sup> "tali quali difficilmente si riscontrano in altri teatri dell'importanza del nostro", and later on, "la parte più povera della popolazione potrebbe sempre approfittare delle rappresentazioni d'obbligo a prezzi ridotti"; Letter from Meynier to the civil magistrate of Rijeka, Rijeka, 28.6.1913, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>172</sup> "città politicamente estera ma in terra geograficamente italiana"; Letter from Dante Forconi to Eugenio De Monari, Cento, 12.11.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

could know how events might unfold. Austria-Hungary was at war, and while this did not directly involve the city of Rijeka, there was no way of predicting what might happen in the future. "War, cholera, a food might happen anywhere and when one least expects it", wrote the artist Dante Forconi to the impresario Eugenio De Monari, "but to actually go and look for it, that, the artists say, would be folly".173 With no singer surely wanting to "go and look for it", the possibilities of putting together a solid cast also declined.

Although the authorities did not actually prohibit emigration, they did not allow men under the age of 40 to leave Italy.174 Companies hence had difculty getting passports for artists under the age of 39.175 In fact, the Alpron impresa was sent a telegram from Florence telling it that the authorities had refused passports to seventeen artists of the company that might have gone to Rijeka, as they were still subject to military service.176 Owing to the impossibility of assembling a company of musicians on account of the war, Alpron got into a dispute with the municipality of Rijeka and in the end failed to give the performances planned for the autumn season.177

We have little news on the management of the theatre during the actual period of the confict.178 When the contract with the impresario Carlo Polgar at the Teatro Fenice came to an end in 1917, an opera season run by the Royal Opera House of Budapest was planned in the following year, but in the end did not materialise. Te cause was attributed to the "ministerial crisis" (*crisi ministeriale*),179 to the difcult state of communications, and to the lack of fnancial coverage (80,000 crowns were needed).180 Te companies needed a guarantee, but one certainty was that a full theatre in those years would bring in a nightly income of 10,000 crowns. In this case it was not enough.181

<sup>173</sup> "La guerra, il colera, un'inondazione può succedere ovunque e quando meno ci si aspetta, ma andare proprio a cercare, sarebbe follia, questo dicono gli artisti."; Letter from Dante Forconi to Eugenio De Monari, Cento, 12.11.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>174</sup> See Letter from Dante Forconi to Eugenio De Monari, Cento, 12.11.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>175</sup> See Letter from Enrico Gallina to Attilio Alpron, Trieste, 20.11.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>176</sup> See Telegram from Virginio Talli to Attilio Alpron, Rijeka, 1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>177</sup> See Letter from the *podestà* of Rijeka to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 26.4.1915, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>178</sup> Programming stopped until 1919. According to Lovorka Ruck, "From the beginning of the First World War until 1923, operas were performed at the Teatro Comunale only in 1919" ("Dall'inizio della prima guerra mondiale fino al 1923, soltanto nel 1919 vengono rappresentate nel teatro comunale opere liriche"); Lovorka Ruck, *Operni zivot u Rijeci*, p. 185.

<sup>179</sup> Letter from Nicolò Bánffy to the theatre management of Rijeka, Budapest, 22. 4.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>180</sup> See Letter from the secretary of state Nemeny to Count Nicolò Bánffy, Budapest, 13.5.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>181</sup> Typewritten note of the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 5. 4.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1. The 10,000 crowns corresponded to 5,000 florins per night: a sum that was far higher than the 16,000 florins of possible revenue with a conjectured full house for the whole season in 1885.

"Te programme is unquestionably put together with fne artistic sense", the management of Rijeka wrote to the superintendent of the Budapest Opera, "however – in our view – it does not sufciently take into account the local conditions". Te proposed *Die Entführung aus dem Serail*, would not be suited to the audience in Rijeka, which was not very familiar with the music of Mozart and would also have trouble with the spoken dialogues, which are plentiful in this work and unlikely to be understood by an audience that for the most part knew no Hungarian (the language used). *Don Giovanni* would be preferred, the letter went on, and there would be no problem at all with Puccini's *Madama Butterfy*, which had been accepted in the past with general satisfaction. While technical issues would make it impossible to stage the other opera proposed, *Aida*, the theatre management hoped a way could be found to include a Verdi opera in the programme, for it would be particularly welcome to the public of Rijeka, who were passionate enthusiasts of his music.182 Te theatre management was also in favour of performing another opera by a Hungarian composer, such as *Hunyadi Laszlo* or *Bank Ban*, for this would give the public an opportunity to appreciate Hungarian art and "form an opinion of it greatly diferent from what it had been able to do hitherto".183 Tis last comment signals a greater willingness to hear repertoire that was not necessarily Italian, marking a strong contrast with a statement made just a few years earlier, in 1909, by the president of the theatre, who could only give his approval to productions in the Italian language.184

Some, however, still frowned upon the "foreign" repertoire, and in 1919, at the time of the Braida-Gorlato impresa, once again craved for seasons of Italian opera. Condemnation was expressed of the fact that an "oppressor government" (*governo oppressore*) had boycotted Italian opera performed by Italian artists for four years and obstructed every manifestation of national art by all possible means. As soon as what was called the "desired liberation" (*auspicata liberazione*) was attained, use could be made of the theatre as a "most powerful factor of popular culture" (*potentissimo coefciente di coltura popolare*) and enthusiasms could be rekindled with the melodies of *Ernani* or *La forza del destino* "in their original text, unmutilated by any censorship of the more expressive phrases that were earlier not permitted".185

<sup>182</sup> Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to Nicolò Bánffy, Rijeka, 25. 4.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>183</sup> Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to Nicolò Bánffy, Rijeka, 25. 4.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>184</sup> "Si partecipa che la scrivente non può dare il suo consenso che per spettacoli esclusivamente in lingua italiana";Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the Alpron-Battaglia impresa, Rijeka 23.12.1909, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>185</sup> "nel loro testo originale, non mutilato da censura alcuna delle più espressive frasi prima non permesse"; Letter from the Ufficio Lirico Teatrale Rappresentanze Artistiche to the theatre management of Rijeka, Milano, 26.1.1919, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

Rijeka was ofcially annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1924, and for a period of twenty years at least, the theatre was still to bear the name of Giuseppe Verdi that had been assigned to it in 1913 at the centenary of the composer's birth.

#### 4.4.6 Census of the opera seasons at the Teatro Civico Adamich of Rijeka, then Teatro Comunale, then Teatro Verdi

In general, the seasons have been reconstructed with the aid of the journals *La Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, *Euterpe*, *L'Arte*, *La Bilancia*, Lovorka Ruck's article, *Operni zivot u Rijeci u razdoblju od 1870. do 1930. godine*, and documents from the theatre collection of the Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral. From 1885 the seasons have been partially reconstructed from the document *Teatro Comunale di Fiume* located in HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.



<sup>186</sup> Reported in Antoni Cetnarowicz, *Die Nationalbewegung in Dalmatien im 19. Jahrhundert*, Lang, Frankfurt 2008, p. 129.





#### 4.5 The contracts and the seasons at Zadar

As in the case of Rijeka, we need to refer to two theatres for Zadar in this period: the Teatro Nobile, which for security reasons following the fre at the Ring Teatre in Vienna closed down after its last performance on 14 December 1881,187 and the Teatro Nuovo inaugurated in 1865. In Zadar the opera season could be held in the spring or autumn. Te carnival season was not considered an ideal moment because the public had "other distractions, like balls and masked *veglioni* [carnival parties]".188 As a rule just one opera season was given each year, with a few exceptions when it was possible to organise two, as in 1861 when Antonio Lana ran the season at the Teatro Nobile in the spring and Francesco Righi in the autumn. Both seasons illustrated how much the police and censorship could still make their presence felt in the theatrical world of the 1860s. Neither season was particularly successful. Lana, who staged *Desiderio Duca d'Istria* by Nicolò Stermich, *L'ebreo* by Giuseppe Apolloni (a composer from Vicenza) and *Vettor Pisani* by Achille Peri, was forced to declare bankruptcy at the third-fromlast performance, a move that prompted the choristers to take strike action in protest and make their way to a tavern outside the city. At their return they were arrested by the police and even, according to reports, taken to prison. Te audience, which in the meantime was still waiting in the theatre for the performance to begin, was "shouting with impatience" (*urlava impaziente*), but had to resign itself to circumstances. For the next three days the theatre remained closed, and subsequent performances of the last opera, *Vettor Pisani*, were concluded with a new impresa.189 As for Francesco Righi, this impresario was forced by the chief of police to replace *Le prigioni di Edinburgo* with *Norma*, while the choice of other scores (*Beatrice di Tenda*, *Lucia di Lammermoor*, *Il campanello* and *Un'avventura di Scaramuccia*) was considered "ill-advised" (*poco giudiziosa*), given that these works would require singers who were both experienced and gifted – something that the impresario was evidently unable to guarantee. Moreover, the choristers continued to be "rebellious to all concord and harmony" (*ribelli ad ogni intonazione e accordo*), and the impresa gave up the struggle after sixteen nights.190

Tings improved with the inauguration of the Teatro Nuovo, run by the theatre management itself. No external impresa was therefore appointed to run the season. Te singer and composer Placido Meneguzzi was appointed as chorus master, a position he had held for some time, while Antonio Ravasio, who was also *maestro di cappella* at the cathedral of Zadar, was chosen as *maestro concertatore*. 191 Ravasio was to remain a stable presence at the The contracts and the seasons at Zadar

<sup>187</sup> Edgardo Maddalena, "Il Teatro nobile di Zara", *La Lettura*, XXIII/12 (1923), p. 897.

<sup>188</sup> "altre distrazioni, come i balli e i veglioni mascherati"; Letter from the *podestà* of Zadar to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 15.12.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 25.

<sup>189</sup> See Giuseppe Sabalich, *Cronistoria aneddotica*, p. 256.

<sup>190</sup> See Giuseppe Sabalich, *Cronistoria aneddotica*, p. 271.

<sup>191</sup> Antonio Ravasio (1835–1912), a composer from Bergamo, had graduated at the conservatoire of Milan. He was the first *maestro concertatore* at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar. On Ravasio, see Carlo Bianchi,

theatre of Zadar, where he continued to conduct opera (we fnd him active at least until 1891). In his many years of activity no impresario ever thought of replacing him. After all, if one could rely on such an important personality (as also on the principal parts of the orchestra), the process of building the orchestra would be swifter: all to the beneft of the impresario running the season. Carlo Vianello, Aristide Archibugi192 and Osvaldo Mazza – in other words, the various impresarios who succeeded one another in the 1860s – all had dealings with him, as well as (a little later) the most exacting of all, Carlo Burlini, who had already worked with Italian opera companies at the theatre of Zagreb before moving frst to the Teatro Comunale of Trieste and then to Zadar.193 Unfortunately no contracts have survived to tell us what was planned in those seasons. In fact, the frst surviving document is that concluded with the impresario Girolamo Pesaro. What, therefore, was required of the impresario engaged to run an opera season in this city?

In the preliminary agreement (*compromesso*) between Girolamo Pesaro and the theatre management, made up of 24 articles, Pesaro pledged to give 30 opera performances, with a short list of three works: *Ruy Blas*, a second opera chosen by the impresa between *Aroldo* and *Promessi Sposi*, and a third to be decided as usual. It seems that there was no obligation here to give each opera an equal number of nights. In addition to the 30 performances, up to four beneft nights were granted to the impresa. Te theatre was made available to the impresa 20 days before the opening. Te chorus would have to number 20 singers, "distributed suitably from one night to the next" (*ripartiti convenientemente tra una sera e l'altra*). Tere remained the need to fnd externally "two *tenori primi*, a competent *tenore secondo*, two sopranos, a *primo* and *secondo*".194 Regarding the orchestra, the following needs were noted right from the start: "a principal horn, a principal cello, a principal second violin". An interesting clause specifed that the same

<sup>&</sup>quot;Antonio Ravasio maestro di Cappella della Basilica Metropolitana di Zara (1857–1897)", *Il Dalmata*, 68 1897.

<sup>192</sup> A certain Aristide Archibugi is mentioned as a *basso cantante* in the years from 1839 to 1842 in the journals *Teatri, Arti e Letteratura, Il Corriere dei Teatri* and *Bazar di Novità Artistiche, Letterarie e Teatrali.*  It could be the same person.

<sup>193</sup> Burlini worked in Zagreb in 1861 and 1862, as illustrated by Vjera Katalinić, "Between East and West: Zagreb on the Operatic Crossroads in 1860s", slides, http://info.hazu.hr/upload/File/2018/3e-Operatic-Crossroads-Katalinic.pdf [accessed 1. 9. 2020]. Burlini is one of the impresarios mentioned in Rosselli's list. He also worked at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste from 1863 to 1865 and in the autumn of 1874. We find him in Gorizia in 1870 and 1872. He was declared bankrupt in 1874, hence shortly after his time in Zadar. See also Vito Levi – Guido Botteri – Ireneo Bremini, *Il Comunale di Trieste*, Del Bianco, Udine 1962; Filippo Danziger, *Memorie del Teatro Comunale*, p. 109 and Lucia Pillon, *Ottocento goriziano (1815–1915)*. *Una città che si trasforma*, Editrice goriziana, Gorizia 1991, p. 219.

<sup>194</sup> Preliminary agreement between Girolamo Pesaro and the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 24.6.1873, HR-DAZD, folder 3.

singer could not take on two diferent roles in the same opera, nor could double as stage director, stage manager (*buttafuori*), prompter or machinist (this incidentally contrasts with what happened at Šibenik, where a chorus singer could also work as a *comprimario* [supporting soloist] and stage director).195 At the same time (and for the same principle) it was stipulated that the costumes and scenery used for one opera could not be used for another. Tis need for variety at Zadar was also stressed in the subsequent contract between the theatre management and the impresario Carlo Vianello, which stipulated that "the costumes and scenery shall be lavish and cannot use the backcloths and properties that constitute the standard equipment of the theatre".196 Te theatre possessed various types of sets (throne room, two living rooms, simple room, rustic room, town square, garden, wood, prison, hallway, underground chamber with columns, sea scene with pier) but it asked the impresario not to use them if possible, as they were too familiar to the public. Unlike Rijeka, where the contract makes no mention of changing the scenery, or the Teatro Nuovo in Split, where there were twelve fxed sets (referred to as the "usual sets", perhaps implying that the need to see new ones was felt there too), here we note an express desire for change in order to keep the public's attention alive.197 Moreover, the impresa would be the benefciary of a gift of 380 forins (to be paid together with the fnal instalment) if it not only fulflled the commitments undertaken but also particularly satisfed the public.198

In these years, along with Giuseppe Perlini and Antonio Smirić, the theatre of Zadar was managed by Nicolò Stermich, who, as a composer, was held in particularly high esteem. In 1884, evidently weary after holding the ofce for over ten years, Stermich tried to relinquish the presidency but was convinced to stay on and duly reelected. As always, having people in the management who were musically competent aided, and also speeded up, many of the processes connected with the running of an opera season. After Vianello's season as impresario, supervised by Stermich as director of the theatre, there followed a series of seasons of opera bufa until 1882, when at the shareholders' meeting of 19 January, with a majority of votes (15 to 7), it was resolved not to start any negotiations for

<sup>195</sup> Contract issued by the Mazzoleni impresa for the theatre of Šibenik to the artist Adolfo Leghissa and Annita Marchesini, Trieste, 4. 4.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>196</sup> "il vestiario e il scenario saranno sfarzosi e non potranno impiegarvisi le tele ed il mobigliare che costituiscono il corredo stabile del teatro"; Contract between the theatre presidency of Zadar and Carlo Vianello, Zadar, 22.3.1875, HR-DAZD, folder 4.

<sup>197</sup> "Ancora del teatro…balcanico", *Il Dalmata*, 15.5.1894. Here too the scenery, and in general all the properties, both in canvas and wood, used on stage would have had to be smeared with a fireproofing solution. On this subject the political authorities were fairly strict and could even close down the season if the rules were not observed.

<sup>198</sup> Preliminary agreement between Girolamo Pesaro and the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 24.6.1873, HR-DAZD, folder 3.

the autumn opera season. Comic opera had already been programmed for June, with the company of Luigi Becherini, so productions would resume in the following year, though this time with opera seria.199

#### 4.5.1 "A company of dogs will come to bark in this theatre": Sante Utili and the Razzani fasco

Among the various proposals for organising the opera season of 1883, a new application came to the theatre management of Zadar from Venice: that of Carlo Mirco. Mirco, who was evidently well acquainted with the person he was writing to (most likely, Nicolò Stermich himself), given that he starts the letter with the expression "mio ottimo amico", proposed three operas for the autumn, among which *Faust* and another "magnifcent [opera] tried out with extraordinary success" (*grandiosa esperimentata con successo straordinario*) in Venice and Padua, by the "most distinguished Maestro Signor F. Malipiero", who had promised Mirco he would attend the dress rehearsal and the frst two performances to watch their progress.200 It is not given to know which of the operas by Francesco Malipiero201 he was referring to, but in any case this proposal had no sequel, except that of convincing the theatre management of the need to stage *Faust*, in one way or another. At the same time the preceding negotiations with Raggio, who was then an opera impresario at Dubrovnik, were also discontinued on account of the unsustainable costs involved.202 In any case *Faust*, which had been frst proposed by Sante Utili's agency of Milan (representing the impresario Francesco Razzani),203 was agreed on and included within a wide selection of other possible operas.204 Initially Utili had not thought of Razzani as his ideal impresario: he had

<sup>199</sup> See *Società del Teatro Nuovo of Zadar*, session of 19 January 1882, 7 pm, Zadar, 19.1.1882, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>200</sup> Letter from Carlo Mirco to the theatre management of Zadar, Venezia, 1.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>201</sup> Francesco Malipiero (1824–1887), the composer of *Giovanna di Napoli* and other operas, as well as sacred music and vocal chamber works, was the grandfather of Gian Francesco Malipiero. For biographical details, see the biography in Carlo Schmidl, *Dizionario universale dei musicisti*, Sonzogno, Milano 1937, vol. 2, p. 17.

<sup>202</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Sante Utili, Zadar, 30.1.1883 HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>203</sup> Francesco Razzani was a dancer and choreographer. Among others, his choreographies included: *Elda*, an *azione coreografica*; *Nerea*, an *azione fantastica* in five parts and six decorations; the ballet *Teresita*; and the subject matter and choreography of *Favilla*, a *ballo fantastico* by Giuseppe Garignani and Achille Keller. Sante Utili's proposal for an opera season in Zadar was only then taken into consideration, after a first unsuccessful attempt in 1878.

<sup>204</sup> Among them were listed *Ruy Blas*, *La favorita*, *Jone*, *Contessa d'Amalfi*, *Marta*, *Forza del destino*, *Rigoletto*, *Il trovatore*, *Ballo in maschera*, *Ernani*, *Maria di Rohan*, *I lombardi*, *Norma*, *Lucia di Lammermoor* and *La sonnambula.*

proposed either Annibale Cicognani or Paolo Massimini, "both solvent" (*entrambi solvibili*), together with an excellent company made up of "fne young artists, especially among the women" (*bella gioventù, specialmente nelle donne*). Also mentioned was Carlo Ronzone, a "very dear person" (*carissima persona*).205 None of them, however, was in a condition to accept the ofer, so the choice necessarily fell on Razzani, who already knew a little about the theatre at Zadar, having been there in 1876 when the impresario was Giani (an orchestral player from La Fenice in Venice). Razzani therefore directly wrote to the theatre and immediately pointed out the inadequacy of the compensation ofered by the management (just the lighting expenses and attendants) and asked that the costs of the orchestra and chorus also be deducted. Tere would be three operas (the customary formula "no fewer than three" was used here) and a total of 24 performances.206

A few days later, when Utili sent the formal project drawn up by Razzani, he portrayed him as a person who was "very intelligent and very respectable, having showed his worth at

206 "Signor Sante Utili", Razzani wrote, "proposes that I take on the running of your Teatro Sociale to give performances of opera seria and offers me – as compensation and endowment – lighting, attendants, etc.: the expense of which would be assumed by the theatre management. In order to stage an opera season with artists who may satisfy the public, the compensation proposed would not be sufficient and an impresario would suffer a not inconsiderable loss. Instead it would be fitting if this honourable management made the sacrifice of granting the impresa, free of charge, orchestra and choruses as well as the above. In that case I would commit to bringing to Zadar a group of principal singers capable of performing laudably no fewer than three *opere serie* to be chosen from the following, for example: Ruy Blas, Jone, Poliuto, Faust, [*illegible*], Norma, Gemma. As well as the group of singers I would bring the respective music, costumes, scenery and properties, the *maestro concertatore* and conductor (if not available in the city), also shouldering at my expense three or four orchestral players if lacking at the *piazza*. For that I would receive all the income that would be made throughout the season, during which no fewer than 24 performances are to take place from 28 April through the whole of May." ("Il sig. Sante Utili mi propone l'impresa del Loro Teatro Sociale per darvi spettacolo di opera seria proponendomi a titolo di compenso, a dote, l'illuminazione, inservienti ecc..: le di cui spese sarebbero assunte da quella Direzione Teatrale; per poter portare uno spettacolo d'opera con artisti che possino soddisfare il pubblico, il compenso proposto non sarebbe sufficiente ed un impresario andrebbe incontro a una perdita non indifferente. Sarebbe invece il caso che quella Onorevole Direzione facesse un sacrificio d'accordare, gratis, all'imp[res]a orchestra, cori, e quanto più sopra si è detto, ed allora io sottoscritto mi obbligherei di portare a Zara un complesso di artisti di canto capaci ad eseguire lodevolmente non meno di tre opere serie da scegliersi fra le seguenti p.e.: Ruy Blas, Jone, Poliuto, Faust, [*illeggibile*], Norma, Gemma. Oltre al complesso degli artisti porterei la relativa musica, vestiario, scene ed attrezzi, il maestro concertatore e direttore d'orchestra se non ci fosse in paese, obbligandomi pure a mie spese, più tre o quattro professori mancanti alla piazza. Restando a mio favore tutti gli introiti che verrebbero fatti lungo la stagione nella quale si darebbero non meno di 24 rappresentazioni da aver luogo dal 28 aprile a tutto maggio prossimo."); Letter from Francesco Razzani to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 9.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>205</sup> Letters from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 3.2.1883 and 11. 2.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

many important theatres, maintaining all his commitments with everyone".207 At the same time Razzani wrote to the management drawing attention to the problem of the chorus singers and orchestral players that were lacking at Zadar. Te theatre had in fact admitted that it had "few male singers and no females" (*pochi coristi maschi e nessuna femmina*).208 It was therefore a matter of bringing to Zadar around 22 people to add to those present: eight male singers, six female singers and eight orchestral players. Te cost would be about two and a half forins a day, excluding the outward journey. Hence, Razzani insisted, the sum ofered by the management as an endowment, 600 forins along with free lighting, would amount to very little when set against the expenses the impresa would have to meet to stage all the operas. All things considered, the season would cost at least 17,000 Italian lire, so Razzani asked the management to shoulder, in addition to the costs of the orchestra and chorus, also those of printing, police, fremen and charity, as well as the theatre staf at the door and backstage. He also asked to be given a further 300 forins, to be added to the 600 already proposed, and even asked the management to make sure that all the box-owners bought season tickets or else made their boxes available to the impresa.

After a positive answer from the theatre management (endowment increased to 800 forins; expenses not to be charged to the impresario, excluding the orchestra),209 Razzani took the reins of the negotiations by confrming that he intended to go ahead with the staging of *Faust*; but preferred to decide the names of the other operas together with the management. As negotiations proceeded, the ones he himself proposed had by now become *Ruy Blas*, *Poliuto*, *Jone*, *Gemma di Vergy*, *La favorita* and *Lucia di Lammermoor*. On its part the theatre management put forward its own short list, consisting of *Roberto il Diavolo*, *I vespri siciliani*, *La Gioconda*, *I promessi sposi*, *L'ebrea*, *Dinorah*, *Stella* and *La forza del destino*. 210 Razzani replied, however, that these would be unsuited to the vocal ranges of the artists engaged for *Faust*. In the end none of the operas on the management's list was taken on board and an agreement was reached over *Il trovatore* and *Ruy Blas*.

As regards the management of the so-called *masse* (orchestra and choruses), Razzani was advised by the theatre management to contact the conductor Antonio Ravasio directly. Ravasio could give him a comment on the quality of the players in situ, so that he would know which instruments to leave out of the calculation. In 1883 Zadar could count on 20 local players, who

<sup>207</sup> "intiliggentissima [*sic*] e buonissima, avendo dato prove di sé in moltissimi importanti teatri, mantenendo con tutti ogni suo impegno"; Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 18.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>208</sup> See also the comment in the Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Pietro Ciscutti, Zadar, 9.5.1884 HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>209</sup> The theatre management granted 800 florins of endowment, plus 600 in nightly expenses (25 florins for 24 performances), making an overall sum of 1,400 florins.

<sup>210</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Francesco Razzani, Zadar, 20.3.1883 HR-DAZD, folder 5.

would need to be paid 2 forins per night (rehearsals included).211 Razzani wanted an orchestra of 29 players made up of 4 frst violins, 4 second violins, 2 violas, 2 double basses, 1 cello, 2 futes, 1 oboe, 2 clarinets (*clarini*), 1 bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 4 trombones, timpani and bass drum. He also asked for information on the scenery already available at the theatre, so as to avoid bringing superfuous material and incurring pointless expenses.212 As in many letters of this kind, Razzani guaranteed the quality of the artists, who were all "of undisputed merit, given that they had appeared on important stages both in Italy and abroad".213

In the subsequent contract, after specifying the titles of the operas to be performed (as a rule the frst opera was clearly named, while for the other two a list was proposed from which to choose), the second article dealt with the formation of the orchestra. Te numbers and types of instrument stated were exactly as indicated in the previous negotiations (see above).214 It is worth noting that not all contracts at the time gave details of the orchestral families and numbers of instruments required. As always, if local musicians were lacking, others would have to be found externally. Tis contract was relatively simple in that it had only four articles. It made no mention of the date for starting the performances; it just gave the number of performances of opera seria. Razzani was thus awarded the concession and the whole company departed from Venice for Zadar on Saturday 31 March 1883.215

Te problems, however, were not long in coming. While at the end of March the agent Utili was still of the opinion that Razzani and Delfno Marchelli (who accompanied Razzani)216 were "two perfect gentlemen" (*due perfetti gentiluomini*) who would work "properly, honouring both myself and your excellencies" (*a dovere, facendo onore a me ed alle* S.LL.Ill. me),217 in April he was forced to change his mind. He wrote again to the theatre management,

<sup>211</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Sante Utili, Zadar [February-March] 1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>212</sup> The scenery for the new operas, however, would have to be brought by the impresa; See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Francesco Razzani, Zadar, 25.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>213</sup> "di merito incontrastabile, per avere calcate importanti scene tanto in Italia che all'estero"; Letters from Francesco Razzani to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 18.3.1883 and 23.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>214</sup> "L'orchestra si comporrà, oltrechè del maestro concertatore e direttore d'orchestra, di 4 violini primi, 4 violini secondi, 2 viole, 2 contrabbassi, 1 violoncello, 2 flauti, 1 oboe, 2 clarini, 1 fagotto, 2 corni, 2 trombe, 4 tromboni, timpani e cassa. Oltre a ciò, un maestro dei cori e suggeritore."; Art. 2, Contract between the theatre presidency of Zadar and the impresario Francesco Razzani, Zadar-Milano, 1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>215</sup> See Letter from Francesco Razzani to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 28.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>216</sup> Delfino Marchelli, born in 1841, turns out to have emigrated to New York in 1920. In 1878 he had written from the Teatro Malibran in Venice to the theatre management of Zadar to propose an opera season.

<sup>217</sup> Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 30.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

expressing his regret at not having known the impresario well – "a real scoundrel" (*un vero farabutto*), "a wretched individual" (*un tristo soggetto*) – and distanced himself from him. He disclaimed all responsibility for the behaviour of his client (who once had been an "honourable client") and protested that at the beginning there was nothing to make one doubt his honesty. From the extant documents it is hard to understand exactly what the problem was, though it was somehow connected to debts incurred when hiring the *masse*. Tis is what Utili had to say on the matter:

On my own part, I did not fail to act in all conscience and good faith, given that my approach is to proceed under the banner of honesty and loyalty, but unfortunately I was deceived in this frst meeting. I was wrong to place too much trust in [Razzani], and I put in too many good words for him. […] I have too many good references, should they be needed, to present to your Honourable Presidency, if Signor Razzani etc. etc. should wish to damage me in front of Your Lordships, after his disgraceful behaviour towards my old theatrical establishment.218

Although the "disgraceful behaviour" is not divulged in detail, Utili declared that he no longer had any trust in the impresa and that he proposed to tell all his clients to pay Razzani nothing more, and intended to give back any agency fees already collected, even if it meant losing his commissions. Utili had therefore worked, and spent money, in vain. If he had known earlier that the management was going to grant an endowment of 800 forins, he wrote, he would never have committed himself with Razzani but with another impresario that could have arrived in Zadar in better conditions.219

But instead of closing the season honourably, two months after the start of the season Razzani wrote again to the theatre management asking to increase the number of performances with a further ten nights and to give Verdi's *La forza del destino* as a fourth opera. Although the receipts up until then were certainly satisfactory, they were not sufcient to pay for the musicians of the chorus and orchestra who came from outside the city.220

<sup>218</sup> "Dal canto mio non mancai di agire con tutta coscienza e buona fede, essendo mio sistema di camminare sotto la bandiera dell'onestà e lealtà ma purtroppo fui deluso in questo primo incontro. Ebbi torto di prestar troppa fiducia al medesimo, e per lui spesi anche troppo buone parole. […] Ho troppe buone referenze, se occorrono, da presentare a codesta Onorevole Presidenza, se il sig.r Razzani ecc. ecc. volesse farmi nero di fronte alle Signorie Loro, dopo al suo vergognoso modo di agire verso alla mia vecchia casa teatrale." Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 18. 4.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>219</sup> See Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 18.4.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>220</sup> "Honourable President", Razzani wrote, "given that the impresa running this theatre is very grateful to this Noble and Honourable Presidency for the continual kindnesses shown to it, it ventures to mention that, after a scrupulous examination of this company's budget of income and expenditure, although the takings turn out to be quite satisfactory, they nonetheless definitely fail to cover the expenditure that unfortunately must be sustained for the external choral and orchestral masses. Therefore, to rem-

Razzani had documented these losses in a table that he had delivered directly to the director Stermich. Prolonging a season was a strategy customarily adopted when an impresario faced fnancial difculties: he requested to use the theatre for a longer period so as to present an extra series of performances with a new subscription. It was an attempt to stem any debts that were building up. On this matter the management reminded Razzani that, according to the contract, he had no right to increase the number of performances, which were fxed at 24, but it was prepared to allow a further ten performances on certain conditions. Te frst was that he would have to stage *La forza del destino* with a prima donna chosen by the management itself (it was to be Lola Morandi), engage a new *baritono brillante* and replace the tenor Colombani; all of which the impresario willingly agreed to. Te theatre would also have to be relieved of any expense or further endowment. To compensate for the extra costs sustained by the impresa, the theatre management granted Razzani not only the receipts for admission and seating in the parterre, but also the proceeds from the boxes of the third tier, excluding the three big boxes (*palconi*). It also reminded him that this concession was by no means standard procedure.221 It would be absurd to presume that an impresario should have

edy inconveniences that could ensue at the end of the present season, it proposes to extend the season with a further 10 performances and with a fourth score alternating with the current repertoire. The impresa is confident that both the aforepraised Noble Management and the season-ticket holders will take into consideration the efforts and honesty of the writer. In order to pursue the second run of performances, the impresa is prepared to replace the tenor Colombano [*sic*] with another name that is well known either for having sung on important stages or for his artistic reputation. The present writer is confident that the Honourable Presidency wishes to give its support to this project, while maintaining the present conditions. In support of what is proposed above, the impresa proposes to give the grand opera *La forza del destino* by Maestro Verdi, for which it is mandatory to engage a *baritono brillante* for the part of Frate Melitone, and to sustain a greater expense for the staging." ("Onorevole Presidenza, l'impresa di questo teatro essendo gratissima a questa Nobile ed Onorevole Presidenza per le continue gentilezze usatele, si fa coraggio di esporre, che dopo uno scrupoloso bilancio di entrata ed uscita di questa azienda, quantunque che gl'introiti si verifichino abbastanza soddisfacenti, pure non arrivano sicuramente a coprire la spesa di sortita che pur troppo deve sottostare, per le masse corali ed orchestrali forestiere. Percui [*sic*], a riparare ad inconvenienti che possono verificarsi alla fine dell'attuale stagione, proporrebbe di prolungare la stagione per altre 10 recite con un quarto spartito alternato coll'attuale repertorio. Persuasa che tanto la prelodata Nobile Direzione, quanto i signori abbonati, terranno in considerazione l'operato, e l'onestà della scrivente. Onde proseguire il secondo corso di recite, l'impresa è disposta a sostituire il tenore Colombano [*sic*] con altro conosciuto, per aver calcato scene d'importanza, o conosciutissimo in arte. Persuasa la scrivente che l'Onorevole Presidenza voglia coadiuvare a tale proggetto [*sic*], continuando le attuali condizioni. All'appoggio di quanto sopra, l'impresa proporrebbe di dare la grand'opera *La forza del destino* del M° Verdi per la quale è obbligata scritturare un baritono brillante per la parte del frate Melitone, e sottostare a spese maggiori per la messa in iscena."; Letter from Francesco Razzani to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 2.5.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>221</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Francesco Razzani, Zadar, 3.4[?].1883 HR-DAZD, folder 6.

his back covered at all times or that he could rely on the theatre management paying for any losses: it was in the unwritten rules that an impresa could either fail to make a proft or even lose money. On its arrival in a given city, the management continued to point out, it should already have the necessary capital to deal with every contingency, while the theatre had every right to be able to rely on the impresa.

In spite of all these warnings and veiled reproaches, Razzani succeeded in his intent to proceed with the season, with the operas staged now increased to four. Te theatre management performed an act of trust that it would later regret. And it was precisely this additional opera that would defnitively reverse the impresario's fortunes. With *La forza del destino* it was hoped to sell subscriptions for at least 600 forins, which didn't happen (in fact the *borderò* registered just half that sum). At the same time, the management couldn't understand how the season as a whole could have run at a loss, considering that: the impresa was not paying his artists huge sums; in the end it had not brought in external scenery for the other operas in the season (*Il trovatore* and *Ruy Blas*); it had recycled the costumes for those same operas (in spite of the stipulation, already reasserted in the previous contracts at Zadar with the impresarios Pesaro and Vianello, that scenery and costumes needed to be changed); and it had borne only half of the cost of the dancers in *Faust*. Moreover, the management had agreed to the advance payments, the full number of beneft nights requested and, in conclusion, the ten extra performances requested. It would appear that Razzani had succeeded in making all parties unhappy, including the poor tenor Luigi Colombani, who, on seeing that he was no longer engaged for *La forza del destino*, immediately made his complaint to the management ("a great wrong was done to me after working with devotion and zeal in the three operas I performed in; I put in as much efort as my powers allowed, and I am in any case pleased to have fnished my season with honour.").222 Colombani recognised that the impresa was free to engage who it wanted, and that it had always paid punctually, though at the present moment he was waiting to be paid 400 lire. He said he was confdent of being paid the balance.223 Most likely, however, he never got the money.

In actual fact, in March of the same year, a letter concerning Razzani, Utili and his clients had arrived at the theatre of Dubrovnik. Its content was hardly reassuring. Te management at Zadar had somehow come into possession of it, but most likely either ignored it or felt that it was too late to change the course of events. It was not anonymous, but signed by a

<sup>222</sup> "per me fu un gran torto dietro d'avere lavorato con amore e zelo nelle tre opere da me eseguite ed ho messo tutto l'impegno per quanto le mie forze mi hanno permesso, d'altronde son lieto d'avere finito la mia staggione [*sic*] con onore"; Letter from Luigi Colombani to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 10.5.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>223</sup> See Letter from Luigi Colombani to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 10.5.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6. The theatre management replied saying that it was unaware of the conditions the tenor had agreed with the impresa, so it couldn't pronounce judgement on the matter. In fact it is not clear which of the two parties – management or impresa – really made the decision to replace Colombani.

certain "F. Cabussi" and had the air of being a warning: "An impossible company of howling dogs is being organised by the impresarios Razzani, a former dancer of inauspicious memory, and Marchelli, a refugee from New York, at the doghouse of Sante Utili whose civil rights were revoked on account of his being *too honest*. Tis company will very soon come to howl in this theatre, so be on your guard against such artists, impresarios and the self-styled theatrical agent… a man forewarned is a man forearmed."224

Te writer – who was obviously being ironic when referring to Utili as "too honest" – hastened to add in a P.S. that they were all "rascals full of debts" (*disperati pieni di debiti*) and "trouble wherever they go" (*guai ove capitano*). In this accusation there was a grain of truth, for Razzani did contract debts at Zadar and he did cheat Sante Utili of 400 lire on agency fees. Utili tried to fnd a way of recovering the lost money together with the management in Zadar. "Our debtor is a choreographer", Utili wrote to the management, "but with his income he is surely unable to make enough money to pay of such a big debt, also given his advanced age".225 Te possibility of turning to Razzani's children occurred to them. Tey might – merely out of a sense of dignity – wish to make amends for their father's misconduct: either his son, who was an accountant working at the Gondrand transportation company and lived prosperously in a "splendid apartament" in Milan, or his daughter, who was "married to a distinguished shopkeeper of Rijeka".226 Razzani lived in his son's apartment, and the apartment was registered in his son's name, so coercive action to recover the debt was out of the question.

A glimmer of hope emerged when Razzani signed a contract for the theatre of Novi Ligure, which was due to grant an endowment of 7,000 to 8,000 lire for the autumn season. Tese were sums that could be used to recover the outstanding debts, though it was feared that Razzani might make the cautionary deposit in someone else's name. At the time he was accompanied by a certain Pietro Scipioni, a man of "dubious reputation, unedifying conduct and desperate means" according to Utili.227 Tere was even a rumour going round that Razzani was certain to be ofered the running of the theatre in Zadar, as this would be the only way the management could recover its debts. Te advice Utili gave the management as a way of recuperating its losses was to open the theatre for its own beneft, entrusting it

<sup>224</sup> "Una compagnia impossibile di cani si sta organizzando dagl'impresari Razzani ex ballerino d'infausta memoria e Marchelli profugo di Nuova Jorche presso il canile di Sante Utili cui per essere *troppo onesto*  furono interdettati i diritti civili. Questa compagnia quanto prima si recherà a latrare a codesto teatro perciò in guardia da siffatti artisti, impresari e sedicente Agente Teatrale…uomo avvisato mezzo salvato […]"); Letter from F. Cabussi to the theatre management of Dubrovnik, [n.p.], 26.3.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>225</sup> "Il nostro debitore è un coreografo, ma dai suoi guadagni non potrà certamente prelevare con che pagare un debito così rilevante stante anche la sua avanzata età."; Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 9. 8.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>226</sup> Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 9. 8.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>227</sup> "dubbia fama, di condotta poco edificante e di mezzi disperatissimo"; Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 28. 8.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

to an honest person with experience in theatrical matters who could be recommended by Utili himself (again!). He was simply doing all in his power to correct the bad impression he had made, hoping that he had not lost all credibility in the eyes of the theatre.228

So, in spite of everything, Utili continued to send his proposals. Indeed, he once again entered into negotiations with the theatre two years later. For the spring of 1886 he proposed an opera season with *Roberto il Diavolo* and an endowment of a thousand forins. Te theatre management must have left open a margin for further collaboration with Utili, for in its reply it gave detailed information on the situation of the choral and orchestral *masse* (of which, as always, there were not enough).229 Where and when possible, they resorted to the military band, but it was not always possible to fll the gaps. A chorus master and prompter were also needed. Regarding the expenses, the impresario would have to pay each player two forins and each singer one forin per night. Given that Dubrovnik was to hold an opera season in the same period, the impresario would do well to look for the missing musicians at the theatre there.230 It was around this time that the management at Zadar received some further pseudo-accusatory correspondence concerning Utili, this time from Alessandro Berti, an agent from Milan. In a letter to the theatre dated 10 March 1885 Berti reported on Utili's insolvency, only to ofer the services of one of his own impresarios in replacement: "I have a person who is solvent, so you would have someone who could take on the contract with due guarantees and, what is more, he is ready to come to Zadar immediately").231 Competition – even when devious, as in this case – was still widespread and the struggle to win contracts

<sup>228</sup> See Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 28. 8.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6. The whole incident is hard to square with the words Utili sent to the management at the start: "While Lamperti, when doing business, will propose just anyone, the agent Sante Utili does not use this wretched system, but deals only in solid and positive matters, [ensuring] that the impresario must continue right up to the end of the season and not interrupt the productions after a few performances, as so often happens." ("Se Lamperti per fare un affare propone uno qualunque, l'agente Sante Utili non tiene questo magro sistema, ma si occupa soltanto di affari solidi e positivi, [cercando] che le imprese vadino in fine stagione e non troncare lo spettacolo dopo qualche recita, come succede spesso."); Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 18. 2.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>229</sup> It specified that there were only three male voices and no females. As regards the instrumentalists, the following needed to be found externally: three first violins, two second violins and a cello, two double basses, a first flute, a first oboe, a first clarinet, a first bassoon, a first trumpet and a timpanist. Among both the first and second violins a leader was needed. Among the double basses a principal part at the harpsichord; see Letter from the theatre presidency of Zadar to Sante Utili, Zadar, 27. 2.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>230</sup> See Letter from the theatre presidency of Zadar to Sante Utili, Zadar, 27. 2.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>231</sup> "Io tengo persona solvibile ed avreste chi assumerebbe l'appalto con la dovuta cauzione, e per meglio intendersi, pronto di venire subito a Zara"; Letter from Alessandro Berti to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 10.3.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5. The management declined to pursue the matter because it was already negotiating with Bruto Bocci of Ferrara; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Bruto Bocci, Zadar, 16.3.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

unrelenting. Tough Utili did not completely disappear from the theatre circuits, over the years he seems to have become more cautious, for in 1889 he confded to the management at Zadar: "I am a family man with children who are minors and no mother, so I cannot be reckless. I am not as strong as I was owing to the losses sustained, but thank God I still have no need of anyone".232 However, we no longer fnd his name mentioned in the following seasons at Zadar. In light of the various reports received and the talk of debts contracted, the theatre management probably no longer felt like taking the risk.

While the theatre gave no opera season in 1884 and remained closed until the outcome of an appeal addressed to the Ministry about making alterations to the building and its furnishings (aimed at reducing fre hazards),233 from 1885 its activities resumed at full capacity. Te abundance of proposals that arrived that year shows just how many impresarios were still interested in getting involved. Giovanni Battista Righini ofered to organise an opera season in March; Ullmann proposed one with *Mignon* and *Faust*; <sup>234</sup> and Ettore Bonturini235 from Venice again proposed *Faust*, though combined with *La traviata*. At the end of March, hence at the very last minute, we fnd Alfredo Vecchi still asking for the tender specifcations, with the intention of making an ofer. Some impresarios ofered specifc operas perhaps because they knew the composer and might hope for favourable terms. Writing from Bologna, the impresario and baritone Ernesto Maurizi Enrici – who again proposed *Faust*, which, we will remember, had been staged two years earlier with Razzani – suggested also staging *L'ultimo Faliero* by the composer Alessandro Magotti,236 justifying his choice by saying that the opera had already been widely performed and that it would be particularly well received because it required the use of Dalmatian costumes.237 And since he also knew the composer personally, he would secure excellent conditions. Te management in Zadar, however, was unimpressed by these advantages and excluded the opera, since it believed

<sup>232</sup> "Sono padre di famiglia di figli minorenni senza madre quindi non posso avventurarmi. Non sono più forte come una volta per subite perdite, ma grazie a Dio non o [*sic*] ancora bisogno di nessuno."; Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Savigliano, 17.11.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>233</sup> The theatre's president Perlini was appointed to supervise the execution of the work. The authorities had ordered the alterations to be made so that the theatre would comply with the new fire regulations. Among the anticipated expenses were those for smearing and for water pumps on the stage and at the gridding. When a proposal was made by Felice Brandini of Trieste for ten performances of *Carmen* on October 1884, it was turned down for this very reason.

<sup>234</sup> If accepted, the endowment would have come to 1,000 florins for 20 performances plus 4 further nights, with the agreement that the company would receive the overall takings, including the boxes of the third tier, but have to bear all expenses.

<sup>235</sup> A certain Ettore Bonturini appeared as a "secondo amoroso" in the Drammatica Compagnia Dalmata; most likely, it was the same person; *La Fama*, 18. 4.1858.

<sup>236</sup> Alessandro Magotti was, like his father, also a theatrical agent; John Rosselli, *The Opera industry,* p. 27.

<sup>237</sup> See Letter from Ernesto Maurizi Enrici to the theatre management of Zadar, Bologna, 17. 2.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

the score had little merit. Instead, it proposed *Il Guarany*, an opera that the impresario was not prepared to stage since it alone would cost around 5,000 lire: too much for his pockets (he declared that he had only 1,500 lire). An interesting piece of evidence is an approximate outline of the expenditure for *Il Guarany* in two tables. Te frst includes the expenses up until payment of the frst instalment (*quartale*), i.e. until the frst performance:


Te second presented the overall expenses for the whole season, including performances of *L'ultimo Faliero*:


<sup>238</sup> To which would have to be added the costs of the outward journey by sea for everyone.

Tese fgures confrm the customary assumption that the singers constituted the most expensive item in the season's budget. Also marked is the diference between the local orchestral players (*del paese*) and those hired externally (*forestieri*): the cost of a local would be 120 lire per season, that of an outsider 270, more than double. Or in other words, over a total of 24 performances, the local player would earn 5 lire (or 2 forins) for each performance, an outsider 11.5 lire (or 4.5 forins). Te local chorister was paid even less and wouldn't even get 2 forins per night. Everything was calculated in Italian lire in the estimate. If one converted to forins, the totals would come to 2,043.20 forins for the partial expenditure (for just *Il Guarany* at the frst performance), and 9,493.80 forins for the whole series of 24 performances, including *L*'*ultimo Faliero*. 239 Te total sum doesn't difer greatly from the estimate made two years later for the Politeama of Pula by Alfonso Pozzati, again for a season of 24 performances.240 If we bear in mind that in the 1870s and 1880s the endowments at Zadar ranged between 2,000 and 3,000 forins per season, we can well understand that the revenue – inclusive of season tickets (ca. 1,800 forins)241 and other admissions – would not exceed the expenditure. In fact there is no evidence that this proposal was ever realised.

In the meantime the theatre continued to receive a number of proposals, even during the summer months: the Roman opera company of Giuseppe Conti asked to use the theatre in the frst fortnight of June 1885 for opera bufa;242 the agency "Artisti lirici e Maestri afni" of Milan proposed opera for the autumn season;243 and Giustino Azzarelli from Gorizia ofered his own Donizetti opera company for a run of *semiseria* operas.244 Te impresario who came out victorious was Pietro Dussich, who applied to organise ten performances of *La favorita* with a cast that included not only the baritone Antonio Pini Corsi and his wife, but also himself. As an impresario, Dussich generally handled opera

<sup>239</sup> See Letter from Ernesto Maurizi Enrici to the theatre management of Zadar, Bologna, 6.3.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>240</sup> As we saw in the Chapter 1, Pozzati spoke of 10,980 florins for 24 nights, though with seasons of three operas instead of two, which justifies the higher cost; "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.10.1887.

<sup>241</sup> See Estimate for the opera season to be given at the Teatro Sociale of Zadar, Milano, 26.5.1872, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>242</sup> In fact it was Augusto Ganzari who wrote to Zadar on Giuseppe Conti's behalf in 1885. The works offered were *L'elisir d'amore*, *Il barbiere di Siviglia*, *Pipelet*, *Falsi monetari* and *Crispino e la comare*, i.e. those most in vogue for any company of opera buffa*.* The company's administrator was Carlo Cristofoli.

<sup>243</sup> See Letter from the Artisti Lirici to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 17. 7.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>244</sup> See Letter from Giustino Azzarelli to the theatre management of Zadar, Gorizia, 2. 8.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5. Among the requests in 1885 there was also that of Hans Roos from Trenozin-Töplitz, offering an opera company for Easter 1886 (and asking for information on the theatre's capacity and the local musical forces) and that of Alberto Vernier, writing from Pula and offering a semiseria opera company for October 1886.

seria, but the documentation attests that he asked for an extra endowment a month later and actually staged *Il barbiere di Siviglia*. 245 For the frst time the artists in the principal roles were from Zadar itself (Pini Corsi was born in Zadar 246 and Dussich himself was also from the area). From this time on, nothing particularly signifcant seems to have happened in the city until the arrival of the impresario Paolo Massimini, who was to bring *La Gioconda* and *Faust.*

#### 4.5.2 Aida on and of: Paolo Massimini and the missed season

In the 1880s Massimini, the "little Strakosch" (*piccolo Strakosch*) as he was also called, was still unaware of the comments that would be spread among the various theatre managements (or at the very least at Split), when his impresario colleague Antonio Lana ("Don Ciccio"), following the well-known practice of denunciation, decided to blacken his name with the theatre manager Gajo Filomen Bulat: "You will have heard that a certain Massimini (a Jew), a former impresario at Zadar and Dubrovnik took an opera company to Spain this winter and, as usual, abandoned it and fed. Of people like this there are dozens in Milan".247 What is meant by the expression "as usual" is not clear, since, at least as far as Zadar is concerned, there don't seem to have been too many problems. When he left Zadar after the 1888 season,248 Massimini had no further immediate correspondence with

<sup>245</sup> See Letters from Pietro Dussich to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 4. 8.1885 and 11. 9.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>246</sup> Antonio Pini Corsi was twenty-seven at the time of his appearance at the Teatro Nuovo. He also often performed abroad, in particular at the Metropolitan of New York. See Elisabeth Forbes, "Pini-Corsi, Antonio", Oxford Music Online, 2001, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/ gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000021782 [accessed 14. 4. 2020].

<sup>247</sup> "Saprai che un certo Massimini (ebreo) impresario che fu di Zara e Ragusa ha portato questo inverno una compagnia d'opera in Spagna e come il solito l'ha piantata ed è scappato. Di questi ce ne sono parecchie dozzine a Milano."; Letter from Antonio Lana to Gajo Filomen Bulat, Milano, 18.3.1893, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII. Lana knew the Spanish scene well, given that he had worked as general secretary for the opera company of the Teatro Real in Madrid for ten consecutive years; Letter from Antonio Lana to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, [May 1891], HR-DAZD, folder 7.

<sup>248</sup> It was in this season that Massimini staged *La Gioconda* and *Faust.* It was a *Faust* that "brought in very slack business", the newspaper commented, "to the extent that with an astute reprise of Ponchielli's fine work the theatre filled up again to the satisfaction of all, but above all to that of the impresario, who, seeing the good business that can be done, is considering bringing to us next year, along with Verdi's dark Ethiopean heroine, another two older operas still to be decided." ("procurò degli affari veramente stracchi, tanto che con una sapiente *reprise* della bella creazione del Ponchielli il teatro ritornò a popolarsi con la soddisfazione di tutti, ma più di tutti dell'impresario. Il quale, visti i buoni affari, pensa ricondurci l'anno venturo, con la bruna etiope verdiana, altre due opere di vecchia data non ancora fissate."); "Nostre corrispondenze", *L'Eco di Pola*, 27.10.1888.

any of the people he had been in contact with during his stay. However, after considering the good results and an experience that was generally positive, he made contact again in April 1889 by writing to the *maestro concertatore* Ravasio and announcing his programmes. He was to be the impresario at the Teatro Verdi of Busseto for the year in which the theatre celebrated its own centenary and the fftieth anniversary of the frst performance of a Verdi opera. "It will be a season of great importance with distinguished artists" (*Sarà uno spettacolo di molta importanza con distinti artisti*), he writes. Hence the proposal to bring everything, Busseto artists included,249 to Zadar in early November for a run of performances of *Aida*, *La traviata* and perhaps a third opera to be chosen by mutual agreement. He therefore asked for a reaction to the proposal so that he could engage the singers in good time; he also mentioned that his wife had been engaged to work in America and would be leaving in early August.250

Te following month Massimini sent the project for the season (as per agreement made in person), also declaring that he was prepared to make changes if required. He sent it to Ravasio and not directly to the theatre management, hoping that the conductor might put in a good word: "I am sending it to you for you to present to the management, because it will gain in value if presented by you, especially if, as I hope, you will wish to support it with your infuence".251 In the project he indicated that he wished to open the season in November 1889 with three operas, conjecturing no fewer than 20 performances, with 28 choristers, 30 orchestral players, 8 ballerinas and Ravasio as *maestro concertatore* and conductor. Te fee would be 2,000 forins plus the use of the boxes and the takings from the theatre, as customary at the time.

After this letter there was a long silence until September. Indeed the negotiations would seem to have come to nothing, but then the management responded with encouragement ("We would like to think you have not abandoned the idea of coming to us"),252 declaring that *Aida* would be fne, even if there was a concern that the grand spectacle might turn into "grand irony" (*grande ironia*) on their stage. *La traviata* was rejected, since the city was "gorged" with it (*ristucco*) and had had enough of it. "You would see the thea-

<sup>249</sup> See Letter from Giuseppe Perlini to [unknown recipient], Zadar, 30. 9.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6. The practice of transferring an entire opera company with a specific repertoire from one theatre to another was one started by Lanari together with Merelli: the so-called "package deal" mentioned by Rosselli in his article "Agenti teatrali nel mondo dell'opera lirica dell'Ottocento"*, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia*, I/17 (1982), p. 149.

<sup>250</sup> See Letter from Paolo Massimini to Antonio Ravasio, Milano, 15. 4.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>251</sup> "Io lo mando a lei affinchè lo presenti alla direzione perché presentato da Lei acquista più valore tanto più se come spero Lei lo vorrà appoggiare dalla sua influenza". Letter from Paolo Massimini to Antonio Ravasio, Milano, 7.5.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>252</sup> "Vogliamo supporre ch'Ella non abbia abbandonato affatto l'idea di venire tra noi". Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 26. 9.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

tre empty", the writer prophesied.253 As for the third opera, it would not be needed; the season would consist of 20 nights at most. If staging *Aida* should prove impossible, the management proposed *Carmen* or *Mignon.* Concerning the fee, it agreed to the 2,000 forins: half given after the frst performance, half at the end of the season. It also observed in passing that Massimini had been paid 500 forins too much the year before, "by mistake" (*incompetentemente*).254 Tat sum would no longer be available in the forthcoming season. He was instructed to bring artists of distinction, or at least no worse than those of the past performances of *La Gioconda*, and to address all further questions to Ravasio. Finally, in anticipation of drafting the contract, he was asked to indicate an approximate date for the frst performance.

From that moment on, there began a series of misunderstandings and exasperating negotations carried out through telegrams sent back and forth between Zadar and Soresina (near Cremona) or Milan, where Massimini was residing. Everything started with an innocuous telegram from Massimini confrming the state of play: "Same conditions last year I take on impresa giving Aida [and] other opera".255 Te management calmly answered: "Past conditions, without additions. Aida and Carmen or Mignon. Approval written contract by shareholders".256 Massimini replied with a confrmation: "Will give Aida with distinguished artists splendid staging and other opera to be chosen mutual agreement Prepared to come and arrange [Please] send telegram".257 Te management responded indicating the order of the operas – "We repeat Aida frst, Carmen or Mignon second, two thousand forins" (*Ripetiamo Aida prima, Carmen oppure Mignon seconda forini duemila*) – and simultane-

255 "Precise condizioni anno scorso assumo impresa dando Aida altra opera"; Telegram from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Soresina, 4.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

257 "Darò Aida con distinti artisti splendida messa in scena e altra opera da scegliersi comune accordo disposto venire combinare telegrafate"; Telegram from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Soresina, 4.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>253</sup> "Ella vedrebbe il teatro deserto"; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 26. 9.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>254</sup> To this veiled accusation Massimini responded as follows: "If I must, as they say, open up my soul, I thought I detected in your esteemed letter of 4 October a touch of bitterness that I truly do not know what to ascribe to. In it it says that last year I was improperly paid 500 florins. I was paid not a penny more than was owed to me and I believe I did my job to the general satisfaction of both the discerning public and the honourable management." ("Se devo poi aprire come suol dirsi l'animo mio, ho creduto intravvedere nella pregiata di Lei lettera del 4 ottobre un certo non so che di amaro che io non so veramente a cosa attribuire. In essa è detto che l'anno scorso ho percepito incompetentemente fiorini 500. Io non ho percepito neppure un soldo che non mi fosse dovuto e mi sembra di aver servito con generale soddisfazione e dell'intelligente pubblico e dell'Onorevole Direzione."); Letter from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Soresina, 22.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>256</sup> "Condizioni passate, senza aggiunta. Aida e Carmen oppure Mignon. Approvazione sociale contratto scritto"; Telegram from the theatre management of Zadar to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 4.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

ously felt the need to send a letter as well, with the following specifcation in the postscript: "your telegram of today is not clear. An agreement between two people will not succeed when each persists in his own idea. We repeat: Aida frst, Carmen or Mignon second. Te endowment of two thousand forins and no more. Come if you want to sign the contract, subject to the approval of our company".258

Te problem was that if both *Aida* and *Mignon* were staged, a double company would be needed: something that Massimini was not disposed to provide. He therefore proposed replacing *Mignon* with another opera: only in that way, he claimed, would he be able to guarantee a satisfactory season.259 Te management, backing down, replied: "Second *Carmen* or other new [opera] for Zadar and [to be] decided quickly".260 Time was indeed running out, it was necessary to act fast. Massimini responded with Ponchielli's *Promessi sposi* instead of *Carmen* and it seemed as if they had reached an agreement: "First Aida. Second Promessi Sposi. Endowment two thousand".261 So in the meantime the management prepared a draft contract, dated 10 October, indicating the operas *Aida*  and *Promessi sposi*. At article 4 the management, mindful of earlier experiences, clearly spelled out that the impresario could ask for neither an increase in the endowment nor other benefts other than those already agreed. In a post scriptum, it was mentioned that in the opinion of Ravasio – with which the theatre concurred – instead of *Promessi sposi*  it would be preferable to have another opera, again a new one for Zadar, such as *Don Sebastiano.* Tis was not an obligation but simply a "recommendation", which would in any case be subject to approval. Massimini confrmed everything: "All agreed I await contract Meantime will engage artists".262 Everything seemed to be going well, for the management had yielded on the change of the second opera, thereby making it possible to save on the double cast. But there was a new interruption in communications, and about ten days later Massimini found himself obliged to send the following telegram: "In view of your delay impossible for early November to stage Aida Reason organisation artists [and] masses Will give second opera frst Must give opera with rehearsals done Please wire

<sup>258</sup> "il suo odierno telegramma non è chiaro. Un accordo non riesce tra due, quando ognuno persiste nella propria idea. Ripetiamo: Aida prima, Carmen oppure Mignon seconda. La dotazione di fiorini due mila e non più. Venga se vuole a firmare contratto, salva l'approvazione della nostra società"; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 4.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>259</sup> See Telegram from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Soresina, 5.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>260</sup> "Seconda *Carmen* oppure altra nuova per Zara e stabilita tosto"; Telegram from the theatre management of Zadar to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 5.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>261</sup> "Prima Aida. Seconda Promessi Sposi. Dote duemila"; Telegram from the theatre management of Zadar to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 6.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>262</sup> "Sta bene attendo contratto intanto impegno artisti"; Telegram from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Soresina, 7.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

various operas to choose from Time is short".263 By this time there was really very little time before the start of the season, just a matter of a couple of weeks. Massimini was thus asking to make *Aida* the second opera and once again left the choice of the other opera open; considering the minimal time available, it would have to be something 'ready'. Tis time the management did not back down at all: "Aida frst absolutely. Second Promessi sposi or other new [opera] for Zadar. Impresa must propose. Await signed contract. Please respect agreements".264 Given the difculty of the situation (and the palpable tension), this time Massimini turned directly to Ravasio asking him to convince the management of the impossibility of giving *Aida* as the frst opera and to tell him what the frst opera could be. Ravasio's answer, however, was unequivocal and not what Massimini wanted to hear: "Presidency infexible. Aida frst Season guaranteed".265 Besides, the wishes of a *maestro concertatore* would in any case take second place to decisions of the theatre management: Ravasio's opinions might be taken into consideration, but not to the point of changing prearranged plans.

On such conditions Massimini could do nothing but back down and send the telegram the management would never have wanted to read: "Suspending departure Staying in Milan since Sunday trying to fnd solution Impossible to give Aida Too little time for the suppliers and *masse* I propose to bring production [in] spring It will succeed better Promising to bring various artists [from] Teatro Fenice Venice".266 Te reason why Massimini mentioned La Fenice is because in October of that year he was engaged in the running of the autumn season there, together with the *maestro concertatore* Emilio Usiglio.267 To be sure, moving the season to March or April would mean doing things with greater ease and also getting better supplies. And according to Massimini, the motive for not accepting the conditions were those of force majeure and not "dependent on human will" (*dipendente dalla volontà umana*). Te theatre management, on the other hand, felt betrayed and reacted with threats: "Respect agreements otherwise we publish in newspapers" (*Mantenga patti* 

<sup>263</sup> "Stante vostro ritardo impossibile per primi novembre mettere scena Aida causa meccanismi masse artisti darotta per seconda prima occorre dare opera pronta concertazione favorite telegrafarmi varie opere fra cui scegliere tempo stringe"; Telegram from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Soresina, 17.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>264</sup> "Aida prima assolutamente. Seconda Promessi sposi oppure altra nuova per Zara. Impresa proponga. Attendiamo contratto firmato. Preghiamo mantenere patti"; Telegram from the theatre management of Zadar to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 17.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>265</sup> "Presidenza irremovibile. Aida prima stagione assicurata"; Telegram from Antonio Ravasio to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 18.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>266</sup> "Sospendo partenza trovandomi Milano da domenica cercare rimediare impossibile dare Aida per masse fornitori causa tempo ristretto propongo trasportare spettacolo primavera riuscirà migliore promettendo portare vari artisti teatro Fenice Venezia"; Telegram from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 21.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>267</sup> "Venedig 3. Oktober"*, Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 58, October 1889, p. 916.

*altrimenti pubblicheremo sui giornali*).268 Te threat of losing credibility in the newspapers was not only real, but also greatly feared by impresarios, who viewed the journals as one of the chief ways of building a reputation. Massimini, however, did not feel he had broken of any deal and gave the cause as a misunderstanding, as it was simply a matter of giving Aida as the second opera and not wasting time by staging frst a work that was new for Zadar and easy to perform. "I cannot understand your adverse position", Massimini wrote to one of the directors, "especially since I raised this difculty as early as last year, when speaking with Maestro Ravasio, Signor Niccolò Dondan, and Signor Pietro Dussich about the opera, which could be given another year, and it was agreed that it was of greater interest also to the impresa".269 If performed at the start of a season, no other opera would be able to bear comparison with *Aida*. But with adequate time for preparation, the work could be performed under the best of conditions, "given that it is very difcult for the *masse*". Massimini returned the contract just as he had received it, declaring himself to be "very sorry" (*dispiacentissimo*) and regretting the mishap.270

All negotiations were defnitively broken of and the impresario received no further communication: he heard nothing more from the management, either through the newspapers or by letter. What happened in 1889 he himself called an "unfortunate misunderstanding" (*malaugurato malinteso*). He could not understand how the theatre management would refuse to accept the impossibility of staging *Aida* in under two weeks, when it would have been sufcient to begin the season with a repertoire opera.

Writing again to Ravasio at the end of the year, Massimini came forward with a fresh proposal for the theatre of Zadar, asking if they would be interested in performances of *Carmen*. Some time earlier, the management itself had shown an interest in the opera, which had been staged at La Fenice in Venice not so long before, so nothing could go wrong. But this time he would have to know in good time, so that he could make a single contract with suppliers and artists. In Venice, he wrote, things were going well in the meantime and the rehearsals were encouraging. "Find a way of making a trip here during carnival", he concluded.271

<sup>268</sup> Telegram from the theatre management of Zadar to Paolo Massimini, Zadar, 22.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>269</sup> "Non arrivo a comprendere la di Lei negative, tanto più che questa difficoltà l'ho sollevata fin dallo scorso anno, parlando dello spettacolo che si poteva dare un altro anno assieme al Sig. M.to Ravasio, al sig. Niccolò Dondan, ed al sig. Pietro Dussich e si convenne essere maggiore interesse anche per l'impresa."; Letter from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Soresina, 22.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>270</sup> "essendo essa assai difficile per le masse"; Letter from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Soresina, 22.10.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>271</sup> "procuri di fare una gita qui durante il Carnevale"; Letter from Paolo Massimini to Antonio Ravasio, Venezia, 20.12.1889, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

Te outcome of this idea was that in January 1890 the management prepared a new draft contract for the operas *Carmen* and *Fra Diavolo* to be performed in April, again with 20 to 25 performances, and again with an endowment of 2,000 forins. Te condition imposed by the management was that *Carmen* was to be given frst. It was beginning to look like a repeat of the previous year's experience of *Aida* and the 'second opera'. Te management preferred to open the season with the work of greatest impact, without worrying that the second opera might thereby sufer by comparison. Tis time, without any further discussion, Massimini signed the contract, in the presence of Livio Bianchi and Marco Cappello, two witnesses called in to endorse the signature.

Massimini was to perform *La favorita, Fra Diavolo* and *Carmen* at the Teatro Sociale of Gorizia in the Lent season of 1890 with artists brought directly from the Teatro La Fenice (as had been planned previously for Zadar). Given that everything would later come to Zadar, the theatre management of Zadar wrote to Gorizia asking for information on the quality of the artists, the staging and the costumes.272 Te report from Gorizia was positive: the impresario had been zealous and conscientious and could be fully commended. Te artists were good and the public was satisfed: the staging was "very respectable" (*decentissima*), the costumes "suited to the action" (*analoghi all'azione*) and the sets "good" (*belli*). Tough the soprano primadonna of *Fra Diavolo* did not perhaps have a wide-ranging voice, she nonetheless possessed a fne timbre and "clarity" (*limpidezza*).273 In the impresario's eyes the theatre management of Gorizia, unlike Zadar's, had shrewdly understood that it was much better to stage the repertoire opera frst and *Carmen* later.

For reasons that are not explained, Massimini could not bring *La favorita* to Zadar, as he had just recently done in Gorizia, so he asked Ravasio to send him a list of six possible titles to choose from. And to avoid any further misunderstandings he repeated the same request to the theatre management. Obviously the new opera would have to suit the vocal qualities of the singers already engaged for *Carmen*, for it was impossible for him – he stressed the point – to form two distinct companies. He also pointed out that any opera chosen to follow *Carmen* would surely enjoy less success than its predecessor: from his own experience he had noted in various theatres that whatever was performed immediately after Bizet's work was always given a "cool reception" (*freddo risultato*). So he proposed beginning the season with the other opera (Auber's *Fra Diavolo* was subsequently chosen) and following it with *Carmen*, "to avoid doing myself harm" (*per non danneggiarmi*).274

<sup>272</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to the theatre management of Gorizia, Zadar, 18.3.1890, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>273</sup> Letter from the theatre management of Gorizia to the theatre management of Zadar, Gorizia, 23.3.1890, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>274</sup> Letter from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Venezia, 11.1.1890, HR-DAZD, folder 25.

Te theatre made a request to the composer Nicolò Stermich (who by this time was a 'former director') to attend the rehearsals and, by virtue of his musical knowledge, make comments and proposals.275 At the time, the management lacked personalities with solid musical skills, which naturally made it harder to make the appropriate choices on repertoire. In the event, the season fully satisfed expectations. Moreover, in the following year even the two operas over which negotiations had previously been inconclusive (*Aida* and *La favorita*) were eventually staged, along with *Rigoletto*. Massimini hence signed a third contract with the management of Zadar in 1891*.*

#### 4.5.3 The Sonzogno years and the many years of Trauner management

With the exception of 1893, a year in which (according to the letter books) no opera was performed, perhaps on account of a fre in the theatre, the 1890s hosted a steady stream of seasons, though no longer with the presence of the *maestro concertatore* Ravasio. After conducting Massimini's last two seasons, he stood down and made way for personalities such as Manlio Ravagnoli,276 Pietro Stermich and Antonio Palminteri.277 Tese were the years in which Sonzogno had a direct infuence on certain decisions taken about the opera seasons at Zadar. For the 1892 season, for example, when it was decided to give *Mignon*, *Cavalleria rusticana* and *I puritani* with the impresario Annibale Cicognani,278 it was Sonzogno in person who wished the works to be conducted by Antonio Ricci Signorini279 and Luigi Solari. Solari also succeeded in having his one-act legend *Holmara* performed, with considerable success it would seem.280 It is not known, on the other hand, who appointed the chorus master, though

<sup>275</sup> See Letter from the theatre presidency of Zadar to Nicolò Stermich di Valcrociata, Zadar, 28.3.1890, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>276</sup> Manlio Ravagnoli was a composer and teacher from Parma, and later conductor, who had a long career in Milan also as a singing teacher; *Almanacco italiano*, vol. XXXVII, 1932, p. 331.

<sup>277</sup> Antonio Palminteri (1846–1915) was a *maestro concertatore* and composer of operas. He is remembered for the operas *Arrigo II* and *Amazilia*. On one occasion he even conducted the orchestra of the Alexandrinsky Theatre at St Petersburg; *Dizionario universale dei musicisti*, Sonzogno, Milano 1937, p. 223 and Ambiveri, *Operisti minori*, p. 108.

<sup>278</sup> On the career of Annibale Cicognani, a former bass singer, we have unfortunately little information. We only know that he ended his life at the Casa Verdi in Milan. He died following injuries sustained in a car accident; *Ars et labor*, 1908, p. 760. For the 1892 season, the correspondence mentions, in addition to the operas indicated, negotiations over *L'ebrea* and *Don Sebastiano* as well.

<sup>279</sup> Antonio Ricci Signorini (1867–1965) from Massa Lombarda, was not only a conductor but also a composer of orchestral and piano music; Marino Biondi, *L'arte dolorosa di Giacinto Ricci Signorini*, Il Ponte Vecchio, Cesena 1995, p. 111.

<sup>280</sup> "A splendid success was achieved at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar by the legend in one act *Holmara* by Luigi Solari, to a text by A. Bignotti. The local newspapers have words of high praise for the talented

the choice was perhaps not a good one, seeing that comments were made about the choruses in *Mignon* being "unsteady and unblended" (*poco sicuri e poco fusi*); as for the orchestra, greater justice would have been made to the score if it had had "good elements" (*buoni elementi*).281 However, at least in the numbers of artists deployed, judging from the newspapers, the impresario displayed positively "Asiatic opulence" (*un lusso asiatico*). As many as 46 people had been brought to Zadar. It was a shame, therefore, that in spite of receiving an advance of 900 forins (in addition to an agreed frst instalment of 500 forins), he was unable to fulfl his obligations towards his staf and could fnd no way of laying hands on any other money. He was efectively in a state of bankruptcy, and – according to Giuseppe Perlini, director of the theatre – the situation was bringing discredit on the theatre management and indeed the whole city. Perlini had ofered to contribute in person to the removal of every obstacle, but his proposal failed to get the support of the other directors, so a shareholders' meeting was convened to make a decision. If the vote should go against him, he would tender his resignation, so as not to share the responsibility for a situation he considered deplorable.282 Most likely he won the vote (or alternatively, he did not stick to his threat), for we still fnd his name among the theatre's directors in the years immediately following.

A preference was shown for Sonzogno also in 1895 when the programme chosen was that of the impresario Angelo Romiti (represented by Natale Fidora), who proposed Massenet's *Manon Lescaut*, 283 Mascagni's *Amico Fritz* and a third opera, again to be selected from among the repertoire of Casa Sonzogno.284 Te terms of the tender specifcations were unchanged:

281 "Dalla Dalmazia", *II Teatro Illustrato*, 1892, p. 172.

and very young musician, who, in this work, displayed uncommon compositional talent, together with a pronounced sense of theatre. He also deserved warm admiration as a conductor, for both the fine interpretation of his *Holmara* and that of the other scores. Very praiseworthy were the performances of the admirable Signora Montalcino and the excellent tenor Bieletto." ("Al teatro Nuovo di Zara ottenne splendido successo la leggenda in un atto: *Holmara* di Luigi Solari, su parole di A. Bignotti. I giornali locali hanno parole di vivo encomio pel valente e giovanissimo maestro, il quale, con questo lavoro, rivelò attitudini non comuni di compositore, unite ad una spiccatissima intuizione pel teatro. Caldi elogi si meritò inoltre quale direttore d'orchestra per la fine interpretazione della sua *Holmara*, come per gli altri spartiti. Molto lodevole l'esecuzione per parte della egregia signora Montalcino e pel bravo tenore Bieletto."); *Il Teatro illustrato,* XII, no. 143, 1892.

<sup>282</sup> See Letter from Giuseppe Perlini to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 27. 9.1892, HR-DAZD, folder 24.

<sup>283</sup> The opera was given on 22 April, only to move to Rijeka two days later.

<sup>284</sup> Among the other people connected with the publisher, not only over the choice of Sonzogno operas, was the impresario Ottorino Paterni, who came into contact with the theatre management of Zadar in 1899. Paterni had entered the employment of Edoardo Sonzogno in 1883, initially working as an employee in charge of the distribution of the newspapers *Il Secolo* and *La Capitale*. "Later, when Sonzogno devoted himself to theatrical speculation", wrote *Il Monitore dei Tribunali*, "Paterni was assigned to this company as an accountant, and remained in the service of Sonzogno until 1893. From a feeble cheque of 80 lire a month his salary gradually increased to 4,000 lire a year. In 1893 Paterni

it was a matter of giving 20 performances of 3 operas, with 26 orchestral players, 22 choristers and an endowment of 2,000 forins; all the admissions, stools (*scanni*), seats (*poltroncine*), 3rd-tier boxes (with the exception of three big *palconi*) would be at the impresario's disposal. Romiti succeeded in obtaining a further 1,000 forins and indeed, from this year onwards we witness a slight increase in the endowment. Te increase was often justifed by the presence of ballet, as happened when *Gli Ugonotti* was proposed two years later by Domenico Valenti.285 Henceforward there were to be at least 500 forins more per season (in Valenti's case the endowment of 2,500 forins was also inclusive of the bonus for the impresa). 2,500 forins were assigned also to the Belletti and Romei impresa for *La bohème*  and *Mefstofele* (signifcantly the latter work included a ballet), though later the shareholders' meeting switched impresa and assigned the season to Nicola Guida from Bari. Guida changed the operas to *La bohème, Forza del destino* and *I puritani*, while retaining the same endowment (in the event, the impresario staged only the last two of the three operas). Tis sum was broken down as follows: 1,500 forins from the Comune, 500 forins from the lieutenancy, and 500 forins provided by the shareholders. Te Belletti and Romei impresa had pulled out of the contract after it had been awarded, because it had come to the conclusion that the money was insufcient to cover all the expenses (in fact we saw above that a season at Zadar could easily cost around 9,000 forins). So in spite of the small increases in the endowment of the previous seasons, it declined the ofer.286 In the end, the project

was stationed in Trieste, sent there by Sonzogno to oversee, on his behalf, a theatrical season that had opened there. In Trieste a grave misfortune befell Paterni. He fell while riding and was assisted, almost lifeless and with an injury to his head, and admitted to the city hospital. The political authorities in Trieste took pains to collect all the objects and valuables owned by Paterni, which the police delivered to the safe custody of Sonzogno, who had hastened to the scene of his employee's calamitous accident." ("In seguito datosi il Sonzogno alla speculazione teatrale, il Paterni fu adibito a questa azienda come contabile, e rimase al servizio del Sonzogno sino al 1893. Da un tenue assegno di L. 80 mensili andò man mano aumentandosi il suo stipendio sino a L. 4000 annue. Nel 1893 il Paterni trovavasi a Trieste, inviatovi dal Sonzogno per attendere ad una stagione teatrale apertasi colà per conto di quest'ultimo. Una disgrazia grave colpiva il Paterni in Trieste: cavalcando cadde e fu raccolto quasi esanime con ferita al capo, e ricoverato in quel civico spedale. L'autorità politica di Trieste davasi cura di ritirare tutti gli oggetti e valori di proprietà del Paterni, che al Sonzogno, accorso per il disgraziato accidente del suo impiegato, la polizia consegnava in deposito."); *Il Monitore dei Tribunali*, 1895, p. 448.

<sup>285</sup> At Zadar in February 1896 the choice fell on the season proposed by Domenico Valenti with *Un ballo in maschera*, *Gli Ugonotti* or *Ernani*, and a third opera to be decided. A request was made to stage *Gli Ugonotti* with ballet, and this was the reason the endowment was increased.

<sup>286</sup> "We have examined with attention the matter of the contract for your theatre for the next spring season", the impresarios wrote, "and we are persuaded that it is not in our interests, since having to give Bohème and Mefistofele, with ballet, with good artists and a respectable staging, the expense would exceed the most optimistic forecasts. It is therefore not a transaction for us, so we hasten to decline the honourable preference for the contract that Your Lordships inform us has been granted to us." ("Abbiamo esaminato con attenzione l'affare dell'appalto del loro teatro per la prossima stagione di primavera e ci

to perform *La bohème* was realised by the impresa of Luigi Dessanti, who at the very least had the merit of bringing the excellent soprano Emma Zilli to the city.287

In 1898 even *Manon*, together with *Lohengrin*, were staged with an endowment of 2,500 forins (inclusive of bonus). Immediately afterwards, the theatre's shareholders granted a further increase when they voted a subsidy of 2,800 forins to fnance the opera season organised by Eugenio De Monari, this time returning to perform repertoire belonging to Sonzogno (*Fedora*, *Carmen*, *Cavalleria rusticana* and *Zanetto* in 1899). Te preference for Sonzogno was confrmed also in the following year, with *Andrea Chénier,* Leoncavallo's *Pagliacci* or his *La bohème*, and *Il piccolo Haydn.*<sup>288</sup> From the impresario's letters, however, we learn that this season hardly produced the desired outcome (it was suggested that the losses may have amounted to as much as 11,000 lire or around 4,400 forins). While De Monari found himself in debt to the theatre management of Zadar, he was keen to make it clear that he was a man of honour: "I am a decent person", he wrote "and when I will have done three or four seasons with earnings, then, given that I have a sum of my own exclusive property to one side, I will pay of my outstanding debt towards you; *before that, it is absolutely impossible for me in any way whatsoever* to do so! If you will have the consideration and courtesy to wait, I shall be most grateful, otherwise I leave you to act as your consciences see ft".289 By choice he did not tender a proposal for 1901: "next year", he wrote to the management, "I intend to go into partnership with Antonio Bernasci for the theatres of South America-Brazil and the Argentine Republic. I have no intention of fossilising here; I am still young and I want to travel the world a little".290 Perhaps the problem was not

siamo convinti che non ci conviene poiché dovendosi dare Bohème e Mefistofele, con ballo, con artisti buoni ed una decorosa messa in iscena, la spesa supererebbe le più rosee previsioni dell'entrata. Non è quindi affare per noi e ci affrettiamo quindi a declinare l'onorevole preferenza dell'appalto che le SS. VV. ci annunziano averci concesso."); Letter from Belletti and Romei to the theatre management of Zadar, Mantova, 23. 2.1897, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>287</sup> "Artisti scritturati – Emma Zilli", *Il Cosmorama*, 17. 4.1897, p. 6.

<sup>288</sup> The correspondence between Eugenio De Monari and the theatre management reveals that there was an intention to stage also Saint Saëns' *Sansone e Dalila*, an opera that the impresario subsequently asked to replace with Bizet's *I pescatori di perle*.

<sup>289</sup> "Sono un uomo per bene, e quando avrò fatto tre o quattro stagioni guadagnando, allora avendo a parte una somma di mia esclusiva proprietà salderò la pendenza che ho verso di loro; *prima, in qualunque modo, in ogni caso mi è assolutamente impossibile* di farlo! Se loro avranno la delicata cortesia di attendere sarò gratissimo, in caso diverso gli lascio agire secondo quanto detterà la loro coscienza."; Letter from Eugenio De Monari to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 15. 8.1900, HR-DAZD, folder 23. On this subject we have no further knowledge of outstanding debts or lawsuits against him, so perhaps De Monari actually succeeded in reimbursing the management.

<sup>290</sup> "l'anno venturo ò [*sic*] intenzione di associarmi a Antonio Bernasci per i teatri dell'America del Sud-Brasile e Repubblica Argentina. Non ò [*sic*] nessuna intenzione di fossilizzarmi da queste parti; sono ancora giovane e voglio girare un po' il mondo."; Letter from Eugenio De Monari to the theatre management of Zadar, Gorizia, 4. 6.1900, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

so much a fear of "fossilising" as, quite understandably, that of securing a certain income. South America would unquestionably ofer more.

On the other hand, an impresario who was certain to come out of the experience unscathed, indeed with guaranteed earnings, was Olimpio Lovrich when he brought *Tosca* to Zadar*.* Lovrich, who was of Dalmatian origin, was returning to his homeland after running the Teatro Comunale of Trieste (an impresa that he later resumed for a number of years) and also working at the Politeama Rossetti in the same city.291 *Tosca* had been requested by the theatre of Zadar even before its premiere in Rome, as we learn from a letter written by Eugenio Tornaghi, who informed the theatre management of the impossibility of having it performed in Dalmatia as desired, since the work was earmarked – at least as far as frst performances were concerned – for the "principal theatres" (*teatri massimi*).292 Tere was also a plan to take the work to Split in 1900, on the proposal of the agent Angelo Chinelli for his client Teresa Raineri Vaschetti, but the management in Split chose a diferent programme.293 After its successful performance in Zadar in 1902 the theatre management wrote directly to Puccini to tell him of the evening's triumph ("Honoured to communicate extraordinary success enthusiasm Tosca [at] our theatre ecstatic public continuous ovations gratifying congratulations").294 Te telegram prompted a reply from the maestro: "Infnite thanks communication Tosca success congratulate worthy performers regards Puccini".295 Lovrich, however, did not remain in Zadar beyond 1902, and his place was taken once again by Giorgio Trauner, even though he hardly arrived in the city with excellent references. Four years earlier the theatre management had received yet another denunciation:

<sup>291</sup> See Vito Levi, *La vita musicale a Trieste. Cronache di un cinquantennio*, All'insegna del pesce d'oro, Milano 1968, p. 42. Olimpio Lovrich (? – 1928), a horn player in the orchestra of Aachen and impresario. He also ran certain cinemas in Trieste; see Fabiana Licciardi, "Tutto esaurito nei cinema – teatri a Trieste durante la Grande guerra", Lecture held at the Circolo Aziendale delle Assicurazioni Generali Trieste, 21.3. 2016. Further brief biographical information on Lovrich is provided by Helmut Luther in *Oesterreich liegt am Meer. Eine Reise durch die k. u. k. Sehnsuchtsorte*, Amalthea, Wien 2017, [n.p.]: "Since he was given financial security by his wife's property, he founded his own company as a theatre impresario. Together with a partner, he took over the management of the Teatro Verdi in 1901, and later added other theatres." ("Finanziell durch den Besitz der Frau abgesichert, gründet er eine eigene Firma als Theaterimpresario. Zusammen mit einem Partner übernimmt er 1901 die Leitung des Verdi-Theaters, später kommen weitere Theater dazu").

<sup>292</sup> Letter from Eugenio Tornaghi to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 30. 6.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

<sup>293</sup> See Letter from Angelo Chinelli to the theatre management of Split, Milano, 24.12.1900, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>294</sup> "Pregiamoci comunicarvi successo straordinario entusiasmo Tosca nostro teatro pubblico delirante continue acclamazioni aggradite congratulazioni"; Telegram from the theatre management of Zadar to Giacomo Puccini, [Zadar, 1902], HR-DAZD, folder 11.

<sup>295</sup> Telegram from Giacomo Puccini to the theatre management of Zadar, [Zadar, 1902], HR-DAZD, folder 11.

#### Dear Sir,

I have just come to hear about the cast of the company performing at your theatre. I have the honour to warn you that it is one of the most dreadful of companies. It is very clear that the trickster Trauner could not bring any better merchandise. Beginning with the prima donna Schubert, who has been dismissed at Como, Faenza and other cities. Te conductor Palminteri was dismissed in the carnival season at Palermo precisely in the opera Lohengrin. As for the tenor, he has never done Lohengrin, he has done Sononbola [*sic*], Linda, Fra Diavolo […] etc.

Te […] baritone Dadone, for carnival, was in Camerino, an Italian town noboby has heard of, doing opera bufa Papa [*sic*] Martin and worse still. Trauner goes around saying that for the present there is more than enough work among the Croatians, for they understand nothing. I hope, indeed I'm sure, that this honourable management will have the good sense to send them back to their mother country and that even the public will understand it has been cheated by a piece of trickery. It is said that Manon will be sung by the impresario's better half: that fair Manon is at least 90 years old and is worn out like a broken bass drum. All of what I am writing is the pure truth and you shall see. Very best wishes to […]. Edoardo Scarpetti296

Te letter was not anonymous; its ungrammatical author wished to make it known that the cast would be unequal to the task, seeing that it was made up of singers who were either inexperienced or had been sacked (*protestati*), or had committed the sin of singing in small and insignifcant Italian towns; that the role of Manon herself was entrusted to the impresario's aged wife, who, it would appear, was not at the peak of her powers; and that the impresario, in whose eyes the Croatian public was not particularly discerning when it came to understanding what was put in front of it, was known as a "trickster". In spite of all this, the management cannot have been too alarmed by such warnings if it recon-

<sup>296</sup> "Egregio Signore, vengo a sapere in questo momento l'elenco della compagnia che agisce a codesto teatro. Ho l'onore di avvertirla che è una compagnia delle più scadenti. Si capisce bene che Trauner speculatore non poteva portare altra mercanzia. Principiando dalla prima donna Schubert fu protestato a Como, Faenza e altre città. Maestro direttore Palminteri protestato nella stagione di carnevale a Palermo appunto nell'opera Lohengrin. Il tenore poi non ha mai fatto Lohengrin, ha fatto Sononbola [*sic*], Linda, Fra Diavolo […] ecc. Il […] baritono Dadone, il carnevale fu a Camerino, una città d'Italia che nessun conosce facendo opere buffe Papa [*sic*] Martin ed oltre. Il Trauner va dicendo che per ora mezzo ai croati ce ne [*sic*] fin troppo che non capiscono gnente [*sic*]. Spero anzi sicuro che codesta onorevole direzione avrà buon senso, di rimandarli ai suoi patri lidi e che, pure il puplico [*sic*] saprà capire essere stato turlupinato da una speculazione. Si dice che la Manon la farà la dolce metà dell'impresario che bella Manon a [*sic*] per lo meno 90 anni sfiatata come na grancassa rotta. Tutto ciò che le scrivo è la pura verità e vedranno. Saluti ottimi alle […]. Edoardo Scarpetti."; Letter from Edoardo Scarpetti to the theatre management of Zadar, [n. p.] [1898], HR-DAZD, folder 9.

frmed Trauner for four years running in the new century and even increased his endowment.297 Trauner returned in 1903 with a threefold proposal, that of giving: "Mefstofele and Bohème", "Mefstofele and Gioconda" or "Mefstofele, Rigoletto and Puritani". Te Zadar management responded by suggesting that giving *Rigoletto* would meet the public's wishes, "which is as much as to say it would increase the profts of the impresa".298 It decided to grant the impresario 7,000 lire (equivalent to 2,800 forins); in other words, 1,000 lire more than the "usual endowment", for a production of *Mefstofele* plus another opera of his choice (or another two: the impresario was reminded that it was in his own interest to give three operas instead of two). Tis endowment represented a maximum limit beyond which the management could not go.299 But "by making some sacrifces" (*con sacrifcio*), according to the management, these 7,000 lire could become 7,000 crowns, i.e. just under 3,500 forins. Together with the sum given to Olimpio Lovrich in the previous year for staging a big novelty like *Tosca*, this was the largest endowment granted at Zadar up until that moment*.* Moreover, the management also said it was ready to give Trauner a three-year contract, something that was quite rare in the region until then (given that the theatres published their tenders season by season) and, above all, had never happened in Zadar in the almost thirty years of the theatre's activity. It is true that Massimini had previously been in charge of a series of consecutive seasons, but in that case the management had never intended from the start to entrust three years of continuous programming to a single person.

And so it happened that Trauner remained in Zadar and was able, in subsequent years, to bring novelties such as *Adriana Lecouvreur, Zazà* and *Germania*. For *Germania* the conductor chosen was once again Palminteri, whose qualities were clearly of a diferent order from those suggested in the letter of denunciation quoted earlier. In 1906 the endowment was again increased, this time to 7,500 crowns. Te endowment of 6,000 crowns Trauner was ofered for his frst proposal of *La bohème*, *Rigoletto* and *I puritani*, was one that he considered insufcient to stage three operas (and initially he claimed he found it "impossible to accept less than the 8,000 crowns" (*impossibile derogare dalle 8.000 corone*). Nonetheless he subsequently accepted the fgure (which was in the end increased at a later stage). He asked the theatre management to submit to the boxholders his request to run the theatre for a further three-year period, in other words for another three consecutive autumn sea-

<sup>297</sup> The theatre management of Zadar, as far as it was able, listened to the requests made by the impresarios for an increased endowment, when they were justified. It had done so for Giulio Calori in 1901 when Calori proposed *Nabucco, Mefistofele* and *Macbeth*. Initially the endowment came to 5,000 lire, but eventually the impresario was granted the 6,000 he had asked for.

<sup>298</sup> "che è quanto dire aumenterebbe gli interessi dell'impresa"; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Giorgio Trauner, [Zadar, 1903], letter book, HR-DAZD, folder 21.

<sup>299</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to the Broglio agency, [Zadar, 1903], letter book, HR-DAZD, folder 21.

sons, solely so that he could supply the material for hire at every *piazza*. 300 Various theatres at the time had understood that entrusting a series of seasons to the same impresario would result in a saving: the impresario would be able to engage artists for productions that had been chosen well in advance; and if a season should go badly, the losses could be balanced out by the subsequent seasons. Trauner, wishing to justify his request for more money, cited the case of the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, where in about 1906 the endowment was increased from 8,000 to 12,000 crowns specifcally in order to guarantee operas of better quality than usual. "I am fully convinced after the last season", he wrote, "that what Zadar needs is both some weighty operas and some repertoire operas to attract audiences of all classes, but reluctantly I am forced to repeat what I also said last year, that with the endowment habitually granted it is impossible to put on such spectacles with artistic and scenic decorum as is my habit, and with the addition of ballerinas, which are hard to fnd and which, for aesthetic and balletic reasons, cannot be fewer than eight".301 His fears were clearly justifed, for a production of *Rigoletto* was buried under a barrage of whistling and shouts of "*basta*", to the extent that the management was forced to send a message to the newspapers announcing the suspension of performances until the arrival of fresh singers, who had been engaged by telegram. Some artists did arrive in Zadar, but the season had to close in any case.302 Trauner was never again asked to come back.

In the years leading up to the War successive seasons were entrusted to the Revere & Gallina agency of Trieste or to impresarios such as Giuseppe Borboni303 or Giuseppe Fantoni. Fantoni, who staged *Norma* at doubled admission prices, perhaps succeeded in establishing a record for the highest takings at the theatre, when he collected the handsome sum of 15,000 crowns over three nights. He achieved a similar result in Pula in the same period, where he proposed the same opera with the soprano Ester Mazzoleni, who by that

<sup>300</sup> See Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 28. 6.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>301</sup> "Sono pienamente convinto dopo l'ultima stagione che per Zara occorre qualche opera poderosa e qualcuna di repertorio per attirare il pubblico d'ogni classe, ma a malincuore sono costretto ripetere ciò che dissi anche l'anno scorso, che con la dote che abitualmente viene concessa, è impossibile allestire tali spettacoli con decoro artistico e scenico come è mia abitudine, e con l'aggiunta delle ballerine difficili a trovarsi e che per l'estetica e l'ordine danzante, non possono essere meno di otto"; Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 25.5.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>302</sup> "[…] the poor artists, some of whom had even suffered hunger, were sent home; others were obliged to give a humiliating benefit concert" ("[…] i poveri artisti, alcuni dopo aver anche sofferto la fame, vennero rimpatriati; altri furono costretti a dare un umiliante concerto di beneficienza"); "Da Zara", *L'Eco dell'Adriatico*, 17–18.1.1907.

<sup>303</sup> In the spring of 1911 Giuseppe Borboni brought opera buffa to Zadar with the Beltramo company. He was also in Pula in the same period with the same operas and with the important presence of Tito Schipa in *Il barbiere di Siviglia.*

time was a celebrity. Previously, the average nightly receipts would be about 1,000–1,200 crowns,304 and with a full house one could earn about 1,200–1,300 crowns per night, taking into account that at the time the gallery (*loggione*) at Zadar could hold a maximum of 300 spectators and the boxes of the frst and second tiers were private. It was therefore a lucky and rare occurrence for the theatre, though of course it must be stressed that he had been given permission to increase the admission price, something that not all impresarios were allowed to do.305

After the opera season organised by Curiel in 1914, the theatre closed down during the War years and reopened on 11 November 1918 with a festive evening to celebrate the birthday of King Victor Emanuel III. In the immediate post-War period the movement of people to Zadar from the principal centres of Dalmatia ceased almost automatically. Te population declined and, following the exodus of most of the civil servants and parastatal workers, the number of theatre-goers dropped substantially. Te economic hardship brought on by the War greatly limited the spending power of both the shareholders and the public. All of which led to the theatre in Zadar being downgraded to a third-rank theatre in 1923.306

#### 4.5.4 Census of the opera seasons at the Teatro Nuovo (later Teatro Verdi) of Zadar

Te information in the following table – with the exception of the data concerning the size of the endowment – is drawn from the *Elenco degli spettacoli datisi al Teatro Nuovo di Zara*, a list compiled from 1865 to 1906 by the director of the theatre Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak and, from 1906 onwards, by the director Demetrio Medovich, together with information drawn from the newspapers *L'Eco dell'Adriatico* and *La Gazzetta Musicale di Milano.*

<sup>304</sup> See Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Enrico Gallina, Šibenik, 6. 6.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 6. In 1913 the endowment at Zadar was confirmed at 7,500 crowns: the municipality and lieutenancy provided 7,000; the rest most likely came, as usual, from the shareholders.

<sup>305</sup> From these years we also have the proposals of Dante Profili for six or eight performances of *Il trovatore* in 1908, with a company that mainly focused on Italian opera (its repertoire consisted of *Poliuto*, *Norma*, *Il trovatore*, *Sansone e Dalila*, *Otello*, *Guglielmo Tell*, *Sonnambula* and *Pescatori di Perle*)*.* It is not known, however, if his plan actually materialised.

<sup>306</sup> In spite of this, copyright costs and public taxation remained at levels equal to those of more important theatres: a cause for complaint from the theatre management. In the post-War period the city's population had dropped to 12,000 inhabitants, most of whom were from the working and trading classes "without work and without trade" (*senza lavoro e senza commercio*). On the classification of the theatre of Zadar, see *Classificazione dei teatri al 1° gennaio 1923*, drawn up by the Minister of Finance, Tip. Cooperativa Sociale, Roma 1923. Theoretically the taxes payable would be based on this system of ranking.


<sup>307</sup> The figure probably refers to the endowment from the municipality only.

<sup>308</sup> According to the Theatre programme of 1867, HR-DAZD-102, folder 283.

<sup>309</sup> According to the *Elenco degli spettacoli datisi al Teatro Nuovo di Zadar*, [Zadar], HR-DAZD, folder 30.



<sup>310</sup> A figure granted in florins according to the register of expenses (*Registro degli esiti*) of the theatre of Zadar.


### 4.6 The contracts and the seasons at Šibenik

Te regulations adopted at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar – those governing the stage, stage hands and staf – were also implemented at Šibenik.311 But given that the Teatro Mazzoleni was smaller than the other theatres, the number of opera performances per season difered, usually ranging between 8 and 15 (whereas at the larger theatres the number of planned performances generally averaged 24, though it could even be as many as 30). At the beginning of the 20th century this fgure dropped even further, a trend that the director of the Teatro Mazzoleni explained in a couple of sentences: "Owing to the competition posed by the cinemas and café concert venues, the theatre companies can only support themselves with short runs of six nights at most. If the season is extended, nobody comes to the theatre any more, at an enormous cost to the companies and the cofers of the theatre".312 Te competition presented by other places of entertainment was therefore genuine and a feature of the modern world to be reckoned with. Years later, writing to the agent Ezio Carelli, Giovanni Mazzoleni was to reassert this idea and claim that too many days in succession was no help The contracts and the seasons at Šibenik

<sup>311</sup> *Regolamento n. 1924, approvato con decreto luogotenenziale il 5.10.1865*, [Zadar, n.d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 6.

<sup>312</sup> "Per la concorrenza che cinematografi e locali da caffè concerto fanno al teatro, le compagnie non possono sostenersi che con brevi debutti di sei sere al massimo. Prolungando la stagione nessuno viene più al teatro con danno enorme delle compagnie e della cassa teatrale."; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Bianchini, Šibenik, 22.11.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

to the companies: "one thing I recommend", he stressed, "is not to give contracts for more than 10 days. For in a small town where there is no change of audience 15 days are too many. I see that in much larger cities they give contracts only for a few days. It happens that the audiences get tired and don't come to the theatre on the last nights".313 In the past, on the other hand, there had been room for more performances.

While we have no evidence of what seems to have been the frst season of opera and ballet of 1871,314 we do have documents that confrm the visit of the Becherini company in 1882. Te frst contract we possess for the Teatro Mazzoleni was concluded in Zadar on 12 June 1882 between Paolo Mazzoleni and the opera impresarios Luigi Becherini and Ernesta Ferrara (in two cases the contracts for Šibenik were signed at Zadar, given that the manager went in person to the city with the precise intent of engaging the impresarios). Tese contracts were short documents, containing twelve articles at most. Te company could stay for 23 evenings, for in the 1870s and 80s, before the advent of the cinema and the *café chantant*, one could still hope for slightly longer seasons. Even though the Becherini company came to the city already heavily indebted, Paolo Mazzoleni left the following proud comment at the bottom of the report on income and expenditure that he himself drew up: "Succeeding in arranging for an opera company to give 7 operas for 23 nights, for which a sizeable endowment was needed, and arranging this while at the same time earning 26 forins is a great merit (modesty apart) of the management".315 Mazzoleni called the company "the best of all those we have had so far".316 Tus he congratulated himself and his colleagues on managing to keep the costs down and even making a small proft.

<sup>313</sup> "una cosa che Le raccomando è di non dar contratti per più di 10 giorni. Poiché per una città piccola dove il pubblico non si cambia 15 giorni son troppi. Io vedo che in città molto grandi non danno contratti che per pochi giorni. Succede che il pubblico si stanca e le ultime sere non viene al teatro."; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Ezio Carelli, Šibenik, 6. 6.1920, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>314</sup> We know nothing except that there was a deficit of 429,28 florins. We have a name, that of Enrico Mayer, who signed for the company and was perhaps its administrator or impresario.

<sup>315</sup> "L'aver potuto combinare per 23 sere una compagnia lirica che diede 7 opere, e per la quale ci voleva una cospicua dote, combinarla guadagnando invece fiorini 26 è merito grande (modestia a parte) della Direzione"; Report on income and expenditure for the Becherini opera company, Paolo Mazzoleni, [Šibenik], 6. 8.1882, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>316</sup> "la migliore di quante si sono finora avute"; Report on the Becherini opera company, [Šibenik, n. d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. From this report we learn that the management allowed the impresario Vincenzo Rossini to rent out the boxes, from the proceeds of which, after paying the evening's expenses, there remained 50 florins. The management, in order to pay a number of expenses – including the travel expenses of the director going to Zadar specifically to engage the company – withheld from the company 8 florins and 25 *soldi* per evening for 15 evenings (totalling 123.75f.). Paolo Mazzoleni had indeed gone to Zadar in 1882 for that purpose and had stayed 14 days. For this assignment he had been given 64 florins. Of these he gave 50 to the impresario Becherini and kept for himself only 14 florins for his expenses. In addition, 33.75 florins were spent on special lighting (*illuminazione a giorno*) for the benefit night of the prima donna Trauner (very likely the wife of the impresario

Te same sense of satisfaction – from a job well done – was repeated some years later after the visit of the Compagnia Sociale di Canto directed by Federico Varani. Tis time the management shouldered the nightly costs, but not those for the orchestra, which were borne by the company. Te same pride – that of having accomplished something other cities hadn't – radiated from Mazzoleni's comment:

"When one thinks that in Split Signor Troccoli spent over 400 forins for the same company; when one thinks that in Zadar, where the audience is larger and the theatre has far more resources, the theatre gave the last opera company an endowment of 2,600 forins […]; when one thinks that we, on the other hand, with the expense of just 125 forins and 62 *soldi*, have been able to hear four operas: Lucia, Traviata, Fra Diavolo and Barbiere, as well as some detached pieces, such as the famous terzetto from I lombardi, a page of music issuing from the inspired mind of the supreme Maestro Verdi, we should be well satisfed, and see in it a certain merit on the management's part."317

One could say, therefore, that it was the management that generated the money needed "without burdening with a single *soldo* our members" (*senza aggravare di un soldo i signori soci*), who on this occasion appreciated the spectacle with particular pleasure.318 From this one deduces that the shareholders were not asked to cover the costs, at least not directly.

In the meantime, the opera company of Carlo Mirco from Dubrovnik had also passed through Šibenik. To the impresarios Vincenzo Rossini, Pietro Zanchi and Giovanni Dalle Feste, who brought the company there in 1887 at their own risk, the theatre management granted the whole theatre free of charge. Ida Mazzoleni, daughter of the tenor Francesco Mazzoleni, also sang for free in *La sonnambula* and agreed to donate the proceeds of a beneft night (*serata d'onore*) to the impresarios. At this performance, which attracted a large audience not only from Šibenik itself, but also from Split and other places nearby, her succcess was such that, though a newcomer to the stage, she received valuable gifts also from the impre-

Trauner whom we saw working at Zadar) and for the purchase of "a garland and ribbon with gold fringe and name in gold" (*una ghirlanda e nastro con frangia dorata e nome in oro*) as well as gifts for certain artists.

<sup>317</sup> "Quando si pensa che a Spalato il sig. Troccoli spese per la stessa compagnia oltre a fiorini 400; quando si pensa che in Zara, dove frequenta un pubblico numeroso e il teatro ha ben altre risorse, la società teatrale diede all'ultima compagnia lirica fiorini 2.600 di dote […]; quando si pensa che noi invece colla spesa di soli fiorini 125 soldi 62 abbiamo potuto udire quattro opere: Lucia, Traviata, Fra Diavolo e Barbiere, nonché de' pezzi staccati, tra quali il famoso terzetto de'Lombardi, pagina musicale uscita dalla mente ispirata del sommo m. Verdi, dobbiamo essere ben pagati, e vedere in ciò un qualche merito della direzione."; Statement of income and expenditure in twelve performances given by the Compagnia Sociale di Canto directed by Signor Federico Varani, Šibenik, 2. 7.1890, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 8.

<sup>318</sup> Report on income and expenditure in twelve performances given by the Compagnia Sociale di Canto directed by Signor Federico Varani, Šibenik, 2. 7.1890, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 8.

sarios themselves. For though they lost money in the frst two operas (*Linda di Chamounix* and *Crispino e la Comare*), they made genuine profts in *La sonnambula*; but once they had deducted what they owed Mirco (1,840 forins), the overall proceeds amounted to just a few hundred forins. Once again, Mazzoleni, who was always keen to safeguard the theatre's image, pointed out in his comments on income and expenditure that the scant profts were to be attributed to the impresarios, not to the theatre itself. Given that the management wished not only to honour young Ida on her special night, but also her father Francesco (whom the theatre was named after), there were a few additional expenses for gifts of various kinds.319

In the last twenty years of the 19th century opera alternated with operetta. Among the operetta companies that paid a visit, again under the management of the impresario Vincenzo Rossini, were not only the companies of Franceschini (1880) and Tani (1881), but also Alfred Freund's troupe of German operetta (about which Paolo Mazzoleni commented: "a very mediocre company except for the woman").320 Freund's company arrived in town after it had already appeared on the stages of the Adriatic coast two years earlier, at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka for the 1885 season. Šibenik also witnessed visits from the companies of Giovanni Fioravanti (1888) and Scalvini (1894).321 Traces of their presence are found in the fnancial reports (*borderò*) of the 1870s and 80s. At Šibenik identical *borderò* forms were used for opera, operetta and spoken theatre, making it possible to quantify the audience present in the theatre on each night and the tickets sold. Tese forms gave the name of the company, the number of the performance (identifed by its date) and the title of the work performed. In later years, other types of spectacle could also be included below the title of the work: "Veglione mascherato" and "Accademia". Tere followed a table listing the number of tickets sold in each sector of the theatre (stalls or parterre, gallery, parterre chairs, boxes of the second tier, etc.), also including the category "children" (*fanciulli*). At the bottom of the sheet, in the section for the signatures, the names of a representative of the management and the troupe leader (*capocomico*) had to be given. In subsequent years the term "capocomico" was replaced with "impresario".

<sup>319</sup> "To Signor Giocondo Petris," Paolo Mazzoleni commented, "for a bouquet and for wreaths with ribbons 40 florins – for the cost of poems from the Signori Russo of Split 14 florins – for lighting from Signor V. Inchiostri 17.28 florins – total 71.28 florins. Just a small expense compared to the quality of the spettacle." ("Al sig. Giocondo Petris per un bouquet e per corone con nastri fiorini 40 – per spese poesie ai signori Russo di Spalato fiorini 14 – per illuminazione al sig. V. Inchiostri fiorini 17,28 – totale fiorini 71,28. Spesa piccola questa di fronte allo spettacolo avuto."); Report on income and expenditure in the short opera season with the company from Dubrovnik led by Signor Carlo Mirco, Šibenik, 18.3.1887, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 8.

<sup>320</sup> "compagnia mediocrissima salvo la donna"; Report on income and expenditure for the two performances of the German company given on the evenings of 2 and 3 February 1887, Šibenik, 6. 2.1887, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 8.

<sup>321</sup> *Borderò*, Teatro Mazzoleni Šibenik, Šibenik, 1873, 1882 and 1885, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

#### 4.6.1 "Coppola and Ugonotti! That was the fatal decision": the last season of Domenico Valenti

In 1896 a monument to Niccolò Tommaseo, sculpted by Ettore Ximenes, was erected in Šibenik. Its inauguration, anticipated to be the event of the year, was to be marked by a season of opera seria. One of the directors of the theatre, Doimo Miagostovich, announced his wish to plan the event and read out a letter from the impresario Alfredo Vecchi of Milan, who had applied to run the evenings.322 Paolo Mazzoleni, on his part, said that the impresario he would prefer to deal with was not Vecchi from Milan, whom he viewed as being unknown and distant and probably with exaggerated expectations, but Domenico Valenti, who knew Šibenik and would shortly be in Zadar as impresario for the forthcoming opera season. He also suggested making a contribution of 200 forins to the cost of the production, in addition to the nightly expenses.323 In the meantime the committee overseeing the erection of the monument was independently deciding to give the theatre a subsidy of 1,000 forins for the opera expenses. Te impresario Valenti would bring to Šibenik the same opera production that had been proposed for Zadar shortly before. In this he would be assisted by the agent Enrico Viscardi (who was working at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar in 1896), even if Viscardi considered Valenti to be a person of "meticulous pedantry" (*meticolosa pedanteria*).324 Viscardi, who still didn't know how much money Valenti would ask for the organisation, believed that the impresario would accept the contract if he got a sum (including assurances of receipts and endowment) between 500 and 600 forins per night for a total of six performances. He then asked Miagostovich to come to him in Zadar once he had received Valenti's ofer, to conclude the negotiations: "Face to face one always arrives at better results than in writing. Face to face I could also give you many explanations, let us say of a technical nature, that would perhaps not be clear in writing".325

<sup>322</sup> "I would consider myself most fortunate", Vecchi wrote, "to be able to take on the contract, or the management, depending on which you may prefer. I know those parts having been at Pula, Zadar, Split, Rijeka, etc., so it will be easier for me than for another to provide what is needed and also at a lower price than that of any other competitor." ("Mi reputerei fortunatissimo di poterne assumere l'appalto o la direzione a seconda meglio gliene potesse fare piacere. Conosco codeste parti per essere stato a Pola, Zara, Spalato, Rijeka, ecc., per cui mi riuscirà più facile che ad un altro il poter provvedere ciò che può star bene e ad un prezzo sempre relativamente più basso di qualunque altro concorrente."); Letter from Alfredo Vecchi to the theatre management of Šibenik, Milano, 1.3.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>323</sup> Mazzoleni, along with his partner Locas, at the meeting in which the matter was discussed, found it pointless to involve the whole assembly of shareholders in the discussion of the details concerning the choice of opera, how to deal with the impresario, and also how to finance the possible sum of 200 florins, given that this, according to the statutory provisions, was the task of the management alone; Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 31.3.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>324</sup> Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 4.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>325</sup> "A voce si arriva sempre a migliori risultati, che in iscritto. A voce potrei io pure darle molte spiegazioni, dirò così d'indole tecnica, che forse per iscritto non riuscirebbero chiare."; Letter from [Enrico Viscardi]

Valenti intended to arrive in Šibenik in the last week of May, thus smoothly continuing the season already begun in March at Zadar. In the meantime, Miagostovich independently started to think of the cast of singers and tried to guarantee the presence of Antonio Pini from Milan, whom he wired as follows: "Please telegraph today Zadar Hotel Grande if possible come Šibenik Tommaseo inauguration 31 May sing four nights Rigoletto bringing complete company 24 choristers 30 orchestra. Say minimum expense".326 At the same time, writing from Zadar, the agent Viscardi announced to the management in Šibenik that he had dismissed the singer Gambardella in the ongoing season and had replaced him with the celebrated, and expensive, tenor Coppola, who would surely make a fne contribution to the production.327 Initially the opera considered was *Rigoletto*, but in April 1896 Valenti said he was ready to conclude the transaction with performances of *Un ballo in maschera* and *Ernani* (so no *Rigoletto*), on certain precise conditions: an endowment of 1,200 forins and the guarantee of six performances for 500 forins each, no nightly expenses (they would be paid by the management), and the promise of the proceeds from certain boxes. Te production would be staged as already presented in Zadar, with 28 orchestral players and a chorus of 22 male and female singers. Te company would be identical to that of Zadar, except for some possible changes in the singers, who in the meantime might have accepted other commitments and on whose presence Valenti could not count, given that he himself was not sure of being given the contract.328 Te theatre management confrmed these conditions, with minor adjustments. While it was agreed that only two operas would be given, *Un ballo* 

to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 17. 4.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>326</sup> "Prego telegrafare oggi Zara Hotel Grande se possibile portarvi Sebenico occasione inaugurazione Tommaseo trentuno maggio cantare quattro sere Rigoletto portando compagnia completa 24 coristi 30 orchestra. Dite spesa minima".

<sup>327</sup> "As you will have heard," Viscardi wrote, "with a great effort on our part, we succeeded in getting rid of the tenor Gambardella, who despite being an artist of some merit, did not give satisfaction, and in his place we have engaged the well-known tenor Coppola, who costs an arm and a leg, and who last year [*was greatly appreciated*] at this theatre in Manon. Coppola is an exceptional artist and by himself is good enough to sustain the whole production. Come and hear him, dear doctor; that way you will be able to get a precise idea also of the quality of the other artists. Tomorrow and on Sunday we are giving Ballo in maschera with Coppola and on Wednesday we are staging Ugonotti." ("Come avrà appreso, con nostra grande fatica, siamo riusciti liberarci del tenore Gambardella, che pur essendo un artista di qualche merito, non soddisfava, ed in sua vece abbiamo fatto scritturare il rinomato tenore Coppola, che costa un occhio della testa, e che lo scorso anno […] a questo teatro nella Manon tanto favore. Il Coppola è un artista eccezionale, che vale lui solo a sostenere tutto lo spettacolo. Venga ad udirlo, caro dottore, e così potrà farsi un'idea esatta anche sul merito degli altri artisti. Domani e domenica diamo il Ballo in maschera con Coppola e mercoledì andiamo in scena cogli Ugonotti."); Letter from [Enrico Viscardi] to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 17. 4.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>328</sup> See Letter from Domenico Valenti to the theatre management of Šibenik, Zadar, 18.4.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

*in maschera* and *Ernani*, that the run would last for six nights (three nights per opera), and that the operas would be staged as at Zadar with the same artists (none excepted), a request was made to increase slightly the number of musicians, in order to arrive at an orchestra of 30 and a chorus of 24. Te endowment for the six nights would even be a little higher: 1,500 forins. All the nightly expenses (lighting, theatre staf, cleaning) would be borne by the management; all the takings from admissions, stools (*scanni*), and gallery would go to the impresa. Te management would reserve for itself just the proceeds from the rental of boxes (in spite of initially deciding to grant them to the impresario) and would guarantee 550 forins per night for six nights (hence more than the 500 asked by Valenti), in other words 3,300 forins overall. If the impresario failed to make 3,300 forins, the management would supplement the funding to guarantee that sum. Anything over that amount, on the other hand, the impresario could retain as a proft.329

A few days later Valenti wrote back to the management of Šibenik to say that the tenor Coppola was not at all interested in singing *Un ballo in maschera* and *Ernani* at the Teatro Mazzoleni. He would only do so if there were other operas from the great repertoire. In view of this, the impresario started to consider the idea of changing the tenor, not the repertoire ("If you agree, I could come to an agreement with another tenor who is also very distinguished").330 Tere then began a parallel correspondence. On the one hand, the impresario (in Zadar) was writing directly to the theatre management in Šibenik, but at the same time the agent Viscardi at the Teatro Nuovo (again in Zadar) was telling the director Miagostovich, who had been appointed to run the negotiations, the same things: "Te main problem is that the tenor Coppola does not want to come to Šibenik to sing Ballo in maschera and Ernani; he would like us to give Ugonotti, where he would be more prominent, in spite of the fact that the other two operas also suit him perfectly."331 Indeed it turns out that *Gli Ugonotti*, which had been staged shortly before at Zadar had been enormously successful with the public: "all things considered, it is an absolutely extraordinary spectacle for a provincial town – and not a little credit for this is due to us in the management, who worked hard for its success".332

<sup>329</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to Domenico Valenti, Zadar, 22. 4.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>330</sup> "Se credono potrei combinare altro tenore pure distintissimo"; Letter from Domenico Valenti to the theatre management of Šibenik, Zadar, 24. 4.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>331</sup> "L'inconveniente maggiore è [*dato*] dal fatto che il tenore Coppola, non vuol venire a Šibenik per cantare il Ballo in maschera e l'Ernani, egli vorrebbe che si dessero gli Ugonotti ove emerge di più. Quantunque anche le altre due opere gli stanno a meraviglia."; Letter from [Enrico Viscardi] to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 27. 4.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>332</sup> "è nel suo complesso assolutamente uno spettacolo straordinario per una città di provincia – e non poco merito abbiamo avuto noi della direzione, che abbiamo molto lavorato per la riuscita."; Letter from [Enrico Viscardi] to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 27. 4.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

Te contract the impresario Valenti had concluded with the theatre of Zadar specifed performances of *Gli Ugonotti* (sung in Italian) and *Un ballo in maschera,* with *Ernani* as third opera (over the third opera, however, there was room for manoeuvre). In all, the season was to have no fewer than twenty performances, divided equally between the three works. For Šibenik, on the other hand, there were to be only six nights, at least according to the original plan. By the time it came to signing the contract, the nights had risen to nine, with the staging of two operas. While *Un ballo in maschera* was taken for certain, the second opera chosen was eventually *Gli Ugonotti.* So in the end Coppola's insistence prevailed, and both impresario and management gave in to the tenor's wishes. To be sure, the choice was likely also dictated by seeing how popular the opera had been in Zadar. In light of its success, the decision was made to have four nights of *Un ballo in maschera* and fve of *Gli Ugonotti*; of the original plan to give *Ernani* there was no longer any mention. It was stated that both artists and materials for the production would be the same as those used at Zadar, but it turned out that not all of the cast could be moved to Šibenik (as was initially anticipated), beginning with the conductor himself, Pietro de Stermich, who was already engaged to perform in Moscow at the same time. Almost all the 30 orchestral players and 24 choristers would have to be brought in from Italy or Rijeka, as the additional players available on site would not have been sufcient (and in any case they had terminated their contracts on 10 April).333 As a cautionary deposit the impresario was asked to produce an annuity bond for 25 lire, which would be returned to him on his arrival in Šibenik. According to the contract the impresario was to receive, in the customary four instalments, 6,000 forins, a fgure very diferent from the 1,200 forins for six performances initially contemplated (even taking into account the extra 500 forins per night, i.e. 3,000 forins overall).334 Te estimates of expenditure, however, had all turned out to be higher than 6,000 forins. Te principals by themselves would cost 2,019.60 forins, the chorus 1,060 and the orchestra 1,912.50:335 three items of expenditure that came to a total of 4,992.10 forins. Nonetheless, Valenti eventually accepted this fgure and signed the contract. Te theatre management was overjoyed and the agent Viscardi profoundly perplexed.336 What had prompted Valenti to sign? Very likely he counted on a very large audience, considering the circumstance of the inauguration of the monument to Tommaseo. After all, the season at Zadar had closed with takings amounting to over 13,000 forins, which was a good sign. Incidentally, also watching the opera from his

<sup>333</sup> See Letter from Domenico Valenti to the theatre management of Šibenik, Zadar, 24. 4.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>334</sup> See Contract between the management of the Teatro Mazzoleni and the impresario Domenico Valenti, Šibenik, [1896], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>335</sup> See Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 10.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>336</sup> "The impresario plainly needs to squander his capital," Viscardi wrote; "his efforts for the fair eyes of Tommaseo." ("L'impresario deve proprio sborsare i suoi capitali, la sua fatica per i begli occhi di Tommaseo."); Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 10.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

box in Zadar was the sculptor Ximenes, who expressed reservations on the cast. "He (out of the kindness of his heart)", Viscardi commented to the management of Šibenik, "found the artists sang like dogs (*piuttosto cani*) – not excluding Coppola. He [Coppola] could well be an artist that some don't like, but to call him a dog…: there the sculptor Ximenes in his greatness is making a huge mistake!"337 Te tenor regularly sang in the leading Italian theatres, had found impresarios willing to pay him 200 or 300 lire a performance, and had been chosen by Mascagni and Sonzogno to sing in *Cavalleria rusticana* and *Amico Fritz* abroad, performing to great acclaim in the theatres of Trieste, Vienna, Budapest and Warsaw. Viscardi justifed Ximenes's reaction by assuming that there were grievances between him and Coppola, perhaps of a regional origin, given that they were both Sicilian. "I hope, however," he concluded, "that in spite of Ximenes's opinion, both Coppola and the other artists will achieve a deserved success in Šibenik too".338

In the event the nine evenings of opera brought in 6,374 forins, and the expenditure came to 6,600.91 forins: hence an overall defcit of 229.91 forins.339 Te agent Viscardi, who had acted as mediator between the impresario Valenti and the theatre management of Šibenik, wrote to Miagostovich saying that the management was to blame, for changing the initial project: that of just *Ernani* and *Ballo in maschera*, leaving the impresario free to bring in artists that were good, but of his own choice. "Coppola and Ugonotti! Tat was the fatal decision", he observed.340 At frst, as we saw above, Valenti was ready to do without Coppola and stick to the operas initially agreed upon. It was therefore, as the agent Viscardi observed, an operation doomed to failure: "Valenti cannot accept, and if he should accept, he would fnd himself bound to fail, *and with the certainty* of failing".341 Even the impresario Sforza of Rijeka, on hearing about Valenti's manoeuvring, had commented to Viscardi: "I asked you for 8,000 forins and, as an honest impresario who wishes to honour his commitments towards everyone, I couldn't do otherwise. Valenti got his sums wrong".342 Tere

<sup>337</sup> "Egli (bontà e gentilezza sua) ha trovato gli artisti piuttosto *cani* – non escluso Coppola. [*Coppola*] può essere un artista, che non piaccia a qualcuno ma per dirlo cane, lo sbaglia di grosso lo scultore Ximenes nella sua magnitudine!"; Letter from Enrico Viscardi to the theatre management of Šibenik, Zadar, 15.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>338</sup> "Spero però che null'ostante l'opinione di Ximenes e Coppola e gli altri artisti otterranno anche a Šibenik il meritato successo"; Letter from Enrico Viscardi to the theatre management of Šibenik, Zadar, 15.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>339</sup> Table of revenue and expenditure 1896, Šibenik, 1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>340</sup> "Coppola e Ugonotti! Ecco la disgrazia"; Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 10.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>341</sup> "Valenti non può accettare, e se avesse accettato si troverebbe costretto a perdere, *e colla certezza* di perdere."; Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 10.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>342</sup> "Io vi ho domandato 8.000 fiorini e da impresario onesto che vuol fare i suoi impegni verso tutti, non potevo a meno. Valenti ha sbagliato i conti."; Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 10.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

was probably a fair amount of optimism in the estimates and much (too much) confdence in the turnout of the public. Tis was probably Valenti's last season, for shortly afterwards he got ill and died in the early months of 1897.

Even the following opera season, organised in 1899 by the impresario Corbetta, made a defcit, this time of 162.52 forins.343 While it is true that the season left much to be desired, it is also true that there was no orchestra or chorus in Šibenik and that audiences had declined in the fnal years of the century: "one cannot even seriously think of ofering a musical spectacle worthy of enlightened criticism", the management refected.344 If the management decided to accept Corbetta's ofer, it was because various people had long been lamenting the absence of a musical season. After all, three years had passed since the last productions given at the inauguration of the monument to Tommaseo. A number of companies of spoken theatre had passed through, but theatre-goers now felt the need to hear opera. "But in Šibenik unfortunately much is expected of this poor theatre of ours," Mazzoleni complained; "criticism is harsh, and audience attendance of performances in recent years has been exiguous."345 Te problem for opera companies seems to have been the city itself, for after his stay in Šibenik Corbetta went on to the theatre of Dubrovnik with the same cast (slightly modifed) and made a net proft of 1,000 forins after a run of performances.346 It is also worth noting that the price of admission to the Teatro Mazzoleni was on average lower than, for example, at the theatres of Zadar and Split, which also meant smaller profts for the impresario.

After Corbetta there was once again a long silence. Tis time the cause was an ofcial notice from the regional government of 26 January 1901, ordering that work be carried out on the theatre to make it comply with fre safety standards.347 In the meantime, however, a request had been made by an opera company of Brno asking for the use of the theatre for a few performances. Te company could have had the theatre free of charge and also be relieved of the expenses of staf, cleaning and lighting. To give an idea of what those costs would be, the following table lists the ordinary nightly expenses for performances

<sup>343</sup> The entry in the Table of revenue and expenditure 1899 reads: "Compagnia d'opera Corbetta / Introiti 254,50 fiorini / Esiti 417,02 fiorini / Disavanzo 162,52 fiorini"; HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4. Corbetta managed the Compagnia Lirica Italiana.

<sup>344</sup> "non si può nemmeno pensare seriamente ad offrire uno spettacolo di musica degno della critica illuminata"; Overview of the running of the Teatro Mazzoleni in the years 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899 and January 1900, Šibenik, January 1900, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>345</sup> "Ma a Šibenik purtroppo molto si esige da questo nostro misero teatro, aspramente si critica, ed il concorso del pubblico in questi anni agli spettacoli è esiguo."; Overview of the running of the Teatro Mazzoleni in the years 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899 and January 1900, Šibenik, January 1900, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>346</sup> See Overview of the running of the Teatro Mazzoleni in the years 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899 and January 1900, Šibenik, January 1900, Šibenik, January 1900, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>347</sup> See Procedure adopted at the general meeting of the shareholders, Šibenik, 17.3.1902, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.


of opera at the Teatro Mazzoleni. Te document is undated, but given that the currency specifed is crowns, it is likely to be from the early years of the 20th century:348

351 The sum indicated for the machinists refers only to the evening's work. Any construction work carried out in the daytime was paid by the impresa at a cost negotiated with the chief machinist.

<sup>348</sup> List of ordinary evening expenses for every play or opera at the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, Šibenik, [n.d.] HR-DAŠI-103, folder 5.

<sup>349</sup> The amount of insurance for 50 performances was paid in advance by the theatre; for every extra performance the management had to pay 2 crowns per night.

<sup>350</sup> According to a job advertisement, the custodian of the theatre of Šibenik nel 1906 was to be paid 600 crowns a year plus the three crowns indicated in this table for each evening of performance. The custodian would also receive the proceeds of the cloakroom; See Call for applications for the post of custodian, Šibenik, 25. 6.1906, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4. The man appointed to the post was a certain Strkalj, known as Migalo, who however later ended up in prison for unspecified "immoral acts". The management dismissed him in 1908 and engaged Giuseppe Modun in his place; Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik 25. 7.1908, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.


Having the nightly expenses paid would therefore mean a saving of over 100 crowns (hence about 200 forins) per night. Te company from Brno would also beneft from the proceeds from the admissions to the parterre, boxes and galleries, as well as the seats (*poltroncine*) and stools (*scanni*) in the parterre and boxes of the third tier. Te municipal administration applied pressure in an attempt to speed up the construction work and get permission to reopen the theatre.354 But the project came to nothing and the theatre remained closed to opera productions (as well as concerts including opera arias) at least until the arrival of the Compagnia Lirica Italiana Verdi, which performed on 4 June 1904.355 Before that, the only musical spectacles ofered had been provided by the operetta company of Cesare Matucci and that of the Città di Trento.

<sup>352</sup> At Šibenik the security staff was local. In the new century the guards at Šibenik asked for a pay rise that was considered excessive, especially since it was requested in lire, a currency customarily used to pay only the companies and artists, not the local staff; see various papers in HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>353</sup> The posting of the larger, special notices and panels was paid separately depending on size.

<sup>354</sup> See Letter from the theatre management to the municipal administration of Šibenik, Šibenik, [1902] HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>355</sup> See Sheet of paper headed "Concerto della compagnia lirica italiana G. Verdi, 4 giugno 1904", HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

#### 4.6.2 Ernesto Guerra at Šibenik: impresario, director, procurator, pianist, pedagogue

Te next signifcant presence of opera at Šibenik was that of Ernesto Guerra's Compagnia Lillipuziana of comic operas, a visit negotiated for 1905 thanks to a cooperation between two agents: Gallina of Trieste and Viscardi from Zadar. Viscardi had once again ofered to act as agent, despite the experience with Valenti some years previously. Tis time the management of Šibenik needed to be reassured that large musical resources were not required. "Concerning the orchestra there is no cause for concern," Viscardi wrote, "when there is a good piano which Guerra himself plays and the frst violin which he will bring, and when a specifc condition concerning the orchestra is that one must make use of what the town ofers".356 Besides, Guerra himself was not interested in a big orchestra, given that the operas made use of children's voices. Moreover, none of the musicians from Zadar could have taken part in that particular period, so this time Šibenik would have to manage with the forces available in situ. Te orchestral ensemble was to consist of four violins, a cello, a double bass, a cornet (*cornetta*), a frst and second clarinet (*clarino*), a fute, a tenor and bass trombone, a bass drum and a piano, to be played by Ernesto Guerra himself.357 So it was a matter of only 14 players for the six operas chosen from the company's wider repertoire. Te contract specifed ffteen performances, which meant that the turnover in the six titles would be very fast. In actual fact, the company's advertising bills announced that the company would give only six performances, hence changing opera every night.358 Te sharp drop in the number of performances may be attributable to changes in Guerra's plans; or alternatively, it may depend on the fact – noted earlier – that performances at the Mazzoleni had become fewer in the early years of the century, and that the theatre management, instead of sticking to the contract, preferred to see how things went and assess the numbers in the audience more instinctively. In the original contract the percentages of the proceeds were fxed at 70% for the impresario and 30% for the management on the frst 10 performances; for the remaining fve, the percentage was rebalanced in favour of the management (60% to management, 40% to impresario). We have no documents indicating how

<sup>356</sup> "Riguardo all'orchestra non c'è da impensierirsi quando c'è un buon piano che lo suona lo stesso Guerra e il primo violino che lo porta lui, e colla determinata condizione che per l'orchestra bisogna servirsi di quello che il paese offre."; Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Zadar, 7. 9.1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>357</sup> See Orchestra of the season of the Compagnia Lillipuziana of Ernesto Guerra, Šibenik, [n.d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>358</sup> "the Respectable Audience is informed that the Company will give only 6 performances – Every night a different opera" ("Si avverte il rispettabile Pubblico, che la Compagnia darà solo 6 Rappresentazioni – Ogni sera spettacolo nuovo"); Advertising bill for the Compagnia Lillipuziana of Ernesto Guerra, Šibenik, 21.10.1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 7.

the takings were distributed over just six performances and whether or not the percentages were readjusted. Te theatre management would pay the ordinary nightly expenses, which were listed in detail: lighting of the theatre, theatre staf, commissioner and police guards, routine printing (*stampa ordinaria*), poster distribution, theatre fremen, and an orchestra consisting of players from the town, "with no responsibility on the part of the management for the artistic skills of the players making up the orchestra".359 A similar declaration reveals a lot about the management's understanding of the situation, for it clearly didn't wish to be the recipient of any complaints from Guerra himself, given that Guerra would also be playing the piano and directing the ensemble. Te list of artists was defned separately. A penalty of 500 crowns would be applied if either party (impresario or management) failed to fulfl the terms of the contract. Tis was the frst time a theatre management ofcially placed itself in the condition of having to pay a penalty; indeed, this is a clause that we fnd in no other contract made in this period in the area concerned. If the defaulting party happened to be the impresario, the management assumed the right to confscate properties and costumes or even the evenings' takings at another theatre.360

No mention was made of the subject of accommodation expenses. We know that the company was made up of 48 people who would need lodgings: a fair number, though it was perceived as a minor problem, given that they were dealing with children. As the agent Gallina wrote, "the children sleep two to a bed, and you can put 4 or even 5 beds in a room if it's a big one".361 Gallina specifcally asked to keep the price of admission to the theatre quite high, given that the company cost 400 lire a day and he most certainly did not wish to "come out badly" (*fare brutta fgura*).362 In fact, if we compare the company's admission prices at Šibenik in the following year with those for the same company in Pula (again in 1906), we do note a slight diference, with higher prices at Šibenik.363 At Šibenik the tickets

<sup>359</sup> "senza responsabilità da parte della direzione per la capacità artistica dei componenti la stessa"; Contract between the theatre management of Šibenik and Ernesto Guerra, Šibenik, 1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>360</sup> See Art. 9 of the Contract between the Teatro Mazzoleni and Ernesto Guerra, Šibenik, 1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>361</sup> "i ragazzi dormono due per letto ed in una stanza può mettersi anche, se grande, 4 e 5 letti"; Letter from Enrico Gallina to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Trieste, 29. 9.1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>362</sup> Letter from Enrico Gallina to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Trieste, 29. 9.1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>363</sup> The admission prices for the performances of the Compagnia Lirica Lillipuziana in Pula in 1906 were as follows: parterre and boxes 1.20 crowns; soldiers and non-comissioned officers 80 cents; children under 7, 60 cents; seats (*poltrone*) 1.40 crowns; stools (*scanni*) in the parterre 70 cents; ground-floor boxes 6 crowns; first-tier boxes 4 crowns; gallery 40 cents; reserved seats in gallery 40 cents; "Politeama Ciscutti", *Omnibus*, 19.5.1906. At Šibenik the listed prices were a little higher: parterre and boxes 1.60 crowns; children and non-comissioned officers 80 cents; seats (*poltroncine*) 1.60 crowns; stools (*scanni*), 80 cents; 2nd-tier boxes 5 crowns; 3rd-tier 2.50 crowns; see Advertising bill for a special production of *Educande di Sorrento*, Šibenik, 14.5.1906, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 7. Even though the prices had been

were to be sold in diferent currencies depending on the type of performance: the early daytime shows in crowns; the evening performances in Italian lire.364

Guerra returned to the Teatro Mazzoleni not even a year later, in May 1906, ofering just two special performances on 14 and 15 May of *Il barbiere di Siviglia* and *Le educande di Sorrento.* Tis type of spectacle had clearly been well received the frst time round, otherwise a second opportunity would not have occurred so soon after. Nonetheless, opera with children in the lead roles was probably starting to lose its appeal in Šibenik. "Given that the audience here is made up almost exclusively of ofcers", the director of the theatre noted, "they are not interested in children; instead, those employed are always elegant prima divas".365 Signifcantly the agent Gallina proposed the Angelini operetta company for a run of six nights in November 1907. No children this time, just ballerinas and singers engaged in the role of "excentric divettes" (*divette eccentriche*), as they were called at the time. Te company asked for a guarantee of 500 crowns per night, with the nightly expenses (including the orchestra) and the copyright to be borne by the theatre. Te management hoped to recoup the costs by charging higher prices, but in order to cover its back (since it was rarely possible to predict fnancial outcomes at the theatre), it asked for the approval of the shareholders, who in the end voted it and established an entrance price of 3 crowns.366

In these years, another issue posed a threat to the opera seasons and needed to be addressed, and that was the cinema. At Šibenik, a flm company (*impresa del cinematografo*) represented by Ugo Fosco, one of the theatre's shareholders (and later a director), requested that the foyer of the theatre be used as a provisional cinema in the summer months (June, July, August and perhaps September). It was certainly not customary to organise opera performances in those months, but Fosco was nonetheless keen to emphasise that the equipment could be disassembled with an hour's work and, if required, the evening showings could be suspended so as not to interfere with the theatre's activities. He also promised to make the necessary arrangements with the competent authorities and get the required authorisation from the insurance company. Finally, a request was made to establish a suitable rate for renting the foyer. In reply, Mazzoleni declared to the shareholders that the management had always been against allowing the theatre to be used for the cinema, since it had little

raised, they were nowhere near those of the tickets sold at a more important theatre like that of Zadar, where in the same year of 1906 students and children entered for 1.50 crowns, the *poltroncine* were sold at 2.50 crowns, the *scanni* at 1.60 crowns, the seats in the gallery at 60 cents and the numbered seats at 40 cents.

<sup>364</sup> See "Currency to be used for performances at the Teatro Mazzoleni", from the Headquarters (*Comando*) of the troops of Dalmatia to Signor Mazzoleni, Šibenik, 12.10.1919, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>365</sup> "Essendo il pubblico qui costituito quasi esclusivamente di ufficiali, non vogliono saperne di bambini, ma invece delle dive eleganti vengono sempre scritturate."; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to M. Sampietri, [Šibenik post 1911], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

<sup>366</sup> See Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 28. 7.1907, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

faith in "erratic companies" (*imprese girovaghe*); but that in the present case, considering that it was a matter of using the theatre foyer, that the equipment would be used by people of proven technical skill, and also that there would be a scrupulous supervision under Fosco's direction, it would grant what was requested for a monthly rent of 60 crowns.367 Te time had come, therefore, for this form of entertainment to take up its place within the theatre – and perhaps compete with opera for a part of its audience.

#### 4.6.3 Do it yourself, if you want it done properly: the self-organised seasons of the Mazzolenis

Te frst meeting of the directors and partners of the theatre concerning the 1909 season was held early in the morning on 12 February 1909 at the house of the director Antonio Bontempo. Tose present were the directors Giovanni de Difnico, Giovanni Mazzoleni (who for some time had already taken over from his father Paolo), Ugo Fosco, Antonio Raimondi and Bontempo himself, as well as Enrico Mazzoleni (Giovanni's brother) and the conductor Rafaele Patucchi.368 Giovanni de Difnico opened the meeting with the only item on the agenda: the management's decision on the season to be given in the forthcoming spring. Giovanni and Enrico Mazzoleni reported on their negotiations with the theatrical agent Paolo Rocca, and on the result of the auditions, made in Milan, for the prospective singers. After hearing the opinion of Patucchi on the orchestra of the Società Filarmonica and the choirs of the city, it was resolved to convene the theatre shareholders for the following Wednesday in order to propose a contribution of 50 crowns per share and also to request authorisation to take out a loan of 3,000 crowns from the Banca Popolare Zaratina to meet the preliminary expenses. Te management declared itself in favour of planning a short season to begin on Easter Day with repertoire operas like *La traviata* and *Il trovatore*. 369

When the shareholders met, as planned, in the theatre, Giovanni Mazzoleni started the proceedings by stressing the management's constant commitment to promoting productions of good quality. Citing the drama companies that had visited Šibenik (such as those of Berti, Novelli, Pezzana, Vitaliani and others of less importance), he noted that the theatre had in no way lagged behind others in more populous and important cities. And in the feld of operetta, he mentioned a recent attempt to give a short season with an important

<sup>367</sup> See Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik 25. 7.1908, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>368</sup> Raffaele Patucchi was *maestro concertatore* and conductor of the opera at the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik and, when required, violinist in the same theatre's orchestra. Today he is also remembered as the father of the film director Renato May. He moved to Italy in 1914, when performances of opera in the theatre were interrupted by the War. See also the entry "Renato May", in Roberto Poppi, *Dizionario del cinema italiano. I registi: dal 1930 ai nostri giorni*, Gremese, Roma 2002, p. 281.

<sup>369</sup> See Minutes of the meeting, 12. 2.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

company, which however resulted in a defcit (a defcit that the theatre, however, managed to cover with the profts from other companies). Encouraged by these results and by the public's interest in music, the management had for some time been examining how to give an opera season without incurring the large expenses that, by defnition, are associated with such spectacles (expenses that could not be smoothed out, also given the small numbers of the theatre-going public). Mazzoleni here reminded the shareholders of what had happened at the inauguration of the Tommaseo monument: that *Gli Ugonotti* and *Un ballo in maschera* had been performed only thanks to the substantial endowment of 4,000 crowns from the committee, other sums derived from the subscriptions of private citizens and the municipality, and the attendance of many outsiders who had come to Šibenik specially for the occasion. To achieve its intended purpose, and to reduce the cost of the chorus and orchestra (also considering that one could count on a conductor on site), the theatre gave the fullest support to the city's Società Filarmonica. Indeed there had been a case in point just recently. In the previous year the company run by Castagnoli had arrived at the theatre with just a few artists, just two orchestral players, unexceptional costumes and little scenery. And yet with the ensemble provided by the Filarmonica it was possible to put together a moderately good orchestra that satisfed expectations; proof of which was the good attendance of the public on the nights devoted to *La favorita, Il barbiere di Siviglia* and *Ernani*, for the most part achieved with local forces.370

Te theatre management considered that equally good results could be achieved by creating an impresa of its own (without calling in an external impresario) and by engaging good young artists, who, at the beginning of their careers, would surely not demand the exorbitant fees of those who were already embarked on a professional life and were better known. According to Mazzoleni, the notion that novices could not be well received was wrong. In support of which, he cited the case of the soprano Salomea Krusceniski,371 who came to Šibenik as a newcomer, but nonetheless found favour with the public and in the course of time became an acclaimed artist. Nonetheless, if one wanted a season of any kind, no matter how short, an endowment was needed. Without citing examples outside

<sup>370</sup> All that is known about this *Ernani* is that the management succeeded in granting an endowment of 250 crowns; Letter from Giuseppe Castagnoli to the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 21. 4.1908, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

<sup>371</sup> Salomea Krusceniski (1872–1952), the Italianisation of the name Solomiya Krushelnytska (in the sources also Krusceniski or Kruszelnicka), was a Ukranian soprano who studied singing at the Conservatoire of Lviv before completing her studies in Milan. Her debut at the Teatro San Carlo of Naples in 1903 inaugurated her Italian career. In 1910 she married the mayor of Viareggio. For information on her life, see Carlo Schmidl, *Supplemento al Dizionario Universale dei Musicisti: Appendice*, Sonzogno, Milano 1937, p. 447, or *Großes Sängerlexikon*, edited by Karl Josef Kutsch and Leo Riemens, Saur, München 2003, p. 2529–2530, or the entry in the *New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians*, edited by Stanley Sadie, London, Macmillan, 2001, p. 285.

the province of Dalmatia, Mazzoleni mentioned the cases of Zadar and Dubrovnik. Even though these theatres could count on audiences that were much larger than at Šibenik, they couldn't organise any opera without a subsidy from the shareholders. A certain impresario called Dorigo had made a proposal to Šibenik in 1908 without asking for an endowment, then he backed out, as expected, and failed to return the contracts signed. As for Castagnoli, in the current year he declared that without an endowment he wouldn't present a project (the next year, however, he did; the management asked him for the payment of the nightly expenses and his project came to nothing).372

After reading the minutes of the directors' meeting held earlier, Mazzoleni came to the point by directly asking the shareholders for the contribution of 50 crowns each to fnance the opera season. Giovanni de Difnico then mentioned the improvements made to the theatre and the good productions given in the previous years, all of which had caused the shares to increase considerably in value. He opened the discussion on the management's proposal, recommending that it be accepted. At the same time Enrico Mazzoleni gave the shareholders an account of the auditions held by the Rocca agency in Milan to secure a good cast of soloists: according to the reports, there were several singers with admirable voices. It would be hard, he believed, to fnd another opportunity that guaranteed success like the present one, so he supported the management's proposal. Tere were, however, sceptical voices, like that of a certain Meichsner, a shareholder who believed that the request for money from the shareholders was inadequate: it would create a precedent that would worsen the theatre's fnances every year. But it would be difcult to produce any opera season without a subsidy. In favour of the proposal it was said that it would be a one-of project for special circumstances and would not be binding for the future. Tere were also those like Gregorio Bogić who commented on the type of repertoire proposed and asked that instead of *La traviata* and *Il trovatore*, as suggested by the management, two more recent operas should be given. But then the expenses – from the rental of the scores and the authors' rights – would be too high and the season would need a higher budget, which Mazzoleni felt to be unwise, given that this was a frst experiment.373

Regarding the cast, it was planned to engage the soprano Erminia Daelli, who at the time was engaged at La Scala, but she asked for her arrival to be postponed by ten days, precisely because of her commitment in Milan. Since the contract the soprano would sign with Šibenik would last only a month, ten days would mean a third of her overall stay. It would be important to have all the artists on site from the very start and be ready to stage *Il trovatore* in case for some reason it was impossible to start with *La Traviata* as planned. So Mazzoleni, in some embarrassment over the situation and not knowing how to answer the soprano, entrusted the resolution of the matter to the conductor Patucchi, who was due to

<sup>372</sup> See Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 17. 9.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>373</sup> See Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 17. 9.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

travel to Milan and could perhaps extract the necessary authorisation from the management of La Scala.374 Te problem must have been successfully resolved for we later fnd Daelli engaged as Azucena in the cast.

Among the artistic staf there would also have to be a pianist in the orchestra who could rehearse with the choruses during the daytime. An alternative solution – proposed by the agent Paolo Rocca – was to engage a prompter, have him instruct the choruses, and instead of the piano use two frst violins and a second violin. An attempt was then made to save on the prompter as well, by asking the agent Rocca to do without it.375 It turns out, however, that a prompter is included in the report on the 1909 opera season, which suggests that, after various hesitations, it was eventually decided to engage one.

We are fortunate that there survives a detailed report of the season, which we reproduce here in full in order to clarify the nature of the income and expenses in detail.376 In all there were 15 performances, held from 11 April to 2 May 1909, with nine nights of *La traviata* and six of *Il trovatore*.



<sup>374</sup> Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Erminia Daelli, Šibenik, 12.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>375</sup> "You didn't say anything to me about the prompter, nor did you include him in the budget," Mazzoleni wrote to the agent Rocca. "Last year we did everything perfectly well without one; I wouldn't like the budget already decided on to increase much, because that is precisely the basis on which the management and the theatre company have decided to make this experiment of a 'municipal impresa'. And what with the other expenses we will have with the orchestra, chorus, extras, etc., the season will cost more than we thought. So if you could do without this prompter, it would be a very good thing. In any case write and tell me how much it would cost." ("Del suggeritore Ella non mi ha parlato né compreso nel preventivo; l'anno scorso si fece tutto e bene senza, non vorrei aumentasse di molto il preventivo già stabilito perché appunto in base a quello la direzione e la società hanno deciso di fare l'esperimento di un'impresa cittadina. E colle altre spese che si avranno qui di orchestra, masse teatrali ecc. l'opera verrà costare più di quanto si credeva. Quindi se si potesse fare a meno di questo suggeritore sarebbe una gran bella cosa. In ogni modo mi scriva quanto verrebbe a costare."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, 1.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>376</sup> Report on the 1909 opera season, Šibenik, 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.






Included in the income are the nightly takings from the boxes and admissions, which are detailed for each of the 15 nights, showing a conspicuous – and predictable – peak on the night of the premiere of *La traviata*, totalling 6,216.20 crowns. To these are added the contribution of the shareholders, which came to 1,400 crowns (as agreed). So by combining these two sources of revenue they could count on a total of 7,616.20 crowns. As for the expenses, the items of expenditure were the most varied. As well as the artists' fees, also indicated is the agent's fee and the conductor's expenses when he went to Milan to hear the singers. Ten there was his fee for conducting the operas, in addition to the pay given to the assistant conductor or *maestro sostituto* (who, as we shall see later, was usually paid about half the principal conductor's fee). It is worth noting that all the costs for the staf brought over from Italy are given in lire, not crowns. Te local musicans, on the other hand, were paid in crowns. Normally the *basso vestiario* (basic wardrobe) for singers and choristers was not reimbursed by the impresa, but here the management evidently made an exception. Nor (according to the contract) were the travel expenses of the singers to the *piazza* necessarily refunded, let alone their board – yet another exception to the rule. Together with the expenditure for postage, tax stamps, telegrams and letters, the list also sees ft to include the cost of the gifts for the cast (about which more in section 7.3.1.). In all, the bill came to 9,395.54 crowns. From another document we learn that the whole season cost 9,550.38 crowns, a fgure only slightly higher. If we take this second fgure as correct, the total defcit was 1,934.18 crowns. What is missing from this table are the items concerning the suppliers: the properties of Orrigoni, which cost 150 lire, the footwear from Bertoletti, for 100 lire, Soriani's scenery for 300 lire and Rosi's costumes for 450 lire. In all adding another 1,000 lire (or 2,500 crowns).377 We must also remember that the theatre had contracted a debt with the Inchiostri company,378 a sum amounting to 2,160.8 crowns. Since the management had already made an advance payment of 700 crowns on 1 June 1909, the residual debt was 1,460.81 crowns. Also helping to pay of the debt were, among other things, a visit of the Company of the National Teatre of Zagreb with four nights of opera. Tis short season, as transpires from the documentation, had given the theatre a net proft of 340 crowns.379

Even though the outlay had exceeded the income, as indeed had been expected, the theatre management was satisfed with the result of the performances and even sent a letter to the conductor Rafaele Patucchi to congratulate him. *Il trovatore* and *La traviata* found favour with the public and this result was also due to the preparation of orchestra and chorus, which had worked hard for the success of the season.380 All of which showed that it was not impossible to run a season without engaging an external impresario. To be sure, it entailed considerable sacrifces and much more responsibility at a personal level. Indeed, this may have been the very reason that some time later Giovanni De Difnico decided to stand down from his position as director. His colleagues, who learned of his decision with regret, begged him to remain, "in the interests of Italian art and as a fgure of conciliation and moderation in the relations between the various nationalities". Te theatre of Šibenik should be directed by the right people, and De Difnico was considered to be one of these, "for his sentiments of great patriotism […], for his eminent qualities of an excellent citizen, and for his personal infuence".381 He was therefore invited to withdraw his resignation. His name, however, no longer appears among the members of the management.

<sup>377</sup> See Undated sheet of paper, [Šibenik, 1909], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>378</sup> The Inchiostri company traded in food and manufactured goods. It also engaged in wine-making and had extensive dealings internationally; *Manuale del Regno di Dalmazia per l'anno 1873*, vol. III, Zadar, Battara, 1873, p. 314.

<sup>379</sup> See Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 5. 6.1910, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>380</sup> "For you the success was all the more remarkable," the theatre management wrote to Patucchi, "because, as far as the orchestra and chorus were concerned, it was obtained almost exclusively with your young pupils, who with discipline, constant study and love of the art succeeded in giving perfect performances in such a way as to merit the acclaim of the whole citizenry." ("E tanto più rimarchevole è per Lei il successo, perché ottenuto per quanto riguarda l'orchestra ed il coro, quasi esclusivamente co' suoi giovani allievi i quali colla disciplina, lo studio costante e l'amore per l'arte riuscirono a dare delle esecuzioni perfette in modo da meritarsi il plauso dell'intera cittadinanza."); Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to Raffaele Patucchi, Šibenik, 2.5.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>381</sup> "nell'interesse dell'arte italiana e qual fattore di conciliazione e di moderazione nei rapporti delle varie nazionalità", and later, "pei sentimenti di alto patriottismo […], per le eminenti qualità di ottimo cittadino e per la personale influenza"; Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to Giovanni de Difnico, Šibenik, 8.11.1910, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

From this time on, Italian opera began to be mixed with proposals ofered by Croatian and Serbian companies. Already in 1910 a Serbian company from Belgrade paid a visit for just a single concert (it was a choral society). Te successive companies from Zagreb and Osijek that followed and alternated with the Italian ones had "the American custom" (*l'uso americano*) of switching between opera and operetta almost every night. As a result, the public became used to a rapid turnover in the repertoire, and this was seen by the director of the theatre as a drawback. Te public had been "spoilt" (*viziato*) by the permanent companies of these theatres; the Italian companies, on the other hand, did not ofer such a frequent turnover (if perhaps we make an exception for opera bufa troupes like the Lillipuziana directed by Guerra).382

Even the impresario Ponzio ofered little variety when in 1911 he proposed just two operas for Šibenik: *La sonnambula* and *Rigoletto*, which had been given at Lošinj (Lussino) shortly before. For Easter 1911 a season was also ofered by Milivoj Stojković from Knin, but the management declined the ofer saying that the choice had fallen on Italian opera.383 Ponzio's season was to last around twenty days, hence a little longer than what the Croatian companies generally ofered, but with fewer works. Te problems, however, were the same as ever: the lack of a complete orchestral group in Šibenik and the problem of recruiting singers for the chorus. In this particular instance, for example, a clarinet (*clarino*) player was needed to complete the orchestra. Even a simple request like this could be magnifed into a serious problem. When a theatre was short of an orchestral player, the frst thing to do was to look for one in the neighbouring theatres, but often the search was fruitless. "I am still waiting for news from Zadar and Split," Mazzoleni wrote describing his eforts, "but I hold little hope in these two cities, for they too sometimes turn to Šibenik".384 When it was quite clear that neither Zadar nor other nearby towns had a free player, Mazzoleni directly contacted the impresario: "I have exhausted all avenues and I don't know who else

<sup>382</sup> See Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Enrico Gallina, Šibenik, 19. 9.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 6.

<sup>383</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to Milivoj Stojković, Šibenik, 6. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>384</sup> "Attendo ancora notizie da Zara e da Spalato, ma da queste due città spero pochissimo, poiché essi pure si rivolgono talvolta a Sebenico."; Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to Giuseppe Ponzio, Šibenik, 4. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. The day before, Mazzoleni had written to Vincenzo Prebenda in Split as follows: "For Easter we'll be having a short opera season with 'Rigoletto and Sonnambula' and there is a need for a good first clarinet. I therefore appeal to your well-known courtesy with a request to let me know if one could be found in Split for a fee of 7 crowns per day and travel expenses. I thank you in advance for the kindness and I remain yours with all esteem." ("Per Pasqua avremmo una breve stagioncina d'opera col 'Rigoletto e Sonnambula' e si avrebbe bisogno di un buon primo clarino. Mi rivolgo perciò alla ben nota sua cortesia con preghiera di volermi indicare se si potrebbe trovare a Spalato verso il compenso di Corone 7 giornaliere e le spese di viaggio. La ringrazio anticipatamente del favore e sono con tutta stima."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Vincenzo Prebanda, Šibenik, 3. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

to turn to. Please, you take over, send telegrams to Ferrara and Milan. Without the clarinet the conductor would be in great difculty and the success of the orchestra and the opera would be jeopardised".385 Nor did the search in Milan produce immediate results. Ponzio had to send an express letter to an orchestral agency in the city.386

Te orchestra at Šibenik consisted to a great extent of amateurs, as Mazzoleni himself reminded the impresario. And this is perhaps also the reason why the contract subsequently drawn up between Ponzio and the orchestral players was so scanty (judging from a draft contract found among the archival papers). It was just three lines long. Along with the musician's name it merely indicated the starting date of performances, without any reference to the length of the season: "Te undersigned undertakes to take part as … in the operas Rigoletto and Sonnambula that will be performed in the Teatro Mazzoleni as from Sunday 16 April of the current year". Tis was followed by an indication of the nightly pay: "Te impresario Signor Giuseppe Ponzio undertakes to pay every evening…". Te third and last sentence mentions where the contract was actually deposited: "Te present contract will be preserved by the theatre management as a guarantee for the contracting parties".387 Tat's all.

<sup>385</sup> "io ho esaurito tutte le pratiche e non saprei più a chi rivolgermi. Mi raccomando faccia Lei, telegrafi a Ferrara e a Milano. Senza il clarino il maestro sarebbe molto imbarazzato e si comprometterebbe il successo dell'orchestra e dell'opera."; Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to Giuseppe Ponzio, Šibenik, 6. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. Mazzoleni had earlier received the following telegram from a certain Professor Arassich of Trieste, whom he had contacted: "Trieste nobody Telegraph Trebbi clarinettist Caffè Teatro Ferrara" ("Trieste nessuno telegrafi Trebbi clarinettista caffè teatro Ferrara"); Šibenik 1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>386</sup> "As regards the other orchestral parts," Ponzio wrote, "I will do my utmost to send them to Šibenik no later than Sunday 9th so that on Monday they can certainly begin the orchestra's first run-through. The company and the Bianchi quartet will be in Šibenik on Holy Wednesday, because here the last performance will be given on Tuesday 11th with the opera *Lucia di Lammermoor.* So on Wednesday evening, if, as I hope, there will also be a clarino, there could be a fine full rehearsal and you will see that it will immediately go well, given that *Rigoletto* is a fairly easy opera and moreover already well tried here in Lošinj." ("In merito alle altre parti d'orchestra farò il possibile di spedirle a Sebenico non più tardi di domenica 9 corr. così lunedì potranno senz'altro iniziare le prove d'orchestra di lettura. La compagnia ed il quartetto Bianchi saranno a Sebenico in giornata del mercoledì santo, perché qui si darà l'ultima recita martedì 11 con l'opera *Lucia di Lammermoor.* Così mercoledì sera, se, come spero ci sarà anche il clarino, si potrà fare una bella prova d'insieme e vedrà che si andrà subito bene essendo il *Rigoletto* un'opera abbastanza facile, e poi già bene affiatata qui a Lussino."); Letter from Giuseppe Ponzio to the theatre management of Šibenik, Lošinj, 6. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>387</sup> "Il sottoscritto si impegna di prendere parte quale…nelle opere Rigoletto e Sonnambula che verranno eseguite in questo teatro Mazzoleni incominciando domenica 16 aprile a. c."; "L'impresario sig. Giuseppe Ponzio si obbliga di corrispondere seralmente…"; "Il presente contratto verrà conservato dalla direzione teatrale per garanzia delle parti contraenti"; Engagement agreement for the impresario Signor Giuseppe Ponzio, [Šibenik, n.d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. This concise model of engagement agreement was identical to that used for performances of operetta.

As regards the chorus, it was a matter of fnding around ten girls available to sing in *La sonnambula* ("because I can hardly contemplate doing Sonnambula without a female chorus", Mazzoleni explained).388 Te director begged Ponzio to write to Hofstätter & Bonaventura, the costume suppliers in Trieste, and ask how much it would cost to hire ten costumes for the chorus girls. Given that the costumes were to be very simple and just for a few days, the expense should be negligeable, though Mazzoleni stressed the need for decorum: "the dresses and blouses must however be very respectable, otherwise the young ladies won't put them on".389 Te insistence on decorum in costumes and scenery, made to both impresarios and suppliers, was a constant feature under the Mazzoleni management. Tis informal request for information from the costume company would then have to be followed by a telegram if and when the negotiations between impresario and theatre management were successfully concluded. In the case of the chorus singers there was no contract: they were remunerated merely with a ticket for the nightly performance.

On the other hand, we do have the payroll for the staf of the Teatro Mazzoleni for the ten performances of this short season. A curious detail is that both the front-of-house staf and the stage hands renounced their pay on the last night in favour of the impresa.390


<sup>388</sup> "perché mi sorride poco l'idea di fare la Sonnambula senza coro femminile"; Letter from the theatre management to Giuseppe Ponzio, Šibenik, 6. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>389</sup> "I vestiti e le camiciette [*sic*] dovrebbero essere però molto decenti poiché altrimenti le signorine non li vestirebbero"; Letter from the theatre management to Giuseppe Ponzio, Šibenik, 6. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>390</sup> The document also stated that the management had immediately paid the said employees the 245.80 crowns due to them; Staff pay at the Teatro Mazzoleni, Šibenik, 2.5.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

In all, therefore, a minimum of around ffteen people (say, ffteen to twenty) were engaged for each performance night.

Te company left Šibenik with a proft of 352.09 crowns.391 Te next year Ponzio ofered the management another opera season, this time coming with what he considered to be "much better artistic elements" (*elementi artistici molto migliori*) than those brought in 1911, and increased the number of operas from two to three, suggesting productions of *Norma*, *Faust* and *Il barbiere di Siviglia.* Nothing came of the proposal, however, most likely also because the costs would have been greater.392

A table similar to the one above, also regarding the cost of the theatre staf, though referring to fewer nights, has survived for the run of fve performances in four days by the opera company of Zagreb that came to the city in May 1911 with the operas *Sismiš*, *Poviatak*, *Lijepa Galateja* and *Madama Butterfy.* Again, the company succeeded in leaving Šibenik with a proft, this time of 518,90 crowns*.* <sup>393</sup> Given that there were fewer performances, the overall expense for staf was also lower and came to 118,60 crowns.394 Te staf was therefore paid by the day; there were no forms of long-term employment (except in the case of the theatre's custodian). Tat year concluded with a single performance of Cimarosa's *Il matrimonio segreto* organised by Antonio Cosolo, who asked for, and got, 100 crowns for the nightly expenses.395 For this opera it appears that the entire company of artists, orchestra included, came from Milan.396

<sup>391</sup> Report of the administration of the Teatro Mazzoleni from 1 June 1909 to 31 March 1911, [Šibenik, 1911], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>392</sup> See Letter from Giuseppe Ponzio to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Mali Lošinj, 13.3.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>393</sup> Special financial accounts for the Croatian opera season from Zagreb, Šibenik, May 1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>394</sup> See Cost of the staff of the Teatro Mazzoleni for the five performances of the opera company from Zagreb, Šibenik, 27.5.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>395</sup> "The director, Signor Bontempo, made the proposal to grant the theatre to the applicant against the payment of a hundred crowns for the evening's expenses," the minutes of a shareholders' meeting records, "though reserving for the theatre its boxes of the 2nd tier. The other directors, in turn, proposed that, given that it was just one night and considering that the management did not wish to assume the risk of a possible loss in what with laudable initiative had been taken on by Signor Cosolo, and considering that it was an important production of opera, he should be exceptionally granted the theatre against the sum of the evening's expenses only." ("Il direttore signor Bontempo fece proposta di concedere il teatro al richiedente verso l'indirizzo di corone cento per spese serali, ma riservando al teatro i palchi di II fila di proprietà dello stesso. Gli altri direttori a loro volta proposero che, trattandosi di una serata sola e non avendo voluto la direzione assumere il rischio d'una eventuale perdita, ciò che con encomiabile intraprendenza venne assunto dal signor Cosolo, e trattandosi d'un importante spettacolo d'opera, gli venga in via eccezionale concesso il teatro verso l'importo delle sole spese serali."); Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 26. 9.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>396</sup> See Manlio Cace, "Un secolo di vita del teatro Mazzoleni di Sebenico 29–1–1870 – 29–1–1970", *Rivista dalmatica*, I (1970), p. 39. The tickets were sold in the shops of Cosolo and Comici until shortly

Te one performance, on 3 October 1911, brought in 1,468 crowns, signifcantly more than the average takings the theatre was used to.397 In that same autumn tour the opera visited not only Rijeka and Zadar (where it had been in the previous September), but also made a stop at the Teatro Nuovo in Split.

Tere then came a time when the theatre building had to be made available to the military authorities and used as a barracks. At the time the management had already come to an agreement with a certain Signor Gobbi over some unspecifed performances, but was forced to cancel the contract: "With regret we must deprive ourselves of the performances of your company and we hope that on another occasion there will be an opportunity to host you in our theatre. Please send me the two contracts, adding the following note: 'Cancelled due to force majeure' and then sign it".398 Te cancelled contract would have been useful to Mazzoleni in the event of a claim for damages when the building was restored to normal conditions of use. Tough the cancellation certainly refected a case of "force majeure", the contract between impresario and theatre management would in any case have been invalid for the mere fact that it was not returned within the stipulated time frame. Here it is incidentally worth remembering some other justifcations for cancellation: apart from a fre at the theatre or work and restoration on the building, they included the 'protest of the audience', the artists' inability to sing the parts entrusted to them, reasons of war, revolution and epidemic, the death of a sovereign or prince, or any cause or motive of public order or hygiene.

Te above disruption must have continued for a while if still in January 1913 Mazzoleni was declining incoming proposals by saying that the theatre was "occupied by the military" (*occupato dal militare*).399 And several months later, even though he could have accepted, Mazzoleni also declined the ofer of the impresario Giuseppe Fantony, who proposed coming to Šibenik in December with his company of "Balli Italiani"; there would be ten nights of performances, ensuring minimum receipts of 500 crowns per night. Te repertoire promised to be wide-ranging, and the ballets would receive a grand staging. Unlike traditional ballets, these works would present "the action taking place with singing" (*l'azione che si svolge con canto*). Indeed they were described to Mazzoleni as "short

before the beginning of the performance; after which, they could be bought directly at the theatre box-office.

<sup>397</sup> Even the premiere of *Rigoletto* in the previous season had brought in only 931.50 crowns; Special financial accounts for the Italian opera (Ponzio impresa), Šibenik 1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>398</sup> "Con dispiacere ci priviamo delle recite della Sua compagnia e speriamo che in altra occasione ci sarà dato di ospitarLa nel nostro teatro. Mi mandi prego i due contratti facendovi Lei da parte Sua l'annotazione seguente: 'Annullato per causa di forza maggiore' e indi lo firmi."; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Gobbi, Šibenik, 11.12.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>399</sup> Letter from [Giovanni] Mazzoleni to the management of the Società Filarmonico Drammatica of Split, [Šibenik], 23.1.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

operas" (*brevi opere*) in which dance prevailed. If the proposal was accepted, Fantony, in addition to the contract, also wanted an advance of 1,000 crowns (for the outward travel expenses) that would have to be sent to the theatrical agency of Enrico Barbacini, whose client Fantony evidently was.400

Instead, the management decided to accept two world premieres of works by a composer well known in the musical circles of Šibenik: Antonio Orsini, permanent director of the wind band of Šibenik, who had already worked at the theatre as a *maestro sostituto* in various productions.401 Te operas given in December of that year were *Sangue dalmata*, a 'dramma lirico', followed by *Per l'amore*. Te composer was also indicated in the *borderò* as being the impresario.402 For the occasion he left Rafaele Patucchi to conduct his operas while he watched from the auditorium. Te principal singers were brought in from Venice, while the supporting soloists and choruses were local.403 Te two operas soon disappeared from the repertoire.

#### 4.6.4 Leon Dragutinović and the Croatian company of the National Theatre of Osijek

In February 1914 the Teatro Mazzoleni received another proposal of Italian opera, this time from the agent Marco Curiel, who wished to organise a season with the Valentini opera company that was soon to appear in Zadar. Te repertoire would be the same as that ofered there.404 Te theatre management would cover the costs of the chorus, orchestra and the nightly expenses ("if you wish," Curiel remarked, "I could get you chorus singers from Trieste for 7 crowns a day, as well as orchestral players");405 the impresario would pay for the artists, costumes, scenery, scores and conductor. Mazzoleni always liked to tell impresarios that the theatre management

<sup>400</sup> The money was to be sent to the Ufficio Lirico Teatrale of Via S. Paolo 14 in Milan, owned by Enrico Barbacini, son of the celebrated tenor Barbacini; Letter from Giuseppe Fantony to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Roma, 29.10.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

<sup>401</sup> Antonio Orsini (Lugo di Romagna, Ravenna 1868 – Castrocaro Terme, Forlì 1938) was a composer and wind band director. From 1896 to 1938 he directed the bands of Massalombarda (Ravenna), Šibenik and Castrocaro (Forlì). Carlo Schmidl, *Supplemento al Dizionario universale dei musicisti: Appendice – aggiunte e rettifiche al primo e secondo volume*, Sonzogno, Milano 1938, p. 578.

<sup>402</sup> See *Borderò* for the evening of *Per l'amore*, Šibenik, 5.12.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>403</sup> Manlio Cace, "Un secolo di vita del teatro Mazzoleni di Sebenico 29–1–1870 – 29–1–1970", *Rivista Dalmatica*, I (1970), p. 39.

<sup>404</sup> The operas proposed included *Lucrezia Borgia*, *L'elisir d'amore*, *Maria di Rohan*, *La favorita*, *Norma*, *I puritani*, *Lucia di Lammermoor* and *La sonnambula*.

<sup>405</sup> "se credeste, potrei procurarvi coristi di Trieste a cor. 7 giornaliere, come pure professori d'orchestra". Letter from Marco Curiel to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Trieste, 16.1.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

had no confdence in getting a decent performance using "orchestral elements from around here", thereby implying his preference for external musicians.406

In the end the choice fell on the ofer made by Leon Dragutinović, administrator and procurator of the Croatian company of opera and operetta of the National Teatre of Osijek407 directed by Mihajlo Marković, to give 10 or 15 performances of opera or operetta. Te company had already visited the city in the previous year for a run of ten nights. Inviting back a company that had already visited previously was not new for Šibenik: other examples of return visits are those of Ernesto Guerra and the Royal National Teatre of Zagreb. What was new, however, was that the contract specifes the need for the impresario to have the librettos approved by the censors of the Dalmatian provincial government in Zadar and obtain the corresponding licence. If these administrative procedures should fail to be dealt with in time (thereby leading to the authorities denying the theatre the authorisation to open), the impresario would be directly responsible. Te penalty in the event of non compliance with the clauses of the contract by either impresario or theatre management was fxed at 1,000 crowns, double what it had been in the contract with Ernesto Guerra only nine years earlier.408

Tis time the theatre's nightly expenses were not granted (as with previous companies) and the impresario would have to pay the theatre 100 crowns for each performance night. Te management would deduct the sum from the nightly takings and use it to cover the costs (i.e. those listed in previous tables: lighting, service and surveillance staf, commissioners and police, fremen). For the 12 performances eventually agreed on, 290.20 crowns would go just to the staf, as follows:


<sup>406</sup> See Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Antonio Ronzi, Šibenik, 20.3.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. Mazzoleni made the comment to Antonio Ronzi, an orchestral conductor who ran operetta companies (as stated on his letterhead: "Antonio Ronzi / operette"). As well as writing to Šibenik in 1914, Ronzi had also contacted the Politeama Ciscutti of Pula in 1909.

<sup>407</sup> On the theatre of Osijek and the companies working there, see the section "Deutschsprachiges Theater in Osijek" in Nikola Batušić, *Geschichte des deutschsprachigen Theaters in Kroatien*, edited by Elisabeth Großegger and Gertraud Marinelli-König, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2017, pp. 112*–*22, or Gabriella Schubert, "Das deutsche Theater in Esseg", *Zeitschrift für Balkanologie*, XXXIX/1 (2003), pp. 90*–*107. Also on the subject is the volume by Antonija Bogner-Šaban, *Kazališni Osijek*, AGM, Zagreb 1997; as well as previous works: *Spomen-knjiga: o pedestoj godišnjici Narodnog kazališta u Osijeku, 1907–1957*, Štampa, Osijek 1957, and Radoslav Bačić, *Dvadeset godina. Narodnog kazališta u Osijeku* 1907–1927, Antun Rott, Osijek 1927, about the first twenty years of the theatre.

<sup>408</sup> Contract between the theatre management of Šibenik and Leon Dragutinović, Šibenik, 23.4.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.


Tese expenses, which are broken down into separate payments in the table above, are grouped together under the single entry "paid to the theatre staf" *(pagate agli impiegati teatrali*) in the more complete table of income and expenses given below, which also details the takings of individual nights and shows the deduction of 100 crowns per performance made to Dragutinović's revenue.410 In all, the mixed performances of opera and operetta were squeezed into less than two weeks. Payments were made conveniently in crowns (had the company been Italian, by this date it would have had to be paid in lire).411


<sup>409</sup> Expenditure for the theatre staff for the 12 nights of the company of opera and operetta from the theatre of Osijek, Šibenik, 28.5.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>410</sup> The deduction is evident if one compares the two columns for each opera night and subtracts the expenses from the income.

<sup>411</sup> Special financial accounts for the opera and operetta company of the National Theatre of Osijek directed by Leon Dragutinović, Šibenik, [1914], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.





After balancing income and expenditure, we observe that the performances made a proft of 749.30 crowns. However, Mazzoleni also ended up with a credit of 120 crowns, a sum he had advanced for travel expenses (see the entry "Versate al M° Mitrović ed all'impresario Dragutinović a titolo di prestito per spese di viaggio"), so he duly wrote to Dragutinović with a request for repayment:

When asking me a few hours before departing together with Maestro Mitrović for a loan of 120 crowns that you needed to complete the sum required for your travel expenses, you assured me that you would return it to me as soon as you arrived in Mostar. Tis sum was granted to you on behalf of the administration of the theatre of Osijek. Since it has neither been returned to me yet, nor have I had any news from you, I hereby beg you to return the above-mentioned sum of one hundred and twenty crowns as soon as possible, given that in the following days I have to convene the theatre's board and close the accounts of the opera season.412

Immediately after that, a bill from the printers also arrived: 14 crowns for the notices in Italian made for the company and not yet paid. In fact, according to the contract, Dragutinović was expected to bear all the printing costs, which were not included in the nightly expenses. "I imagine you didn't pay for those notices due to an oversight", Mazzoleni tactfully wrote.413 In reply to these requests, the conductor Andro Mitrović, then in Mostar (because the Osijek opera company had disbanded), reported that the situation "was going very badly, and it would seem that the fault of all of this were certain speculations made by Signor Dragutinović (perhaps with the intention of getting his hands on everything). I have been left here without any means of continuing the journey, and

<sup>412</sup> "Nel chiedermi poche ore prima di partire insieme al maestro sig. Mitrović un prestito di corone 120 di cui abbisognava per completare l'importo che le era necessario per le spese di viaggio, Ella mi assicurò che lo avrebbe restituito appena giunti a Mostar. Tale importo venne loro affidato per conto della Amministrazione del teatro di Osijek. Siccome finora non mi venne restituito né ebbi alcuna notizia da loro, così vengo con la presente a pregarla di volermi rimettere quanto prima il sopra citato importo di corone centoventi, dovendo in questi giorni convocare la società teatrale e chiudere i conti della stagione d'opera."; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Leon Dragutinović, Šibenik, 4.6.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>413</sup> Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Leon Dragutinović, Šibenik, Šibenik, 4.6.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

am waiting for help."414 He said he was very sorry that the sum of 120 crowns hadn't been returned and undertook to take on the debt himself and pay it back as soon as possible. Before ofering his embarrassed apology, he noted that "for the present I too am in a bad way, otherwise I wouldn't delay in doing my duty immediately",415 promising therefore to resolve everything in the shortest possible time. It would appear that Dragutinović was at Tuzla in Bosnia at the time. We do not know how the matter ended, or whether Mazzoleni got his money back, or even if the Italian suppliers were duly paid (for though the opera company was not Italian, the scenery had, as usual, come from Milan: mentioned on the poster was the Atelier "Canuto Soriani"). We do know, however, that twenty years later Marković was once again in contact with the Teatro Mazzoleni, this time as director of the Yugoslav Teatre.416

With the arrival of the First World War a rumour circulated that the government intended to turn Šibenik into a war port. If so, one advantage could be the possibility of making use of the navy orchestra, as at Pula: a development that should make opera production easier.417 But as it turned out, this never happened, and indeed after 1914 there are no records of any more opera performances.418 Moreoever, the problem of the two currencies persisted. Many artists would have had to be paid in lire, but by now it had become difcult to pay even half of the contracts in lire. Te proceeds of the theatre were in crowns, for that was the currency everyone used to pay for admission.419

<sup>414</sup> "andava assai male, e a quanto pare, certe speculazioni del sig. Dragutinović (forse per prendere tutto nelle proprie mani) vi sono colpa di tutto. Io sono restato qui proprio senza mezzi di poter proseguire il viaggio avvuti [*sic*]; ed aspetto un aiuto."; Letter from Andro Mitrović to the theatre management of Šibenik, Mostar, 22. 6.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>415</sup> "momentalmente [*sic*] sto anche io male, altrimenti non tarderei a fare il mio dovere subito"; Letter from Andro Mitrović to the theatre management of Šibenik, Mostar, 22. 6.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>416</sup> He was to write from Belgrade, on a letterhead in two languages: "Bureau de concerts et des arts Yougoslave/Jugoslawische Theater- und Konzertdirektion"; Letter from Mihajlo Marković to the Teatro ex-Mazzoleni, Beograd, 24. 9.1934, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

<sup>417</sup> This was the opinion of the agent Enrico Gallina, who was in constant contact with the theatre of Šibenik from Trieste; Letter from Enrico Gallina to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Trieste, 29.11.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 6.

<sup>418</sup> See also the list of performances at the Teatro Mazzoleni from 1870 to 1920 drawn up by Ivo Livaković in *Kazališni život Šibenika*, Muzej Grada Šibenika, Šibenik 1984, pp. 239*–*47.

<sup>419</sup> "[…] we have very few lire," Mazzoleni wrote, "given that everybody now pays in crowns at the theatre box-office. Even I really don't know how it will be possible to pay the artists in the future, for even [finding] just the half stipulated in the contracts is quite a burden. The receipts in crowns, on the other hand, are always splendid, because the theatre is very well attended." ("[…] lire ne abbiamo pochissime inquantochè alla cassa del teatro ora pagano tutti in corone. Davvero non so neppure io come si potrà per l'avvenire pagare gli artisti in lire poiché anche la metà stabilita dai contratti riesce gravosa. Gli incassi in corone invece sono sempre magnifici perché il teatro è frequentatissimo."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Ezio Carelli, Šibenik, [n.d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. This final comment would

Te currency problem was not a secondary issue. While companies of a certain importance refused to travel to Dalmatia unless they were paid in lire, the more modest troupes and variety artists accepted engagements in which half, or two thirds, of the pay was in lire, and the rest in crowns at the legal rate. In order to engage companies, certain theatre managements needed lire to make advance payments – which they could only get only by changing their crowns.420 Initially audiences paid the entrance fee partly in lire and partly in crowns, which still allowed the theatres to have some cash directly in lire. Ten, with the devaluation of the crown, audiences started buying their tickets almost exclusively in that currency. Te result was that theatre managements like that of Šibenik, wishing to honour their contracts, had to use up their small reserves of Italian currency, which would cover expenses only for a limited period of time. Te banks did not exchange currency. In an attempt to keep the theatre functioning, the theatre management begged the garrison of Šibenik to tell the competent authorities about its difculties and get the permission to change into lire the sums needed for artists' fees. Artists travelling to the coastal areas for just a few days wouldn't know what to do with their crowns: they might not always fnd it possible to change the money on their return to Italy, and would anyway also lose a signifcant amount in the transaction. In order to tackle problem, the theatre management of Šibenik turned to the authorities and asked for permission to make entrance tickets once again payable half in lire and half in crowns; or, to simplify matters, for frst performances to be paid in crowns, and second performances in lire. In small centres like Knin or Skradin (Scardona), for example, the public, which was aware of the problem, spontaneously paid in lire. "And so in the small makeshift theatres of the surrounding area," the management of the Mazzoleni wrote, "the troupe leaders, by making hundreds of lire a night, can more easily fulfl their obligations to the artists than we who represent a regular theatre."421 Te theatre management hoped, therefore, that the authorities would understand the serious problem and accommodate their requests.

Tere was one novelty that gave cause for hope, at least in the short term, and that was the appointment in the immediate post-War period of Lucia Gazzone, a lady who was engaged as "music master, pianist, orchestral conductor and preparer of daytime and evening performances". Gazzone was required to form a small orchestral ensemble consisting of two frst violins, cello, double bass and fute; she herself was to play the piano.

seem to contradict what Mazzoleni often stated in the past: that the theatre was poorly attended. It is possible, however, that things had changed in the immediate post-War years.

<sup>420</sup> Cristina Scuderi, "Organizzare l'opera tra Pola e Dubrovnik: impresari e loro attività dall'Ausgleich al primo conflitto mondiale", *Rivista Italiana di Musicologia*, LIV (2019), p. 9.

<sup>421</sup> "E così nei piccoli teatri improvvisati dei dintorni i capocomici incassando parecchie centinaia di lire alla sera possono più facilmente corrispondere agl'impegni verso gli artisti di noi che rappresentiamo un teatro regolare"; Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to the garrison in Šibenik, Šibenik, 5. 9.1919, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

She was also to provide the musical accompaniment to the flms shown in the theatre.422 For the frst time the contract was monthly and automatically renewable from month to month unless terminated by one of the two parties. Tis meant a frst form of stability in the artistic staf. But even this sign of renewal failed to develop. Te Italian newspapers were beginning to spread the news that the city was about to become part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a move that would result in the exodus of many of the Italians left in the area. Te agent Ezio Carelli, writing from Ancona, told Mazzoleni that he had read in the newspapers that Šibenik was destined to be ceded "to Yugoslavia". We learn from the correspondence that Mazzoleni was probably trying to sell the theatre (not a simple operation, given the existence of other co-owners) and possibly buy a similar venue in Italy. Carelli duly expressed his willingness to help him with the administrative matters.423 "Unfortunately, things have taken a very painful turn for us," Mazzoleni declared with much bitterness.424 As it turned out, the Mazzoleni era came to an end in 1922 when the theatre passed into Croatian hands and the building was thereafter referred to as the "ex Teatro Mazzoleni".425

#### 4.6.5 Census of the opera seasons at Šibenik

Te seasons have been reconstructed with the aid of the documentation found in the archival collection HR-DAŠI-103: Kazalište i kino "Mazzoleni" – Šibenik (1863–1945), along with consultation of the text by Ivo Livaković, *Kazališni život Šibenika*. 426

<sup>422</sup> "maestra di musica, pianista, direttrice d'orchestra e concertatrice degli spettacoli serali e diurni"; Art. 2, Engagement agreement between Lucia Gazzone and the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 29. 7.1919, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>423</sup> "If you should carry out what you told me earlier, either over the sale of that theatre or the purchase of another venue in Italy, I place myself at your complete disposal." ("Qualora doveste attuare quanto mi diceste in precedenza, sia per la vendita di codesto teatro, sia per l'acquisto di altro locale in Italia, mi metto a vos.[tra] completa diposizione."); Letter from Ezio Carelli to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Šibenik, 17.1.1920, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

<sup>424</sup> "Purtroppo le cose hanno preso una piega molto dolorosa per noi"; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Ezio Carelli, Šibenik, 20.1.1920, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

<sup>425</sup> Manlio Cace, "Un secolo di vita del Teatro Mazzoleni di Sebenico 29–1–1870 – 29–1–1970", *Rivista dalmatica*, I (1970), p. 38; and Special power of attorney of Pio Negri, Šibenik, 30.1.1927, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

<sup>426</sup> Ivo Livaković, *Kazališni život Šibenika*, Muzej Grada Šibenika, Šibenik 1984.



<sup>427</sup> The printed advertisements for the 1914 opera season mention additional operas that are not mentioned in the Special financial accounts for the Compagnia lirica di opere e operette of the National Theatre of Osijek directed by Leon Dragutinović [1914], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

#### 4.7 The contracts and the seasons at Split

Of the twenty years of the Teatro Bajamonti's existence we know little, also because the building was destroyed by fre in 1881. According to the research of Mirjana Škunca, there were about twenty musical performances, for the most part operas by Italian composers. We know that the theatre was inaugurated with *I lombardi alla prima crociata* in December 1859428 and that the orchestra was conducted by Giambattista Beneggi,429 a violinist and teacher at the Istituto Filarmonico of Split, until Samuele Wolf was invited from Padua in 1865. It appears that Wolf succeeded in raising the quality level of the orchestra.430 Under the Bajamonti administration two instrumental ensembles existed, both funded by the municipality: the city windband and the civic orchestra. Te former, consisting just of wind instruments and percussion, was directed by Paulo Malik and later Francesco Wanisek; the latter, made up of strings and wind, was the ensemble that performed in the theatre,431 though elements from the wind band could also be used.

In this twenty-year period we fnd at least two names that we have already met at the other coastal theatres: those of Carlo Burlini, in 1861,432 and Sanguinazzi, who opened the 1863 season with Verdi's *I masnadieri*. 433 Te impresario Sanguinazzi, who had just arrived from Pula after giving the same opera there together with *Marin Faliero* in March, was praised in *Il Nazionale* for bringing a company that was superior to what the theatre was generally used to. Tere was criticism, however, of the orchestra and choruses, for giving hesitant performances on the opening night of the season.434 Immediately afterwards

The contracts and the seasons at Split

<sup>428</sup> Duško Kečkemet, *Antonio Bajamonti*, p. 233.

<sup>429</sup> See "Teatri esterni", *La Scena*, 18.10.1866 and Mirjana Škunka, "Politische Aspekte des musikalischen Lebens von Split zur Zeit der kroatischen Wiedergeburt (1860–1882)", *International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music*, XX/2 (1989), pp. 150*–*51.

<sup>430</sup> Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita od 1860. do 1918*, Književni krug, Split 1991, p. 52.

<sup>431</sup> According to Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita*, p. 51.

<sup>432</sup> Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita*, p. 46. We know only that for the occasion Burlini printed the libretto of *Lucrezia Borgia* at his own expense.

<sup>433</sup> According to Mirjana Škunca, the theatre remained closed for a year and a half until its reopening in 1864 with a season of spoken theatre; Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita*, p. 50.

<sup>434</sup> "All praise therefore to the impresario Signor Sanguinazzi, who though a stranger to this type of enterprise, nonetheless had the good sense to form a company of which, according to many, this theatre had never seen the equal. The orchestra and choruses left much to be desired. We hope that in due course, after the uncertainties of the first performance have been removed, even these elements will contribute to forming the perfect ensemble that this type of spectacle needs." ("Ne sia lode perciò all'impresario sig. Sanguinazzi, che sebbene estraneo a questo genere di imprese, pure ha avuto tanto senso da formare una compagnia che, al detto di molti, in questo teatro non si ebbe mai l'eguale. L'orchestra ed i cori lasciarono molto a desiderare. Speriamo che in seguito, tolte quelle incertezze di una prima rappresentazione, anche questi elementi concorreranno a formare quel perfetto assieme di cui abbisogna questo spettacolo."); *Il Nazionale*, anno II, no. 29, 11. 4.1863, p. 142.

Sanguinazzi was to take his company to Zadar to give only *I masnadieri.* From 1875 until 1893 there seems to have been no more opera in Split, though Luigi Troccoli presented a proposal of opera seria in 1880.435 But while opera performances seem to have been suspended, operettas and entertainments with music and dance were given after 1879.436

Already at the time of the Teatro Bajamonti people were writing in the *Glas hrvatsko-slovinski iz Dalmacije* that though the language of performance in the theatre was unquestionably Italian, Croats should not be proud of the fact, but rather should insist on using Croatian more. Croatian literature was full of fne pieces that many of the young would willingly perform.437 As we shall see, these early signs of national awareness were to have a profound efect on the fate of theatrical productions, and on opera in particular. After the burning of the Teatro Bajamonti it was clear that the city couldn't be left without a theatre. Tere was talk in many quarters about how and where the new theatre should be built, but above all about the character the new venue should have. At the meeting of the city council of Split on 11 January 1889, the Croatian mayor, Bulat, asserted that the theatre should refect the character of the *Comune* and that the *Comune* should be the expression of what the city was, or, in other words, the expression of the new generations: "Te new generation is growing wholly in the Croatian spirit," he apparently said. "Our opponents must submit to the Croatian principle. Our theatre will be communal; but this title can have no other meaning than that of a national theatre".438 Tese words, which left no room for interpretation, were followed by those of the conservative Frane Bulić, who explained that in any case there would be no "exclusivist" programme: in the new theatre it would be possible to present works in Italian and also, if one so wished, in French. But its character would have to be "nothing but Croatian". Anyone who loved Split and the interests of Split should be convinced that its future lay in "Croatism".439 Tis idea was developed further in a statement in *Il Diritto Croato*: "Te new theatre will have a national character, and so its construction

<sup>435</sup> Luigi Troccoli was the owner of a *caffè-bar* in Split, the first of its kind. In the 1870s he opened the Caffè della Piazza and inaugurated the Albergo Troccoli in 1887, both today called "Central"; Giacomo Scotti, *Terre perdute. Riscoperta dell'italianità della Dalmazia*, Elea Press, Salerno 1994, p. 184. Troccoli also organised balls; Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita*, p. 51.

<sup>436</sup> Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita*, p. 60.

<sup>437</sup> Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita*, p. 47.

<sup>438</sup> "La nuova generazione cresce tutta nello spirito croato, i nostri avversari devono subire il principio croato. Il nuovo teatro sarà comunale; ma questo titolo non può avere altro significato che quello di teatro nazionale."; "Teatro nazionale", *Il Diritto Croato*, 30.1.1889.

<sup>439</sup> "Teatro nazionale", *Il Diritto Croato*, 30.1.1889. This concept had already been presented *claris verbis* at another session in the previous year: "To be sure, the new theatre of Split must be exclusively characterised by a Croatian national spirit, otherwise it would be better not to have it at all." ("Certamente il nuovo teatro di Spalato dovrà essere caratterizzato esclusivamente da uno spirito nazionale croato, altrimenti sarà preferibile non averlo affatto."); Session of the City Council of 16–17–18 June 1888, Narod, 3. 7.1888, Appendix to no. 47, quoted in Duško Kečkemet, *Antonio Bajamonti*, p. 253.

is awaited with keen interest by the patriotic Croatian citizenry of Split".440 If earlier the boxes at the Teatro Bajamonti belonged to members of the Autonomist Party, now the boxes at the new Municipal Teatre belonged to Croatian nationalists.441

But how did the Italian faction respond to these views? Te reactions were not slow in coming. And they were not limited to the city of Split. Te newspaper *L'Eco di Pola*, for example, reported that the theatre would no longer have anything to do with Italian opera and quoted the words of Ivan Manger (the mayor who succeeded Bulat), who apparently stated categorically that "Italian companies would never set foot [in the theatre], nor would one hear flthy operas by Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, etc.".442 In the meantime, according to the reporter, municipal funds were being squandered, beginning with a generous grant to a Bohemian operetta company, which "swallowed up the fne sum of 4,000 forins, all paid for by the *Comune*".443 Te Italian-oriented newspapers also complained that the quality of the opera productions in the new theatre was not as good as it was, and never missed an opportunity to pour scorn on the new theatre management (led by Bulat) and its choices.444 Te theatre was now depicted as an "ill-fated outft" (*disgraziata baracca*), and one of the frst productions of the new management, hosted after handsomely paying the impresario and engaging "beer-hall singers" (*cantanti da birreria*), was described as "indecent, unthinkable, small-minded" (*indecente, impossibile, gretto*).445 Tese "beer-hall singers" had been brought

<sup>440</sup> "Il nuovo teatro avrà carattere nazionale, e perciò l'erezione dello stesso è attesa con vivissimo interesse dalla patriottica cittadinanza croata di Spalato"; "Il nuovo teatro a Spalato", *Il Diritto Croato*, 26. 2.1890.

<sup>441</sup> Duško Kečkemet, *Antonio Bajamonti*, p. 252. The very person of Bajamonti himself was by this time associated in every possible respect with the Autonomist Party, against which the Croatian nationalists were now engaged in a fierce struggle: "The opponents, who immediately perceived his strength in the Autonomist Party, were not slow in fiercely fighting against the man who by that time personified the party and they subjected him to the most appalling calumnies. No act of his life was overlooked: everything that came from him was examined, criticised and unfairly distorted." ("Gli avversari che subito intravvidero quale forza possedesse in lui il partito autonomo non tardarono a combattere ferocemente l'uomo che quel partito oramai personificava e lo fecero segno alle più atroci calunnie. Nessun atto della sua vita fu passato sotto silenzio: tutto quanto da lui precedette fu esaminato, criticato, slealmente falsato."); *Il Piccolo*, X, no. 3292, 14.1.1891.

<sup>442</sup> "non metteranno mai passo compagnie italiane, né si udirà porcherie d'opere di Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, ecc."; "Gazzettino Dalmato", *L'Eco di Pola*, 5.1.1895.

<sup>443</sup> "mangiò la bella somma di fiorini 4.000, pagati dal Comune"; "Gazzettino Dalmato", *L'Eco di Pola*, 5.1.1895.

<sup>444</sup> On the political conflict between the previous mayor (and director of the Italian theatre) Antonio Bajamonti and Gajo Filomen Bulat, see Luciano Monzali, "Antonio Tacconi e la Comunità Italiana di Spalato", *Atti e memorie della Società dalmata di storia patria,* vol. XXXIV, Società Dalmata di storia patria, Venezia 2007, pp. 50*–*55.

<sup>445</sup> "Ancora del teatro…balcanico". *Il Dalmata*, Split, 15.5.1894. The Croatians themselves would soon admit that the situation had become extreme, though only after "insulting the good Italian artistic tradition of Spalato, which at the Teatro Bajamonti had had very respectable productions of opera and

by Ladislav Chmelenský, the frst of a series of impresarios from eastern Europe, who, if only for a few years, would decisively change the character of the opera seasons.

#### 4.7.1 The director-impresarios: Ladislav Chmelenský, Johann Pištek, Vendelin Budil and the eclipse of Italian opera

In the year of its inauguration (1893), the Teatro Nuovo hosted a production of *Il Menestrello*, a one-act opera by Salvatore Strino (not to be confused with the three-act *melodramma giocoso* of the same name by Serafno Amedeo de Ferrari, frst performed in 1859 and then staged in Rijeka in 1869 and 1879).446 After which the new theatre management received a letter from Ivoplem Hreljanović, the superintendent in Zagreb, enquiring if the new theatre was prepared to have operas sung in French as well as Croatian. Given that the new board of directors was for the most part close to the Croatian Nationalist Party, it was indeed happy to present repertoire that featured not only Italian companies.447 Hreljanović was negotiating to organise a season in Split, but had realised that the Croatian singers were unfortunately not numerous. As a result, it would not be possible to organise a Croatian company to perform a series of diferent operas. One solution would be to expand the company by using Czech singers, though their number would be minimal. Hreljanović considered Czech theatre companies to be rather weak and didn't feel like using them to enlarge his own cast. "If therefore it is allowed to sing in French," he wrote, "it will be easier to form a company and the company itself will be better."448 Tis proposal came to nothing, but the new theatre did actually start to welcome non-Italian companies, and from 1894 to 1898 it hosted three directors from the theatre of Brno.449 In this instance, therefore, the contracts were drawn up between the

spoken theatre, at a time when the scores and transportation cost double. To hear *Faust –* with excellent artists and superb staging – one paid a lot less than to hear these virtuosos that need muzzling!" ("insultato alla buona tradizione artistica italiana di Spalato, che al Teatro Bajamonti ha avuti spettacoli d'opera e di prosa decorosissimi, quando gli spartiti e i mezzi di trasporto costavano il doppio. Per udire il *Faust –* con artisti eccellenti e con una messa in scena superba – si pagava assai meno che per udire questi virtuosi da museruola!"); *ibid.*

<sup>446</sup> Strino's libretto is dated 1892. *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 7, 1893, p. 104.

<sup>447</sup> The theatre had in fact been inaugurated with a company from the National Theatre of Zagreb; Nevenka Bezić Bozanić, "Novinske vijesti o scenskim priredbama u Splitu (1884–1918)", *Dani Hvarskoga kazališta: Građa i rasprave o hrvatskoj književnosti i kazalištu*, VII/1 (1980), p. 397.

<sup>448</sup> "Se quindi verrà permesso di cantare in francese, formare una compagnia sarà più facile e la compagnia stessa sarà migliore."; Letter from Ivoplem Hreljanović to the theatre management of Split, Zagreb, 6.10.1893, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII [original in Croatian, translation by Noemi Silvestri].

<sup>449</sup> The directors who followed one another at the theatre of Brno from 1891 until the end of the century were Ladislav Chmelenský and Václav Hübner (1891–92), Vendelín Budil (1892–93), Jan Pištěk

theatre management and the director of another theatre, with the hosted director acting as a genuine impresario.450

A frst season given by Ladislav Chmelenský in 1894 was harshly criticised in *Il Dalmata*, both for the cuts made to the scores and for the quality of the performances themselves, as we shall see below.451 *Il Dalmata* was hostile to the new management of the theatre and never missed an opportunity to reignite the controversy. In the spring season of 1894 there were reports that the Croatian management had had performances suspended and forced the impresario to deliver on his commitments and at least change the principal parts. "Look what we have now come to, or rather what these gentlemen with their ridiculous bigoted megalomania have come to: shooting themselves in the foot!", referring to the Croatian board of directors.452 Te situation seems to have calmed down, however, when Johann Pištek came forward in March 1895.


<sup>(1993–96),</sup> Pavel Švanda (1896–97) and once again Jan Pištěk (1897–98); http://www.rozkvetlekonvalinky.estranky.cz/clanky/divadla/narodni-divadlo-brno.html [accessed 9. 9. 2019].

Pištek proposed a company of 70 that had already been booked at the National Teatre of Brno for seven months. Tis company, directed by Baron Pražak,453 was also to be engaged in the summer months at the Vinohrady Teatre in Prague. "It is a splendid company," Pištek wrote, "with an opera repertoire that is well studied and prepared".454 Te operas it was performing included quite an eclectic range of titles: *Lohengrin*, *Carmen*, *Der Freischütz*, *Il trovatore*, *Alessandro Stradella*, *Faust* (Gounod), *Le postillon de Lonjumeau*, *Un ballo in maschera*, *Dalibor*, *Hubička*, *Prodaná nevěsta* and *Tajemství* (Smetana), *Šelma Sedlák* and *Tvrdé palice* (Dvořák), *U Studenca* (Blonek) and *Teharski plemiči* (a Slovenian opera by Benjamin Ipavec). Tis appealing mix of German, Italian, French, Bohemian and Slovenian titles might well have intrigued a public in Split that for the most part would be unfamiliar with them. Te theatre management accepted the proposal and proceeded to draw up a contract in German for the 1896 opera season (in fact German was the language used by staf in Split to communicate with the Czech and Bohemian directors). As always in these cases, the theatre management was mentioned in full at the top of the document. Unlike the other practice at the coastal theatres, the custom at Split was to list all the members of the management (name and surname) at the beginning of the contract and not only against the signatures. Tis was the formula: "Between the Teatre Management in Split, represented by the President Dr. G.F. Bulat, the associate members Dr. Anton Boglić, Peter Katalinić, Dr. Eduard Karaman and the Secretary Dr. Eduard Grgić on the one hand, and Herr Johann Pistek, theatre director in Brno on the other hand, the following contract is concluded".455 Pištek was to give a cycle of 25 performances with a series of operas that difered partially from the list proposed in his earlier letter. From this selection we again realise that Italian opera was only one of various options. Te works to be performed were ten: "1. Dalibor, 2. Prodana nevjesta, 3. Lohengrin, 4. Willhelm Tell, 5. Afrikana, 6. Pikova dama, 7. Traviata, 8. Maskarni ples, 9. Postillon, 10. Martha". Here we have a confrmation of what Giovanni Mazzoleni had feared for the theatre of Šibenik: that with the custom, typical of the troupes coming from the east, of presenting many more operas than the Italian companies, the public would get used to having a faster turnover. Moreover, a specifc clause in the

<sup>453</sup> Otakar Pražak (1858–1915), a politician and lawyer from Brno (Brünn). He was also the Czech minister of agriculture between 1906 and 1908. See the short biographical note in Gustav Mahler, *Caro collega: lettere a compositori, direttori d'orchestra, intendenti teatrali*, Il Saggiatore, Bologna 2017 [through books. google.com accessed 30.10. 2019].

<sup>454</sup> "È una compagnia splendida, che dispone di un repertorio operistico ben studiato e preparato."; Letter from Johann Pištek to the theatre management of Split, [place illegible], 30.3.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>455</sup> "Zwischen der Theater Direction [*sic*] in Spalato vertreten durch den Präses Dr. G.F. Bulat, die Anschluss-Mitglieder Dr. Anton Boglić, Peter Katalinić, Dr. Eduard Karaman und den Secretär Dr. Eduard Grgić einerseits und den Herrn Johann Pistek Theater-Direktor in Brünn anderseits wird abgeschlossen folgender Vertrag."; Contract between the theatre management of Split and Johann Pištek, Split, January 1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

contract stipulated that certain operas would have to be sung in Croatian: "to have the operas Dalibor, Prodana nevjesta, Traviata, Maskarni ples and Martha sung in Croatian".456 Tis was the result of the change in the municipal administration, from Italian to Croatian (we must also remember that the mayor of the city was now part of the theatre's board). Translations into Croatian of the texts of Smetana's *Dalibor* and *Te Bartered Bride* were commissioned from August Šenoa and August Harambašić respectively and paid for in Zagreb;457 the theatre of Split had no one to do the job.

Unfortunately, however, in spite of the rich programme of operas,458 attendance seems to have been poor, thus prompting fears over the success of the season itself.459 At the end of the 19th century the theatre could net up to 500 forins or more per night, but this of course

459 "It is absolutely true that the theatre is not attended as much as it should be", wrote two hitherto unidentified correspondents to the management of the Teatro Nuovo, "above all in the last few days. We have no intention of investigating the reasons for the scant attendance in spite of the fine opera repertoire and the excellent performances of singers, soloists, chorus and orchestra. The fact remains, however, that audiences have been meagre and, if things continue in the same vein, the impresa will not do well. There is no need to point out that a failure of the impresa in material terms will have devastating effects on our theatre and will deal a mortal blow to Slovenian music in Split, which, thanks to our Czech brothers, has opened up new horizons in the field of the musical arts, because certainly no one again will want to provide us with the very best of the musical world […]. Concerned as we are about the future of our theatre and fully intending to perform our patriotic duty by fulfilling the wishes of our citizens, we beg the management to take into consideration the desires expressed by Signor Pištek in his letter." ("È la pura verità che il teatro non è frequentato quanto dovrebbe essere, soprattutto negli ultimi giorni. Non abbiamo intenzione di indagare sui motivi di questa frequentazione scarsa malgrado un buon repertorio operistico ed esibizioni eccellenti sia da parte dei cantanti che dei solisti, dei coristi e dell'orchestra. Comunque, fatto sta che le visite sono state scarse e se le cose andranno avanti così, l'impresa non riuscirà. Non c'è bisogno di sottolineare che il fallimento dell'impresa dal punto di vista materiale avrà delle consequenze devastanti per il nostro teatro e sarà un colpo mortale per la musica slovena a Spalato, che, grazie ai nostri fratelli Cechi, ci ha aperto nuovi orizzonti nel campo delle arti musicali, perché sicuramente nessuno vorrà più fornirci con il meglio del meglio nel mondo musicale […]. Preoccupati per il futuro del nostro teatro ed intenzionati ad eseguire il nostro dovere patriottico accontentando i desideri dei nostri concittadini, preghiamo la direzione di prendere in considerazione i desideri espressi dal Sign. Pištek nella sua lettera"); Letter from [illegible sender] to the theatre management of Split, Split, 27. 4.1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>456</sup> "die Opern Dalibor, Prodana nevjesta, Traviata, Maskarni ples und Martha in croatischer Sprache singen zu lassen"; Contract between the theatre management of Split and Johann Pištek, letter "m" of Art. 1, Split, January 1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>457</sup> See Letter from [illegible sender] to the theatre management of Split, [illegible place], 20.3.1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII. Zagreb informed Split that the theatre had its own copyists, who charged 6 florins for a translation, regardless of the length of the piece; Letter from [illegible sender] to the theatre management of Split, 8. 2.1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>458</sup> In her article "Novinske vijesti o scenskim priredbama u Splitu (1884–1918)", Nevenka Bezić Bozanić refers to around twenty operas performed in the season of 1896. In the contract, however, only ten titles are mentioned; Nevenka Bezić Bozanić, "Novinske vijesti", p. 406.

depended on audiences actually coming. Te population doesn't seem to have responded as expected to the varied proposal ofered. Tis was also one of the reasons Pištek asked for, and was given, an increase in the endowment, from 3,800 to 5,000 forins,460 or, according to another source, as much as 6,000 forins. Tis sum, added to the theatre receipts of 9,978.75 forins for 35 performances over 49 days (hence in the end ten nights more than those programmed), brought in an overall income of 15,970.75 forins. Unfortunately, however, the costs came to 10,758.95 forins plus travel expenses of 4,440 forins, making a total of 15,198.55 forins. If we then deduct this last sum from the income of 15.970,75, we are left with a proft of just 779,80 forins.461 Considering the sheer numbers of the company, one could hardly speak of lavish earnings.

Te management then tried to organise a month of performances for the spring season of 1897, possibly with a company from Zagreb or an opera company from Czech territories, as in the previous months. As proposed by the members Grgić and Katalinić, the theatre committee decided unanimously that the management should ask the municipal government again for an increase in the endowment for 1897, from 4,000 to 6,000 forins, and to have the use of the theatre without paying rent.462 In the end the spring season was run by an Italian, but it was not long before a Bohemian company was back again. When Vendelin Budil, director of the theatre of Plzen,463 came forward in 1898, he was ofered a contract to stage seven operas: *Dalibor*, *Evgenij Onegin*, *Pikova dama*, *Tajemství*, *Dubrovsky*, *Heimchen am Herd* and *Evangelista* (*Evangelimann*). Tis time Italian opera had completely disappeared: if two years earlier there had remained a faint trace in the programme, now there was none at all. To the Italian impresarios or agents who now wished to bid for the contract, such as Vincenzo Ceruso or Nazzareno Perazzini, the director of the theatre Edouard Karaman declared that the management was "sorry" (*dispiacente*) not to be able to negotiate for the spring season, "given that this year a cycle of exclusively Slavic operas has to be given in our theatre".464

<sup>460</sup> See Letter from the municiple council of Split to the theatre management of Split. Split, 20.5.1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>461</sup> See Letter from [anonymous sender] to the theatre management of Split. [n. p., n. d.], HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>462</sup> See Minutes of the shareholders' meeting of 25. 8.1896, Split, 25. 8.1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>463</sup> Some sources mention Budil as director of the theatre in Plzen only from 1902 to 1912 (Jan Chovanec, *Theory and practice in English studies*: proceedings from the Eighth Conference of English, American and Canadian studies, Masaryk University, Brno 2005, p. 163, or Jiří Holý, *Geschichte der tschechischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts*, Edition Praesens, Vienna 2003, p. 32), but in the manuscript of the Split contract he is referred to as "Theater-Director in Pilsen" already in 1898.

<sup>464</sup> "dovendosi quest'anno dare sul nostro teatro un ciclo d'opere esclusivamente slave"; Letter from Edouard Karaman to Nazzareno Perazzini, Split, 27.11.1897, MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII. Or another example, this time to Ceruso: "The writer is not in a position to take into consideration the proposal of opera productions for the spring season, given that it is at present in negotiations for Slavic opera."

Te theatre director in Split pointed out to Budil the obligation of bringing 25 performances (with the freedom to give more – if appropriate) and stressed that in no way would it be possible to increase the already substantial endowment of 4,000 *gulden* (i.e. 4.000 forins) or to reduce the stipulated number of 11 soloists, 24 choristers and 32 orchestral players, since the theatre space was large and would need to be properly flled with a suffcient number of artists.465 Regarding the eleven soloists, the contract also explicitly specifed the need to engage the tenor Pták, who worked at the National Teatre of Prague.466 Te precise naming of soloists was not a standard feature of all contracts, but here it was done. As regards the 32 orchestral players, the contractor was expected to take into account the musicians available in Split and supplement accordingly.467 Specifying the use of local musicians was not to be taken for granted, for a clause in the previous year's contract stated that the impresa was "free to engage everyone from outside if it wanted".468 What

<sup>(&</sup>quot;La scrivente non è in grado di prendere in pertrattazione l'offerta fatta d'uno spettacolo d'opera per la stagione di primavera essendosi attualmente in trattative per un'opera slava."); Letter from Edouard Karaman to Vincenzo Ceruso, Split, 27.1.1898. HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>465</sup> "The impresario would only be obliged to give 25 performances, but he would be free to give more. The endowment of 4,000 gulden could not be increased in any case, as no other amount was available. He would receive the 4,000 gulden only for good artists and a fine staging. Any reduction of the 11 soloists, 24 choristers and 32 musicians would be absolutely impossible because the theatre space and especially the stage are enormous." ("Der Unternehmer wäre nur auf 25 Vorstellungen verpflichtet, es bleibe ihm eher frei auch mehr Vorstellungen zu geben. Die Dotation von 4.000 Gulden könnte auf keinen Falle erhöht werden, da kein anderen Betrag zur Verfügung steht. Die 4.000 Gulden bekäme er nur für gute Kräfte und schöne mise en scene. Eine Reducirung [*sic*] der 11 Solisten, 24 Choristen und 32 Musiker wäre absolut nicht möglich da die Theaterraumlichkeiten und besonders da der Bühne sind riesig gross."); Letter from Edouard Karaman to Vendelin Budil, Split, 29.12.1897, MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>466</sup> Bohumil Pták (1869–1933), a tenor from Prague, began his career as an actor in travelling troupes, and had his debut at the opera house of Brno in *The Bartered Bride* in 1890; *Größes Sängerlexicon*, edited by Karl J. Kutsch and Leo Riemens, Saur, Bern 1993, p. 2374. In the event, however, it appears that the company from Plzen fell short of expectations, though this circumstance was not made public in the Croatian newspapers. This bias was noted by Nevenka Bezić Bozanić: "This company seems to have been weak, but since it was a Slavic company, it was not attacked in the newspapers, as would have happened if a weak opera company had come from Italy." ("Čini se da je ova družina bila slaba, ali zbog toga što je to ipak bila slavenska družina, nisu je napadali preko novina, kao što bi se dogadalo kad bi došla koja slaba operna družina iz Italije."); Nevenka Bezić Bozanić, "Novinske vijesti", p. 407.

<sup>467</sup> "to bring the orchestra consisting of at least 32 musicians, taking into account the forces available in Split, which are listed in the enclosed letters, and to provide the same with the necessary music supplies"; ("das aus wenigstens 32 Personen bestehende Orchester mit Berücksichtigung der in Spalato verfügbaren Kräfte, welche in beigeschlossenen Briefe verzeichnet sind, mitzubringen und dasselbe mit den nothwendigen Musicalien zu versehen"); Contract between the theatre management of Split and Vendelin Budil, Split, 1898, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>468</sup> "libero all'impresa di scritturare volendo tutti […] di fuori"; Contract between the theatre management of Split and Alberto Landi, Split, 11. 2.1897, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I, XII.

was normal was that the contract specifed the number of orchestral players needed. For if there were insufcient musicians on site, it could indicate which instruments the impresario would have bring in; or conversely, which instruments were already available on site. From the 1896 contract with Pištek we learn that only seven players were available in Split: a frst violin, a second violin, a second viola, a second double bass, a frst oboe, a second cello and a trombone. Tis was even fewer than the 12 players mentioned the year before, in 1895, by the impresario Antonio Lana. In his negotiations with the management, Lana wrote that he would have to bring to Split another 13 players from outside, almost all of them principal parts that cost 7 lire a day.469 Moreover, in 1895 there also appeared to be no choristers in the city, either male or female. Needed, therefore, was a contingent of 30 singers overall, each to be paid 4 forins a day: a substantial outlay.

#### 4.7.2 Italian impresarios in Split

Also negotiating with the theatre management at the same time as Lana – though this time for operetta – was Giuseppe Ullmann, who pointed out that an endowment of 3,300 forins such as that granted by the theatre of Split for the spring and autumn seasons, would not be enough to bring soloists, choristers and 16 orchestral players, since the whole sum would be spent on travel and board. Te only way round this would be to split the overall revenue 60–40, thereby ensuring that the opera company, with its 60 percent, could use the proceeds to cover at least the living expenses, amounting to about 250 forins. Tis practice, Ullmann noted, was to be found at almost all theatres in Italy.470 Te endowment of 3,300 forins was only slightly higher than the 3,000 granted by the Comune almost twenty years previously.

Even though the impresario Andrea Brigoni had proposed *Rigoletto* and *La favorita* or *La traviata* and *La Gioconda*, and was prepared to accept an endowment of 2,000 forins, the choice of impresario for the Teatro Nuovo in Split fell to Giulio Milani in 1895. However, Milani wrote in a letter of a "frst instalment of 3,500 forins owed to me", from which we deduce that the sums assigned to the impresario had perhaps been increased at a later stage.471 He brought to a conclusion an opera season that included *Rigoletto*, *La forza del destino* and *Faust*, which was successful from the point of view of the audiences, but ended with the confscation of Sormani's scenery, Rancati's properties and the costumes of De Caro's

<sup>469</sup> See Letter from Antonio Lana to the presidency of the theatre of Split, Milano, 2. 2.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>470</sup> See Letter from Giuseppe Ullmann to the theatre management of Split, Split, 27.1.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>471</sup> "prima rata di f. 3.500 dovutemi"; Letter from Giulio Milani to the theatre management of Split, [n.p.], 19. 4.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

company. So Milani found himself in the position of having to appeal to Bulat, the director of the theatre, declaring that – contrary to the accusations – he was not responsible for the failure to pay the bills.472 In spite of this mishap, three years later he wrote again to the theatre management in the hope of running a second season, this time ofering *La bohème* and *La Gioconda* and fxing the numbers of the choruses and orchestra both at 36, with 8 ballerinas. Te scenes and properties would once again come from Sormani and Rancati of Milan, the costumes from Chiappa; the soloists would be placed under contract with Casa Ricordi.473 Milani's intent was to bring Puccini in person to Split using *La bohème* as a bait ("Very probably I will convince the publisher to persuade Maestro Puccini to come to Split").474 Puccini had visited Rijeka three years earlier, but there is no evidence that he came to any Dalmatian theatres in the following years. Instead we fnd that Milani was recommended to the theatre management of Zadar, by both the agent Grabinski Broglio and Simonetti, on various occasions in the early years of the 20th century.

We do not know if there was an opera season also in November of the same year (1895). A draft contract suggests that the impresario Karaman had replaced Alberto Gigliuzzi or Alfredo Vecchi in the running of certain productions. But it is unsigned and with evident corrections, so unquestionably not a defnitive document.475 To be sure, a season was organised in October of the previous year, and this was the new theatre's frst autumn season, with opera bufa followed by ballets. Te impresario Anacleto Tavernari had made contact with the theatre management in 1894 to propose the Genoese opera company of Ansaldo, formerly managed in September in Pula by Alberto Vernier with the very same operas (*Don Pasquale, Il barbiere di Siviglia* and *Crispino e la Comare*; with the exception of *La sonnambula*); the same operas were performed in the same month of October in Zadar, again conducted by Ettore Mariotti.476

<sup>472</sup> See Letter from Giulio Milani to Gajo Filomen Bulat, Trieste, 12. 6.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>473</sup> "in order to assure this honourable management that all the artists will be of exceptional repute, the names of the artists will be placed under contract with the G. Ricordi publishing house of operas" ("per assicurare cotesta onorevole Direzione che tutti gli artisti saranno di riputazione eccezionale, i nomi di questi saranno messi in patto di contratto colla casa editrice delle opere G. Ricordi"); Letter from Giulio Milani to the theatre management of Split, [n.p.], 6.3.1898. HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>474</sup> Letter from Giulio Milani to the theatre management of Split, [n.p.], 6.3.1898. HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>475</sup> Draft contract between Alberto Gigliuzzi and Giuseppe Karaman, Split, November 1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>476</sup> The impresario Anacleto Tavernari was in a partnership with the bass Lodovico Contini and the conductor Augusto Franzoni. "From 1882 to 1905 he was an agent for the Teatro Reinach, and directed *Fra Diavolo*, a theatrical journal with agency, in Parma (1883–1885); he then moved to Milan and worked in the *Trovatore* agency*.* He organised opera seasons and was the impresario at various theatres, among which, for many years, the Teatro Grande of Brescia." ("Dal 1882 al 1905 fu agente per il Teatro Reinach, e diresse a Parma il *Fra Diavolo*, giornale teatrale con agenzia (1883–1885); si trasferì poi a Milano,

What is certain is that there was also a successful season of Italian opera in 1897 proposed by Alberto Landi, which however left the impresario "without a forin" and forced him to ask the municipality – via the theatre management – for a further subsidy to enable him to fulfl his other "residual obligations" (*residuali obblighi*) in Split.477 It was essentially a matter of shipping to various destinations, at the end of the season, crates full of equipment, sets, costumes, scores, properties, jewels and footwear, and leaving for Italy. Landi found himself, therefore, with various outstanding debts and the immediate need to return all this material. He wished, therefore, to provide a detailed account of his income and expenses: it would immediately explain the losses, concerning which – he was keen to point out – he was not complaining. Indeed he felt satisfed to have run the season and properly represented the impresa at the theatre of Split, "which has directors that are so respectable and kind" (*che ha a direttori persone così rispettabili e gentili*). He therefore appealed to the management and the mayor, asking them to fnd some arrangement whereby he could be relieved, as he wrote, "from this terrible state of anxiety, to which I am not accustomed and which is made all the more painful and distressing by fnding myself far from my country and without contacts and resources".478 Landi duly sent the management his list of expenses: a document of great interest today, for it tells us (as we have already seen in the case of other impresarios and other seasons) what an impresario's real expenses were when running a theatre under contract. It shows with great clarity how he arrived at the loss of 2,541.92 forins indicated at the bottom of the document:


lavorando nell'agenzia del *Trovatore.* Organizzò stagioni liriche e fu impresario di diversi teatri, tra i quali, per molti anni, il Teatro Grande di Brescia."); *Il Dizionario della musica del Ducato di Parma e Piacenza*, http://www.lacasadellamusica.it/Vetro/Pages/Dizionario.aspx?ini=T&tipologia=1&idoggetto=1450&idcontenuto=2791 [accessed 22. 8. 2020].

<sup>477</sup> Letter from Alberto Landi to the theatre management of Split, Split, 12. 6.1897, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>478</sup> "da questo orribile stato di angoscia, a cui non sono abituato, e che mi si rende più grave e penoso trovandomi lontano dalla patria e senza conoscenze e risorse"; Letter from Alberto Landi to the theatre management of Split, Split, 12. 6.1897, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.


Initially the intention had been to give *Aida*, *La favorita* and a third opera to be decided. Subsequently, as one gathers from the table above, it was decided to stage *Ruy Blas*, to which *Il trovatore* was also added (see the entry: "Per timpani, trombe, parrucche e carte del

<sup>479</sup> Report on the expenses and income of the impresario Alberto Landi, Split [1897], HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

Trovatore")*.* Tere are certain entries in the table that were not listed singly: an example is the expense of hiring the music, costumes, sets, properties and trasportation for *Ruy Blas* and *Aida.* Tis prevents us from understanding how much the individual suppliers charged for the hire and delivery of their wares. Incidentally, it is not known if Landi, in response to this detailed disclosure (a catalogue that even includes the cumulative cost of beer for the extras), was gratifed in his request for a further subsidy.

Te table also mentions the soprano Emma Zilli, who was engaged for three nights only and whose presence was not indicated in the contract, though it was later reported in *Il Cosmorama.*480 Te contract, in fact, had specifed not only the tenor Enrico Caruso, but also the soprano Nice Barbareschi, the mezzosopranos Alessandrina Dombroska and Giulia Salvi, the baritone Ferdinando Guarini and the bass Ettore Brancaleone.481 As mentioned earlier, naming the artists within the contract, and not separately, was not a standard feature of all contracts for opera seasons. Moreover, in previous contracts drawn up with the theatre, the impresario had always been given the responsibility of sourcing the orchestral players, but had never before been allowed to bring in all the musicians from outside (in the past the impresarios had drawn on the musicians of the Narodno Glazbe and the Zvonimir company; the reason being to help build up a good local orchestra to meet the theatre's needs and give fnancial support to the musicians of the two ensembles). In this particular contract, however, there was a clause saying that a whole orchestra could be made up from scratch, thereby giving the impresario the right to engage the whole band externally if it wanted. Tis measure met with strong opposition from the Croatian musicians, who feared that the impresario Landi would recruit the entire orchestra elsewhere, without even considering the local musicians, who were "better than all the external forces put together".482 With the stroke of a pen, the management had not only destroyed all hopes of forming a local orchestra for the theatre, but also unfairly excluded all the willing local musicians who were capable of contributing to the artistic development of the city.483 But

<sup>480</sup> "Artisti scritturati – Emma Zilli", *Il Cosmorama*, 6.5.1897, p. 4.

<sup>481</sup> In his contract, signed by the directors Karaman, Boglich and Katalinić representing the theatre in Split, Landi also pledged to engage as soloists a supporting tenor and a supporting bass whose names are not given. The conductor was to be Antonio Siracusa, who is remembered as having worked at the Teatro Bellini and Teatro Mercadante in Naples, and also as assistant conductor (*maestro coadiutore*) at the Teatro San Carlo in the same city. Contract between the theatre management of Split and Alberto Landi, Split, 1897, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>482</sup> "migliori di tutte le forze esterne messe insieme"; Letter from [illegible sender] to the theatre management of Split, Split 12.3.1897, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>483</sup> "The undersigned," the still unidentified writer from Split wrote, "dissociates himself from the misunderstanding of the task assigned to the management of our theatre, which the *Comune* did not build so that it should fall into the hands of various foreign speculators, but to satisfy an emotional need of our Croatian people. I call on the management to correct this oversight." ("Il sottoscritto si dissocia da questo fraintendimento del compito assegnato alla direzione del nostro teatro che il comune non ha costruito per farlo cadere nelle mani di vari speculatori stranieri, ma per provvedere ad un bisogno sentimentale

in spite of the protests, this clause remained in the contracts of Split at least until 1905. In the case of this particular contract, it is hard to say if the orchestral players were indeed engaged externally. Te table given above is not clear on the matter, given that the entry "For four *decine* (10-day periods) paid to the artists, to the choral, orchestral and dance ensembles" (*Per quattro decine pagate agli artisti, alle masse corali, orchestrali e danzanti*) is not itemised. However, if there had been musicians from outside, they would have appeared in the travel expenses, yet here it mentions only the "return journey for the double bass to the mainland, for the clarino, for the prompter" (*viaggio di ritorno al contrabbasso in fermo, al clarino, al suggeritore*). If outside support was brought in, it was probably minimal. Nonetheless, regardless of the grievances concerning external personnel, the contract with Landi had already caused ofence for the mere fact that it had been concluded without frst obtaining the consent of the municipality.

In spite of his losses, Landi reapplied to run the theatre in the following year, asking for an endowment of 4,500 forins. He planned to stage *Carmen*, *Mignon*, *Cavalleria rusticana* and *Pagliacci* with 24 subscription performances. Tis time everything needed – costumes, sets, properties, machinist, chorus, orchestra and ballerinas – was to come from the Teatro Comunale of Trieste thanks to the agency of a certain Molini ("my friend Molini, whom you will well remember," he wrote to the management in Split).484 As for the principal singers, they would follow him directly from Naples. Here again he names them in advance: two Polish singers, Ida Monteleone (her real name was Ida Lewenberg; this was an Italianisation) and Mary Metella Koslowska, the Venetian Cesira Menon and (returning to Split) Giulia Salvi from Rome. Te tenors would be Enrico Quadri and Josè Lima, the baritones Carmine Montella and Alfredo Conti, and the bass Paolo Poggi. Te conductor was to be Rafaele Delli Ponti, "the present conductor who has been directing my company for seven months".485 In the same year (1898) Landi also tried his luck at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, sending a letter through Salvatore Strino. In both cases the proposal came to nothing. At Split the choice fell on the Bohemian company brought by Vendelin Budil, whom we met in the previous section. But what followed at the theatre of Split from Budil onwards was, for at least a dozen years, another long series of seasons devoted almost exclusively to Italian opera. It was this revival that prompted certain writers on current afairs in the following decade to make scathing comments like the following when reporting on the local theatre: "Te new municipal theatre or 'Općinsko Kazalište', built in 1891, in spite of being destined

del nostro popolo croato. Prego la direzione di correggere questo inconveniente."); Letter from [illegible sender] to the theatre management of Split, Split 12.3.1897, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>484</sup> "l'amico Molini che ricorderete benissimo"; Letter from Alberto Landi to the theatre management of Split, Split, 14.3.1898, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>485</sup> "l'attuale direttore che da sette mesi dirige qui la mia compagnia"; Letter from Alberto Landi to the theatre management of Split, Split, 14.3.1898, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII. Raffaele Delli Ponti (1864–1936), who had studied at the Conservatorio of Naples, was a composer and conductor, and for a period also artistic director of Casa Sonzogno.

to be a temple of the Croatian muses, preferred to receive the Italians, because otherwise the proceeds would sufer terribly. Troupes from the theatres of Zagreb and Bohemia gave only short runs of performances there".486 As always, the Italian political press wasted no opportunity to belittle the choices of its Croatian opponents.

Also surviving is a copy of the contract between the theatre management and the impresario Achille Stehele dated 1899. It specifed the performance of four operas (*I puritani*, *La traviata*, *Lucia di Lammermoor*, *Ernani*) for a run of at least 20 nights, using a chorus of 22 and an orchestra of 32. Quite independently, the baritone Ferdinando Guarini, who appeared in the cast previously engaged by Landi, also proposed a season of Italian opera in 1899, with *Mefstofele*, *Lucia di Lammermoor* and *La traviata*. For *Mefstofele* he intended to use the bass Scarneo in the lead role, just as the impresario Geremia Abriani had proposed to the same management four years earlier. Guarini promised 20 orchestral players from Milan, a chorus of 24, and a group of 8 ballerinas; and in spite of ofering one opera fewer, he asked for an endowment of 5,000 forins, in other words 500 more than what Landi, the previous impresario, had requested, and a good 3,000 forins more than Stehele himself;487 but nowhere near, it should be added, the 8,000 forins demanded in the same year by Olimpio Lovrich to stage a season of *grand opéra* and French ballet featuring *L'ebrea*, *Gli Ugonotti* and *I pescatori di perle*. 488 Te management duly chose the proposal that entailed a smaller outlay: Stehele had signed for an endowment of just 2,000 forins. As often happened, Italian repertoire opera carried the day over *grand opéra*, and when it came to choosing, the decisive factor was the need to contain expenditure: hence another demonstration that making savings had priority over artistic aspirations.

Unfortunately we have no information on the endowment for the next season, but what is certain is that a prudent approach was adopted when it came to choosing the conductor, Lorenzo Perigozzo, who resided in the city and had been teaching at the Zvonimir musical society in Split since 1897.489 It was he who conducted the frst performance of *Otello* in the city. Once again the decision was made to opt for a season of Italian opera, in spite of the fact that a proposal had arrived directly from the management of the National

<sup>486</sup> "Il nuovo teatro comunale "Općinsko Kazalište", eretto nel 1891, per quanto destinato a tempio delle Muse croate preferì di accogliere le italiane, perché altrimenti ne soffriva terribilmente l'incasso. Truppe dei teatri di Zagabria e della Boemia vi diedero delle brevi serie di rappresentazioni."; Eligio Smiric, *Studio sull'italianità della Dalmazia in base a documenti ufficiali*, Tipografia del Governo, Zadar 1920, p. 12.

<sup>487</sup> See Letter from Ferdinando Guarini to the theatre management of Split, Milano, 27.3.1899, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>488</sup> See Letter from Olimpio Lovrich to the theatre management of Split, Aix le Bains, 22. 8.1899, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>489</sup> Lorenzo Perigozzo (Verona, 1866-Torino, 1935), who studied at the Liceo Rossini in Pesaro, was a conductor, composer and singing teacher. He wrote a few operas and pieces for violin and piano. *Enciclopedia moderna italiana. Fietta-Piemonte,* Sonzogno, [Milano], 1941, p. 2639.

Teatre of Zagreb to organise 24 performances in May 1900: 12 nights of spoken theatre in the frst half of the month, and 12 nights of opera in the second half. Te repertoire and the cast of soloists would be the same as those then current at the National Teatre. Te choice of operas and plays, however, would be left to the Teatro Nuovo of Split.490 Even the impresario Corbetta reappeared in 1901, proposing the same operas and artists he had programmed for the Politeama Ciscutti of Pula; in other words, *Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci*  and *Carmen* with the tenors Bambacioni491 and Villalta and the prima donna Elsa Plater (he was also quick to point out that Plater had just recently sung alongside Tamagno).492

Among the competing proposals that arrived at Split in 1904 were those of two agents acting on behalf of their respective impresario clients. On the one hand, Grabinski Broglio was proposing the impresarios Giorgio Trauner and Ettore Forastiero, who were ready to give *Aida* and *La Gioconda* with a subsidy of 9,000 crowns (the two had worked at Zadar a few months earlier and were to continue to work there for another three years).493 On the other, Paolo Rocca represented the impresario Vittorio Riva, "a wealthy man" (*persona facoltosissima*),494 who would bring *Tosca, La traviata* and *Lucia di Lammermoor* and the singers Silla Carobbi495 and Maria Alexandroviez. When negotiations over Broglio's project foundered, Rocca's was given the go-ahead. Under the new provisions, the poster was to be written in Croatian.496 Rocca would pay the required deposit of 1,000 lire as soon as the company's dealings with Casa Ricordi had been completed. Ricordi, as well as asking for 2,500 lire just for *Tosca* (though this was actually lower than the previous year's list price of

<sup>490</sup> See Letter from the management of the National Theatre of Zagreb to the theatre management of Split, Zagreb, 28. 8.1899, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>491</sup> On the tenor Giovanni Bambacioni, see the biography dedicated to him by Leda Rivarolo, *L'uomo che non fu Caruso*, Cavallo di Ferro, Roma 2009.

<sup>492</sup> See Letter from Giuseppe Corbetta to the theatre management of Split, Split, [1901], HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>493</sup> See Letter from Luigi Grabinski Broglio to the president of the theatre of Split, Milano, 19.3.1904, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>494</sup> Letter from Paolo Rocca to the theatre management of Split, Milano 27. 8.1904, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>495</sup> Silla Carobbi (1856–1933), a highly-regarded baritone from Pistoia, created the role of Scarpia in *Tosca.* He sang alongside various celebrated singers of the period, such as Roberto Stagno, Francesco Tamagno, Gemma Bellincioni and Caruso. He also worked with Gustav Mahler; see https://mahlerfoundation. org/mahler/contemporaries/carobbi [accessed 22. 8. 2020].

<sup>496</sup> "Here attached I return the contract duly signed," Rocca wrote, "with the draft of the poster to be drawn up in Croatian. It will be a splendid season and everything will proceed in the best possible way because the impresa is first-rate and one that gets things done, as they say, like gentlemen." ("Qui unito rimetto il contratto regolarmente firmato con la minuta del cartellone da redigersi in lingua croata. Sarà una stagione splendida e tutto procederà nel migliore modo perché l'impresa è di prim'ordine e di quelle che fanno le cose, come si dice, da signori."); Letter from Paolo Rocca to the theatre management of Split, Milano 7. 9.1904, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

3,000 lire),497 claimed a right of assent when it came to approving the opera company. Te agent plainly admitted that the baritone would not come cheap, but that it would be worth it: "Silla Carobbi in Tosca is tremendous," Rocca wrote, "I really don't know how you will be able to pay for this artist, but in any case the good fortune lies with Split, which with not too much would have a production worthy of La Scala and, let's be honest, also worthy of your theatre".498 As for Maria Alexandroviez, she managed to sign the contract for Split one hour before receiving another excellent proposal by telegram: maybe a better one than that ofered by the Teatro Nuovo (judging from Rocca's comment): "Unfortunately Split is costing her more than 5,000 lire; but she is a lady who knows how to keep her word, even at her cost, and this is something your honourable management should take note of".499 Te contract was therefore concluded between the theatre management and the impresario, who undertook to stage the three said operas. (Except for *Tosca*, they had already been taken to Pula fve years before; Riva was once again in Pula in October 1904 for *Rigoletto* and *La traviata*). We know for certain that Riva was given the contract, for we have his signature on the receipts for three instalments of the endowment of 2,666.66 lire each.500

Most likely this contract was used also to draw up the following one with the impresario Gabriele Ruotolo:501 Riva's name was removed and replaced with that of Ruotolo. Te operas staged in the previous season, *Tosca, La traviata* and *Lucia di Lammermoor*, were erased and substituted – in pencil – with *Siberia*, *Fedora* and Massenet's *Manon*. Riva's contract was probably simply taken as a model for the following typewritten one and identical terms were applied to Ruotolo in 1905. Here again it listed the artists (by name and surname) selected to perform – in the defnitive version of the contract – *Fedora*, *Manon*, *Mignon* and *Stella*. 502 Here too, at Article "k", we fnd the clause (dating back to the contact with Landi of 1897) which stated that the posters and programmes were to be written exclusively in Croatian, "except for that part that refers to the title of the opera

<sup>497</sup> See Letter from Giulio Ricordi to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 14.3.1901, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

<sup>498</sup> "Silla Carobbi nella Tosca è stragrande; non so veramente come potrà pagare quest'artista, in ogni modo la fortuna è di Spalato che con poco avrebbe uno spettacolo da Scala e diciamolo pure anche degno del vostro teatro."; Letter from Paolo Rocca to the theatre management of Split, [Milano], [1904], HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>499</sup> "Purtroppo Spalato le costa più di 5.000 lire; ma è una signorina che sa mantenere la parola data anche se con sacrificio e di ciò cotesta onorevole direzione deve prenderne buona nota."; Letter from Paolo Rocca to the theatre management of Split, [Milano], [1904], HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>500</sup> See Receipt for instalment of the endowment signed by Vittorio Riva, Split, 3.12.1904, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>501</sup> Ruotolo's name appears more than once in the theatres of the coastal region. Together with the artist Raffaele Albini, he had directed a Compagnia Buffa Napoletana in the 1870s.

<sup>502</sup> In a previous version of the contract the formula used was "tre opere tra *Fedora*, *Manon* (Massenet), *Mignon* e *Stella*".

and to the artistic personnel, which can be written in Italian".503 It was now necessary, therefore, not only to perform certain operas in Croatian, but also to make adjustments to the publicity. As we have already seen, this also happened at Šibenik, where the poster for *La traviata* in 1914 was in Croatian and all the singers were Croatian (the company was that of the National Teatre of Osijek). It is in this contract that, for the frst time, mention is made of a penalty to be applied if the staging of the opera season is delayed.504 Te endowment of 8,000 crowns was granted together with 16 boxes. However, there was perhaps a further increase of 4,000 crowns if some months later the impresario Giorgio Trauner wrote to the theatre management of Zadar (where he was then engaged) as follows, with the probable aim of asking for an increase in the endowment: "Even at Split they had to increase the endowment from 8,000 to 12,000 crowns in order to guarantee an opera season that was better than usual."505 If this increase really happened, it could have also been justifed by the fact that the season, made up exclusively of Sonzogno operas, presented various premieres for Split; and as we know, new operas cost more. Even when Ruotolo returned to Split three years later, he made sure to include an important premiere: that of *Andrea Chénier* (again an opera by Giordano), to be combined with *Un ballo in maschera* and *Rigoletto* in a season conducted by Arturo Bovi.506 Te contracts at Split, it is worth pointing out, did not impose obligations concerning the type of opera, unlike those for Zadar for example. Tey neither indicated a specifc number of repertoire operas per season, nor stated a commitment to include frst performances. In this manner the opera seasons might have a less standardised format and all the works be new for the city, as happened in the 1905 season.

From 1908 onwards, in spite of the various proposals sent to the management, there is no record of further opera performances with Italian companies until the War, with the exception of *Il matrimonio segreto* brought from Šibenik and conducted by Bovi. On the other hand,

<sup>503</sup> "salvo per quella parte che si riferisce al titolo dello spettacolo ed al personale artistico che potrà essere estesa in italiano"; Contract between the theatre management of Split and Gabriele Ruotolo, Split, 4. 9.1905, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII, and Contract between the theatre management of Split and Gabriele Ruotolo, Milano, 7. 9.1904, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>504</sup> "h.) to begin the season towards the end of the month of October, under the penalty of 40 (forty) crowns for every day of unjustified delay after the first week of November 1904 has ended" ("h.) di dare principio allo spettacolo verso la fine del mese di ottobre, sotto comminatoria di una penale di Cor. 40 (quaranta) per ogni giorno di ritardo non giustificato dopo terminata la prima settimana di novembre 1904"); Contract between the theatre management of Split and the impresario Gabriele Ruotolo, Split, 4. 9.1905, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>505</sup> "Anche a Spalato dovettero portare la dote da 8.000 a 12.000 corone per assicurarsi uno spettacolo migliore del solito"; Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 28.6.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>506</sup> The presence of these last two operas is deduced from the contents of a contract with the bass Egidio Garavaglia.

visits from the opera company of the theatre of Zagreb are recorded in 1910, 1911 and 1913 and that of Osijek in 1914. Te theatre in Split also continued to function with companies giving plays and operetta. It is worth noting, in conclusion, that when it came to opera and operetta, the clauses in the contract did not greatly difer, though there was usually a certain disparity between the two in the part concerning the presence (and quantity) of dancers.

#### 4.7.3 Census of the opera seasons at Split

Te table is based on archival material found in HR-MGS: Kazalište, 1–4, and the periodicals *L'Arte Melodrammatica*, *La Scena*, *Narod* and *Euterpe*, assisted by the consultation of Mirjana Škunca's book, *Glazbeni život Splita od 1860. do 1918*, 507 and Nevenka Bezić Bozanić's article, "Novinske vijesti o scenskim priredbama u Splitu (1884–1918)"*.* 508


<sup>507</sup> Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita.*

508 Nevenka Bezić Bozanić, "Novinske vijesti", pp. 397*–*454.

<sup>509</sup> This last opera is added by Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita*, p. 54.




**Size of orchestra, choruses, ballet corps for opera seasons at the theatres of the eastern Adriatic coast (1861–1914):** *in italics =* deduced from a periodical; with asterisk\*= deduced from a poster and periodical; ° = deduced from the contract; § = requested in the tender specifcations; "= deduced from the correspondence

#### The contracts and the seasons at Split 351


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# **5 Opera repertoire in the theatres of the eastern Adriatic (1861 – 1918)**

Opera repertoire in the theatres of the eas-

tern Adriatic (1861–1918)

Opera types and repertoire

#### 5.1 Opera types and repertoire

In the preceding tables we saw that opera seasons were not a regular phenomenon in all the theatres considered. Te theatre guaranteeing the greatest frequency of seasons was that of Rijeka (frst, with the Teatro Adamich, opera was staged during the Lent-spring season only; later, after the inauguration of the Teatro Comunale, an autumn season was occasionally added), followed by Zadar, where the seasons could start in spring or autumn depending on the year. Tere was a similar state of afairs at Pula, where, for around ffteen years from at least 1898, there were regular opera seasons in two seasons a year instead of one. Te situations of Šibenik and Split, on the other hand, were diferent. While the opera seasons in Šibenik were very irregular, with gaps of years between one season and the next, in Split the vacuum of around a dozen years (1881–1893) was institutional, dictated by the fre at the Teatro Bajamonti, followed by a renewed intention to ofer regular annual seasons.1 In various theatres an autumn season could be preferred to the Lent-spring season, also because it cost less to engage singers at that time of year.

We cannot truly speak of "opera programming", at least not in the modern sense of the term, given the great variability displayed in the choice of programmes right up to the printing of the poster (and, at times, even *after* the promotional material had been printed). Tere was certainly a diference between the programmes of the larger and smaller cities. For the most part the opera productions came from outside and the novelties were the prerogative of theatres such as those of Rijeka and Zadar. Indeed some works were performed at Zadar even before more important venues like those of Vienna or Venice. Putting on new operas, however, entailed a greater cost, primarily because of the rental expenses to be paid to the publishers, so in the cities in which there were no contractual obligations with the impresario on the type of opera to be staged, it was easier to fall back on the repertoire. Programming opera scores belonging to diferent publishers within the same season also meant higher rental fees. But while, on the one hand, choosing to stage the operas of just one publisher meant a fnancial saving, on the other, the potential disadvantage was that the opera considered as "new" did not always suit the wishes of the impresario and the theatre management.

<sup>1</sup> Even during these twelve theatre-less years, attempts were made to organise opera performances at the Sala Gran Orfeo of the Caffè Troccoli.

Anyone involved in organising opera seasons in Italy was also challenged by the hostility reigning between the two leading publishers: Ricordi and Sonzogno. "Tese two frms", the impresario De Monari wrote, "have for some time put in place a system of mutual boycotting, which, even if it doesn't harm either of them, seriously damages the interests of entrepreneurs. And it is only recently that we rarely have some examples of a promiscuous repertoire, which gives us all hope for better times in the future".2 Te repertoire could therefore be heavily infuenced by the publishers. But we have also seen how the local citizenry played an active part in the choices, at times writing to the theatre management to suggest what it wanted to hear. When an anonymous letter arrived at Zadar signed "A friend of the management on behalf of many who would like to subscribe" (*Un amico della direzione a nome di molti che intenderebbero abbonarsi*), the message sent was that the management should persevere in programming repertoire operas rather than new ones, given that the former would meet with the greater favour of the local population and would also be considered a novelty by the young, who would never have heard them before. "If it is a matter of satisfying four worthy gentlemen", the anonymous writer added, "who can lay their hands on a couple of extra forins, perhaps after even going to the sacrifce of hearing operas in other cities, then also include a new third opera, but if you intend to entertain the whole citizenry and put on good shows, then give *Ernani*, *L'ebrea* or *I due Foscari*, for the music is easier and has greater feeling than the new operas and, despite being repertoire operas, they would still be new for the young people of Zadar".3

As is well known, the choice of repertoire was often a compromise between the desires of the impresario and the needs of the theatre management. Te composer, on the other hand, as has already been argued by Michael Walter, now had less weight in the process of organising opera seasons, and his power to infuence the repertoire was relatively unimportant in this period. Accordingly, it is very rare to fnd letters from composers in the archives consulted.

<sup>2</sup> "Queste due Case hanno messo da vario tempo in attuazione un sistema di boicottaggio reciproco, che se non nuoce a nessuna di esse, pregiudica gravemente gl'interessi degli speculatori. E solo oggi abbiamo raramente qualche esempio di repertorio promiscuo, ciò che fa sperare, in seguito, tempi migliori per tutti."; Letter from Eugenio De Monari to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 8. 8.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

<sup>3</sup> "Se si trata [*sic*] di compiacere a quattro signorotti che poterono disporre un pajo di fiorini, ed anche questi forse previa privazione per andare a sentire opere in altre città, date pure anche la terza opera nuova, ma se intendete di divertire tutta la cittadinanza e fare dei bei teatri date l'*Ernani*, l'*Ebrea* oppure *I due Foscari* la cui musica è più facile e più sentimentale di quello che non lo siano le opere nuove e che abbenché opere di repertorio pure per la gioventù di Zara sarebbero nuove."; Letter from anonymous sender to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 12.3.1895, HR-DAZD, folder 8. On such occasions one might simply inform the theatre management of the desired titles, as for example: "According to a great many citizens, the third opera to be chosen should be Ernani" ("Dietro il sentire di moltissimi cittadini la terza opera da sciegliersi[sic] sarebbe l'Ernani"); Letter from Ego e comp. to the theatre management of Zadar, [n.p., 1895], HR-DAZD, folder 8.

Some operas were considered to be less performable than others. "It is very easy to advise an impresa to give one or other opera", a newspaper wrote, "but the difcult thing is to actually stage it, for at times a combination of many important factors is in confict with this objective". Tere were, for example, certain operas of the old repertoire, like *Il profeta*, *Don Carlos*, *Roberto il Diavolo* and *Freischütz*, that many would have liked to see staged, but, as the writer remarks, "who today can dig out the performers suited to interpreting them perfectly?"4 It was not merely difcult to fnd singers suited to the specifc repertoire; the economic sacrifces required to engage them would be out of proportion to the theatre's limited resources. On matters of repertoire, therefore, expectations could not be pitched too high, for the impresa could only ofer as much as the budget allowed. In the words of the impresario Mariano Ungherini, for example, the operas that were either difcult to stage or "of very uncertain outcome" (*esito infelicissimo*) included *Don Carlos*, *Mefstofele*, *Lohengrin*, *Tannhäuser* and *Il Re di Lahore*, for the principal reason that the endowment granted amounted to around 7,000 forins in the fnal years of the 19th century.5 *Mefstofele* was considered to be "tough" (*pesante*).6 And also in the opinion of the impresario De Monari, *Don Carlos* would not work ("*non va*" was how he put it bluntly),7 which explains why it was never performed in the coastal theatres in a period of almost sixty years. Performances of *Don Carlos* were recorded at Trieste in 1868, otherwise only in Zagreb in 1870, sung in the Croatian translation by Franjo Žigrović-Pretočki.8 Tere was also a certain reserve about *Simon Boccanegra*, which again was never staged in the period considered and was heard in Trieste only in 1891 (and only in 1931 at the Zagreb Opera).9

Operas could be programmed and then immediately cancelled if they were found to be unsuccessful at neighbouring theatres. Richard Strauss's *Salome* was due to be staged at Rijeka in 1911, but was cancelled after the opera met with failure at Trieste.10 At times

<sup>4</sup> "È molto facile consigliare un'impresa di dare una o l'altra delle opere, ma il difficile sta nel metterlo in scena, opponendosi talvolta a questo desiderio il concorso di molti importanti fattori"; and later, "gli esecutori adatti alla loro perfetta interpretazione chi li pesca fuori oggi?"; "Cose d'arte", *L'Eco di Pola*, 2.9.1893.

<sup>5</sup> Letter from Mariano Ungherini to the theatre management of Zadar, Fabriano, 17. 6.1893, HR-DAZD, folder 7.

<sup>6</sup> In the five cities considered for this research, *Mefistofele* appears in only seven seasons over a period of nearly sixty years.

<sup>7</sup> Letter from Eugenio De Monari to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 8. 8.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

<sup>8</sup> Nikola Faller, *Repertoire Hrvat. zem. kazališta od 1. listopada 1870. do 31. srpnja 1937,* Kronika Zavoda za književnost i teatrologiju JAZU, God. 4, Br. 9–10, Zagreb, 1978, p. 41.

<sup>9</sup> See, for example, what the agent Pessina wrote about a production of *Boccanegra* at the theatre in Madrid: "I do not believe Simon Boccanegra to be an opera that will give money to the impresa" ("non credo il Simon Boccanegra un'opera che darà denaro all'impresa"), quoted in José María Domínguez, "El Teatro Real de Madrid durante la gestíon del empresario Ramon de Michelena (1882–94)", *Acta Musicologica*, LXXXVII/ 2 (2015), p. 229.

<sup>10</sup> Lovorka Ruck, *Operni zivot u Rijeci*, p. 191.

an opera could also be chosen according to when it had last been staged at the theatre in question. If its last performance had been too recent, it was preferred to choose something else. Te impresario Giorgio Trauner, for example, in his negotiations with Zadar in 1906 was explicit on this point: "In the common interest I would suggest replacing Bohème with Faust, especially since, on examining the list of productions given at this theatre, I fnd that Faust was last performed in 1888, whereas Bohème is much more recent, in 1897".11 Judging also from certain comments in the newspapers, some in the audience did not like to remain anchored to what they had already heard, but instead wished to hear operas from the new repertoire.12 Yet although Ricordi and Sonzogno published around 250 new operas in the ffteen years between 1900 and 1915, most of these works enjoyed few repeats and gradually dropped out of the programming in subsequent following years.13

From our survey of the programming over sixty years in the fve cities considered, we can say with certainty that the genre most extensively cultivated was Italian opera, followed by French and (with many fewer) German. Opera bufa could be combined with opera seria within the same season, or there could be seasons entirely consisting of opera seria or opera bufa (in the latter case a lower budget was required). Te opera seasons could also include a few operettas, if the company should propose a mixed repertoire (as we fnd in the programming at Split). *Table 1. Italian opera and its presence in the coastal theatres*14 details the frequency with which the various works appeared in the opera seasons (though without counting the number of performances per season). Te further down an opera appears in the list, the less frequently it was performed in the area. Te colour of the box indicates the theatre where it was performed.15 In cases where there is any doubt over the performance of a given opera or any uncertainty between two titles, no mention is made of the operas concerned, hence the overall frequency of the operas is underestimated. Te following *Table 2. Composers of the Italian opera repertoire*  16 gives an account, composer by composer,

<sup>11</sup> "Io direi nell'interesse comune di cambiare la Bohème col Faust, tanto più che esaminando l'elenco degli spettacoli dati a questo teatro, trovo che il Faust è stato rappresentato l'ultima volta nel 1888 mentre la Bohème è molto più recente nel 1897"; Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 17. 7.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>12</sup> This happened, for example, at Pula when, after a successful performance of *Norma*, the *Teatro Illustrato* wrote that the audience was "already too familiar with this score [and] would have preferred an opera from the new repertoire" ("già troppo famigliare con questo spartito avrebbe preferito un'opera del nuovo repertorio"); "Da Pola", *Il Teatro Illustrato*, 1892, p. 172.

<sup>13</sup> Matteo Paoletti, "Mascagni, Mocchi, Sonzogno. La Società Teatrale Internazionale (1908–1931) e i suoi protagonisti", *Arti della Performance: orizzonti e culture*, IV (2015), p. 20.

<sup>14</sup> The table can be consulted at the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qrAuqHsRh\_8YLKy5JYo TrLJS0\_ZXaJt6/edit?usp=drive\_link&ouid=106256926039059801585&rtpof=true&sd=true.

<sup>15</sup> The titles of the opera in the table have been abbreviated for ease of visualisation.

<sup>16</sup> The table can be consulted at the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nDGFMap19X\_S6hltSs NkwMfinfvvIQnE/edit?usp=drive\_link&ouid=106256926039059801585&rtpof=true&sd=true.

of the diferent titles performed and the number of stagings (again only Italian operas are included). Te composers are listed in alphabetical order.

Te table clearly shows that these theatres were also dominated by the Verdi-Donizetti-Bellini trio, as was already standard practice in the Italian peninsula. By this time repertoire opera was what dominated the majority of the seasons' nightly performances. Te opera that appeared most frequently was *Il barbiere di Siviglia*, a work that was much loved by the public and could also be staged without too much efort on the part of any impresario. Te data also confrm that an opera like *Crispino e la comare* was very popular at the time, only to disappear from the repertoire, thereby following the same destiny as *Pipelet* or *Le educande di Sorrento,* about which little more remains today than their titles. *Crispino* even came to Split before Trieste. What is abundantly clear is that the coastal theatres maintained close ties with the Italian legacy of the past and an operatic tradition that was predominantly Italian. Indeed none of these theatres (with the exception of Split, dating from the management of the Teatro Nuovo) had much contact with the hinterland. Tis is also demonstrated, for example, by the data relating to the performances of Italian opera at the theatre of Zagreb, where the programming of these titles between 1870 and 1937 was not so frequent. *Table 3. Italian opera in Trieste-the coastal region-Zagreb* 17, which details all the Italian operas staged in Zagreb in those 67 years,18 reveals that they received their frst performances there somewhat later than on the Dalmatian coast. Tey were sung in Croatian in the translations by Josip Eugen Tomić, Mijo Bišćan, Ivan Trnski or Ferdo Miler, among others. Tis table also shows that in most cases the works were frst given at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste and then arrived at the coastal cities of the eastern Adriatic only at a later stage.

Regarding French opera, the chart below shows that the most frequent productions were those of *Faust* and *Carmen* (for which Sonzogno had secured the exclusive rights for Italy in 1879), whereas a greater diversity of titles is found with the composers Meyerbeer and Massenet. Overall, there were twenty-one titles that could be programmed in the coastal region. Te table indicates the year and place in which the opera was frst given and the overall number of seasons

<sup>17</sup> The table can be consulted at the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E0GCtZQTlsu\_ OOL9if-tsDjSIl1WAdzK/edit?usp=drive\_link&ouid=106256926039059801585&rtpof=true&sd=true

<sup>18</sup> This is based on the opera repertoire documented by Nikola Faller, *Repertoire Hrvat. zem. kazališta od 1. listopada 1870. do 31. srpnja 1937,* Kronika Zavoda za književnost i teatrologiju JAZU, 4, Br. 9–10, 1978. Chronologies for the theatre of Zagreb were for the first time drawn up by Nikola Faller, who collected the posters of the theatre seasons as from 2 October 1870, the date of the premiere of Ivan Zajc's *Mislav*, with which the permanent activity of the opera house in Zagreb got underway. Faller became a student of Zajc, who initially employed him at the Croatian National Theatre as a répétiteur. Then in 1894 he became conductor and director of the opera of Zagreb; it was under his direction that Lisinski's *Porin* was staged three years later. He was also superintendent of the theatre of Osijek between 1910 and 1912 as well as being a composer. For a biographical profile, see the entry dedicated to him in the Oesterreichische Musiklexicon: https://www.musiklexikon.ac.at/ml/musik\_F/Faller\_Nikola.xml [accessed 18. 6. 2020] or the notes in the Introduction to Nikola Faller, *Repertoire Hrvat. zem. kazališta*.


in which it appeared in the period 1861–1918, without regard to either the places or the number of performances per season. In cases of uncertainty, the number of seasons has been rounded down. Te titles of the operas are given in the form in which they appear in the documents:

What clearly stands out is that most of the frst performances were given at Rijeka, which also happened to be the theatre with the highest endowments per opera season. We do not know if the French operas that we fnd in the repertoire were always performed in Italian translation. No document clarifes the point, but it is highly likely (at least in the case of Rijeka). *Faust*, the most frequently represented of all, would have been given in the translation of Achille De Lauzières, which after its debut at La Scala in 1862, was the version in which it circulated for decades to follow. In all probability the other operas were also staged in their respective Italian translations, as was the custom in second half of the 19th century (with the probable exception of *Postillon*, given that it was performed in Split after the inauguration of the Teatro Nuovo). In 1904 Sonzogno had 55 French operas in his catalogue,19 among which some were considered to be complex and difcult to stage by

<sup>19</sup> Matteo Paoletti, "Mascagni, Mocchi, Sonzogno. La Società Teatrale Internazionale (1908–1931) e i suoi protagonisti", *Arti della Performance: orizzonti e culture*, IV (2015), p. 17.

the impresarios themselves. One such opera, as was stressed by the above-cited impresario Ungherini, was Bizet's *I pescatori di perle* (which besides was also too expensive).20 As for Saint-Säens' *Sansone e Dalila*, it was rejected at Zadar in 1900 for being too 'academic' and belonging to a genre that seemed not to be greatly appreciated in the city. Te opera, the impresario De Monari wrote, "generates no interest in any theatre because it isn't for the audience masses, but wins over only the profound musician. Signor Sonzogno himself has repeatedly reproached me for putting this opera in the programme and has always advised me to insist on a change in order to avoid fnancial disaster".21 In other words, the publisher himself advised against producing an opera that would be too much of a challenge. De Monari therefore duly asked for the opera to be replaced with Mascagni's *L'amico Fritz*, which would be new for Zadar.22 In general Zadar liked French opera less than Rijeka, a point that can be verifed simply by adding up the relevant works listed in the complete table at the end of this section. Concerning *Manon* there is at times a certain confusion, given that it is not always clear in the sources whether we are dealing with Puccini's opera (often abbreviated as *Manon* in the newspapers and correspondence) or Massenet's. Again, French opera often arrived in the coastal theatres before Zagreb, though here the tendency is less clear-cut than with Italian opera. Nonetheless, the fact remains that in almost all cases the French operas were given frst at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste before arriving at the coast. In *Table 4. French opera*, 23 we see that only *Taïs* (listed in italics) was performed solely at Rijeka, hence with no possibility of making comparisons with productions at either Trieste or Zagreb.24

While a variety of impresarios proposed French opera, only a few ofered German or Austrian works (among these were Rossegger, Sforza, Trauner and Alpron-Battaglia). In the period considered the German operas were not only very few in number (with fve out of eight being Wagner operas), but also appeared many years after their French counterparts and many years after their premieres in the original language. To confrm this point, we need only observe that the Wagner operas listed in the following table came to

<sup>20</sup> See Letter from Mariano Ungherini to the theatre management of Zadar, Fabriano, 17. 6.1893, HR-DAZD, folder 7.

<sup>21</sup> "non fa interesse in nessun teatro perché non è per la massa del pubblico ma conquide soltanto un profondo musicista. Il sig. Sonzogno stesso mi rimproverò ripetutamente di avere posto in cartellone quest'opera e sempre mi consigliò di sollecitare il cambio onde evitare un disastro finanziario."; Letter from Eugenio De Monari to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 5. 2.1900, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

<sup>22</sup> See Letter from Eugenio De Monari to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 5.2.1900, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

<sup>23</sup> The table can be consulted at the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zcImHPGM-gNBtza Tcg-Ko37SaWJkW05T/edit?usp=drive\_link&ouid=106256926039059801585&rtpof=true&sd=true.

<sup>24</sup> Where the table has no coloured box indicating a production at the Teatro Comunale di Trieste, this simply means that the opera was not staged there.

the coastal region between 40 years (*Lohengrin* or *La Walkiria*) and 52 years (*Tannhäuser*) after their frst performances. And even allowing for the delayed Italian premieres and the fact that the Italian impresarios would take these operas frst to the mainland theatres and only later to the coastal area, it is still worth noting that *Lohengrin* and *Tannhäuser* arrived in Rijeka as many as 19 and 25 years after their premieres in Bologna in 1871 and 1872 respectively. Nor can we say that the neighbouring Teatro Comunale of Trieste exerted any infuence in this process, given that the two operas arrived in Trieste much earlier, in 1876 and 1878 respectively. *La Walkiria* (Die Walküre), which was given its frst Italian performance at La Fenice in 1883, arrived in the coastal region 27 years later. And though *Parsifal* was given at Trieste in 1914, it was never staged at the coastal theatres in the period considered. Also evident in the table below is that almost all the premieres were given at the theatre of Rijeka.


Perhaps it is signifcant to note, as we can see in *Table 5. German opera*, 25 that *Lohengrin*, *Tristano e Isotta* and *I maestri cantori di Norimberga* all came to Rijeka before Zagreb (and in the case of *I maestri cantori* even ten years before the Comunale of Trieste);26 As did Flotow's *Martha*. 27 Karl Goldmark's work was presented only at the theatres of Split or Šibenik, for the sole reason that it was part of the repertoire of the Czech or Croatian companies that visited both cities (at Šibenik *Heimchem am Herd* was given in its Croatian version *Cvrčak za ognjištem*). Composers such as Wilhelm Kienzl and Goldmark were practically unknown to the Italian companies that gave opera seasons in the coastal region. Tere might perhaps have been a possibility of including Goldmark's *Die Königin von Saba* in one of fnal seasons of the century, since the opera was staged in both Trieste and Zagreb (1898–1900), but as yet there is no documentary evidence either that an opportunity to produce it arose or that it was considered suitable. Flotow's *Martha*, on the other hand,

<sup>25</sup> The table can be consulted at the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X587FBWPCXdot 2518s0z3I277ktznQQA/edit?usp=drive\_link&ouid=106256926039059801585&rtpof=true&sd=true.

<sup>26</sup> Nikola Faller, *Repertoire Hrvat. zem. kazališta*, p. 92, 97, 176.

<sup>27</sup> Nikola Faller, *Repertoire Hrvat. zem. kazališta*, p. 101.

was a diferent matter, for instead it had long circulated in the repertoires of the Italian companies, with the diference that from Pula down to Zadar it was performed in Italian, whereas at Split, the contract with the impresario (1896) explicitly required the work to be given in Croatian.28

As regards any further Russian, Czech or Croatian repertoire (which arrived only with the Bohemian, Czech and Croatian opera companies), this was the sole prerogative of the theatres of Split and Šibenik, and then only from the years 1894 (Split) and 1910 (Šibenik). In fact, before 1894 the area was visited only by Italian opera companies, even though the majority of the population was ethnically Croatian.29 From that date on, this repertoire was performed in Croatian. Tis was a practice that theatres like those of Pula or Rijeka would have had difculty establishing; the tender specifcations at Rijeka even stipulated that the language of performance had to be exclusively Italian.

Te Czech companies were those that brought with them the most eclectic repertoire. Included in their programmes for individual seasons was an assortment of titles from Italian, French, German, Russian, Czech and Croatian opera. It was at Split that the public could hear for the frst time Smetana's *Bartered Bride* (*Prodaná nevěsta*), *Te Secret* (*Tajemství*) and *Dalibor*, along with Tchaikovsky's *Queen of Spades* (*Pikova dama*) and *Eugene Onegin*. Among the Russian works ofered was Nápravník's *Dubrovsky*, a work in the repertoire of the Czech company brought by Vendelin Budil. And it was again at Split that Lisinski's *Porin* found a season ready to host it, after its premiere at Zagreb in 1897.30 Te interesting thing to note is that none of these titles were performed at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste in the period considered (see *Table 6. Opera from eastern Europe and elsewhere*),31 in contrast with all the repertoires discussed previously. Te most diverse seasons, therefore, were those presented at the theatre in Split: perhaps not the best-funded seasons (from the point of view of the endowments), but certainly those in which the public had the opportunity to enjoy a very wide assortment of works.

Te table below brings together all the information given by the available documentation on the opera repertoire of the coastal theatres for the period 1860–1918. Since it has not always been possible to recover the data in full, the results have no claim to completeness. For each year the table has two lines, the upper indicating the performances given from 1 January to 31 August, the lower those given from 1 September to 31 December.

<sup>28</sup> Contract between the theatre management of Split and Johann Pištek, letter "m" of Art. 1, Split, January 1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>29</sup> Already in 1757 the British architect Robert Adam mentioned performances by Italian companies in Split; Duško Kečkemet, *Ante Bajamonti*, p. 199.

<sup>30</sup> On the date of the premiere of *Porin*, see *Repertoar hrvatskih kazalista 1840–1860–1990*, 2 vols., Globus i Jugoslavenska akadeija znanosti i umjetnosti, Zagreb 1990, p. 192.

<sup>31</sup> The table can be consulted at the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R6BxCAo7elPMvlh H52DQB6Ew486v2qUk/edit?usp=drive\_link&ouid=106256926039059801585&rtpof=true&sd=true.












### 5.2 Presence and circulation of local composers in the opera programming

An attempt has also been made to understand how the programming of the most frequently performed operas combined, if at all, with those by local composers and what type of circulation the local works might have had: whether they in turn succeeded in crossing the Adriatic and arriving in Italy, or alternatively took other routes towards the north or north-east. First of all, we must clarify that there were very few local composers: certainly not a signifcant number when compared to all the other composers represented by the productions staged.

Let us take, for example, the works of Nicolò Stermich [Niccolò de Stermich, Nikola Strmić], who also worked for a period as one of the directors of the Teatro Nuovo in his home city of Zadar. His opera *Desiderio duca d'Istria* was given its frst performance at the Teatro Nobile in Zadar in 1861 (staged by a visiting company from Italy and performed on four nights), but had no further productions.32 Sabalich reports that the orchestra gave a fne performance, but that the singers were unsatisfactory and moreover clothed in "shabby and flthy costumes" (*vestiario logoro e sudicio*).33 Four years later Stermich made a successful comeback with the opera *La madre slava*, which was well received at Trieste and Zagreb in 1865 and 1866 and continued to be staged until the 1870s,34 but was never performed at the coastal theatres*.* At the time Stermich was still a young composer (twenty-six when the Trieste premiere of *La madre slava* was staged, only twenty-two when *Desiderio* was given). In the archival documents we also fnd mention of his son Pietro, who was engaged in the 1896 season, again at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, though not as a composer, but as *maestro concertatore* and conductor. We also Presence and circulation of local composers in

the opera programming

<sup>32</sup> For the Oesterreichisches Biographisches Lexikon, *Desiderio duca d'Istria* was also known by the title *Rachis* (Primoz Kuret – Hubert Reitterer, "Stermich von Valcrociata, Nicolò" in *Oesterreichisches Biographisches Lexikon*, vol. XIII, 2008, p. 220), whereas for Andrea Sessa, *Flavio Rachis* was the title of the opera by Luigi Badia set to the same libretto, Giovanni Battista Canovai's *Desiderio duca d'Istria* (Andrea Sessa, *Il melodramma italiano 1861–1900. Dizionario bio-bibliografico dei compositori*, Olschki, Firenze 2003, p. 456–457). Zdravko Blažeković, in the entry "Strmić [Stermich di Valcrociata], Nikola", *Grove Music Online*, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/ omo-9781561592630-e-0000044168 [accessed 30.5. 2023], mentions a performance of fragments of the opera in Milan already in 1856. For the early years of Stermich, his influence on musical life in Zadar and his friendship with the *maestro concertatore* Antonio Ravasio, see Katica Burić Ćenan, "Nikola Strmić and Antonio Ravasio – Promoters of Musical Life in Zadar in the Second Half of the 19th Century", *Bašćinski glasi*, XIII/1 (2018), pp. 121*–*42.

<sup>33</sup> Giuseppe Sabalich, *Cronistoria aneddotica*, p. 256.

<sup>34</sup> Ivano Cavallini, "L'Adriatico e la ricerca dell'identità nazionale in musica"*, Musica e Storia*, XII/3 (2004), p. 489. In Trieste it was deemed a "successo di stima", which – according to the theatrical jargon – meant a success attributed to the public's respect for the composer rather than for the intrinsic value of the work itself; Filippo Danziger, *Memorie del Teatro Comunale*, p. 94. On *La madre slava*, see Caterina Brugnera, "La madre slava di Nikola Strmić: un tentativo di incontro tra illirismo e opera italiana", *Musica e Storia*, XII/3 (2004), pp. 591*–*609.

learn that in 1899 the impresario Eugenio De Monari proposed to engage him for a production of *Fedora*, for an unspecifed role at the same theatre (though probably again as *maestro concertatore*). However, the proposal came to nothing owing to the opposition of the publisher Sonzogno,35 so the position was assigned to Maestro Falconi, a deputy conductor (*direttore d'orchestra sostituto*) at the Teatro Lirico of Milan.36 Concerning the other operas (today lost) of Stermich père (*Rachis, Sordello, Jacquinta*), no evidence has hitherto come to light.

Among the works of other local composers, those of Smareglia found a certain, though limited reception, at Pula,37 but it was commented in *L'Eco di Pola* that "the glory of Smareglia" was recognised in Germany before Italy, in accordance with the well-known rule *nemo propheta in patria*. Tis was certainly true in the case of *Cornill Schut*, which was performed frst at Vienna, then in Prague and Dresden in 1893, with a libretto by Illica translated into Czech.38 Te management of the Politeama Ciscutti seemed to support the idea of staging the opera, but "only in the right season and with a performance that will be absolutely special, following the criteria of the eminent composer".39 Te Politeama staged *Nozze istriane*  for the frst time in 1908, thanks also to the opera's success at the Volksoper of Vienna, and some years after its premiere at Trieste in March 1895. Apart from all else, the opera has a local subject, since the story is actually set in Dignano (today Vodnjan), a small town near Pula, against which a drama of love and jealousy is played out in a veristic atmosphere reminiscent of *Cavalleria rusticana*. In this way Smareglia was fnally able to see a work of his performed in his homeland for the frst time.40 Te theatre was packed and the composer

<sup>35</sup> Eugenio De Monari wrote: "I have to say that I am truly very sorry not to have been able to engage Maestro Cavalier Pietro Stermich of whom I am a good friend (indeed he has set to music a romanza with lines of mine) and whom I shall favour in preference to anyone else. I was unable to engage him because our dear Commendatore Edoardo Sonzogno did not approve him and of that – I repeat – I am very sorry (publishers have certain ideas that are entirely their own)." ("Devo dichiararmi dolentissimo di non aver potuto scritturare il M. Cav. Pietro Stermich del quale sono buon amico (anzi egli musicò una romanza con versi miei) e che favorirò a *preferenza* di qualunque altro. Non mi è stato possibile scritturarlo perché l'amato Comm.e Edoardo Sonzogno non l'à [*sic*] approvato e di ciò – ripeto – sono dolente (Gli editori ànno [*sic*] certe idee del tutto loro."); Letter from Eugenio De Monari to the theatre management of Zadar, Gorizia, 12.3.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>36</sup> See Letter from Gustavo Argenti to Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak, [Milano], 13. 2.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>37</sup> Smareglia was a native of Pula, the son of a mixed marriage: his father, Francesco Smareglia came from Dignano d'Istria (Vodnjan), while his mother, Giulia Stiglić, was a Croatian from Laurana (Lovran); Edoardo Perpich, *Il teatro musicale di Antonio Smareglia*, Unione degli Italiani dell'Istria e di Fiume, Università Popolare di Trieste, Trieste-Rovigno 1990, p. 7.

<sup>38</sup> "Dalle terre di Germania", *L'Eco di Pola*, 8.10.1892.

<sup>39</sup> "solo in apposita stagione e con una esecuzione del tutto speciale, secondo i criteri dell'eminente autore"; "Cose d'arte", *L'Eco di Pola*, 8. 7.1893.

<sup>40</sup> In announcing the planned production the local newspaper reported: "It would be an epoch-making artistic event in the annals of the Politeama and we hope that once the inevitable difficulties have been

had 39 curtain calls; according to the papers, there was even a procession of "thousands of people" at the end of the performance.41

Tree years later a committee was formed in Pula to organise a season with operas by the composer, with the profts donated to charity. Tis would also include a performance of the opera *La Falena*, which was still unknown in the area. At the same time the newspaper *La Fiamma* made eforts to inform its readers about the composer's works, and particularly this one, with the intention of making him more familiar to, and appreciated by, a wider public.42 In 1914 *Abisso* was announced, as well as a repeat of *Nozze istriane*, for the autumn season, but nothing more was heard of the matter. Indeed it was mainly in Trieste that Smareglia had found enthusiastic supporters who strove to boost his reputation.43 From Trieste, Schmidl, as the representative of Ricordi, had ofered the score of *Nozze istriane* to the theatre of Rijeka, though his initiative failed to result in a production. On the other hand, the composer's brother, Giulio Smareglia, who was also director of the choir at the cathedral of Pula and a composer himself, was given the opportunity to see his own opera, *La notte di San Silvestro,* performed at the Politeama, again within seasons run by the impresario Alessandro Bolzicco, who had also produced *Nozze istriane.* At the Politeama Giulio Smareglia worked not only as chorus master but also as deputy conductor; and he wrote musical presentations and reviews in *Il Giornaletto di Pola*. He was also the composer of operettas: of these *Dr. Gasparo* and *Il capriccio del re* were performed at the Politeama in 1905 and 1906 respectively.

removed, this excellent project may be accomplished." ("Sarebbe un avvenimento artistico tale da far epoca negli annali del Politeama e noi auguriamo che rimosse le inevitabili difficoltà, il progetto, bellissimo, possa venire attuato"); "Per un grande spettacolo d'opera in quaresima al Politeama."; *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 18.1.1908.

<sup>41</sup> "La serata a teatro", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 30.3.1908.

<sup>42</sup> "In our column "Teatro ed Arte", we shall undertake in the following issues to speak a little about all of Smareglia's operas, which have been such an excellent success wherever they are performed, and we shall dwell longer on La Falena, because it is unknown and has been chosen for staging in the next opera season. Today we urge everyone who can, to support the committee in its fine initiative also aimed at making the master better known and admired even in his home town, for together with Tartini he has succeeded in including an Istrian name among those of the foremost composers of his age and of every age." ("Noi nella nostra rubrica Teatro ed Arte, verremo a parlare nei prossimi numeri un po' di tutte le opere smaregliane che vanno ottenendo ottimo successo ovunque si rappresentino, e ci soffermeremo più a lungo su La Falena, perché ignota e prescelta a essere rappresentata nella prossima stagione lirica. Esortiamo oggi ognuno che è in grado di farlo, di sostenere il comitato nella sua bella iniziativa atta anche a render più noto e ammirato anche nella sua citta natale, il maestro che con Tartini è riuscito a mettere un nome istriano tra quelli dei primissimi compositori dei suoi tempi e d'ogni tempo."); "Una stagione d'opera smaregliana", *La Fiamma*, 1. 4.1911.

<sup>43</sup> See Perpich, *Il teatro musicale*, p. 17.

Leaving aside these new works, which also included William Legrand Howland's *Sarrona*, sung in Italian with the young American composer present in the theatre,44 and *Rosilde di Saluzzo* (though we do not know if it really was performed in 1883:45 the opera is mentioned as having been favourably received at the Pergola of Florence only in the following year),46 the problem about the Politeama was that the theatre kept on presenting operas that had been repeatedly performed and no longer guaranteed a turnover in the repertoire. Increasingly over the years protests were raised from various quarters.47 In *Il Proletario* it was stressed that, no matter how great the commitment of the artists concerned, "certain musical works can no longer generate enthusiasm. Te revolution has happened not only in the music itself, but also, like it or not, in the feelings of the public".48 Several months later *Il Proletario* returned to the topic: "while we are respectful of Verdi's melodies, we are also thirsty for new and bold stuf. Astonish us with all the music you want, but do not force us to swoon over the old tunes!"49 So even if works by young local composers had emerged, they perhaps had little chance of being performed in Pula. When the theatre in 1910 was sold by the heirs of Muzzatti to Petinelli, Pregel, Viezzoli and Mattiassevich, the *Südösterreichische Nachrichten* drew attention to the fact that the purchasers would be responsible also for the direct management of the theatre and expressed the hope that the change of

<sup>44</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 19.3.1907. The premiere of *Sarrona* was given four years earlier in Bruges. It was performed in Italian.

<sup>45</sup> In 1883 the management of the journal *L'Arte* of Trieste printed the libretto of this opera (with the text by Giulio Gutersohn and music by Adolfo Baci) "to be performed for the first time at the Politeama Ciscutti in Pula" ("da rappresentarsi per la prima volta al Politeama Ciscutti in Pola").

<sup>46</sup> Ambiveri, *Operisti minori*, p. 14.

<sup>47</sup> For example about the 1893 season the following was written: "We would just like it that, precisely in order to guarantee that success in financial matters which the management and administration quite rightly expects, things were done in such a way as to stage at least one work of recent date in the course of the said opera season and that it should be, if not new for the majority of our public attending the Politeama Ciscutti, at least not so familiar (because heard many times) as the operas planned for the same season. This is a modest piece of advice we believe we must give." ("Noi vorremmo soltanto che appunto per garantire quel successo in linea finanziaria, che la Direzione ed amministrazione s'attendono ben giustamente, si facesse in modo di dare nel corso della stagione d'opera suddetta alle scene almeno un lavoro di più recente data e che fosse, se non nuovo per la maggioranza del nostro pubblico frequentante il Politeama Ciscutti, almeno non tanto famigliare, perché sentito molte volte, come le opere destinate per la stagione stessa. È un modesto consiglio che noi crediamo di dover dare."); "Il Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 5. 8.1893.

<sup>48</sup> "certe opere musicali non possono entusiasmare più. La rivoluzione è avvenuta non soltanto nella musica stessa ma anche, voglia o non voglia, nel sentimento del pubblico."; "Il Trovatore al Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 9.3.1904.

<sup>49</sup> "se siamo rispettosi delle melodie verdiane, siamo anche assetati di roba nuova ed ardita. Sbalorditeci di tutte le musiche che volete ma non costringeteci a spasimare eternamente sui vecchi motivi!"; "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 5.10.1904.

ownership would bring a greater alternation of old and new operas in the programming. Up until then, the repetition of repertoire operas had given the Politeama the reputation for being a somewhat conservative institution.50 At variance with this opinion was a comment in the periodical *La Fiamma*, that instead valued the fact that the theatre exclusively staged the "old Italian repertoire" (*vecchio repertorio italiano*): hearing the old operas was indeed "appreciated", especially if "the modern ones and the very new" failed to reach what it called a "strip of land severed from the life of the world".51 Te operas announced for 1912 with the impresa Borboni were therefore *La sonnambula*, *La traviata*, *Il barbiere di Siviglia*, *Fra Diavolo*, *Cavalleria rusticana*, *Pagliacci* and *Don Pasquale*. 52 With the advent of the War, according to the *Gazzettino di Pola*, no more productions were given in Italian from 1914 to 1918, though in actual fact another four operas were to be staged.53

But where could a willingness to see changes in the repertoire come from? In general terms, one potential factor could have been the competition between diferent venues in the various cities, whereas, we must admit, competition in the coastal region was low. Alternatively, it might have come from the audiences themselves, with a request for either diferent genres of opera or specifc works that contrasted with the traditional programming. We should ask ourselves, however, whether the audiences at these theatres were really capable of judging the quality of a new opera. Given their long schooling in Italian repertoire opera,

<sup>50</sup> "If we survey the opera repertoire of recent years, we find nothing but repetition, and we look in vain for important works of old and new composers that have long since become popular elsewhere, but with us have only become partially so merely through the agency of the gramophone or piano reduction. A rejuvenation of the programme is very desirable." ("Wenn wir das Opernrepertoire der letzten Jahren überblicken, finden wir nichts als Wiederholungen und vergeblich suchen wir bedeutende Werke alter und neuer Komponisten, die sich anderwärts längst populär gemacht haben, bei uns aber lediglich durch die Vermittlung des Grammophons oder des Klavierauszuges teilweise geworden sind. Eine Verjüngung des Programms ist sehr wünschenswert."); *Verkauf des Politeama Ciscutti*, Südösterreichische Nachrichten, no. 8, 18. 4.1910.

<sup>51</sup> "lembo di terra tagliato dalla vita del mondo"; "L'opera al Politeama Ciscutti", *La Fiamma*, anno II, no. 77, 22. 6.1912.

<sup>52</sup> In the end only *La sonnambula* was performed, with just two performances, for the impresa decided that the season was too far advanced; "Il Politeama Ciscutti nuovamente chiuso", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 24.6.1912. There were negotiations for *Tosca* and *La traviata* in December, but the newspapers are silent on the matter. *Tosca* was given only in the following year to open the season.

<sup>53</sup> "For four years we have been deprived of productions in the Italian language, and for four years we have vegetated in the German. Art, they say, is international. But not for us. […] The Company of German operetta will stop at Pula until May of next year. The Germans will be delighted and will enjoy themselves; the Italians will have to stay at home." ("Da quattr'anni siamo digiuni di spettacoli in lingua italiana, da quattr'anni vegetiamo nel tedesco. L'arte, dicono, è internazionale. Per noi, no. […] La Compagnia d'operette tedesche si fermerà a Pola sino a maggio del prossimo anno. I tedeschi goderanno, si divertiranno; gli italiani dovranno rimanere a casa."); "Le operette tedesche al Ciscutti. Il teatro rinnovato", *Il Gazzettino di Pola*, 8.10.1918.

how would they react to novelty? Moreover, by the end of the century it was not just the city bourgeoisie that was going to the theatre; audiences were increasing and diversifying. Workers and their families were now present in larger numbers; children now had special tickets at reduced prices; and at Pula, as is known, soldiers and ofcers always had seats at the theatre. It was also to cater to this audience that operetta started to carry more weight in the programming. In general, we can say, Pula was more strongly anchored to the past on operatic matters.

We have already noted that the theatre that mixed Italian opera with other genres most extensively was that of Split. In comparison with the other theatres Split seems to have had more contact with the hinterland, and in particular with Zagreb. For example, in the period considered, the works of Ivan Zajc – if we except the performance of his opera *Amelia ossia il bandito* at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka on 4 April 1860 – were performed exclusively in Split. Most likely it is only there that an opera like *Nikola Šubić Zrinski* could have been well received, considering the underlying Croatian subject matter (which was very welcome to the new board of directors at the Teatro Nuovo).54 From Šibenik northwards as far as Pula his works never appeared to have been even proposed; or at least that is the impression left by the documentary evidence. At Rijeka it would have certainly been impossible to stage an opera in Croatian. And even at Zadar or Pula it is difcult to imagine a performance, though more because of the opera's subject matter. In the 1860s, after the success of the operetta *Der Meisterschuss*, Zajc signed a new contract in Vienna with the management of the Teater auf der Wieden (with better conditions than the previous one), though for only two years, since it was probable that after this period the composer would move to Paris, for "he has already received some advantageous proposals from the capital".55 Te management of the theatre had accepted a new work by Zajc, which was to be performed shortly thereafter.56 Tough he was born in Rijeka, and had been the director and *maestro concertatore*, as well as a teacher, at the local Istituto Filarmonico for stringed instruments, it was actually in Zagreb that Zajc found his niche, from as early as 1870, the year in which he began to direct the city's opera house (he was also director of the Conservatoire). It is here that his works began to be heard.57 A similar career path was followed by his pupil

<sup>54</sup> On opera, Croatian nationalism and the Pan-Slavism that permeates it, see Vjera Katalinić, "Die opern von Ivan Zajc zwischen nationalismus und Panslawismus", *Studia Musicologica*, LII/1–4 (2011), pp. 189–200. Another study that highlights the ideology underlying opera is that of Rozina Palić-Jelavić, "Ideologemi u operi Nikola Šubić Zrinjski Ivana pl. Zajca", *Kroatologija*, III/1 (2012), pp. 54*–*89.

<sup>55</sup> Lovro Županović, "Zajc, Ivan", *The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians*, vol. XXVII, p. 724.

<sup>56</sup> "Notizie locali. Il distinto maestro Giovanni Zaytz", *La Bilancia*, 9.5.1868.

<sup>57</sup> Zajc, like Nicolò Stermich for that matter, had studied at the conservatoire of Milan and graduated in September 1855. Immediately afterwards he returned to Rijeka and was given a position as conductor of the theatre's orchestra. Just a few years later, however, he moved to Vienna, evidently pursuing the more lucrative posts that other cities could offer. On his early years in Italy, see also Noemi Premuda,

Blagoje Bersa, who was born in Dubrovnik, though he trained at the Vienna Conservatoire and then in Zagreb with Zajc himself. After the War he remained in Zagreb and was active as a composition teacher at the music academy.58Again, his *Oganj* (*Der Eisenhammer*) was performed in the coastal region solely in Split in 1911, a few years after performances of *Andrija Čubranović* (1901) and *Cvijeta* (1896) by Vladimir Bersa.59 So again these were composer who developed their careers elsewhere, even though they came from the area, knew it and had even worked in it for a period of time. We have no certain news of a performance in Split of *Miniego e Dobrilla*, an opera by Michele Strino, director of the city's Società Filarmonica. What is certain is that it was given its premiere in 1886 at Zagreb, where Strino had already had his *Le sartine in Carnevale* staged in the previous year*.* Tis once again reinforces the connection between Split and Zagreb, which was exceptional and had no parallel with the other coastal institutions. Even a composer like Vatroslav Lisinski, whose works featured strongly in Zagreb, remained almost completely unrepresented in the Dalmatian and Istrian coastal area. His *Porin* was given at Split in the same opera season that had included the works by Vladimir Bersa and Ivan Zajc (1901).

A yet diferent situation was that posed by Franz Von Suppé [Suppè], a Dalmatian composer who was indeed well represented by his operettas, but was never honoured with a performance on Dalmatian soil of any of his four operas. Leaving aside *Virginia*, his frst opera which was never performed at all, it is signifcant that no staging was ever made even of *Des Matrosen Heimkehr/Il ritorno del marinaio* (Te Mariner's Return), a work that happens to include many references to Dalmatia, but was only heard at its premiere in Hamburg in 1885, sung in German.60 Moreover, the original score of 1885 published the text and all the stage

*Pet godina (1850–1855) Ivana Zajca na Konzervatoriju u Milanu*, [n.p.] 1998, p. 25, http://search-1ebscohost-1com-132m4xl480029.han.kug.ac.at/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rft&AN=A15236&site=ehost-live [accessed 1. 6. 2020].

<sup>58</sup> On Blagoje Bersa (1873–1934), see the biographical entry by Koralijka Kos, "Bersa, Blagoje", in *Oesterreichisches Musiklexicon online* [accessed 9. 9. 2019], or the entry by Lovro Županović, in *Hrvatski biografski leksikon*, vol.I, Zagreb, 1983, pp. 708–710, or even Lovro Županović's study of his life and work: *Blagoje Bersa: Život i djelo*, Povijesni Muzej Hrvatske, Zagreb 1974.

<sup>59</sup> *Cvijeta* was given in Zagreb only two years later, according to the entry drawn up by Lovro Županović in: *Hrvatski biografski leksikon*, vol.I, Zagreb, 1983, p. 712*.* But on this point, see also Nevenka Bezić Bozanić, *Novinske vijesti*, p. 428. On Vladimir Bersa, see also Hubert Pettan, *Hrvatska opera: Zajčevi suvremenici*, vol.I, Muzički informativni centar Koncertne direkcije, Zagreb 1969, pp. 83–140.

<sup>60</sup> For information on the composer's works and his life, see the two studies by Zdravko Blažeković, "Franz von Suppé und Dalmatien", in *Studien zur Musikwissenschaft: Beihefte der Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Oesterreich*, XLIII (1994), p. 253–272 and Nenad Veselić, "Il compositore spalatino Francesco De Suppè Demelli tra Zara e Venezia"*,* in *La civiltà teatrale e musicale tra le due sponde dell'Adriatico dai primi del '700 ai primi del '900*. Atti del Convegno (Šibenik, 1 June 2002). Part I. no. 4, vol. XXIV, new series 13, p. 81–87. Otto Schneidereit devotes an entire monograph to the composer in *Franz von Suppé: der Wiener aus Dalmatien*, Lied der Zeit, Berlin 1977. For a historical contribution contemporary with the

directions in two languages: Italian and German. Te work is set on the island of Lesina (Hvar) and the characters represent distinctive types found in 19th-century opera. Tere are also various allusions to Dalmatia, such as the typical Dalmatian names of the characters, the traditional dances of the area, or the Dalmatian anthem sung at the end of the opera.61 Various conjectures can be made on the reason why such a work should not be staged in his homeland. In general, we must never forget the possibility that the composer himself, given the opportunity, might have wished to have it performed elsewhere, i.e. in theatres of greater prestige. And we must also consider that, by law, the composer of an opera earned 15% of the gross receipts from each production if the work was staged in a theatre of the frst rank: a percentage that dropped to 12% for second-rank theatres and 10% for all other venues.62 It was in his interests, therefore, to press for stagings to be made primarily in the principal theatres. Secondly, staging new works was also expensive, with costs that theatres lacking public subsidies would especially have difculty coping with. Many impresarios, furthermore, preferred not to take risks and relied on the repertoire operas that would surely attract a larger audience. In this specifc instance we know that the opera was ofered to the management of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar through the agency L'Arte. Even though the printed publicity of the agents Gaillard and Luigi Bolognesi asserted that "Te novelties *Gioconda* by M. Zeller […] and *Il ritorno del marinaio* by Suppè bode well for a favourable reception on your part", in the event the hoped-for reception did not materialise.63 Most likely it was a proposal that arrived along with many others and was quickly dropped as being unrealisable.

Hence for these local composers we cannot apply to the coastal theatres the notion of the 'decentralisation of opera', as understood and formulated by Clair Rowden.64 Decentralisation, i.e. the performance of operas in smaller theatres, was a way of guaranteeing certain composers the possibility of seeing work performed that otherwise stood no chance of being staged in the more important theatres. Here we see an opposite situation, for more often we are dealing with new works that were frst performed in more important theatres abroad and that (except in the case of Stermich) only returned to their homeland at a later date.

years in which the composer lived, see Giuseppe Sabalich, *Francesco Suppé e l'operetta*, Vitaliani, Zadar 1888.

<sup>61</sup> The conductor Adriano Martinolli d'Arcy has in recent years published the score; http://www.editfiume.com/lavoce/cultura/18532-il-ritorno-del-marinaio-omaggio-di-supp-alla-sua-terra-natale [accessed 28.10. 2020]

<sup>62</sup> See also Fabrizio Barbaranelli – Enrico Ciancarini, *Civitavecchia e il teatro: rappresentazioni e teatri dal XVIII secolo ad oggi*, Gangemi, Roma 2015, p. 83.

<sup>63</sup> "Le novità *Gioconda* del M. Zeller […] ed *Il ritorno del marinaio* di Suppè ci fanno sperare una buona accoglienza dal canto vostro"; Printed brochure sent by G. Gaillard and L. Bolognesi to the theatre management of Zadar, [n.p.] [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 8.

<sup>64</sup> Clair Rowden, "Decentralisation and Regeneration at the Théâtre des Arts, Rouen, 1889–1891", *Revue de Musicologie*, XCIV/1 (2008), pp. 139*–*80.

The opera buffa repertoire and the Lilliputian

companies

#### 5.3 The *opera bufa* repertoire and the Lilliputian companies

At times those bringing opera bufa (hence repertoire opera, for the most part) to the region were also companies of children. All the coastal theatres witnessed the passage of one or other of such troupes (referred to as *compagnie lillipuziane*). One that was widely known in the 1870s and 80s was the Compagnia Romana directed by Luigi Becherini, which toured with a group of youngsters (none of them over the age of sixteen). We fnd them at the Teatro Nobile of Zadar in 1877 performing *Don Checco* by De Giosa, Lecocq's *Figlia di Madama Angot* and *Crispino e la comare* by the Ricci brothers. Tis last-mentioned opera, *Crispino*, was then ofered by Becherini also to the Teatro Sociale of Gorizia in the same year,65 and arrived in June in Graz, where it was reviewed in the *Grazer Zeitung*. Mention here was made of a *kleine Orchester* accompanying the troupe. As a rule, such companies employed few instruments and almost always used a piano. Besides, as has already been noted, children's troupes did not require large orchestral forces, also to ensure a proper balance of sound in the theatre. A child's voice was always less powerful than an adult's, even if in this case the soloists were not so young, given that they are referred to in the press as "adult children" (*erwachsene Kinder*).66 For the most part the artists were adolescents. Tey also performed

<sup>65</sup> *Il Goriziano*, anno II, no. 79, 8. 4.1877, p. 3.

<sup>66</sup> "Last Wednesday, the Luigi Becherini Children's Operetta Society inaugurated a guest performance at the Municipal Theatre with the amusing opera *Crispino e la comare* by Luigi and Federigo Ricci, which is no longer unfamiliar here. The soloists are for the most part quite grown-up children. The chorus and the small orchestra are made up in the same way. It hardly needs to be mentioned that we are not dealing here with elements from which one can expect perfect dramatic and musical assurance. They are only surrogates that are intended to attract interest through their idiosyncrasies. From this point of view, the dramatic portrayal of older characters and types by such youthful figures offers an extremely comical picture, especially if everything is done with the appropriate grandeur and a certain delicacy, as the 'children' of the aforementioned company do. All in all, they are excellently trained, and they play and sing together in a way only to be found in Italian companies. The audience, which was not very numerous, received the performances of the young company very gratefully." ("Im Stadttheater eröffnete die Kinderoperettengesellschaft der Herrn Luigi Becherini vorigen Mittwoch ein Gesammtgastspiel mit der hier nicht mehr unbekannten, recht amüsanten Oper *Crispino e la comare* von Luigi und Federigo Ricci. Die Solisten sind grösstenteils ziemlich erwachsene Kinder. In gleicher Weise ist der Chor und das kleine Orchester zusammengestellt. Das man es hier nicht mit Elementen zu thun hat, von denen mann eine vollkommene dramatisch-musikalische Leitung erwarten kann, braucht kaum erwähnt zu werden. Es sind nur Surrogate, die durch ihre Eigenthümlichkeit Interesse erweden sollen. Von dieser Seite genommen, bietet insbesonders die dramatische Darstellung älterer Charaktere und Chargen von so jugendlichen Gestalten einen äusserst possierlichen Anbild, insbesondere wenn Alles mit der gehörigen Grandezza und einem gewissen Genste gemacht wird, wie es die «Kinder» der genannten Gesellschaft zu machen [versleben?]. Sie sind insgesammt vortrefflich geschult, spielen und singen zusammen, wie dies eben nur bei italienischen Gesellschaften gefunden wird. Das nicht sehr zahlreiche Publikum nahm die Leistungen der jungen Gesellschaft sehr dankbar auf."); "Theater, Kunst und Literatur", *Grazer Zeitung*, no. 123, 2. 6.1877, p. 3. Another troupe that toured with similar

in Rijeka, where it was commented that "the sixteen-year-old bufo Giovanni Spina plays the old president – and nonetheless this young group performs serious and comic opera, ballets and heaven knows what else; the connoisseurs of Zadar claim that the young artists do a better job than their adult colleagues".67 From these few lines we learn that the company also tackled the serious repertoire and that the genres it ofered were fairly eclectic (though it was the bufo repertoire that was principally featured in the coastal area). Te twelve-year-old tenor Valdeburgo Perozzi and the sopranos Amalia and Elvira Ferrara, of eleven and thirteen years respectively, were considered among the fner artists of the company, which incidentally performed without a prompter. Tis last fact was stressed in the press, as a way of emphasising the young artists' skill and independence.68 Becherini had expressed the intention to embark on a tour of Europe with the children, but we have no further details on the subject.69 What is certain is that the season was greatly appreciated, since they were invited back to Zadar fve years later, after which they immediately moved on to Šibenik with the addition of other works from their repertoire. Among them was Francesco Ruggi's *I due ciabattini*, an opera that enjoyed a certain, though short-lived, success at the time and had entered the repertoire of certain troupes specialising in opera bufa. One such company was that of Giovanni Pascucci, which staged *L'elisir d'amore* at Zadar in 1870. Tis time it was a singing and dancing company of children from Trieste, in which the prima donna was sixteen and the tenor twelve.70 Te children that Pascucci managed, however, changed their provenance depending on the area in which they happened to be working, for we fnd him directing both a company of children from Modena and a "singing company of youngsters from Brescia" (*Compagnia di canto dei Giovanetti Bresciani*).71

Another company encountered a few decades later is the Compagnia Lillipuziana of Ernesto Guerra, probably the best-known and largest of the troupes working in this sector. It arrived ofcially in Dalmatia in 1905, and visited both Zadar and Pula in the following

productions at the time was that of the Modenese children aged between 9 and 14, directed by Alfonso Ferrari, which also performed at Gorizia in 1870; see Lucia Pillon, *Ottocento goriziano (1815–1915)*. *Una città che si trasforma*, Editrice goriziana, Gorizia 1991, p. 219.

<sup>67</sup> "il sedicenne buffo Giovanni Spina è il presidente anziano – e tuttavia questa giovane schiera eseguisce opere serie e comiche, balletti ed il cielo sa che cosa altro ancora; i zaratini intenditori sostengono che i giovani artisti se la cavino meglio che non i loro colleghi adulti."; "Sulla compagnia d'operette"*, La Bilancia*, 11.5.1877.

<sup>68</sup> The announcement of a performance at the Stadt-Theater of Graz, as well as clearly specifying the ages of the young leads, particularly pointed out that "the whole show will be performed by children without a prompter". ("Die ganze Vorstellung wird von den Kindern ohne Souffleur gespielt."); "Stadt-Theater", *Grazer Zeitung*, 2. 6.1877.

<sup>69</sup> "Sulla compagnia d'operette"*, La Bilancia*, 11.5.1877.

<sup>70</sup> "Teatri", *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, XXV, no. 32, 7. 8.1870, p. 261.

<sup>71</sup> Carlo Avetta – Carlo Falchi, *Teatri: luoghi di spettacolo e accademie a Montepulciano e in Valdichiana*, Editori del Grifo, Montepulciano 1984, p. 251.

year. It was proposed to Zadar by Guerra's agent, Simonetti, initially mentioning *Crispino e la comare* and *Fra diavolo*, then including other operas already in the repertoire, like the omnipresent *Il barbiere di Siviglia*, to be performed with a payment to the theatre of 40% of the gross takings. Two years later Ernesto Guerra wrote directly to Zadar, this time without Simonetti's agency, ofering six performances at the Teatro Verdi from 3 to 8 November. In his request (which arrived extremely close to the date, just three weeks before the proposed frst performance) he ofered six operas,72 performing one a day, in the manner adopted by the opera companies from eastern Europe. He had performed the same repertoire shortly before at the Burg Teater in Vienna, where the company was invited to return in 1909.73 As regards Pula, they were back again in 1907; indeed, here we fnd two diferent children's companies appearing in the city within fve months of one another. Teir performances flled the theatre and probably generated more curiosity than a normal opera production with adult singers.74 Te repeated presence of Guerra's company in the region in the early years of the 20th century can certainly be explained by the public's interest in spectacles of this type, but is surely also due to the organisational skill of both its director and the agents negotiating on its behalf.

Guerra's group, which was founded in Reggio Emilia towards the end of the 19th century, consisted of around forty boys and girls between the ages of ten and fourteen who were given lessons in music, diction, singing, acting, dance and instrument.75 Ernesto Guerra also collected these children from situations of privation and hardship; some were orphans, an example being Ersilia Sampieri, who joined the company at the age of ten and went on to become a celebrated singer-entertainer.76 All the children received a basic literary education

<sup>72</sup> The operas proposed were *Lucia di Lammermoor*, *Carmen*, *Cavalleria rusticana, Il barbiere di Siviglia*, *Don Giovanni*, *La sonnambula*, or *L'elisir d'amore.* See Letter from Ernesto Guerra to the theatre management of Zadar, Rijeka, 12.10.1908, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>73</sup> See Letter from Ernesto Guerra to the theatre management of Zadar, Rijeka, 12.10.1908, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>74</sup> Even the visit of Guerra's Compagnia Lillipuziana to Split brought a full house, as recalled by Nevenka Bezić Bozanić: "Publika, zeljna senzacija, napunila je kazaliste, bez obzira na kvalitetu, a voda trupe imao je od toga zacijelo koristi" (The audience, and the desired sensation [they caused], filled the theaters, regardless of the quality, and the troupe certainly benefited from that"); Bezić Bozanić, *Novinske vijesti*, p. 409.

<sup>75</sup> Enrico Paganuzzi – Pierpaolo Brugnoli, *La musica a Verona,* Banca mutua popolare di Verona, Verona 1976, p. 358 and Maurizio Festanti – Giuseppe Adani – Claudio Cigarini, *La biblioteca Panizzi di Reggio Emilia*, Silvana, Cinisello Balsamo 1997, p. 212. The company's brochure wrote of "children under the age of 12"; Brochure of the Compagnia Lillipuziana, [n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 11.

<sup>76</sup> This was the stage name of Ersilia Ambrosi; Romualdo Marrone, *Guida insolita ai misteri, ai segreti, alle leggende e alle curiosità di Napoli*, Newton Compton, Roma 2015 [ebook], [accessed through Google Books]. Regarding certain performances by this company at the Teatro Biondo of Palermo, the *Rivista di Roma* was to write: "From 3 to 10 November there took place at the Teatro Biondo of Palermo some delightful performances by the celebrated Compagnia Lillipuziana directed by the worthy Maestro

that reached the *quinta elementare*, or fnal level of primary education. Te girls learned embroidery and sewing, while the boys were also given lessons in musical instruments by the professors who travelled with the company, in such a way that when they became adults and the time came for them to move on, they would fnd themselves "prepared for the struggles of life, with a small reserve of money and initiated to an honest and remunerative profession".77 Among those who heaped them with praise at the time was the celebrated composer Perosi, who after hearing the Compagnia Lillipuziana wrote to Guerra from Florence as follows: "Dear Maestro! I assure you that I was left enthusiastic by the manner in which your dear children sing. I know not whether to admire your patience or your skill for having brought to such perfection a choir of such true artists".78 It also appears that the company toured with a fairly numerous and noisy claque, which was therefore able to infuence the outcome of their performances.79 Preserved in the theatre collections of the state archives of Šibenik and Zadar are photos of the children wearing stage costumes for the diferent operas. Such intensive advertising naturally bore a cost, but it nonetheless gave the theatre management a clear idea of what was being ofered with great immediacy. Te company, which had a very wide-ranging repertoire (also including works by Guerra himself),80 could put on an average of seven operas in any single season.81 How was it possible to achieve such results in a period of fnancial hardship? Given that it was a company made up of children, the artists' fees were in no way comparable to those of adult singers, which made it possible to save on the single item of expenditure that usually had the greatest impact on the budget: the artists' fees themselves. We can assume, however, that the revenue was used for the upkeep of the young performers and to ofer them the education they needed.

Ernesto Guerra, who with his rare skill and patience has succeeded in turning a fair number of children saved from the streets into genuine, small and wonderful artists." ("Dal 3 al 10 novembre hanno avuto luogo al Teatro Biondo di Palermo delle rappresentazioni deliziosissime della celebre Compagnia lillipuziana diretta dal valoroso maestro Ernesto Guerra, che con la sua rara abilità e pazienza ha saputo fare di un buon numero di bambini raccolti sul lastrico, dei veri e piccoli meravigliosi artisti."); *Rivista di Roma*, 1904, p. 698.

<sup>77</sup> "preparati alla lotta della vita, con un gruzzoletto di quattrini, ed iniziati ad una onesta e rimuneratrice professione"; "Compagnia lirica lillipuziana in Pola", *Omnibus*, 7.5.1906.

<sup>78</sup> "Caro Maestro! Lo assicuro che rimasi proprio entusiasta della maniera colla quale cantano i suoi cari bambini. Io non so se più ammirare la sua pazienza e il suo talento per avere condotti a tale perfezione un coro di tali veri artisti"; "La compagnia lillipuziana al Politeama", *Il Giornaletto*, 6.5.1906.

<sup>79</sup> *Il Teatro illustrato,* 1908.

<sup>80</sup> An example being *La fiera di San Giusto*, an operetta buffa composed by the director himself. See the entry "Guerra, Ernesto", in Andrea Sessa, *Il melodramma italiano 1901–1925. Dizionario bio-bibliografico dei compositori*, Olschki, Firenze 2014, pp. 447–448. On the company, see also the article by Francesco Sassi, *La Compagnia Lillipuziana Reggiana del maestro Enrico* [*sic*] *Guerra*, Strenna del Pio Istituto Artigianelli, [n.p.] 1989, pp. 133*–*37.

<sup>81</sup> See, for example, the seven operas proposed for the spring season of 1906.

#### 5.4 The integrity of the score?

When we think of the opera repertoire ofered at the theatres of the coastal area, we must not necessarily imagine complete (and authentic) productions, as would be expected today. Te subject of cuts to the score was strongly felt, for diferent reasons. Often entire acts of an opera were omitted as a way of shortening the performance time. Among all the operas programmed in the spring season of 1865 in Rijeka, apparently only Rossini's *Otello* was given complete; of the other operas what was heard were "more or less numerous scraps".82 Tis practice of presenting "centos" or patchworks was by no means a novelty in that period, but was more frequent in the smaller (and less closely watched) theatres. Presenting a cento within an opera season was also considered a way of reviving the attention of the public between the more standard opera nights. At Šibenik in 1871 *I falsi monetari, Don Checco, Pipelet* and *Mamma Agata*83 were all performed in a single evening, followed by the ballet *Marinella*. 84 Te individual operas were then performed complete on other nights in the same theatre (with only *Don Checco* or *I falsi monetary* occupying an entire evening). So one format did not necessarily exclude the other. But here we are referring not so much to the (otherwise widely accepted) practice of the *quodlibet*, which consisted in giving a *potpourri* of opera arias within a single evening, so much as to the performance of operas in reduced versions.

Even at the Teatro Bajamonti in Split, opera performances were at times incomplete, depending on the general organisational conditions of the theatre.85 We know for certain, for example, that in 1875 *Faust* was performed without the frst act.86 Another example of the lack of fdelity in performance practice (a concept that was hardly acknowledged at the time) occurred when *Carmen* was staged at the city's renovated theatre on 23 May 1894: an experience referred to in the press as a case of "Carmenicide" (*carmenicidio*). Te indignant reviewer of *Il Dalmata* commenting on the performance claimed that in the introductory chorus of the frst act only about twenty bars were sung, "and these by two (I repeat two) singers, a tenor and a bass; while the rest of the chorus chimed in from time to time, as if it were none of their business".87 Te chorus of street-boys and cigarette-girls was eliminated, as was the whole of the frst-act fnale, which at the time was held to be one of the fnest moments of the opera. In the second act, half of the quintet and the whole of the fnale The integrity of the score?

<sup>82</sup> "centoni più o meno numerosi"; "Teatro Civico", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 20.5.1865, p. 148.

<sup>83</sup> This title referred to *Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali*, a dramma giocoso by Donizetti, otherwise known as *Viva la mamma*.

<sup>84</sup> *Borderò* for 19. 6.1871, Šibenik, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>85</sup> Mirjana Škunca, *Glazbeni život Splita*, p. 45.

<sup>86</sup> *Teatro Bajamonti / Avviso straordinario*, Split, 1875, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>87</sup> "e anche queste da due, dico, due coristi, un tenore e un basso; a quando a quando, il resto del coro, come non fosse fatto suo, interloquiva"; "Carmen???", *Il Dalmata*, 26.5.1894.

was removed, while in the third act a terzetto and chorus were omitted "not with a surgical scalpel but with axe blows" (*non a tagli di bisturi ma a colpi di accetta*). A concertato was then removed which "was surely not included in the score rented by the company, for no one had the pleasure, or should I say honour, to hear it" (*non fgura certamente nello spartito afttato dalla compagnia, perché nessuno ebbe il piacere, dirò anzi l'onore di udirlo*). As for the opera's fnale, more than half was eliminated: "I believe these cuts were made with the laudable intention of sending us to bed as soon as possible" (*io credo che questi tagli siano stati fatti con la lodevole intenzione di mandarci prima che fosse possibile a letto*).88 In this particular instance we may perhaps conclude that one of the reasons for the cuts – apart from the practical purpose of shortening the work – was to avoid the choral parts, given that the chorus put together for this production (the season had been organised by Ladislav Chmelenský) was patently inadequate. Te elimination of certain parts (of a score) could therefore be decided – even at the last minute – by contingent situations relating to the skills of the singers on stage or the strengths and weaknesses of the orchestra.

A similar situation is recorded in the following years at Pula, where we hear of a *Cavalleria rusticana* performed in a version that was "pieced together with very few rehearsals" (*rafazzonata insieme con pochissime prove*) and with makeshift ensemble preparation: "Te score wasn't there and whatever didn't suit the conductor was cut" (*Lo spartito mancava, ciò che non accomodava al maestro concertatore era stato tagliato*).89 On another occasion it was also decided to couple *Cavalleria rusticana* to just the third act of *La bohème* and perform them on the same night. Nor was this even the frst time such things happened, for the year before *Cavalleria rusticana* had been paired up with the frst act of *Lucia di Lammermoor.*  Similar cuts had been made shortly before on *Rigoletto*, to widespread criticism. Te matter was also censured in *Il Popolo Istriano* which wrote that the opera "was given without a score and orchestrated for the occasion" (*fu data senza spartito ed istrumentata per l'occasione*).90 Te moronic (*beoti*) claquers applauded the "*chinagliata*", a term invented to describe the misdeeds of the conductor Aroldo Chinaglia, who was accused of being ignorant of "the theory of tempos, accents and all the terms that indicate strength, movement and sentiment" (*la teoria dei tempi, degli accenti, dei termini insomma indicanti la forza, il movimento, l'afetto*) and of having dared to "illicitly orchestrate" (*istrumentare abusivamente*) an opera that had "triumphantly" toured the world. Clearly the performance had been adapted to the players available to him. In this particular *chinagliata* the organ was eliminated, and this most characteristic instance of "Chinaglian instrumentation" (as it was ironically called) was entrusted to the piano and double bass. "At the tragic moments the brass are used for the most heart-rending efects, with timpani and bass drum reserved for the coups de grace.

<sup>88</sup> "Carmen???", *Il Dalmata*, 26.5.1894.

<sup>89</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 17.5.1901.

<sup>90</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Popolo Istriano*, 18.5.1901.

Te woodwinds are neglected and not even the drums are respected. Bad, very bad!".91 As a result, the impresario Corbetta, who had proposed *Rigoletto* and *Cavalleria rusticana* in cut versions, was also pronounced by the press as guilty of tricking the public. Indeed this was also part of the problem: the cuts, even when substantial, were not announced to the audience, so the theatre-goers, relying on what they read in the papers or saw on the posters, did not necessarily expect to hear mutilated performances. It was not uncommon, therefore, to read of the public expressing disappointment and feeling cheated.

Lack of respect for the integrity of the score was therefore a real and widespread problem.92 We know, for example, that the *maestro concertatore* at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste was obliged to inform the management of all changes to the scores, though this was not the case at all theatres.93 By integrity one could also mean respect for the instrumentation, as in the case of Pula. Moreover, changes in tempo or transpositions of key were also aspects that could distance a performance from the composer's original version. While *Cavalleria rusticana* at Pula was subjected to heavy-handed alterations to the instrumentation (as we have just seen), at Split the reviewer in *Il Mattino* complained: "All the tempi changed, from frst to last".94 "Te beautiful chorus of the *Prayer*", he went on, "an Andante religioso, performed at the speed of a polka. Te *siciliana* for the tenor, accompanied by a half-tuned piano replacing the harps, lowered by a tone and a half. In the famous Intermezzo, a piece that is encored in theatres all over the world, and which here went completely unnoticed, the harmonium (standing in for the church organ) came in half a bar too soon and had the conscientious courage to continue in like manner throughout the piece".95

<sup>91</sup> "Nei punti tragici gli ottoni s'incaricano dell'effetto *lacerante*, i timpani e la gran cassa è riservata ai colpi di grazia. Trascurati i legni e non rispettati neanche i…tamburi. Male, malissimo!"; "Politeama Ciscutti". *Il Popolo Istriano*, 18.5.1901.

<sup>92</sup> On the question of cuts to opera scores, see also the chapter "Serafin's scissors" in Philip Gossett, *Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian opera*, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006, pp. 241*–*289.

<sup>93</sup> It was important for singers to comply with the instructions of the *maestro concertatore* or impresario if they wished to avoid penalties. In the past the artists who broke this rule could even be imprisoned. Maria Malibran, for example, had to spend 24 hours in prison in Naples for omitting the rondò from *La sonnambula* without the permission of the superintendent; *The Message Bird I*, no. 24, 15. 7.1850, p. 391.

<sup>94</sup> "Tutti i tempi cambiati, dal primo all'ultimo"; "Una parodia", *Il Mattino*, 1.5.1894.

<sup>95</sup> "Il bellissimo coro della *Preghiera*, un andante religioso, eseguito a tempo di polca. La *siciliana* del tenore, accompagnata da un pianoforte mezzo stonato in sostituzione delle arpe, ribassata d'un tono e mezzo. Nel famoso intermezzo, ribissato in tutti i teatri del mondo, e che qui passò del tutto inosservato, l'armonium interno (facente funzioni dell'organo) attaccò mezza battuta prima, ed ebbe il coraggio civile di continuare durante tutto il pezzo così". The journalist, not satisfied with having described what he would later call a real "horror", went on to summarise the accomplishments of singers and players: "As for the tenor (a wide-ranging baritone), he did just as pleased; when he couldn't get up to the high notes, he sang a third lower, or left the woman free to shout for both of them […]. In the orchestra the first horn was sharp, balanced by the cello who was flat. And everything was played without any shading

Another problem was that of the pieces extrapolated from operas in order to be performed on their own. Tis was not always allowed by the publisher: at Rijeka in 1886, for example, Tito Ricordi forbade the separate performance of the "Dance of the Hours" (*Danza delle Ore*) from *La Gioconda.*

What can one then say about the operas that also incorporate a ballet? Here a distinction must be made between the ballets found between one act and the next96 – which were often omitted, increasingly as the end of the 19th century approached – and those within the acts of an opera. Tough certainly not exclusive to the coastal theatres, the practice of 'lightening' the operas in this way was nonetheless fairly widespread in the area. At the end of the century, engaging around 10 to 12 ballerinas to perform the ballet would mean spending 1,000–1,200 forins more than a normal opera production without ballet, and naturally not all endowments were sufciently generous to sustain this extra burden.97 In some theatres, however, the ballet-less versions were not appreciated, especially by those who had seen the same operas with the original choreographies. An example is documented at the Teatro Nuovo of Split at the time of the impresario Milani, when a petition was circulated among the shareholders to collect the necessary funds to restore the ballet in *Faust*. Te document

whatsoever, no *piani*; always *fortissimo*." ("Il tenore (un baritono sfogato) poi, della sua parte ha fatto quello che diavolo gli è piaciuto di più; nelle acute, non potendo arrivarci, faceva la terza sotto, oppure lasciava libero alla donna di gridare per due […]. Nell'orchestra il primo corno crescente, compensava il violoncello, calante. Il tutto poi eseguito senza coloritura alcuna, senza i piani; fortissimo sempre."); "Una parodia", *Il Mattino*, 1.5.1894.

<sup>96</sup> A distinction was made between a "ballo grande", i.e. a fully-developed form in three or four acts, and a ballet in a reduced form to be performed either between two acts or at the end of an opera; See Fabrizio Della Seta, *Italia e Francia nell'Ottocento*, EDT, Torino 1993, p. 34.

<sup>97</sup> An example is given in the letter sent by the impresario Fabio Montalcino to the theatre management of Zadar. He wrote: "Concerning the ballet for the opera Africana, I must observe that it has been omitted at all the principal theatres for many years now, and it does no harm to the dramatic effect of the work. It is a matter of a simple passage during the Indian March, and removing it, as everyone does, does not affect the impact of the great work at all. This ballet can be staged when the impresa can count on a significant endowment, and spending an extra 1,000 to 1,200 florins would not hurt (given that this is the expense one would incur to bring 10 to 12 ballerinas, not extras), but when the endowment is limited and the project is already very costly without the ballet, the impresa could not take on a further expense that would condemn it to a certain loss." ("Riguardo al ballo per l'opera Africana, devo osservare che da più anni in tutti i primari teatri viene omesso, ciò che non porta nessun danno all'effetto scenico del lavoro. Si tratta di un semplice passo durante la marcia indiana e togliendolo, come tutti lo tolgono, non pregiudica affatto l'esito del grande lavoro. Questo ballo viene fatto quando l'impresa può calcolare sopra una dotazione importante in seguito alla quale lo spendere 1.000 a 1.200 fiorini in più non le guasta (essendo appunto questa la spesa che si incontrerebbe per portare 10 a 12 ballerine e non figuranti), ma quando la dote è limitata e il progetto già è assai dispendioso senza il ballo, l'impresa non potrebbe assumersi un onere maggiore che la ridurrebbe ad una perdita sicura."); Letter from Fabio Montalcino to the theatre management of Zadar, Reggio Emilia, 20.5.1893, HR-DAZD, folder 7.

for the collection of signatures reads as follows: "Given that the impresario of the opera Signor Milani is not obliged to have Faust performed with the ballet, and given that it is the wish of many that this opera should be completed with the same, Your Lordships are hereby appealed to with the objective of contributing to this aim with a sum of money"*.* 98 In other words, in order to make sure they saw a complete version of the opera, they were even prepared to resort to a form of self-taxation.

<sup>98</sup> "Non essendo l'impresario dell'opera sig. Milani obbligato a far rappresentare il Faust con balletto, ed essendo desiderio di molti che questa opera sia completata col medesimo, s'interessa la compiacenza di V. S. di voler concorrere a questo scopo con un importo di denaro."; Letter from the theatre management of Split to the shareholders of the Teatro Nuovo of Split, Split, 21.5.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

### **6 Moving artists and stage materials**

Moving artists and stage materials

Travel and accommodation for the artists

#### 6.1 Travel and accommodation for the artists

After the impresario had signed the contract and drawn up the necessary agreements with the artistic personnel, the opera companies engaged for the opera season would make their way to the *piazza*. But how did they arrive at their destination? Tere is not sufcient evidence to establish whether the singers and musicians heading for the coastal region actually travelled together or separately; in other words, for lack of relevant documentation we do not know if we are dealing with new cases of a "*treno Otello*", as described by Francesca Vella.1 Nor can we generalise too much, as we must also distinguish between the opera seasons in which the singers and musicians were engaged entirely from outside the region and those in which the personnel was mixed, hence also including local artists.

What we can say is that if a company departed from Milan (the city where it was often recruited) by train at 10 a.m. on a Friday at the start of the 20th century, it could arrive in Trieste on the evening of the same day; after an overnight stay in Trieste, it could then take the steamship the next day after lunch and be in Šibenik, for example, on the Sunday afternoon. So one needed to calculate two full travelling days for a journey of over 700 kilometres.2 For this route there was also a faster option, though perhaps with a less convenient

<sup>1</sup> On the movement of opera companies in the second half of the 19th century, see Francesca Vella, "(De) railing Mobility: Opera, Stasis, and Locomotion on Late-Nineteenth-Century Italian Tracks", *Opera Quarterly*, XXXIV/1 (2018), pp. 1*–*26.

<sup>2</sup> The journey is described by the director of the theatre of Šibenik himself, who was planning for the company he had engaged for the 1909 season: "Part of the opera company that will perform in this theatre will leave Milan on Friday 2 April with the train of 10 o'clock in the morning and will arrive in Trieste in the evening. There will be around fifteen people and they will have to spend the Friday night in Trieste in order to set off the next day with the steamship of the Dalmatia or Lloyd company for Šibenik. Indeed I think they will depart with the 'Dalmatia' steamer, which leaves Trieste on Saturday after lunch and arrives here on Sunday, again after lunch. For the overnight stay in Trieste I have informed the company of your hotel and, remembering that when you were in Trieste you told me that you did special prices for artists, I hereby beg you to secure the largest discount possible for my charges (genuine bargain prices), also considering that they are young artists who have very onerous travel expenses to sustain and that our theatre cannot afford to grant lavish wages". ("Il giorno 2 aprile venerdì partirà da Milano col treno delle 10 di mattina e arriverà alla sera a Trieste una parte della compagnia lirica che agirà in questo teatro. Saranno circa una quindicina di persone e dovranno passare la notte del venerdì a Trieste per poi ripartire il giorno dopo col piroscafo della Dalmatia oppure del Lloyd per Sebenico. Credo anzi che partiranno col vapore della «Dalmatia» che parte da Trieste sabato dopopranzo e arriva qui domenica pure dopopranzo. Per il passaggio a Trieste ho indicato alla

timetable. Te company could again leave on a Friday, this time at about 1 p.m., and use the Mestre-Cervignano-Trieste train route. With a change of trains at Mestre it would arrive in Trieste after 10 in the evening. Te artists would stay the night in a hotel like the Hotel Vanoli (ex Garnì) in Piazza Grande (today Piazza Unità d'Italia).3 On Saturday they could take the Lloyd Austriaco fast steamship from the San Carlo Quay at 8 a.m. and arrive at Zadar at 7 p.m. From Zadar another steamship, this time of the Dalmatia company, would depart at 7.30 p.m. and arrive in Šibenik around midnight.4 Tis journey involved a change at Zadar and also a late arrival, which might have made looking for a place to stay more complicated. A further alternative was to leave from the Giuseppino Quay in Trieste on Saturday at 5 p.m. and arrive directly at Šibenik without changing boats at Zadar at 3.30 p.m. on the Sunday.5

Te route from Trieste also covered Pula, which was much closer. Already in 1884 a steamship of the Società Istriana left for Pula every morning at 7 a.m. Tere was also the option of going to Pula by train,6 but it must be said that, unless one was going to Trieste or Rijeka, the railway service for Istria and the rest of the coastal region was patchy: the sea route remained the preferred means of communication. Various passenger ship companies connected Trieste to Dalmatia by the end of the century: for example, Lloyd Society, the Hungaro-Croatian Society, Navigazione Ragusea, and other minor ones. A daily steamship service from Trieste to Dalmatia was guaranteed in the early years of the new century.

Artists travelling from Milan to Split could also take the Venice-Trieste sea route with Lloyd Austriaco. At the end of the century this intermediate section of the journey took around six and a half hours and functioned three nights a week. One could also opt for the Venice-Rijeka route with a sailing time of eleven hours. In 1883 there was a direct route from Venice to Zadar with the Florio Steamship Company.7 In the early years of the new century, again from Venice, there was even a direct route to Šibenik

compagnia il Suo albergo e ricordandomi ch'Ella quando fu a Trieste mi diceva che agli artisti faceva prezzi speciali, vengo con questa a pregarla di fare il maggior sconto possibile ai miei raccomandati (veri prezzi d'occasione) trattandosi anche di giovani artisti che hanno fortissime spese di viaggio da sostenere e il nostro teatro non può concedere laute paghe."); Letter from [Giovanni Mazzoleni] to Vanoli, Trieste, 30.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>3</sup> This elegant hotel still stands today as the Grand Hotel Duchi d'Aosta; see www.duchi.eu [accessed 20. 6. 2022].

<sup>4</sup> In 1914 the journey from Zadar to Šibenik, which took three hours, was not particularly expensive; see Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Alessandro Romanelli, Šibenik, 29.5.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

<sup>5</sup> See Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, Šibenik, 17.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>6</sup> See Letter from Giuseppe Ullmann to the theatre management of Zadar, Trieste, 1. 9.1884, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>7</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Sante Utili, Zadar, 6. 2.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

on the Veneto steamship: it left Venice at 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and arrived at Šibenik at 2 p.m. the next day. 8

On the other hand, for those leaving from the port of Ancona in the early years of the century, there was just a weekly ferry to Zadar. On this route, the only one run by the Italian merchant navy, travelled the Puglia steamship company ("Città di Bari" was one of its boats).9 Tere was also a direct route from Ancona to Split, whereas for Šibenik one would have to use the Ancona-Zadar service, with relative transfer, greater expense and difculties (the journey by sea from Zadar to Šibenik, again by steamer, took three and a half hours).10

If orchestral musicians were needed in Split or Dubrovnik, they were sometimes engaged directly from Bari and would necessarily arrive by sea. On this stretch of the Adriatic in the early 20th century, however, the Puglia steamships were only fortnightly.11 Even the newsletter of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Afairs campaigned in those years not only for more frequent journeys in the future, but also for greater comfort for the passengers, in order to compete with the steamships of the Hungaro-Croatian and Lloyd companies, which were newer, more elegant and greatly preferred by travellers.12 In the years 1910 and 1911, moreover, there was almost certainly a decline in the demand for artistic personnel to arrive from Bari, owing to the cholera epidemic that had broken out. Epidemics unquestionably acted as a deterrent to the transportation of singers and musicians.

Tere were also special concessions for artists travelling by sea. Te navigation companies gave discounts from which both entire companies and individual artists could beneft. Te Società Dalmatia, for example, gave artists a 33% discount on ticket prices. It would seem that the concessions were greater than those ofered by the railways.13 Tis would explain why impresarios, taking advantage of the situation, would sometimes send their baggage in the name of a particular singer: to get a discount. It would appear that impresarios were not eligible for travel concessions.14

<sup>8</sup> See Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Giuseppe Castagnoli, Šibenik, 3.12.1910, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. As is confirmed by Mazzoleni, writing to the impresario Ponzio: "You could leave Milan on the morning of Holy Tuesday, continue in the evening with the "Veneto" steamer and be here on Holy Wednesday at the latest." ("Da Milano potrebbe partire il martedì santo di mattina e proseguire alla sera col vapore Veneto ed essere qui al più tardi mercoledì santo."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Giuseppe Ponzio, Šibenik 4. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>9</sup> Marcotti, *L'Adriatico Orientale*, p. 3.

<sup>10</sup> See Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Eugenio De Monari, Šibenik, 6.3.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>11</sup> See *Bollettino del Ministero degli Affari Esteri – giugno 1902*, Roma, Ministero Affari Esteri, 1902, p. 6.

<sup>12</sup> See *Bollettino del Ministero degli Affari Esteri – giugno 1902*, Roma, Ministero Affari Esteri, 1902, p. 18.

<sup>13</sup> Art. 238, "Società di navigazione"; Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 168.

<sup>14</sup> This is well illustrated, for example, by the impresario Domenico Valenti, writing to the theatre management of Zadar: "With the steamer of the 19th", he announced, "all the material will arrive, i.e. costumes properties, scenery, etc. There are 14 items, and they are in the name of Armando Creti for the management of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar. I had to do the shipping in Creti's name in order to have

If the weather was bad, the artists might arrive late at the *piazza*. In Trieste and along the entire eastern Adriatic coastline the bora wind could blow for several days at a time, particularly from November through March. When this happened, the steamers simply did not leave port. "Unable continue journey because terrible sea will be delayed", the baritone Silvetti telegraphed the theatre management of Šibenik;15 and the agent Gallina relayed the following message: "Chorus leaves tomorrow because horrible sea Tursday spotlights accessories leave".16 All of this could delay the beginning of rehearsals or even the frst performance itself: a variable that a good impresario or theatre manager would have to take into account when planning arrivals.

Te artists' personal baggage from Milan could be entrusted to the company of the Gondrand brothers, a transportation and shipping company founded in 1866 (and still in activity today) that worked both nationally and internationally.17 It opened branches in 19 Italian cities. For the 1909 season at Šibenik, for example, the manager of the theatre planned to resort to the services of Gondrand and send the baggage via Trieste or Ancona, but he had little confdence in the shipping companies, since he had already had bad experiences. He always preferred there to be a trusted person accompanying the materials, so he asked the agent Rocca if he happened to know of someone who could travel with the chests. Naturally this did not necessarily come without a cost.18

a discount on the train fare from Milan to Ancona, because our dear railways do not give reductions to impresarios. There is no charge, only the transportation to pay." ("Col vapore del 19 arriverà tutto il materiale e cioè vestiari, attrezzi, scene ecc., sono 14 colli, e sono a nome di Armando Creti presso la direzione del Teatro Nuovo di Zara; o [*sic*] dovuto fare la spedizione a nome del Creti, per avere il ribasso ferroviario da Milano ad Ancona, perché all'impresari le nostre care ferrovie non concedono riduzioni, non viè [*sic*] nessuno assegno, vi sarà da pagare il solo trasporto"); Letter from Domenico Valenti to Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak, Milano, 15.5.1896, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>15</sup> "Impossibilitato proseguire viaggio causa mare pessimo ritarderò"; Telegram from the baritone Silvetti to the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9. Silvetti was expected in Šibenik for performances of *La traviata* and *Il trovatore* in spring 1909.

<sup>16</sup> "Coristi partono domani causa tempo oribile [*sic*] giovedì partono riflettori accessori"; Telegram from the agent Gallina to the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>17</sup> See www.gondrand-logistic.com [accessed 26.11. 2020]

<sup>18</sup> "It is around a hundred lire that needs to be spent", Mazzoleni wrote, "because I do not trust the shippers. Apart from the case of the *scena parapettata* I have also had other mishaps. For this reason more than anything else we wanted to send Maestro Patucchi, who would willingly hear the pianist for the reason that the one sent last year was not very satisfactory. Anyway please inquire at Gondrand and write to me saying if you have the person and when you could send the crates. If we were to send them with Gondrand without their being accompanied, we would have to do the shipping immediately, for there is no time to lose." ("È un centinaio di lire che si devono spendere perché non mi fido degli speditori, oltre all'esempio della parapettata ne ho avuti anche altri. Per questo motivo più che altro volevamo mandare il maestro Patucchi, il quale avrebbe volentieri inteso il pianista per il motivo che quello inviato l'anno scorso soddisfece poco. In ogni modo si informi prego da Gondrand e mi scriva se avrebbe Lei la persona e quando potrebbe mandare le casse. Mandandole col mezzo di Gondrand

Some impresarios might ask the theatre management to send a trusted person to welcome the company on its arrival, even if it should be at 4 a.m. An attendant was also usually engaged to help carry the hand luggage of the boat.

Another issue that might arise after the companies had departed for their various destinations was lack of accommodation, especially for those staying in town for just a few days. Among all the coastal locations, Šibenik was perhaps the one that presented the greatest problems in this regard. In 1896 a hotel room there cost from two to three forins per night, a price that was not only considered high, but was also not lowered even if the company stayed for several weeks.19 Te problem persisted for over twenty years, even for single bookings, let alone entire opera or theatre troupes.20 Te theatre had made a few rooms available to the artists at the Hotel de la Ville, though this solution was threatened by the decision of the military authorities to free those spaces for other purposes. Te fear of the theatre management was that the rooms might be immediately taken over by the city's shopkeepers (of whom there were many, and with abundant fnancial resources), thereby making it impossible for the artists to fnd somewhere to stay. Te theatre management therefore petitioned the authorities to ensure that the owners of the Hotel de la Ville and perhaps also the Hotel Šibenik made at least two or three rooms each available to the artists with a price cap established by the authorities: it was not asking for special discounts, but for merely the possibility of lodgings at a fair price.21

At the end of the century these were the hotels in the coastal cities that could be used by the companies:


senza che fossero accompagnate bisognerebbe fare la spedizione subito, poiché non vi è tempo da perdere."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, 1.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>19</sup> See Letter from [illegible sender] to the theatre management of Šibenik, Zadar, 15.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>20</sup> "If it is very difficult to find a room even for a single individual," the theatre management wrote to the Garrison Command in Šibenik, "it is all the more difficult for the opera and theatre companies that are engaged at our theatre and are made up of a number of people." ("Se per ogni singola persona riesce difficilissimo di trovare una stanza, la cosa è tanto più difficile per le compagnie liriche o drammatiche che vengono scritturate nel nostro teatro e che sono costituite da più persone."); Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to the Garrison Command in Šibenik, Šibenik, 29.7.1919, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>21</sup> See Letter from the theatre management of Šibenik to the Garrison command in Šibenik, Šibenik, 29. 7.1919, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>22</sup> This table of accommodation options has been reconstructed with the assistance of Marcotti, *L'Adriatico Orientale*, passim.


We must take into account that at the time the coastal cities had a smaller population than today, hence the accommodation facilities were also fewer.

Normally it was the impresario who was in charge of booking rooms for the artists, though in certain cases, as at Šibenik, the matter was dealt with directly by the theatre management.

#### 6.2 Scenery, costumes, footwear, properties

Te stage materials would also travel at the same time as the companies themselves. And there were travel discounts also for theatrical materials.26 For example, the scenes, which came from Milan, like various other goods, travelled directly by rail to Trieste and then by sea to the coastal towns, using steamships such as those of Lloyd Tetis – and perhaps running the risk of being damaged if the steamer broke down.27 Alternatively, the materials

Scenery, costumes, footwear, properties

<sup>23</sup> The hotels Velebi and Krka were mentioned in a letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Maurizio Parigi, Šibenik, 21.11.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. In this letter Mazzoleni calls the Grand Hotel Velebi, the Hotel de la Ville and the Hotel Krka "good hotels".

<sup>24</sup> As mentioned earlier, the Hotel Troccoli was built in Split in 1887. In 1909 it had 48 rooms; see Adolf Hartleben, *Illustrierter Führer durch Dalmatien*, Hartleben, Wien und Leipzig 1909, p. 148. In 1914 the *Illustrierte Wegweiser durch die österreichischen Kurorte, Sommerfrischen und Winterstationen: Krain, Küstenland und Dalmatien* (Wien und Leipzig, Elbemühl) advertised it as follows on p. 70: "Largest hotel in the square. Completely renovated, in the city centre, in a sheltered position, in the People's Square near Diocletian's Palace and the Loggia. 50 well-furnished rooms from K 2.50 to K 5-." ("Größtes Hotel am Platze. Ganz renoviert, im Stadtzentrum, in geschützter Lage, am Herrenplatz neben dem Diocletianpalast und der Loggia. 50 gut möblierte Zimmer von K 2.50 bis K 5-.").

<sup>25</sup> The Hotel Imperial was closed in the summer.

<sup>26</sup> Evidence for this is provided, for example, by Giovanni Mazzoleni, writing to the agent Paolo Rocca while organising the opera season at Šibenik in 1909: "I beg you to inquire what procedures need to be carried out for the Maestro [Author's note: *Patucchi, sent to Milan to collect the materials*] to have a possible discount on the transportation expenses, seeing that this is theatrical material, because if it should be considered as his personal baggage, I believe the expense would be enormous." ("Prego anche di informarsi che pratiche si debbano fare perché il maestro abbia un'eventuale sconto sulle spese di trasporto trattandosi di materiale da teatro, perché se dovesse venir considerato come suo bagaglio personale credo che la spesa sarebbe enorme."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, Šibenik, 9.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>27</sup> Again it is Mazzoleni who provides an insight into the matter, this time writing to a certain Steiner: "As you will have learned from my telegram, the steamer of Lloyd Thetis on which the material for the opera was loaded, suffered a breakdown. The material, however, was not damaged in any way and I am already in possession of it. Since the agency was unable to establish what percentage the expense

could arrive in Venice by rail and then travel by sea from Venice to Trieste in fve hours (or slightly more, depending on sailing conditions). If the destination was Zadar or a theatre even further south, the materials could also be taken by rail from Milan to Ancona, where they would be put on a ship. Tere was also a direct connection between Venice and Zadar. In short, depending on the time available and the budget set aside for transportation, there were various options.

Naturally, the delivery of stage materials could also sufer delays, both for reasons beyond human control (such as the weather conditions mentioned above) and those due to misunderstandings and shipping errors, of which there were many. Giovanni Mazzoleni complained to agent Paolo Rocca about the failed delivery of a "*parapettata*",28 observing that if there were to be so many difculties, so many mishaps and such expense over receiving a simple piece of scenery from Milan, "what would happen if we were to transport all the material – properties, sets and costumes – for a complete opera season".29 Te risk was having to pay all the considerable costs without the possibility of staging the operas. In this particular instance the chests of materials, instead of being embarked with Lloyd, had been loaded onto another boat, the Montenegro of the Navigazione Generale Italiana, which made no stops at the Dalmatian ports. Hence they made, according to Mazzoleni, "a long pleasure trip" (*un lungo viaggio di piacere*) as far as Turkey and Greece instead of arriving at their destination in time. Owing to the failure to deliver in time, damages were claimed from the Casa Parisi of Milan, which had made the mistake in the shipping order.30 Te decision to order these materials from diferent sources could therefore also refect a precise intention

for the breakdown amounted to in general, it delivered the goods to me against a declaration that I would pay the amount due for the goods taken on board." ("Come avrete appreso dal mio telegramma il vapore del Lloyd Thetis sul quale era caricato il materiale dell'opera, ha subito un'avarea [*sic*]. Il materiale però non è stato per nulla danneggiato ed io ne sono già in possesso. Non potendo l'agenzia stabilire a quanto per cento ammonta la spesa per l'avarea [*sic*] in generale mi consegnò la merce verso una dichiarazione che avrei corrisposto l'importo che risultasse a carico delle merci imbarcate."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to M. Steiner, Trieste, 29.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>28</sup> The *parapettata* most likely refers to a piece of scenery representing the interior of a room or a house, enclosed on three sides of the stage and provided with sky.

<sup>29</sup> "cosa sarebbe poi se si dovesse far venire tutto il materiale di attrezzi, scene e vestiari per un intero spettacolo d'opera"; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, [Šibenik], 6.2.[1909], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>30</sup> "I enclose a copy of the letter that my brother today is sending to Casa Parisi of Milan in which he asks for compensation damages for the mishap of the *parapettata* that Signor Parisi instead of sending directly from Venice to Austria sent to make a long pleasure trip to Turkey and Greece and had delivered to Šibenik by the long route of southern Dalmatia." ("Le inchiudo una copia della lettera che mio fratello oggi imposta alla casa Parisi di Milano, colla quale richiede il risarcimento dei danni per il disguido della parapetata [*sic*] che il Signor Parisi invece di mandare direttamente da Venezia in Austria ha mandato a fare un lungo viaggio di piacere in Turchia, Grecia e fatto inoltrare a Sebenico per la lunga via della Dalmazia meridionale"); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, [Šibenik],

to spread the risk. We must also bear in mind that these materials (or "*efetti teatrali*", as they were called) had to be returned to the company that had hired them out, hence the return journey also had to be included in any cost estimates.

Regarding the sets, the documentation is scanty, but we fnd various names of scene designers who collaborated with the coastal theatres. Among those based in Milan, Ercole Sormani worked for a long time with the theatre of Zadar, while Canuto Soriani mainly supplied Šibenik. From nearby Trieste we have the names of Lorenzo Guidicelli, Rossi and Moscotto, or Antonio Stancich, who was already working with the Teatro Nuovo of Trieste and could thus rent out various sets to the coastal theatres.31 From Venice a celebrated name that emerges is that of Pietro Bertoja, whose sets supplied the theatres of both Rijeka (1890) and Pula (1893).32 At the Politeama Ciscutti, however, there was an exceptional situation, for here we fnd Nicoletto Deboni working as scene designer and decorator, even though he is also known to have worked as the theatre's caretaker from its opening until 1928. His were the sets for the frst performances of *La Wally* and *Nozze istriane.*<sup>33</sup>

Te following table summarises the information it has been possible to gather concerning the scene designers working in the area. It indicates their names in alphabetical order, along with their provenance, the theatre they supplied, and the years in which their services were needed.


6.2.[1909], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9. The Casa Francesco Parisi, a company founded in 1812, was in the business of international transportation and storage.



Also included among the materials travelling were the stage costumes. And of the costume workshops involved, we fnd some that were well known, such as that of the Teatro Costanzi in Rome (which provided the impresario Trauner with seven chests of stage costumes), or that of Davide Ascoli in Venice,35 or even that of Francesco Rosi of Milan, which supplied the Teatro Mazzoleni for *Il trovatore* and *La traviata* in 1909. Te costume measurements were either communicated through the agents who dealt with the workshops or were directly conveyed by the impresario to the person responsible for costumes. In the case of Šibenik the orders were placed by the director Mazzoleni himself, who in 1909, for example, specifcally asked for the stage costumes to be modest in size, so as to suit the slim chorus singers employed at the theatre: "[…] the costumier must not make the clothing too big, since our chorus singers are young ladies of graceful fgure and not to be confused with the fourth-class carriages that unfortunately make up the female chorus in productions of opera seria".36

Te costume workshops (which again were mostly based in Milan, as is clear from the table below), mindful of the increasingly frequent cases of their wares being confscated when impresarios went bankrupt, preferred to safeguard their goods by making it known who owned the property. Tis was done, for example, by Antonio De Caro, the renowned costume makers that supplied the theatre of Split in 1895. Te frm took pains to stress that the clothing was its own property and that it had been hired out to the impresario in

<sup>35</sup> The Venetian costume workshop of Davide Ascoli also had branches in Milan and Rome.

<sup>36</sup> "[…] il vestiarista si tenga a vestiti non molto grandi poiché le nostre coriste sono giovanette di figura elegante e non da confondersi coi vagoni di quarta classe che pur troppo costituiscono il coro femminile negli spettacoli d'opera seria"; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, 9.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

question. In this way no act of confscation could be made. "[…] I therefore inform this honourable Management", De Caro wrote to Split, "that not only the said wardrobe but also that which will be sent later to put on the other operas *is my exclusive property*, hired to Sig. Vecchi, and on these said goods no act of sequestration or anything else can be exercised for any reason".37 In this way the company, anticipating unpleasant surprises, made it absolutely clear who the costumes belonged to.

Some frms even demanded a deposit as a guarantee for the return of the costumes, as happened when the Hofstätter & Bonaventura costume workshop of Trieste hired its costumes to the theatre of Šibenik. Believing that this was not a procedure contemplated in theatrical practice, the manager Mazzoleni, writing to the impresario Giuseppe Ponzio, insisted that the deposit should not be paid, as a matter of principle, for it would also create a precedent.38 Hofstätter & Bonaventura had also been supplying other theatres in the coastal region: that of Pula in 1887, 1904 (*Il trovatore*), 1906 and 1908 (the production of

<sup>37</sup> "informo perciò codesta on.le Direzione che tanto il sud[detto] vestiario come quello che in seguito si spedirà per rappresentare le altre opere *è mia esclusiva proprietà*, noleggiato al sig. Vecchi, e sulla detta merce non può quindi esercitarsi alcun atto di sequestro od altro per nessuna ragione"; Letter from Antonio De Caro to Gajo Filomen Bulat, Milano, 24.10.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 4/ kut. I–XVII.

<sup>38</sup> "Write to that Signor Bonaventura that if the theatre management of Šibenik has had enough trust to reserve the theatre for you without making you pay a deposit, as is the theatrical custom, the costume makers of Trieste can also have the trust to rent out to you those few items of clothing without the need of guarantees that do not exist in theatrical customs and that, on principle, also so as not to create precedents vis-à-vis the costume makers in general, the management cannot grant. An impresario like yourself, who is no longer a new person but someone for whom the management of the theatre of Lošinj can give references, has the right to this small amount of trust from a theatrical costume maker. With this firm I have never done business, knowing it to be very expensive, but from no other firm have there ever been requests of this kind. It could be acceptable to request a guarantee from a first *piazza*, but not from subsequent *piazze*, as one can never know what requirements Signor Bonaventura may have later at the return of the clothing. When they are dealing with managements, knowing that they are on safe ground, these suppliers create thousands of annoyances and have necessities of all kinds." ("Scriva a quel Signor Bonaventura che se la Direzione del teatro di Šibenik si è fidata di riservarle il teatro senza farLe versare una cauzione cosa che è nelle consuetudini teatrali, anche la sartoria di Trieste può fidarsi di noleggiarLe quei pochi vestiti senza bisogno di garanzie che non esistono nelle consuetudini teatrali e che la Direzione per principio e per non crear precedenti verso la sartoria non può concedere. Un impresario come Lei non più persona nuova ma della quale può dar referenze la direzione del Teatro di Lussino ha il diritto di questo poco di fiducia da parte di una sartoria teatrale. Colla stessa io non ho fatto mai affari sapendola molto cara, ma mai da nessun altra vennero richieste di questo genere. Poteva andare una garanzia richiesta da una prima piazza, ma non dalle piazze successive, inquantochè non si può mai sapere che esigenze può avere più tardi il Signor Bonaventura alla restituzione dei vestiti. Quando si tratta di direzioni sapendo di andare su sicuro creano mille noie e hanno esigenze d'ogni genere questi signori fornitori."; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Giuseppe Ponzio, [Šibenik], 8. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

Smareglia's *Nozze istriane*); and that of Rijeka in both the 1891 season and the 1909 season run by Alpron.39 It could also provide footwear and jewellery when required.40 Te company had its own ofcial rental agreement form.41

We have one instance in which the stage costumes, instead of being provided by a proper costume workshop, belonged to one of the singers involved in an opera season. Tis happened in Pula in 1911, when the costumes for *Mefstofele* turned out to be owned by Cavalier Nicoletti Kormann, the bass of the company.42 For Pula, wigs and makeup were generally provided by the theatrical wig company of Giuseppe Martinelli.43 Again we fnd the same concerns over possible delays in the deliveries, for in 1901 *Carmen* had to be staged instead of *Rigoletto* when the costumes failed to materialise.44 In short, if the costumes didn't get there in time, an opera might have to be replaced.

As in the previous table, we have collected the available information concerning the costume workshops, indicating name and provenance of the workshop, the theatre they supplied, and the years in which the material was used.


<sup>39</sup> Bogneri, *Il Politeama Ciscutti*, p. 97.


<sup>40</sup> See Poster for *L'Africana*, Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, 8. 4.1891, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10.

<sup>41</sup> See Rental agreement from the theatre costume workshop Hofstätter & Bonaventura of Trieste, Trieste, 15. 2.1894, HR-DAZD, folder 8.

<sup>42</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 9.10.1911.


Similar considerations apply to the theatrical shoemakers. Among all the names that have turned up, that of Bertoletti stands out, because among the materials preserved at the state archive of Šibenik we also possess a regular pre-printed rental agreement, complete with all its clauses, used when the frm rented its goods to the Mazzoleni brothers for the 1909 season in the city.


As regards the property frms (*attrezzisti*), we are also fortunate to have valuable evidence in the form of an "agreement for the rental of properties" (*scrittura pel noleggio di attrezzi*) issued by the Antonio Orrigoni frm, which provided materials for that same 1909 season at Šibenik. Usually, however, the names of shoemakers and property frms are the most difcult to trace, since they were not printed on the posters and were among the very last things to be discussed and defned in the negotiations between impresario and theatre management (and indeed were often left to the discretion of the impresario).



What has survived is a price listed issued by Rosati and Zammarchi,46 which provides an insight into how much the hiring of properties for various works could cost at the end of the 19th century, depending on the opera type:



Naturally operas like *Aida* and *Semiramide* or a grand opera like *La Gioconda* were those that needed the largest quantity of materials and were therefore the most expensive, though in general the cost of theatrical properties was appreciably lower than that for the rental of a score, for example. In the same brochure the company specifed that the cost of shipping the properties there and back would be borne by the impresa. Tere were also instances where a costume workshop and a warehouse of theatrical properties were combined within a single establishment; in that case, the theatre would fnd a saving in the rental costs.

If we look at the names of the companies supplying theatrical properties to the coastal region, we can say with certainty that the vast majority of stage materials came from Italy.

<sup>45</sup> Proposal for a collaboration in the form of an advertising brochure. We do not know if Zadar actually made use of their services.

<sup>46</sup> Brochure advertising the Rosati e Zammarchi property firm that arrived at the theatre of Zadar in 1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

#### 6.3 The hiring of musical material

Included among the materials that had to travel, were also full scores, vocal scores and separate parts. Te parts for the singers and orchestra were hired directly from the publishers; indeed, renting – and not the retail sale of music – constituted the main business of the publishing houses.47 In practical terms, the theatre managements or impresarios would address their requests for music to the representatives of Casa Ricordi. Some requests from the coastal area were addressed to Carlo Schmidl, the Ricordi representative in Trieste. Te theatre management or the impresario would send of the list specifying the parts required (for instruments and singers), and if Schmidl should happen to be short of any of the items, he would send for them directly from Milan. In such cases the scores would not travel by steamer, but would arrive by land mail.

Alternatively, requests could be made to Antonio Gallo,48 the Ricordi representative for the Veneto and Illirico (as the coastal region was called at the time), or to the companies of Francesco Lucca or Edoardo Sonzogno. A hire agreement was then drawn up, which varied from publisher to publisher. Antonio Gallo, though himself working for Casa Ricordi, had his own form for the hire agreement of an opera score, which was diferent from that used by Ricordi itself, and naturally also diferent from that of Casa Lucca. Te agreement would indicate the beginning and end of the period in which the parts were used, together with the cost of the hire.49

At Rijeka we have an example of rentals from four diferent suppliers for the same opera season in 1868:50


The hiring of musical material

<sup>47</sup> See Stefano Baia Curioni, *Mercanti dell'opera: storie di casa Ricordi*, Il Saggiatore, Bologna 2011, p. 99.

<sup>48</sup> Antonio Gallo was a music dealer and joint owner of the Venetian theatres, the Teatro Gallo (formerly San Benedetto) and the Teatro Malibran; see Rosselli, *Elenco provvisorio.*

<sup>49</sup> On the obligations of the contracting parties, see also Enrico Rosmini, *Legislazione e giurisprudenza dei teatri*, Hoepli, Milano 1893, p. 727. On the terms and conditions of the Milanese publishers, and specifically on the publisher's rights and the obligations of the impresa, see the table given by Stefano Baia Curioni on p. 114 of his *Mercanti dell'opera: storie di casa Ricordi*, Il Saggiatore, Bologna 2011.

<sup>50</sup> See the General statement of income and expenditure for the administration of the Teatro Civico of Rijeka in the Lent-spring season of 1868, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>51</sup> At the time Gaetano Buttazzoni was a music dealer in Piazza Pavaglione in Bologna; see *Teatri, Arti e Letteratura*, anno 30, vol. LVII, no. 1443, 12. 8.1852.

Leaving aside *Bianchi e neri* (which belonged to the category of "*balli*"), the highest cost was always for the most recent opera, in this case *Vettor Pisani.* If there had been a single supplier, there would surely have been a saving on the overall cost. Other evidence from just a few years later tells us that Antonio Gallo in 1871 could earn just over 300 Italian lire (about 120 forins) for the rental of *Falsi monetari* and *Don Checco* at Šibenik.52 While the rental of two operas ("Faust and another mutually agreed on") for a season at Zadar in 1870 could cost 400 forins,53 just two years later, in 1872, there was talk – for the same theatre – of a rental of 1,500 forins for three operas ("Faust 900, Marta 300, another 250"): a striking diference,54 suggesting that the publisher could arbitrarily decide on the rental price depending on the circumstances and the theatre, over and above the current rates. To be sure, the duration of the rental could also have an impact on the cost. Te rental of *Guarany*, as we have seen in earlier chapters, could cost up to 800 lire (or about 320 forins) in 1885, whereas in 1887 the staging of as many as fve repertoire operas could be had for 1,000 francs (i.e. less than 500 forins: a fgure not much higher than for the single opera mentioned).55 Hence, if one rented scores from the same publisher one could get a discount. And renting repertoire operas also cost less than new operas. For the Sonzogno publishing house, for example, *Cavalleria rusticana* cost as much as 2,700 lire (or 1,080 forins) in 1892, just two years after the premiere. Te same applied to Ricordi. If any impresario had wished to put on an opera like *Tosca* shortly after the premiere, he would have spent no less than 3,000 lire (which certainly explains why Olimpio Lovrich requested a subsidy much higher than that of other impresarios when he proposed the opera to the management of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar). Te following table gives the possible costs of renting certain operas from Ricordi in 1901:


<sup>52</sup> See Receipt from Antonio Gallo for the rental of *Falsi monetari* and *Don Checco*, Šibenik, 5. 7.1871, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>53</sup> Estimate for the theatre of Zadar, autumn season 1870, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>54</sup> Estimate for the opera season to be given at the Teatro Sociale of Zadar, Milano, 26.5.1872, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>55</sup> The figure was for the hire of *Mosè*, *Nabucco*, *I lombardi alla prima crociata*, *Anna Bolena* and *La Vestale*; see Estimate for the opera season, Zadar, 1887, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

Te diference between a *Tosca* and the remaining works from the past, such as Verdi's, was a conspicuous one (as regards the 2,000 lire for *Don Carlo* let us not forget that we are talking about an opera of much greater proportions than the others given in the list).

To these costs one would have to add a 100 lire deposit for each opera.56 Tere was also a fne for the late return of the parts, a sum that would increase week by week.57 Te transportation costs were borne by the impresa. Te impresa was also obliged to indicate the ownership of the scores on the posters, or be liable to a fne. A fne would also be imposed on those who copied the music, either wholly or partially. It was understood that if the composer should make any additions to his music for a specifc performance, these would have to be ceded to the publisher. Te librettos were purchased directly from the publisher and could not be printed locally. Certain printed forms of the hire agreement included a list of the operas owned by the publisher. And in the archival collection relating to the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka we also fnd catalogues of operas (and respective prices) sent to the theatre by Tito Ricordi and Francesco Lucca in 1887. Ricordi also sent its *Annuario Artistico*.

Te music was then duly sent of. Delivery of the parts was accompanied by an itemised list. If the scores had been ordered from Gallo, they travelled from Venice to Trieste by Lloyd steamship and then left Trieste for the various cities along the coast. If the materials were requested by the theatre of Zadar, they could either take the Venice-Trieste route or arrive directly from Ancona (arriving at Ancona using the Gondrand transportation company, for example). It could also happen that the orchestral and choral parts were sent from one coastal theatre to another, as in the case of *Rigoletto* and *La sonnambula*, two operas that were staged in 1911, frst at the Teatro Bonetti of Mali Losinj (Lussinpiccolo) and then in Šibenik. In that particular instance the parts were simply sent to Šibenik by the impresario Ponzio.58 With scores too there could be delays in delivery, which could easily have a direct impact on the theatre's day-to-day programming. A delay could mean a change of programme59 or even lead to a production being postponed, as happened at Zadar in

<sup>56</sup> See Letter from Giulio Ricordi to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 14.3.1901, HR-DAZD, folder 10. As late as 1909 Mazzoleni paid Schmidl 100 lire as a deposit for the hire of the parts for *Il trovatore* and *La traviata*, operas costing 400 lire. The amount of the deposit had evidently increased over the years, for as recently as 1885 it was 60 lire instead of 100.

<sup>57</sup> See for example the Hire agreement drawn up between the Francesco Lucca firm and the impresario Carlo Vianello, Zadar, 1875, HR-DAZD, folder 27.

<sup>58</sup> See Letter from Giuseppe Ponzio to the theatre management of Šibenik, Lussinpiccolo, 3. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>59</sup> This happened, for example, at Rijeka, when the programme of what was probably a benefit concert was changed at the last minute: "If the evening's programme could have been better chosen and more compatible with the gifts of the eminent artist, that happened (from what we were assured) independently of her will. Signorina Ciuti had chosen, among the other works, one act from the opera *Rigoletto* and the last act of the opera *Traviata*, but the delayed delivery of the music was the reason

October 1892, when the Casa Sonzogno failed to send the parts for *Mignon* in time*.* On that occasion the impresario sufered heavy losses and was forced to appeal to the theatre management with a request for at least a partial reimbursement.60

why the programme had to be changed." ("Se il programma della serata poteva essere di scelta più felice e rispondente alle doti dell'esimia artista, ciò fu, a quanto ci viene assicurato, indipendente da lei; la signorina Ciuti aveva scelto tra le altre produzioni un atto dell'opera *Rigoletto* e l'ultimo dell'opera *Traviata*, ma la ritardata spedizione della relativa musica fu causa che il programma dovesse essere cambiato."); "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 18.5.1874.

<sup>60</sup> The impresario Annibale Cicognani declared that "on account of the colossal expenses sustained because of the delayed arrival of the score of Mignon (a delay that was due to the sole fault of the publisher Edoardo Sonzogno) which obliged me to postpone the performances, and by missing the best nights had to suffer a great loss of money, especially in view of the enormous cost of staging *Cavalleria rusticana* (just the hire of the score cost 2,700 lire), without counting the hardly negligeable cost of achieving a successful result as far as possible, I make a respectful request to this esteemed management that I should be granted a subsidy that would alleviate (at least in part, given also the paltry receipts from the season-ticket holders and the very low evenings' takings) the losses encountered." ("in causa delle esuberanti spese incontrate per il ritardo nell'arrivo dello spartito della Mignon, (ritardo avvenuto per sola colpa dell'editore Edoardo Sonzogno) avendo dovuto ritardare l'andata in scena, e perduto le sere migliori dovette sottostare ad una forte perdita di danaro, più per l'enorme spesa onde porre in scena la Cavalleria Rusticana (il puro noleggio dello spartito costa lire 2.700) e che senza contare le spese non indifferente per tenere il buon successo per quanto possibile; fa rispettosa domanda a codesta spettabile Direzione affinchè gli venga accordato qualche sussidio onde allegerire (almeno in parte, visto anche il misero incasso degli abbonati ed i scarsissimi introiti serali) le perdite incontrate."); Letter from Annibale Cicognani to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 21.10.1892, HR-DAZD, folder 7.

© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

### **7 Working conditions of the artistic staf**

Working conditions of the artistic staff

Recruitment of singers

#### 7.1 Recruitment of singers

We have so far seen that the majority of the companies performing opera in the coastal theatres were from Italy. Exceptions were the seasons at Split and Šibenik that hosted Bohemian and Croatian companies in the years immediately before and after the turn of the century. We have also noted that singers were engaged for individual seasons, not for one or two years, as was the prerogative of their French and German colleagues for example.

We shall now identify some of the possible ways in which singers were recruited in Istria and Dalmatia. In order to engage the artists, the impresario working in that area could make his way directly to Milan or to other cities of Istria and Dalmatia. Alternatively, the journey could be made by the *maestro concertatore* or conductor who was engaged to direct the season. A further solution was for either the theatre management or impresario to delegate the selection of the artists to a theatrical agency (with the approval of the publishing house that owned the score).

First, a local impresario could recruit the singers by going directly to Milan. We have various examples of this practice, which besides was widespread in the impresarial world also in other countries.1 One instance was at Rijeka in 1872 when the impresa for the Lent season was run by three locals, one of whom, "accompanied by Signor E. de Bonmartini", went to Milan to engage the singers.2 At Split the impresario Karaman was given the green light to go to Milan with the aim of "starting the negotiations".3 If one didn't go to Milan, the next-best option could be Trieste, calling on the Teatro Comunale. Te theatre man-

<sup>1</sup> On the subject, see for example the section "El proceso de reclutamiento de cantantes (1): visitas a los teatros italianos"*,* in José María Domínguez, "El Teatro Real de Madrid durante la gestíon del empresario Ramon de Michelena (1882–94)", *Acta Musicologica*, LXXXVII/2 (2015), p. 226.

<sup>2</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 26. 2.1872.

<sup>3</sup> This is how it was reported to the mayor of Split: "In the meantime I am letting you know that I will abide by what the theatre management will decide concerning the Italian operas to be performed in this theatre in the forthcoming spring season, and so Signor Karaman can, without delay, begin negotiations in Milan in order to draw up the respective contract as soon as possible." (Le faccio frattanto sapere fin d'ora ch'io aderirò a quanto la Direzione teatrale sarà per stabilire circa le opere italiane, che dovranno essere rappresentate in codesto teatro, nella prossima stagione primaverile, e quindi il sig. Karaman può, senza indugio, iniziare delle trattative a Milano, per poter quanto prima stipulare il relativo contratto."); Letter from A. Buglich to the mayor (*podestà*) of Split, Hvar (Lesina), 4. 2.1904, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

agement of Rijeka sent its secretary Elpidio Springhetti there to negotiate the opera season.4 At Pula the aim was to give *Pagliacci* "with the whole artistic company of singers presently performing very successfully at the theatre of La Fenice in Trieste".5 Te representative of the impresa duly departed for the city to conclude the deal.

At times it was a director of the theatre who efectively did the impresario's work. As did, for example, Paolo Mazzoleni, who went from Šibenik to Zadar in person to engage opera companies. He did this for the Becherini company in 1882, and in April 1890 he made another journey to "start, and possibly conclude", negotiations with the company performing there at the Teatro Nuovo – in those years under contract to Paolo Massimini – in the operas *Carmen* and *Fra Diavolo*. We know that he spent a whole week in the city.6 In the following month the theatre management sent of the impresario Vincenzo Rossini, this time to the Grand'Orfeo Troccoli in Split, to engage a possible opera company.7 We fnd Paolo Mazzoleni in Zadar once again in July 1891, this time in an attempt to engage the Massimini company,8 and also in 1894 to hear *Il barbiere di Siviglia* "with the possible aim of engaging the company".9 Two years later the theatre management entrusted him with the task of returning to Zadar to see "if it were possible to make a deal with the opera company to give some performances of Puccini's Manon".10

Te choice of singers was not always a task entrusted to the impresario. It could also be made by the conductor and *maestro concertatore*, though this happened in a small percentage of cases in the area.11 At Zadar, for example, for the inauguration of the Teatro Nuovo, the *maestro concertatore* Ravasio was sent to Italy to recruit the singers for the cast. On this

<sup>4</sup> Letter from Meynier to the Civic Magistrate of Rijeka, Rijeka, 30.1.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>5</sup> "con tutto il complesso artistico che attualmente agisce con grandissimo successo sulle scene della Fenice di Trieste"; *Politeama Ciscutti*, L'Eco di Pola, 20.10.1894.

<sup>6</sup> "trattare e possibilmente combinare"; Receipt for travel expenses of Paolo Mazzoleni, Šibenik, 23.4.1890, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>7</sup> Receipt for travel expenses of Vincenzo Rossini, Šibenik, 7.5.1890, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>8</sup> In the list of small expenses for 1891, we read "For the journey to Zadar there and back, and six days' stay with the intention of trying to secure the Massimini company, of which the tenor Daddi later became the impresario, for eight nights during the July fair" ("Per viaggio andata e ritorno a Zara, e sei giorni di fermata onde possibilmente combinare compagnia Massimini, della quale divenne poi impresario il tenore Daddi, per otto sere durante la fiera di luglio"); Small expenses from 20 February 1891 to end of March 1892, Šibenik, [1892], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>9</sup> "per possibilmente scritturare la compagnia". Small expenses from 1 January 1894 to December of the same year, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>10</sup> "se fosse stato possibile di combinare la compagnia lirica per dare qui qualche rappresentazione della Manon di Puccini"; Small expenses from 1 January 1895 to 31 January 1895, Šibenik 1895, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. This record of minor expenses was personally drawn up by Paolo Mazzoleni.

<sup>11</sup> On the role of the conductor in the choice of singers in the second half of the 19th century, see for example Ruben Vernazza, "Il direttore d'orchestra nel sistema produttivo del teatro d'opera italiano di fine Ottocento. Un caso eloquente: Emilio Usiglio a Firenze nel 1892", in *Orchestral Conducting* 

occasion there was no contract with any impresario, since the season was being organised by the theatre management itself. Subsequently the theatre management of Zadar could contact the publishing houses to gain their approval of the singers.12 A similar instance can be found at Šibenik in 1909, when the director Mazzoleni sent the *maestro concertatore* and conductor Rafaele Patucchi to Milan; Patucchi would also take the opportunity to collect the scenery while he was there.13 It was then that Patucchi heard, and selected from among other possible candidates, the soprano Maria Torchi, about whose voice he reports: "fne, strong voice, doesn't extend greatly into the high register, but fully rounded in the chest notes, as befts the role of Azucena".14 Once the *maestro concertatore* had chosen the singers, in certain cases the preliminary rehearsals at the keyboard (*prove al cembalo*) could be carried out directly in the city of their recruitment.

Te cast could also be put together directly by the theatrical agency, possibly with the approval of the publisher; in which case the singers were sent to the hosting theatre without the management hearing them. In such cases, therefore, the local management genuinely needed an agent to work on its behalf. In 1899 the management at Zadar received the following reassurance from Gustavo Argenti, an agent who was proposing *Fedra*: "I have spoken to Signor Sonzogno, and the company will be put together entirely under his


*in the Nineteenth Century*, edited by Roberto Illiano and Michela Niccolai, Brepols, Turnhout 2014, pp. 185*–*212.

<sup>12</sup> Gastone Coen, *C'era una volta una ducal città,* Comunità degli italiani di Zara, [Zadar] 2008, pp. 74 and 76.

supervision".15 Te theatre management could also contact the publishers directly. In fact Casa Ricordi wrote directly to the management at Zadar in 1898 and gave its approval of the singers for *Lohengrin*, listing them along with the *maestro concertatore* and conductor.16 Tat particular season was run by the impresario Trauner, but the ofcial confrmation was addressed to the management without any form of intermediation.

Some singers had been heard before they were selected; others were chosen because they were already well known and had perhaps just made successful appearances at other theatres; for yet others, above all in the case of sudden substitutions, one would either have to contact an agency or rely on the opinion of third parties (impresarios or fellow-managers at other theatres), perhaps supported by reviews published in the newspapers. We have also a few rare cases of singers who directly ofered their services to the management without going through an agency. Te singer might know a member of the local management or, vice versa, be already known to someone in the management, though not necessarily personally; or could even be a complete stranger. At Rijeka various singers came forward for the inauguration of the theatre in 1885. Te register of documents (*protocollo degli esibiti*) for Rijeka in the same year recorded the applications of the mezzo soprano Güttemberg, the baritone Pltz and the soprano Emma Rütti.17 At Šibenik we fnd a letter from the tenor Aldo Tamagni to the director Mazzoleni, complete with information on his fees. Te letter is written in very shaky Italian, but he seems extremely determined:

Finding myself here at the Teatro Alambra I take the opportunity to ofer you my number as an operatic tenor, having done the Teatro Eden in Trieste and with the frst of November I will return there. So I will have the whole of the month of October available if you wish to do business, as I am sure you will be satisfed. My fees are 100 lire a day if the contract is for only 10 days, and I can come for 90 a day if it is for 15 days. I beg you to excuse me if I enclose the postage stamps for a prompt answer. So that I can give a better guarantee on my account, *if I don't satisfy you on the frst night, my contract will be terminated* (I do not fear any competition).18

<sup>15</sup> "Ho parlato col Sig. Sonzogno, e la compagnia sarà fatta interamente sotto la sua sorveglianza."; Letter from Gustavo Argenti to Giorgio Nachich d'Osliak, Milano, 10. 2.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>16</sup> Letter from Casa Ricordi to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 27.3.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>17</sup> Register of documents (*Protocollo degli esibiti*)*,* 1885, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 10. In any case the practice was common also in neighbouring theatres. In 1859 at the theatre of Trieste, singers presented themselves to the board of directors (*assemblea dei presidenti*) offering their services for the season, as in the case of the baritone and impresario Federico Monari Rocca.

<sup>18</sup> "Trovandomi qui al teatro Alambra acolgo [*sic*] locasione [*sic*] di offrirle il mio numero in qualità di tenore lirico avendo fatto il Teatro Eden di Trieste e col primo di novembre ciò [*sic*] di nuovo la riantrè [*sic*]. Quindi avrei tutto il mese di ottobre disponibile se chrede [*sic*] voler trattare d'affari commè [*sic*],

Such cases of self-candidacy had little chance of being accepted. In the eyes of a theatre management, a singer represented by nobody was less important than one with an agent or impresario behind him to manage his career.

### 7.2 Contracts with singers

Te services of these singers were governed by engagement agreements. Unfortunately, the number of contracts found for the area concerned is negligible in proportion to the length of the period covered by the present research (1861–1918). For the very few surviving documents of this type, the following table indicates the year in which the agreement was drawn up, the employer, the artist engaged, the city in which the document was signed, and the theatre in which the singer was engaged to work:


sono certo che ne sarà soddisfatto. Le mie pretese son di L 100 giornaliere se il contratto e [*sic*] di solo 10 giorni e se di 15 giorni posso per 90 al giorno. La prego scusarmi se le unisco i fracoboli [*sic*] per una pronta risposta, perché io possa darle miliore [*sic*] garanzia sul mio conto *se le prima sera non piacerò il contratto sara annulato* [*sic*] (Non temo nessuna concorenza [*sic*])"; Letter from Aldo Tamagni to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Pula, 23. 9.1919, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a.

Contracts with singers

<sup>19</sup> This handwritten contract was found among the papers of the *fondo* (or archival collection) relating to the theatre in the State Archive of Zadar; Contract between the impresario Angelo Tommasi and the singer Lena Tencajoli, Milano, 22. 7.1865, HR-DAZD, folder 2.


Te reason for the absence of contracts with singers in the archives is that this type of document was generally the prerogative of an impresario or agent and should therefore be sought in the archive of the impresario or agent himself. Today, unfortunately, such archival collections are either scattered or have completely disappeared. Te reason for fnding the original contracts for a large part of the cast of the 1909 season in Šibenik is that for that particular season the theatre management had set itself up as an impresa and genuinely acted as if it were the impresario.20 It was the management itself that negotiated with the singers; and it was the director Mazzoleni in person who asked artists like the soprano Erminia Daelli, who was already working at La Scala, if she would accept an engagement in Dalmatia.21

In the introductory chapter mention was made of the fact that correspondences between singers and theatre managements are far from plentiful. Nonetheless, in spite of the scarcity of documentation, we can make certain observations on the form and content of these contracts. Firstly, they could either be signed with the parties present or be concluded by telegram. Moreover, they range from handwritten contracts like the one drawn up with the soprano Lena Tencajoli22 for the carnival and Lent season of 1865–66 at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste (a document that engaged her after the inauguration of the new theatre in Zadar in 1865), to later, and more fully defned, typewritten and printed models. Initially these documents were not properly subdivided into articles, as indeed in the case of the contract between the impresario Angelo Tommasi23 and Lena Tencajoli. Here the text is

<sup>20</sup> Among the artists singing that particular year was Tito Schipa, who shortly before had also taken part in a season of comic opera organised at Pula, though unfortunately it has not been possible to find any contract there with which to make comparisons.

<sup>21</sup> Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Erminia Daelli, Šibenik, 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>22</sup> On the soprano Lena Tencajoli we unfortunately have no information, other than that she performed in various Italian theatres around the time of the inauguration of the theatre of Zadar.

<sup>23</sup> All that is known of the impresario Angelo Tommasi is that he was reputed to be a "shrewd man, of phenomenal diligence, a perfect connoisseur of theatrical matters, well-liked by the artists, and first and foremost a gentleman". ("uomo avveduto, d'una solerzia fenomenale, conoscitore perfetto delle faccende di teatro, ben voluto dagli artisti, e galantuomo innanzitutto"); Bottura, *Storia aneddotica documentata*, p. 405. At the time of the inauguration of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, Tommasi was

laid out continuously over three pages and it is not easy to distinguish between the diferent subjects covered. We can, however, gather that it specifes a fee of 1,066.68 forins for the whole season, to be paid to the artist in the customary four instalments. Tis fee refers to her time in Trieste; unfortunately there is no indication of what she may have been paid for the inauguration in Zadar. Te impresa also put at Tencajoli's disposal a carriage and a piano: a sign that she must have been a singer of a certain standing and also that the impresario's fnancial situation cannot have been too bad.

From the 1870s on, a possible model that could be used for drawing up an artistic contract was provided in the second volume of Enrico Rosmini's *La legislazione e la giurisprudenza dei teatri*. Here we fnd an example of an "Engagement agreement for a singing artist" (*Scrittura di un artista di canto*) consisting of 14 articles.24 However, each agency or impresario drew up the contract in a way that refected their own interests and convenience, which explains why the surviving contracts are extremely varied in their form.

How did the contracts with singers evolve over the years? In general we can say that they became longer and increasingly itemised. Among the surviving contracts the most complex and detailed is the one issued by Paolo Rocca's theatrical agency in Milan, which is made up of around twenty articles. Many printed contract models like Rocca's, above all at the beginning of the 20th century, were all-purpose and used to engage not only musicians and singers, but also other theatre staf, such as prompters,25 no matter whether it was for opera or operetta. Tere were no diferences in the clauses for the diferent people engaged, except naturally in the part that concerned the operas in question. Any clauses that were not applicable could simply be crossed out with a pen.

Te heading of the document was simply "*Contratto*" or "*Scrittura di contratto*" (engagement agreement). And the opening section declared the identity of the contracting parties, giving the names of all involved. In the case of theatre directors these could number from three to fve, depending on the theatre in question. Otherwise the contract would be between the given impresa and the "*sig. artista di…*" (followed by the role or task for which the artist was engaged, either as musician or singer). Also indicated were the time of the frst performance, the name of the theatre, and the duration of the season. In some contracts the number of performances in which the singer was to take part was not specifcally mentioned, but only the duration of the employment. To write that the artist was employed for the "spring season" could mean binding him or her for an overall number of days, but not of performances. Tis could be a disadvantage for the artist, especially if

working as impresario at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste and spent at least four years there from 1861. 24 Enrico Rosmini, *La legislazione e la giurisprudenza dei teatri*, Manini, Milano, 1872, p. 665.

<sup>25</sup> Engagement agreement between the Paolo Rocca agency and the prompter Salvatore Manzella for the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, Šibenik, 22.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4; or for example, the Contract between the Teatro Verdi of Zadar and the prompter Giuseppe Frangiolini, Milano, 24. 4.1914.

the impresario was intentionally vague about the number of performances per week. Not having the number of weekly performances specifed could mean, above all for singers new to such engagements, fnding that they have to sing almost every night. But this seems to have been a custom carried over from the past, when the number of performances was rarely mentioned in contracts between impresario and artist; and at times not even mentioned in the advertised programmes. Naturally this also had a bearing on when the various *quartali* were paid: since the artist didn't know the total number of performances, he or she could not even know when these payments were due.26 In Rocca's contracts for the theatre of Šibenik, the period of employment was indicated merely as the "spring season of 1909". Te "summons to the *piazza*" (*chiamata alla piazza*), or the precise date on which the artist was expected to begin rehearsals, was given as 5 April, and the end of the period as 2 May. A little less than a month, therefore, in which the performances would begin "at the pleasure of the impresa" (*a piacere dell'impresa*). Now, if it happened that the artist had signed a contract with the word "circa" inserted before or after the end date, it was understood – according to theatrical custom – that the contract could be extended by another fve days (or shortened) at the discretion of the impresa.27

Te fee, indicated both in numbers and in letters, and modes of payment followed immediately. Te singers could be paid by the season, in *quartali*, or in instalments.28 In the event of the impresario running into difculties in the course of the season, the *quartale* most exposed to the risk of default was the last one. But if the impresario should fail to pay the artists a given *quartale*, performances could be suspended. And if he should abandon the impresa without honouring his fnancial commitments, the singers could appeal directly to the theatre management. In such circumstances only rarely would it be possible to continue the performances until the end of the season.29 Indeed we also have cases of singers who

<sup>26</sup> Rossi-Gallieno, *Saggio*, p. 73. This, however, did not occur in the contracts for front-rank theatres such as La Fenice in Venice, where the number of performances per week had been precisely indicated ever since the 1850s.

<sup>27</sup> Letter from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 5.5.1890, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>28</sup> Valle, *Cenni*, pp. 51*–*83.

<sup>29</sup> One such instance happened at Zadar (most likely in 1869 or 1870), when two members of the cast wrote as follows to the management following the bankruptcy of the impresario: "With the end of the Mazza impresa, the undersigned humbly petition their Excellencies that they be granted the extra 300 florins over and above the 700 already granted; in the knowledge that this increase would assure them no more than the third *quartale*. With such a small increase they undertake to give 30 performances, and two other operas as well as the current opera, as indicated in the Mazza contract." ("Cessata l'impresa Mazza i sottoscritti fanno umile istanza alle Sig. loro Ill.me onde venga loro accordato l'aumento di fiorini 300 oltre i 700 già accordati; persuasissimi che tale aumento assicura ai medesimi non più che il terzo quartale. Così tenue aumento essi si obbligano di dare n. 30 recite, ed altre due opere oltre l'opera in corso, come il contratto Mazza."); Letter from Teresa Cotta Brandini and Sigismondo Poggi to the presidency of the theatre of Zadar, [n. d.], HR-DAZD, folder 6.

asked the theatre management for assurances behind the impresario's back, even before the season began, since they feared that the impresario would be unable to honour his commitments. An example is that of the soprano Emma D'Agostino, who wrote to inform the theatre management of Zadar that she had been engaged as a soprano by the impresario Guida of Bari for the spring season, and to express her anxiety because Guida had ofered no guarantee, particularly after a recent incident during the carnival season when many artists abandoned the *piazza* because they were not paid. "I would very much like to come to Zadar," she confessed, "but since I am at the start of my career, I would not like to fnd myself so far away and without money, and so I beg you gentlemen to guarantee me my wages. I request the maximum discretion."30 As a rule it was the impresario who paid the singers, yet we do also fnd cases of payment being split between impresario and theatre management. Tis was more frequent if extra performances were added to the schedule. One example shall sufce, again at Zadar, when in 1914 extra nights of *Don Pasquale* were planned as a measure to improve the fortunes of the season, entailing the need to engage a tenor and a *basso comico*. Te expense was split in such a way that the management was to pay 66.6% and Giuseppe Valentini, the impresario, the remaining 33.3%.31

Te singers' fees were usually the largest item in the season's budget. Tis is how Consiglio Rispoli in his book *La vita pratica del teatro* regarded their pay: "Often it becomes an exaggeration: rarely is it moderate. Tat of the tenors and sopranos is always the biggest".32 While what Rispoli says is broadly speaking true, it is also necessary to relate the type of voice to the importance of the role in the individual operas. Confrmation for this is provided by the simple estimate drawn up by the agent Sante Profondo for the theatre of Zadar in 1870, indicating the singers' fees for a sixty-day season performing *Faust* and another opera to be decided:33


<sup>30</sup> "Io verrei tanto volentieri a Zara, ma siccome sono in principio di carriera, non vorrei trovarmi così lontana senza danaro e perciò pregherei Loro signori di garantirmi la paga. Raccomando la massima segretezza."; Letter from Emma D'Agostino to the theatre management of Zadar, [n. p.] [1897], HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>31</sup> Addendum, Contract between the theatre management of Zadar and Giuseppe Valentini, Zadar, 11. 2.1914, HR-DAZD, folder 13.

<sup>32</sup> "Spesso raggiunge la esagerazione: rare volte essa è discreta. Quella dei tenori e dei soprani è sempre la più forte."; Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 72.

<sup>33</sup> Estimate for the theatre of Zadar, autumn season 1870, [Agenzia teatrale autorizzata of Sante Profondo], [n.p., n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 26.


Over twenty years later at the same theatre, the contracts with Giovanni Simonetti for just a little over half the time of the preceding group (from 19, 20 or 22 March to 30 April 1894), again without specifying the total number of performances, engaged the singers for the following fees:


Te 1,100 lire and 750 lire earned by the tenor and soprano respectively would be equivalent to no more than 550 and 375 forins. So there had been an increase over the years, but in spite of that what we notice is the diference between the fees of these sopranos and the 1,066.68 forins paid to the soprano Tencajoli as many as thirty years earlier in a theatre like the Comunale of Trieste. Te 750 lire earned by the soprano in the second table was little more than a third of Tencajoli's pay. And even if one were to double the fgure, conjecturing an engagement for a full season instead of just a month, it would still be lower. As a further term of comparison, we also have the fees for nine performances at the Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik two years later, in 1896:


<sup>34</sup> Letter from Enrico Viscardi to Doimo Miagostovich, Zadar, 10.5.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1. In total the fees amounted to 4,000 Italian francs, equal to 1,760 florins.

If we convert the Italian francs into forins, the fgures are about 2.27 times lower than those in the table. So the soprano's fee (circa 264 forins) would be comparable to what her colleague was ofered at the theatre of Zadar two years earlier (taking into account that here we are dealing with a limited number of performances). What stands out, on the other hand, is the huge diference between Coppola's fee and those of the other artists. Te soprano's extremely low fee (compared to Coppola's) can be justifed by the fact that she was a debutante and as yet unknown to the public. A further comparison can be made with the fees of the cast engaged by Rocca, again at Šibenik, for *Il trovatore* and *La traviata* in 1909. In an early estimate Rocca indicated the daily fees for the individual voices as follows, without specifying the distinctions within the basic voices:


In the contracts, however, diferent fees, in most cases higher, were stipulated, as is clear if we compare the fgures with those in the following table:


<sup>35</sup> One assumes that the entry "comprim." refers to a collective group. It would make no sense for just one *comprimario* to have a higher fee than a principal part; Estimate for company and suppliers, Paolo Rocca [Milano, 1909], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.


According to Rocca's contracts, the agreed sums were to be paid every fve nights (*di cinquina in cinquina*) or every ten nights (*di decina in decina*), thereby circumventing the rule of the *quartali*. 37 Tese fees refer to a duration of just under a month, hence a shorter period than the possible three months of a full season, but even if we multiply the fgures by three (conjecturing that the singers would perform for a whole season), we are still a long way short of the fees commanded by a genuine front-rank singer (or so-called *cantante di cartello*). It is not even necessary to match these fgures with those of the most celebrated artists of the day, such as Enrico Caruso, who earned 50,000 lire over the three-month season when he made his debut at La Scala nine years earlier in *La bohème.*38 Even a fairer comparison, as with the tenor Giacomo Dammacco, who sang in *Lucia di Lammermoor* in Zadar in 1914, makes the diference evident: Dammacco was paid 400 lire a night, as against the maximum fee of 295 lire earned by the *primo tenore* Vittorio Ducci at Šibenik.39

For any singer that failed to fulfl his or her commitments there was a penalty of 300 lire, amounting, therefore, to almost the entire salary of a principal part. Moreover, we should also remember that the travel expenses were included in the singer's fee and were not reimbursed separately by the impresa.40 Te contracts made no reference to the secrecy of the fee; in fact their fees might even be published in the newspapers. As has already been pointed out by Michael Walter, the theatre managements and impresario did not consider this to be a particularly wise course, given that the singers, perhaps seeing that certain colleagues were better paid, might then hold higher expectations.41 On the other hand, demanding high fees could put the singer into the position of being excluded from the season. In other words, it was at his or her own risk, as we are reminded by the impresario Valenti, who rejected the proposal of the bass Camillo Fiegna for the 1896 opera season in Zadar and chose a singer

<sup>36</sup> Not mentioned in the document announcing the general programme of the season.

<sup>37</sup> Engagement agreement issued by Paolo Rocca between the Mazzoleni impresa and Tito Schipa, [n.p.], 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>38</sup> The reference is to the debut at La Scala of 26.12.1900; Giuseppe Barigazzi, *La Scala racconta*, p. 438 cited in Toelle, *Oper als Geschäft*, p. 206.

<sup>39</sup> Art. VII, Engagement agreement between the management of the Teatro Verdi and the *primo tenore assoluto* Giacomo Dammacco through the Giuseppe Lusardi theatrical agency, Milano, 4.4.1914, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>40</sup> Letter from Paolo Rocca to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Šibenik, 2.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>41</sup> Michael Walter, "Motten und Ruinen. Ueber das symbolische Kapital von Sängern", *LiTheS*, IX/13 (2016), p. 63.

who charged less: "Today I have fnally received the fee expected by Signor Fiegna," he wrote, "which are highly exaggerated and I absolutely cannot accept them, and I thanked him nonetheless; from what I understand, like all artists he thought he was indispensable, as I well know; and I have engaged a *primo basso* of merit, who has performed in all the major theatres of Italy and abroad, in the person of Signor Augusto Pinto".42

Tere were also cases of singers who performed without any pay, as happened in Pula in 1903 while Bernardi was impresario. Te *Giornaletto di Pola* reported that Bernardi had engaged a newcomer in Milan, a certain Gina Secondo, with a "regular contract to sing *free of charge* in Bohème" (*regolare contratto per* cantare gratuitamente *nella Bohème*). Te journalist relates, in a tone of outrage, that she was not only singing for free, but that Bernardi had her father give him the sum of ffty lire*.* In actual fact, the contracts of certain agencies did include a clause (article 5 in that used by Rocca is an example) that stated that debuting artists or artists giving their services free of charge would have to pay "a premium of 50 lire at the signing of the contract" and – if their service were reconfrmed – would still have to pay a 5% commission fee on the salary received.43 We are not aware, however, that Bernardi had a theatrical agency. While Gina Secondo was well received by the audience and perhaps went on to have a career as a singer, this was not the case for other newcomers with whom Bernardi had drawn up the same "contract" to have them sing the entire season for nothing.44 Te public in Pula, however, was well able to judge the impresario's behaviour accordingly.

After stating the fee, the contracts would indicate fortuitous events and the artist's other obligations. While the singers' costumes were the responsibility of the impresa, the so-called *basso* (or *piccolo*) *vestiario* (i.e. the basic wardrobe) was that of the singers.45 It included foot-

<sup>42</sup> "Oggi finalmente o [*sic*] ricevuto le pretese del sig. Fiegna, le quali sono molto esagerate, che assolutamente non posso accettarle, e lo [*sic*] ringraziato egualmente, da come immaginavo io che si credeva indispensabile come sono tutti gli artisti, che purtroppo ben conosco – ed ho già scritturato un primo basso di vaglia – che a [*sic*] percorso tutti i principali teatri d'Italia, ed estero, nella persona del sig. Augusto Pinto."; Letter from Domenico Valenti to Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak, Milano, 20.3.1896, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>43</sup> Art. 14, Engagement agreement issued by Paolo Rocca between the Mazzoleni impresa and Tito Schipa, [Šibenik], 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>44</sup> At the same time Bernardi had drawn up with other newcomers "the very same contract, to have them sing the whole season" (*l'eguale contratto di farle cantare tutta la stagione*), just like Gina Secondo; and among these singers, the report went on, "there was that poor Russian girl who had to leave the stage after the first act, under a salvo of whistling" (c'era quella povera signorina russa che dovette ritirarsi dal palcoscenico dopo il primo atto, sotto una salva di fischi"); "Autoincensamento. Una querela", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 30.3.1903.

<sup>45</sup> There were cases, however, in which the *basso vestiario* was paid for by the impresario, as when Massimini paid for that of the singer Del Ponte at Zadar in 1890; Letter from Paolo Massimini to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 5.5.1890, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

wear, undershirts, feathers, handkerchiefs, fowers and jewellery.46 All clothing provided by the impresa would naturally have to be returned intact before payment of the last instalment of the fee. Otherwise the singer would have to pay for the missing items. Te obligation for the female artist to wear male clothing when required, a provision that had long been included in engagement agreements, was still applicable.

Next came the clauses relating to sickness and the penalties for non-fulflment of one's commitments. Not always did singers give due warning of a possible indisposition and there were instances in which the performance of an opera was interrupted to announce a singer's indisposition.47 Te number of days of sick leave given to singers varied from contract to contract. In the surviving contracts of the coastal region it could be two or four days, rarely more;48 in any case not as many as the eight days that a frst-rank theatre like La Fenice in Venice, for example, granted its artists already from the 1850s.49 According


<sup>46</sup> Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 72. The contract of the Rocca agency gives a more colourful and detailed description of the basic wardrobe. It consisted of: "shirts, blouses with their trimmings, trousers, white and coloured knitwear, shoes, boots, sandals, stockings, gloves, necklaces, bracelets, crowns, feathers, aigrettes, plaits, wigs, and every other kind of ornament for the head […] ("camicie, camicette colle loro guarnizioni, pantaloni, corpi a maglia bianchi, e di colore, scarpe, stivali, stivaletti, sandali, calze, guanti, collane, maniglie, corone, piume, aironi, treccie, parrucche, ed ogni altro ornamento da testa […]"); Art. 7, Engagement agreement issued by Paolo Rocca between the Mazzoleni impresa and Tito Schipa, [Šibenik], 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

to theatrical conventions ever since 1830, up to eight days of sick leave were granted.50 In the case of absence from, or abandoning, the *piazza* for any other reason, the singer would be fned, according to Rocca, 300 lire plus double the fee agreed in the contract with the impresario. In the case of lateness to rehearsals the fne ranged from 100 to 1,000 lire, which would be directly deducted from the next *quartale*. On the other hand, for the Lusardi agency (which also engaged singers for the Dalmatian area), a breach of the artist's obligations directly entailed the termination of the contract, with the singer obliged to pay back the entire fee.

Te part referring to agency fees was quite lengthy: for the artist the agency's work entailed a commission payable to the agency itself. In the case of Paolo Rocca's theatrical agency in Milan, the percentage ranged from 5% for Italy, 6% for Europe and 8% for America to the 10% for concerts. Te singer him- or herself was expected to see to the payment of this sum. Te contract with Schipa (like, for that matter, the Lusardi agency's agreement with the tenor Dammacco for Zadar) specifed a commission of 6%, given that Šibenik was considered to be a foreign city. Schipa would therefore have to directly pay Rocca the sum of 9.90 lire per night. Even the contract with Tencajoli, which preceded Rocca's contract by a good 44 years, stipulated a percentage of 5% (for Trieste), with the diference that the money would be detracted directly by the impresario and then passed on to the agency. Rocca's printed contract also specifed that the artist would have to attend a beneft night (*serata d'onore*) and that for this he or she would receive neither a carriage nor complementary tickets.

If the theatre management itself assumed the impresa, it could wish to have certain requirements taken into consideration. For example, Giovanni Mazzoleni begged Paolo Rocca to include in the artists' engagement agreements for the 1909 opera season an obligation to remain available for an extra week and a clause stating that, in the event of reconfrmation, they would be paid daily "for those days in proportion to the pay they will have" (*per quei giorni in proporzione alla paga che avranno*). To avoid any doubt on the matter, Mazzoleni even asked Rocca to write the amount and say that they would be paid "from day to day depending on the number of days they will remain in Šibenik".51 He also asked the agent to include the travel expenses in the pay. In the end Rocca partially incorporated these requests at the end of the document in the section devoted to additional articles, where we read: "If the season should be extended by a few days, the artists will be paid day by day on the basis of the pay they receive".52 In fact a space was left at the end of the

<sup>50</sup> Walter, *Oper*, p. 314.

<sup>51</sup> "da giorno in giorno secondo il numero delle giornate che saranno rimasti a Sebenico"; Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, Šibenik, 21. 2.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>52</sup> "Se la stagione avesse da prolungarsi di qualche giorno l'Artista sarà pagato di giorno in giorno sulle basi della paga che percepisce." The contract of the Lusardi agency with the tenor Dammacco established

contract for additional articles. Among the additional articles the Lusardi agency included (printed, using its own stamp) was the following: "Te artist will donate to the impresa 10 (ten) cents for every 100 (hundred) lire of the engagement fee to the pension fund of the Associazione Teatrale e di Mutuo Soccorso Giuseppe Verdi in Milan".53 In short, it was a form of support for an artists' protection association. Te contract ended with the signatures of the artist and the impresa.

No mention was made in these contracts to matters concerning accommodation. While in the 18th century the impresario undertook to fnd accommodation for the singers, now there appears to be no reference to the subject, though it is plausible to think that the custom continued, at least in part.

To eliminate the problem of undue competition, singers were forbidden to perform in venues other than the theatre with which the contract was drawn up. Rocca's printed form stipulates that from the beginning of rehearsals until the termination of the contract the singer could not "give a display of his or her talents in any place, either public or private, for concerts, academies or whatever else, even if for the purposes of charity, or for simple private recreation, with or without remuneration, or by way of courtesy".54 A similar clause was also included in the printed form of the Lusardi agency, where we read: "When the artist is at the *piazza*, he or she may not even make use of their talents in places of entertainment, public or private, and not even absent themselves from the city without regular permission".55 Tis ban, which applied for the whole period of the contract's validity, was

very clearly the pay due for extra performances: 300 lire each. This again was a detail indicated at the bottom of the contract.

<sup>53</sup> "L'Artista rilascerà all'impresa centesimi 10 (dieci) per ogni 100 (cento) lire di scrittura a favore della Cassa Pensioni della Associazione Teatrale e di Mutuo Soccorso Giuseppe Verdi in Milano."; Engagement agreement issued by the Giuseppe Lusardi theatrical agency between the management of the Teatro Verdi of Zadar and the *primo tenore assoluto* Giacomo Dammacco, Milano, 4. 4.1914, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>54</sup> "dare saggio dei suoi talenti in qualsiasi luogo, sia pubblico che privato, per concerti, accademie o altro che sia, fosse pure a scopo di beneficienza, o per semplice ricreazione privata, con o semplice retribuzione, od a titolo di cortesia"; Art. 11, Engagement agreement issued by Paolo Rocca between the Mazzoleni impresa and Tito Schipa, [Šibenik], 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>55</sup> "Quando l'Artista sarà alla piazza non potrà neppure far uso dei suoi talenti in luogo di divertimento, pubblico o privato, e neanche assentarsi dalla città senza un regolare permesso." This clause had remote origins and dates back to about the mid-17th century. In fact it stipulated that the singer could not "enter the service of any prince or other person and, if constrained to this on account of a command from a prince or other similar person, is always obliged, with his person and with his goods of any sort, to the complete repayment or reimbursement […] of any sum that he had up until then acquired in accordance with the above-mentioned agreements." ("intraprendere il servizio di alcun principe o altro personaggio et essendo astretto a ciò per qualunque causa di comando di Principe o d'altro simile, sia sempre obbligato con la persona e i suoi beni di qualunque sorte all'intiero risarcimento o rimborso […] di qualunque summa che avesse sin allora conseguita in vigore dei soprascritti patti".); see

further detailed as a prohibition to perform within a given range of the *piazza*, which could be 90 or 100 kilometres. Article 5 of the Lusardi agency's printed contract established that the singer could not perform "unless at a distance of 90 kilometres from the city in which he or she is engaged". Te contracts of Luciano Revere, like those of the Curiel or Rocca agencies, banned performances within 100 kms; failure to comply entailed the loss of half one's pay. In the past the distance also depended on the standing of the singer: the *prime parti* had to respect a distance of 60 miles (about 96 kilometres); the *seconde parti* 30 miles (about 48 kilometres).56 A distance of 60 miles was imposed on the soprano Tencajoli, on pain of losing a *quartale*. Te distance of 50 miles was imposed on the celebrated tenor Mario in his London contract with Frederick Gye.57 Before the Unifcation of Italy the engaged singers were directly deprived of their passports, a measure that made it impossible for them to leave the state in which the theatre of employment was situated and ensured that they would provide a regular service throughout the season. It was the theatre management's duty to notify the authorities.58 It was solely on the authority of the impresa that the singer could perform in other theatres: in which case he or she would receive, as compensation, the diference in the travel expenses.59

Te contract was usually individual (in other words, there was a contract for each person), an exception being the case of husband-and-wife choristers, for whom a single contract with two names was drawn up. Tis would also enable one to make a saving on the contract.60 In the coastal area, for the same season at Šibenik in which Schipa sang (spring 1909), a single contract for the choristers Adolfo Leghissa and Annita Marchesini was drawn up by the Luciano Revere agency of Trieste (using a form that bore the stamp of his partner Enrico Gallina).61 Leghissa was engaged as a tenor chorister, but also, if required, as a

Valentina Venturini, "Appunti sulle scritture teatrali", in *Teatro e Storia*, 2011, p. 20, http://hdl.handle. net/11590/117912 [accessed 30. 7. 2020].

<sup>56</sup> Giulia Mattiello, *Il Teatro la Fenice: pianificazione, organizzazione e amministrazione della stagione di Carnevale – Quaresima 1878/1879*, degree dissertation, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, 2011/2012, p. 39.

<sup>57</sup> Ingeborg Zechner, *Das Englische Geschäft mit der Nachtigall. Betrachtungen zum italienischen Opernwesen im London des 19. Jahrhunderts*, dissertation, Universität Graz, 2014, p. 285, or in the version published as Ingeborg Zechner, *Das Englische Geschäft mit der Nachtigall. Die italienische Oper im London des 19. Jahrhunderts*, Böhlau, Wien 2017, p. 219.

<sup>58</sup> Rossi-Gallieno, *Saggio*, p. 30.

<sup>59</sup> Art. 4, Engagement agreement issued by Paolo Rocca between the Mazzoleni impresa and Tito Schipa, [Šibenik], 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

<sup>60</sup> This procedure was adopted with married singers also to avoid separating the couple and allow both to be in the same place during the working period; see Venturini, "Appunti", p. 18, http://hdl.handle. net/11590/117912 [accessed 30. 7. 2020].

<sup>61</sup> Engagement agreement issued by the Mazzoleni impresa for the theatre of Šibenik to the artist Adolfo Leghissa and Annita Marchesini, Trieste, 4. 4.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

*comprimario* and *direttore di scena*, 62 whereas Signora Marchesini was a soprano chorister. We know that in those days married women had limited authority when it came to contracts, given that they would always need their husband's approval to perform in public. On the visiting cards of singers who ofered their joint services, the wife's name was not even mentioned. She was simply referred to as the "wife" (*moglie*) or "spouse" (*consorte*). Examples are the visiting cards of the chorister Giovanni Santini ("*Santini Giovanni e moglie / Coristi (Baritono e Contralto) / Rimini*") or that of the more famous Ercole Masini ("*Ferrara/Italia / Artista di canto / Ercole Masini / con consorte comprimaria e corista soprano 1°*"). Te tenor, baritone and bass had a name and surname; the wife didn't.63 It is worth bearing in mind a very explicit clause applied to married women at the time: "Te married woman cannot, as an artist, sign an engagement agreement without the husband's consent. Te husband can ask for the contract to be dissolved, if he can prove that the wife's commitment was unknown to him and that the needs of the family do not allow the wife to take on other commitments outside the family orbit."64 Te law was clear on this point. In fact this particular contract for Šibenik was signed by Leghissa "for himself and for Anita Marchesini" (*per sé e per Anita Marchesini*). Tis limitation was a prerogative found also in other European nations; only in British law was the married woman independent when it came to theatrical engagements.65

Just as the woman needed the consent of the husband, in the same way the singer who was under-age (which at the time meant under twenty-one) needed the consent of the father or, failing that, mother or legal guardian.66 It is a curious fact that Schipa signed


<sup>62</sup> We do not know exactly what was meant here at Šibenik by "direttore di scena". If we heed the information given by Rispoli, this figure should be the person who staged the opera and prepared the singers, following the stage directions written in the libretto. However, Rispoli also pointed out that "excepting the big theatres where, no matter how good or bad they are, there is always a *direttore scenico*, the theatres of lower rank are completely lacking in one." ("eccettuati i grandi teatri, dove sempre, buono o cattivo, esiste un direttore scenico, i teatri di ordine inferiore ne mancano del tutto."); Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 75.

his own contract with Šibenik, though not yet of legal age. He was born in 1889, so he was still twenty at the time of *La traviata*. (He performed at Šibenik two years before what is historically considered to have been his debut at Vercelli in 1911.)67 Yet in spite of his being considered a minor, his signature was not endorsed by that of a parent. What also stands out in the contracts for the cast of *La traviata* and *Il trovatore* and that for Leghissa-Marchesini is that they were drawn up by two diferent agencies (Rocca and Revere-Gallina), which means that the director of the Teatro Mazzoleni made use of two diferent agents for the same season. Teir fees were also given in two diferent currencies: while the Italian cast was paid in lire, the two choristers were paid 12 crowns a day. But like the rest of the cast, the choristers would be paid in fve-day blocks (*cinquine*). Te percentage charged by Revere-Gallina was a fat 5%, so unlike other agents, he made no distinction between Italian territory and abroad or between diferent types of theatrical spectacle.

Gradually over the years the contracts started mentioning the artists' obligation to perform the music in its entirety (though the clause does not appear in Rocca's contracts).68 Te reason was that operas were being subjected to substantial cuts, as we have already seen. While the contracts adopted in the coastal area omit to specify the penalty for failing to observe this provision, other contracts clearly indicate the amount of the fne. Moreover, any singer wishing to make any changes in the tessitura of the music would have to bear the relative cost, as well as assume the expense for any new pieces they wished to sing in the beneft concerts.69

and who will now be forced to be twenty-one, find that what Signor Prevel says is absolutely right." ("I giornali tedeschi ne fanno scalpore; il signor Prevel, fra gli altri, osserva con spirito che sarebbe più logico interdire le scene alle cantanti che abbiano raggiunto un'età troppo ragionevole. Alcune prime donne, che si erano arrestate molto saggiamente a vent'anni e che saranno costrette ad averne ventuno, trovano che il signor Prevel dice benissimo."); "Varietà", *Euterpe*, 23. 9.1869.

<sup>67</sup> On Tito Schipa's presence at Šibenik, see also the article by Tito Schipa jr., who instead dates the debut at Vercelli to 1909; Tito Schipa jr, "Tito Schipa a Sebenico, un evento 'in rete'", *Atti e memorie della Società Dalmata di Storia Patria*, XXIV/ 4 (2002).

<sup>68</sup> "Art. 8. It is the obligation of the artist to perform the scores in their full integrity; and changes, transpositions or omissions of pieces must be authorised by the impresa, after due reflection." ("Art. 8. È obbligo dell'Artista eseguire gli spartiti nella loro piena integrità, ed i cangiamenti, trasporti od omissioni di pezzi dovranno essere permessi dall'Impresa, dietro giuste riflessioni."); Engagement agreement issued by the Frusta Teatrale agency between the impresario Alfredo Vecchi and the first trumpet for the theatre of Split. Milano, 26.10.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>69</sup> "The expense for adapting the music to their range must be borne by the artist, provided however that this is permitted by the impresa. At benefit nights the expense of the new pieces chosen to be sung and of the costume must also be borne by the artist." ("Resta poi a carico dell'Artista la spesa per far accomodare la musica a seconda della sua tessitura, sempre però che dall'impresa venga concesso. Nelle sue serate a beneficio resta a carico dell'Artista la spesa dei nuovi pezzi che amasse cantare e del vestiario in costume."); Engagement agreement issued by the Frusta Teatrale agency, Milano 26.10.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

Te musical repertoire must either be attached on a separate sheet or indicated at the end of the contract, as in the case of Tencajoli's contract.70

Te contracts had to be signed various months before the start of the relevant season, so as to allow for the commitments of the various artists, especially those of greater repute. For example, at Rijeka in the early years of the 20th century the new call for tenders was published in the month of June and the theatre delegation decided on the presented proposals even before the summer holidays. In this way the new contractor had enough time to draw up contracts with the singers for the Lent season of the following year.71

In the surviving documentation we do not have cases of "experimental contracts" (*scrittura "per esperimento"*): in other words, a contract in which the artist underwent a trial period of just a few nights. In these cases the contract could be terminated after just a short time, in the event of the singer making a poor showing. If artists didn't live up to expectations, one of the frst in a position to reject them was the *maestro concertatore* and conductor; the assessment of the singer's performance was subjective and therefore discretionary. A replacement would then be discussed and approved (or not, as the case may be) during a meeting of the theatre management.72 No opinion was sought either from a member of

<sup>70</sup> In the final section of the contract we read: "Repertoire which the artist declares to be confident in, from which the impresa may choose one or any opera that it believes to be most suitable, but to [illegible] for the opening night, and they are *Ballo in maschera, Trovatore, Ernani, Lucrezia Borgia, Ione, Mosè, Vittor Pisani, Corado d'Altamura* and *Favorita*, and after the opening night *I Falsi Monetari* and others." ("Repertorio nel quale si dichiara l'Artista di essere persuasa, onde l'Impresa possa scegliere quella, e qualunque Opera che più crederà confacente, ma di […]enere serio pel debutto e sono *Ballo in maschera, Trovatore, Ernani, Lucrezia Borgia, Ione, Mosè, Vittor Pisani, Corado d'Altamura* e *Favorita* e dopo il debutto *I Falsi Monetari* ed altre."); Contract between the impresario Angelo Tommasi and the singer Lena Tencajoli, Milano, 22. 7.1865, HR-DAZD, folder 2.

<sup>71</sup> Letter from the Civic Magistrate of Rijeka to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 12.6.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>72</sup> Maestro Stermich discussed a substitution in Pula relating to a production of *La bohème*; "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Popolo Istriano*, 4.3.1899. Another example is given in the letter with which the tenor engaged to sing in *Sansone e Dalila* and *Tannhäuser* was dismissed at Rijeka: "The management of the Teatro Comunale makes known to your impresa that in the managers' meeting held on… it was decided not to accept the tenor Signor Angelo Secchi as principal singer in the operas Sansone e Dalila and Tannhäuser, for the principal reason that the conductor Maestro Pasquale la Rotella declares that he absolutely does not want him, given the insufficient results given by the artist in one of the two said operas. Reason no. 2: The management, mindful both of performances given in this theatre of the same scores and of private information obtained concerning the said artist, does not find him up to the standards and importance of the theatre itself. The theatre management therefore assuredly calls for the impresa to replace Signor Angelo Secchi with another artist that may be satisfactory both to the management and to the conductor." ("La Direzione del Teatro Comunale rende noto a codesta Impresa, che nella seduta Direzionale tenuta addì… è stato deciso di non accettare il tenore sig. Angelo Secchi quale protagonista delle opere Sansone e Dalila e Tannhäuser e ciò pel motivo che il M° direttore Pasquale la Rotella dichiara assolutamente di non volerlo, dato l'esito d'insufficienza avuto

the company (say, an older colleague) or from a singer in the same artistic category as the interested party: a measure that might have made the decision more impartial and objective. We have cases of singers who, at the time of signing the contract with the impresario, had crossed out the article giving the *maestro concertatore* and the impresa the right to dismiss them, while leaving intact the article that gave this same right to the theatre management.73 We also have cases of singers who fatly refused to be dismissed and defed the impresa. It happened at Rijeka, where the American soprano Evelina Parnell refused to leave when the Alpron-Battaglia impresa decided to have her replaced by a certain Benigni in the role of Gilda, against her express refusal to give up her part without any guarantee. "Since in this way the contract drawn up with me has been breached and my rights infringed," Parnell wrote to the theatre management, "I protest against the injustice and give you notice that I have formally cautioned the impresa against carrying out this substitution, warning it that I will hold it responsible for all ensuing damage to my person."74

Te more prudent impresarios would include in the contract a clause that exempted them from paying the dismissed singers: a provision that had been upheld by the courts in 1861.75 A *protesta* could occur not only in the course of the season, but already at the dress rehearsal. Indeed this was precisely the reason why the singers were expected to sing in full voice during the rehearsal (and not just 'mark' their part) and even wear full costume. Only in this way could the management form an idea of their real value.

Another possible problem was that the singer might fnd him- or herself in the unfortunate situation of waiting to receive a *quartale* that would probably never be paid because the theatre management had ofcially decided to suspend the performances of an opera and cancel the contract with the impresa. Tis happened, for example, to the baritone Enrico Fagotti and the *basso comico* Filippo Catani at Rijeka in connection with performances of *Il barbiere di Siviglia* organised by the impresario Vincenzo Dal Torso*.* Fagotti had been engaged in the regular way and had even overcome the hurdle of the dress rehearsal to

dall'artista in una delle due suddette opere. Motivo II: La direzione memore delle esecuzioni avute in questo teatro degli stessi spartiti e da informazioni private attinte sul conto di suddetto artista, non lo trova all'altezza ed importanza del teatro stesso. La Direzione Teatrale perciò invita senz'altro l'Impresa a sostituire il sig. Angelo Secchi con altro artista che possa essere di soddisfazione della direzione stessa nonché del Maestro Direttore."); Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the Alpron impresa, Rijeka, [1914], HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>73</sup> Letter from Attilio Alpron to the theatre management of Rijeka, [Rijeka], 11.12.1913, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>74</sup> "Poiché con ciò si viene meno al contratto con me stipulato e si ledono i miei diritti, io protesto contro il sopruso e vi do notizia di avere formalmente diffidato l'impresa a compiere tale sostituzione, avvertendola che la terrò responsabile di tutti i danni che me ne vengono."; Letter from Evelina Parnell to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 1. 4.1913, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>75</sup> Rosmini, *La legislazione*, I, pp. 138, 140–142, cited in John Rosselli, "Il sistema produttivo 1780–1880", in *Storia dell'opera italiana*, edited by Lorenzo Bianconi and Giorgio Pestelli, EDT, Torino 1987.

sing on the frst two nights: "At the dress rehearsal, on strict *orders* from this honourable management I sang in full voice, and was approved, since otherwise I wouldn't have been allowed to present myself to the public".76 Without him being personally informed of the reason for the decision, the management discontinued the performances. At the time of writing to the management, Fagotti had been at the *piazza* in Rijeka for 19 days and his second *quartale* was due to be paid after the eighth performance – whereas he had actually sung in only two. He believed he should still receive the payment, merely out of respect for the signed contract: "also considering that, for reasons unrelated to myself, the production is not going ahead, and given that so many days have passed since the day of my arrival at this *piazza*, I should by now have the right to receive it. I also understand that new artists have been engaged by order of this honourable management; this provision, however, cannot make any diference to my rights and to the faithful and punctual observance of my engagement, and hence to the full payment of my fee".77 He therefore proposed to

On the other hand, Filippo Catani, who was probably from the same company, was owed 225 francs for the Lent season and was still waiting to be paid the frst *quartale* of the spring season, amounting to 1,300 lire.78 In spite of repeated requests, he claimed that the impresario turned a deaf ear. Again the singer asserted that he had satisfed the conditions of the public and that the interruption of the performances was certainly not his fault. He thus demanded compliance with the provisions of the contract, given that the decision had been made independently of the quality of his work.79 If, in the presence of

the theatre management a settlement with the sum of 500 lire, which was in fact the exact

amount of the second *quartale*.

<sup>76</sup> "Alla prova generale per *ordine* preciso di codest'onorevole Direzione cantai a piena voce e ne fui approvato poiché altrimenti non mi sarebbe stato permesso il presentarmi al pubblico."; Letter from Enrico Fagotti to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka [ca. 1860s-1870s], HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>77</sup> "pure sulla considerazione che per motivi da me indipendenti non si continua collo spettacolo ed essendo trascorso tante giornate dal giorno del mio arrivo in questa piazza avrei un diritto a percepirlo già adesso. Mi consta poi essere stati per ordine di codest'onorevole direzione scritturati dei nuovi artisti; tale disposizione però non può portare alcuna alterazione ai miei diritti ed alla fedele e puntuale manutenzione della mia scrittura e quindi al pien pagamento del mio onorario."; Letter from Enrico Fagotti to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka [ca. 1860s-1870s], HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>78</sup> It is interesting to note the payment in two different currencies: a possibility contemplated in the contracts and not the first instance in the theatres of the coastal region.

<sup>79</sup> "Since the impresario, to my repeated requests for payment, turns a deaf ear," wrote Catani, "and since, moreover, I find myself running between him and the honourable management over the negotiations for the amicable rescission of the contract between him and the existing honourable management on the basis of which the artists of the present company were engaged, and since, on account of all of this, my fee is exposed to the danger of being lost; as a result, I honour myself to address this honourable management with the appeal that it be pleased to take the necessary steps to ensure that with the possible rescission of the said contract the commitments made by the impresa towards the individual artists, and particularly towards those artists who had satisfied the requirements of the public, should

signed contracts, the negotiations with the theatre management should come to nothing, the impresario could resort to the press as a way of exonerating himself and avoiding further problems and lawsuits that would certainly follow. In both of the above cases we do not know if the management paid up and how the afair ended. Te fact remains that the contracts often saw the artists in the position – as one would say today – of the 'weaker party'. Te contract terms were more sympathetic to the interests of the theatre and the impresario, while those of the artists took a back seat.80 At times the very language used in the contracts drawn up by the agents lent itself to more than one interpretation (intentionally, and to the disadvantage of the singers).81

not be breached. I dare to hope that this honourable management will heed this appeal of mine, especially considering that on the good faith of the validity and regularity of the contract drawn up between you and the impresa I decided to take on the engagement for this *piazza*. And now, to rescind that contract without safeguarding the interests of the artist would be tantamount to consenting to a disgraceful action that the impresa is attempting to implement to the detriment of the artist." ("Siccome l'impresario a ripetute mie richieste di pagamento fa il sordo e siccome anzi mi consta correre fra esso e l'onorevole Direzione delle trattative d'amichevole scioglimento del contratto tra esso e l'onorevole Direzione esistente, e sulla cui base furono scritturati gli artisti dell'attuale compagnia, e siccome per tutto ciò va ad essere esposto a pericolo di perdita il mio onorario; così mi pregio di rivolgermi all'onorevole Direzione colla preghiera affinchè si compiaccia prenderne le opportune disposizioni onde coll'eventuale scioglimento del suddetto contratto non vengano lesi gl'impegni assunti dall'impresa verso i singoli artisti e particolarmente poi verso quelli artisti che soddisfarono alle esigenze del pubblico. Oso sperare che l'onorevole Direzione aderirà a questa mia preghiera tanto più da che sulla buona fede della validità e regolarità del contratto stipulato tra lei e l'impresa io mi decisi a scritturarmi per questa piazza, ed ora sciogliendo quel contratto senza cautelare gli appunti dell'artista equivarrebbe a tenere mano ad un atto indecoroso che l'impresa tenta di tradurre a danno dell'artista."); Letter from Filippo Catani to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 21.3.1869, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.


#### 7.3 The beneft nights

Many singers, by contract, were obliged to take part in the so-called *benefciate* or beneft nights dedicated to them. Te prima donna was referred to as "*la seratante*"; i.e. the one to whom the evening (*sera*) was dedicated. Te term was also used in the masculine: "*il seratante*". In actual practice there was some confusion between the terms *benefciata* and *serata d'onore*, which could be interchangeable and used as synonyms, even in the press. In both cases the type of event was practically identical, but the diference lay in who took the proceeds: the singer in the former, the impresario in the latter. Te receipts of the *benefciata* could be entirely given to the singers themselves (though excluding, for example, the takings from the galley), or half be allotted to the impresa.82 We have already encountered one instance of the "*mezza benefciata*" – in which the evening's expenses (which could be considerable) were usually deducted – in the aforementioned contract between the impresario Angelo Tommasi and the singer Lena Tencajoli. Tat the entire profts of a beneft concert should be assigned to the impresario was practically unheard of, but there was certainly one instance in Split: when the tenor Alessandro Lamponi, sympathetic to the heavy losses sustained by the impresario, decided to donate to him the entire takings of the evening.83

Tese beneft nights were not necessarily required for every member of the cast engaged. At Zadar it was the theatre management that decided which of the artists were worthy of appearing in a special evening dedicated to them and would schedule the dates in the course of the season.84 As a rule, the number of beneft nights was specifed in the contract between theatre management and impresario, and there would be one per season for each singer, except in rare instances of multiple benefts. One such instance occurred at Zadar itself, where a certain singer called Orbellini was forced to give two additional nights "in order to get by and fnish the season": the operas *Amico Fritz* and *Zazà* in 1907 had turned out to be failures, so performances continued with the already-programmed *Adriana Lecouvreur* in the hope of getting to the end "honourably" (*dignitosamente*) with the aid of what was called a *benefciata*. 85 On the evidence given here, however, we should more properly call such events *serate d'onore*, given that everything suggests that the takings went to the impresario.

While a *benefciata* could be ironically defned in the press as "a special performance, in which the artist exerts himself more than usual, the spectator pays more than usual, and

The benefit nights

<sup>82</sup> On the subject see also Giovanni Azzaroni, *Del teatro e dintorni. Una storia della legislazione e delle strutture teatrali in Italia nell'Ottocento*, Bulzoni, Roma 1981, p. 100. The proceeds could also be split three-quarters/a quarter, depending on the agreement between singer and impresario.

<sup>83</sup> Special notice for the evening of Saturday 29 May 1875 / Benefit night for the impresa, Split, [1875], HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>84</sup> Art. 21, Tender specifications of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>85</sup> "Da Zara", *L'Eco dell'Adriatico*, 17–18.1.1907.

the impresario earns more than is customary",86 these evenings also had the positive aim of focusing the attention on the individual singer and strengthening the relationship between singer and audience. Te *benefciate* and *serate d'onore* in the coastal theatres did not difer from those of mainland Italy. In Šibenik a *benefciata* would be announced in the lower part of a poster advertising a forthcoming performance; and what the *seratante* (male or female) would sing – within the same evening of opera – might be printed on either side of the same poster. For example, in the course of a performance of *Ernani* with the bass Luigi Manfrini, the opera would be interrupted after the second act to give Manfrini the possibility to perform "the romanza from the opera *Simon Boccanegra*"*.* <sup>87</sup> In this particular case the choice of piece fell within the scope of the Verdi repertoire. Not always, however, was music by the same composer performed between one act and the next. At Rijeka, for example, after the second act of *Gli Ugonotti* the soprano Clementina Noel Guidi, the recipient of a *benefciata* on 31 May 1871, performed a cavatina from *Macbeth*. 88 And Verdi himself, like any other composer, could be paired up with a wide variety of operatic pieces by composers past or contemporary (we fnd Verdi and Smareglia combined at Pula, for example). A night on which *La forza del destino* was staged could also accommodate the prologue from Leoncavallo's *Pagliacci*. Or the acts of Franchetti's *Germania* could be interspersed with pieces by Antonio Braga. And if the recipient of a beneft night happened to play a musical instrument as well as sing, there was a further possibility: as indeed occurred when the soprano Maddalena Ticci Giganti, being a violinist as well as a singer, performed Sarasate's *Zingaresca* after the second act of *La traviata* in Zadar in 1902.89

We have no documentary evidence about who made the decisions on the repertoire or when exactly the *seratante* should perform: whether at the start, middle or end of the evening. It may have been the impresario who established the order of events, but perhaps the decision was more likely made jointly by impresario and singer. As for the repertoire, it would presumably be that most congenial to the singer: one that displayed his or her gifts to the best efect.

A beneft night could also have a diferent format: that of presenting a complete performance of an opera highlighting the main recipient and introducing other singers or actors between one act and the next. In this way one or more *seratanti* could be featured. For example, at Šibenik on 12 March 1887 a beneft night was organised for a prima donna at her debut: Ida Mazzoleni, cousin to the more famous Ester. Te opera chosen was *La sonnambula*. After the frst act it was decided to have Francesco Mazzoleni sing *Il rimpatriante* by Ricci and

<sup>86</sup> "una rappresentazione straordinaria, in cui l'artista si affatica più dell'usato, lo spettatore paga più del solito, e l'impresario incassa più del consueto"; *Il Vaglio*, no. 50, 16.12.1843, p.1.

<sup>87</sup> Poster for *Ernani*, 11. 4.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 7.

<sup>88</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 31.5.1871.

<sup>89</sup> List of the performances given at the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, [Zadar, n.d.], HR-DAZD, folder 30.

De Giosa and the song *La mia bandiera* by Augusto Rotoli, in addition to a piece recited by Flora Mirco entitled *La prima volta in teatro*. In this part of the programme there was therefore a mixture of singing and recitation in which Ida Mazzoleni did not take part. After this interruption the evening continued with the second and third acts of *La sonnambula.*<sup>90</sup>

At the Teatro Bajamonti in Split the format of certain beneft nights could be a little different. Since it was not a question of presenting an entire opera, the singer was not asked to perform between one act and the next. He or she might appear at the beginning, in duets and solo arias, and then go on to take part in a potpourri of works by various composers that could also be interspersed with dance. An example is the programme for the beneft night of the German prima donna Antonietta Link in 1875:

#### Parte I

Auber – Sinfonia nell'Opera *La muta de'Portici* a grande orchestra

Mozart – Duetto nell'opera *Don Giovanni* "Là ci darem la mano" Cantato dalla signora Link e dal signor Cesarj che gentilmente si presta

Briccialdi – Grande concerto per Flauto sull'Opera *Lucrezia Borgia* con accompagnamento d'orchestra, eseguito dal concertista signor Francesco Casiraghi che gentilmente di presta Weber – Grande aria per soprano nell'opera *Der Freischütz* (Il Franco Bersagliere) cantata in tedesco dalla signora Antonietta Link

Grande terzetto danzante

composto ed eseguito dal primo ballerino coreografo signor Andrea Borzone in unione alle prime ballerine signore Vincenza Pasta-Borzone ed Enrichetta Oro

#### Parte II

II. e III. Atto dell'Opera *Un ballo in maschera* del maestro Gius. Verdi.

Verdi – Gran sinfonia nell'opera *Giovanna d'Arco* a grande orchestra

Chiuderà il trattenimento col 5.to atto dell'opera del maestro G. Gounod

Faust Ecco quanto ofre l'umile artista, sicura di vedersi onorata da numeroso concorso, e ne anticipa i più sentiti ringraziamenti […]91

<sup>90</sup> The poster advertising the event announced that the building would be brightly lit (*illuminato a giorno*) by the theatre management as a tribute to the *seratante* and the celebrated tenor; at the bottom right (as customary when referring to the organisation) was a generic mention of "L'impresa".

<sup>91</sup> Teatro Bajamonti / Variato trattenimento, Brochure for the benefit night of Antonietta Link, Split, 1875, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII. Also preserved in the theatrical *fondo* of the City Museum of Split is the printed sonnet that the singer's admirers dedicated to her expressly for this special event.

Te audience would therefore have heard Link in a duet by Mozart, an aria from *Der Freischütz*, and most likely the entire second and third acts of *Un ballo in maschera*, as well as Act V of *Faust*, all works that must have suited her voice and her taste. Te programme, featuring the participation of other soloists, was extremely varied.

It is not known if in the area any limitations were imposed on the level of applause accorded to the singers. In the past there had been special police regulations in Italy limiting the permissible forms and signs of appreciation.92 After a beneft night the singers might, as was customary, fnd themselves being carried through the streets in the arms of a large crowd. Refreshments or even a banquet, which spectators might join, could also be laid on in some neighbouring location. Tese were all part of the ensuing festivities.93

After the beneft night it was considered courteous for the singer to send a letter of thanks to the theatre management. We have the example of a letter from Tito Schipa: "I thank the honourable theatre management with all my heart for the kind thought that it had on the occasion of my night of honour. In the hope of serving you again at a future date."94 And one from Ada Postiglione: "Before leaving I feel it is my duty to express, to you and the theatre management presided over by Your Excellency, my most heartfelt thanks and intense gratitude for the splendid gift and the immense kindnesses of which Your Excellencies were so bountiful. Whatever the circumstances, I shall never forget the warmth shown to me and the festive reception of this city most dear to me; it

<sup>92</sup> It was forbidden, for example, to prolong the applause or "repeat it excessively" (*ripeterli soverchiamente*). As late as 1828 a Milanese newspaper, wishing to express the appreciation shown to the prima donna Annetta Fischer, who had sung in *Il barbiere di Siviglia* in Trieste, wrote that she was "one of the few fortunates for whom the police statutes, which did not allow one to call the artists to the front of the stage more than once, were waived." ("una delle poche fortunate per cui si derogò dagli Statuti della Polizia, li quali non permettevano di chiamare gli artisti più di una volta al proscenio."); Giuseppe Caprin, *Il Teatro Nuovo: XXI aprile 1801*, Schimpff, Trieste 1901, p. 36.

<sup>93</sup> See for example the celebrations that took place in Pula after *Carmen* in 1890: "The Via Giulia presented an impressive sight, with more than three thousand people, both audience and bystanders, waiting for Salvi to come out. And as soon as he emerged together with his colleagues, Desanti's electric reflector lamps illuminated the scene with thousands of Bengali sparklers; and Salvi was carried to the nearby Budweis beer hall. There a banquet awaited him. The beer hall was invaded by the public, and there was no lack of applause, hurrahs and toasts, just as there was no lack of bottles of Refosco and champagne." ("La via Giulia presentava uno spettacolo imponente, più di tre mille persone, fra pubblico e curiosi, attendevano l'uscita del Salvi. Non appena questi si presentò con i compagni il riflettore elettrico del Desanti illuminò la scena con migliaia di fiammiferi bengalici; e Salvi fu portato a braccia fino alla vicina Birraria «Budweis». Colà lo attendeva il banchetto. La birraria fu invasa dal pubblico, applausi, evviva e brindisi non mancarono, come pure non mancarono le bottiglie di refosco e di sciampagna.") "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 13.12.1890.

<sup>94</sup> "Ringrazio di cuore l'onorevole Direzione Teatrale del pensiero che ha avuto in occasione della mia serata d'onore. Nella speranza di poterla servire in altri tempi nuovamente."; Letter from Tito Schipa to the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 30. 4.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

will always be remembered with infnite, intimate and constant afection."95 Irrespective of the sincerity with which it was written, a letter of thanks also served as a prudent way of making a good impression and leaving the management with a good memory of the event. Te letter could also be sent to the local newspapers with a request for publication, thereby amplifying the message and including the public in this sort of *captatio benevolentiae* after the event.96

Beneft nights could also be organised in favour of choruses or dancers, or in honour of conductors, as happened in Zadar for Roberto Moranzoni (who had Liszt's *Second Hungarian Rhapsody* performed by the orchestra before the opera scheduled for that night)97 or Giuseppe Marrone, who, wishing to pay a tribute to Antonio Smareglia, played the composer's *Hungarian Dances* in Pula.98 Some conductors were also composers, so they could embrace the opportunity of including their own music. Antonino Palminteri, for example, conducted exclusively his own works during his beneft night,99 as did Rafaele Patucchi, who inserted a duet from one of his own operas after the second act of *Ernani*. 100


<sup>95</sup> "Prima di partire sento il dovere di esprimere a Lei ed alla Direzione Teatrale dalla S.V. presieduta, i più sentiti ringraziamenti e la riconoscenza vivissima per lo splendido dono, e le immense cortesie di cui le SS.VV. mi sono state prodighe. In qualunque circostanza mai dimenticherò di quanta bontà sia stato capace l'animo Loro e l'accoglienza festosa di questa città a me carissima, sarà sempre ricordata con infinito, intimo, costante affetto."; Letter from Ada Postiglione to Giovanni Mazzoleni, [n.p.], 2. 2.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

Samuele Wolf, on the other hand, performed in Split not only as a conductor but also as a violinist.101

We have no references in the area to 'fake programmes' at beneft nights. For it had been known for the impresario to entice the public by advertising evenings in which new works were to be performed, while in the end presenting just old repertoire. For such behaviour an impresario could also be disciplined.102 A beneft night could also be cancelled if the audience in the theatre was considered to be too small. Tis happened at Pula at the beneft night for mezzosoprano Annita Budriesi. Although the few tickets sold were refunded, the singer nonetheless retained possession of the gifts that were prepared for her even if she didn't perform: a gold bracelet, an expensive fan and two important bunches of fowers.103

If these evenings failed to meet expectations, the journalists would make the most of it. Bad reviews in the newspapers were known not to shy away from rudeness to the artists. Te journalist might not only adopt a paternalistic attitude and presume to give the singer advice from the columns of the paper, but also criticise performances using language and tones that today would be considered disrespectful. Tis tendency didn't go unnoticed, and from many quarters there was a call for more balanced reporting on the part of the critics. In Rijeka it was noted that the two newspapers had very diferent approaches when it came to judging the performance of singers:

Our newspaper [*Author's note: La Gazzetta di Fiume*] almost always used to praise artists to the skies in its theatrical articles; the *Giornale di Fiume* nearly always throws them in the mud. While the sweet perfume of the former distorted the truth and fruitlessly pufed up the artist, the lashings of the latter are a sin against charity for one's neighbour and calculated to instil in the artist's soul either despondency or spite; signally when they are doing their best to zealously fulfl their duties and be respectful towards the public. Balanced criticism fnds a way of expressing its censure, while formally retaining its good manners.104

<sup>101</sup> Wolff was later the recipient of tributes in the form of poems and epigrams, bunches of flowers and doves with laurel crowns, and was greeted outside the theatre with Bengali sparklers, according to the report in "Spalato 4 giugno", *La Scena*, 15. 6.1865.

<sup>102</sup> Salucci, *Manuale della giurisprudenza*, p. 59.

<sup>103</sup> "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 12.11.1892.

<sup>104</sup> "Questa nei suoi articoli teatrali portava pressochè sempre gli Artisti fino alle stelle; il *Giornale di Fiume*  li getta quasi sempre nel fango. Se l'incenso della prima nuoceva alla verità e inorgogliva senza frutto l'Artista, la sferza del secondo pecca contro la carità del prossimo, e mette nell'animo dell'Artista lo scoramento, o il dispetto; segnatamente quando faccia del suo meglio per adempiere con zelo il suo compito ed usi i debiti riguardi verso il pubblico. Una critica temperata trova il modo di esternare le sue censure, salvando le convenienze di forma."; "Teatro Civico"*, Il Giornale di Fiume*, 29. 4.1865, p. 128.

A need was felt, therefore, for the writers to display fairer judgement, which could even be negative but should at least show greater professionalism. Although this is clearly not the place for a study of the journalists working in the coastal area, it would nonetheless be interesting to understand the extent to which their criticism contributed not only to boosting the popularity of opera companies and singers with the public, but also to promoting the interests of the theatre management. It is worth noting, in this regard, that at times the articles in the newspapers (both those announcing a season and those commenting on productions) were actually written by the theatre management or the opera companies themselves: a practice that has survived in certain cases to the present day. Te impresario could at times ask the local papers to publish something about a singer written in the national papers, as a means of preparing his or her arrival. It was in the impresario's interests to make sure, with an efective publicity campaign, that the singers were presented – as far as possible – as celebrities or at least as artists whose talents had been appreciated in various theatres outside the region. Generating curiosity around the *seratante* of a beneft night would surely bring in a bigger audience.

#### 7.3.1 Gifts to singers

As was customary at the time, in addition to cash payments, the singers were presented with gifts after their performances. Te practice fourished also in the coastal theatres. Gifts were not indicated in the contract with the singer; they were spontaneously organised from one beneft night to the next. In Split a handwritten notice was distributed among the theatre-goers with the object of raising the funds to buy presents for the artists:

Te theatre management, confdent that it interprets the wishes of the gentlemen who frequent our Teatro Comunale, has already presented certain of the fnest artists with a small gift on the occasion of their beneft nights and wishes to do the same to others. In order to cover the relative expense, the above gentlemen are kindly requested to contribute with their donations. N.B. Te gentlemen wishing to contribute something are requested to write the sum on this sheet and pay it promptly.105

<sup>105</sup> "La Direzione Teatrale sicura d'interpretare il pensiero dei Signori che frequentano il nostro Teatro Comunale, ha distinto già alcuni e vuole distinguere anche gli altri migliori artisti in occasione delle loro beneficiate, con una piccola memoria. Onde poter coprire la relativa spesa si pregano gentilmente i suddetti Signori a voler concorrere col loro obolo. Nb: si pregano i Signori che desiderassero di contribuire qualche cosa, a voler iscrivere il relativo importo su questo foglio e pagarlo tosto."; Document for fundraising for benefit nights, Split, 29.[?].1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

Tis was followed by the list of donors and the sums promised. Te donations were discretionary, though usually the larger sums were donated by members of the board or shareholders who had more than one share. In the present case the sums ranged from ten forins down to an average of around two or three forins from most of the shareholders.

We have a very similar appeal for contributions from the theatre management of Šibenik. Tis time the aim was to collect enough money to present the soprano Solomiya Krushelnytska with a gift after her performance:

Te benevolent public of Šibenik, which in the present opera season at our Teatro Mazzoleni admired the extraordinary artistic merits of the distinguished prima donna Signora Crucenisca [*sic*], is hereby invited to contribute with donations so that a memento may be presented to the lady at her farewell night. Te names of the donors will be made known to the distinguished artists, and we hope that the collection will be generously supported and produce an excellent result, worthy of the person it is intended to honour.106

Tis again was followed by a donations list. Te sums ofered were similar to those of Split: while the theatre management gave ten forins, the individual shareholders donated sums that varied from one to fve forins. In this case too, the singer would be acquainted with the donors' names.

Also documented is a fundraising campaign made in the early years of the 20th century for the prima donna Bovi-Campeggi from the opera company of the same name, with presents ranging from a bracelet costing 50 crowns and a feather boa worth 22 crowns down to the more afordable camellias and ribbons, for 8 and 2 crowns respectively.107 Other possible gifts for women were fans, bouquets and baskets of fowers, bunches of fowers (true or artifcial) including gold-embroidered ribbons with the artist's initials, silver toiletry bags, lace, hats, handbags, earrings and sugared almonds (*confetti*). Tere was even a diamond brooch mounted in gold.108 Tere is less evidence, on the other hand, for singers being ofered

<sup>106</sup> "Il gentile pubblico di Sebenico, che nella presente stagione d'opera al nostro Teatro Mazzoleni ammirò i pregi artistici straordinari della distinta primadonna sig.ra Crucenisca, è invitato a concorrere con qualche offerta onde si presenti a detta signora un ricordo nella serata d'addio. I nomi degli offerenti si notificheranno agli egregi artisti, e speriamo che la raccolta sarà generosamente sostenuta e condotta a ottima riuscita, degna del personaggio che s'intende onorare." Donations for a gift to be made to the prima donna Salomea Crucenisca, Šibenik, [n.d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1. It is recorded that Crucenisca had also performed in Zadar in the spring season of 1896, without any further information on the subject.

<sup>107</sup> Donations to be made to the *Prima Donna Brillante* Signorina Diana Bovi Campeggi for the occasion of her night of honour, [n.d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>108</sup> The watchmaker Ledvinka in Zadar sent an invoice to the theatre management for a "gold brooch with diamonds for ladies, 27.50f." ("spilla d'oro con diamantini da signora, f. 27,50"); Invoice from C.B. Ledvinka to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 25.11.1894, HR-DAZD, folder 8.

bracelets and rings in solid gold, as happened on the Italian mainland.109 Tere were those who organised choreographic launches of doves or ofered a framed portrait of the singer. At the beneft night for Virginia Pozzi-Branzanti in Rijeka in 1872 a banner was lowered from the top of the stage with the letters made of coloured fowers forming the words "Viva Virginia Pozzi-Branzanti". During the performance itself the singer was serenaded with a harp interlaced with fowers. In addition, the customary bunches of fowers with ribbons and a scroll of poems. Te poems, another very common form of tribute at the time, could also be directly attached to the boxes in the theatre.110 Some were printed on silk. Poems, inscriptions and prints were common forms of tribute to singers of both sexes. We learn about some of these gifts from the lists of expenses drawn up at the theatre of Zadar at the end of the century. Sets of tableware or desk sets in silver were also given. We have no evidence, at the coastal theatres, of presents in the form of foodstufs such as cofee, tea, chocolate or sugar,111 though exceptions were made for the underage artists of the 'Lilliputian' companies: no gold or valuables for them (for what would they do with them?), but preferably confectionary. So in the case of children the management or box-owners could get away with spending a lot less, though remain safe in the knowledge that their gifts were appreciated. We have the case in Pula, for example, of a "large confection in the shape of a tree trunk surrounded by a climbing rose" (*gran dolce rafgurante un tronco di albero con rose rampicanti*) being donated to the young *seratanti* Bottari and Giori.112

Te men could be given ebony walking sticks or a cigarette case (*busta sigarette*); then there was the laurel wreath with ribbon, but also fowers (as for the ladies), or brooches,113

112 "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto*, 12.10.1907.

<sup>109</sup> We can give an example of the sheer variety of the presents by citing what was given to the singer Paolina Leone during her performance in Pula: "She was gifted with a basket of flowers, a bouquet with ribbons, earrings finished in enamel and a clasp with a mount in gold and with the Roman monuments of Pola burnished on it, a gold bracelet with a big pearl surrounded by diamonds, the work of the goldsmith Janessich of Trieste and valued at 300 florins; a stupendous bunch of flowers with highly ornate white and red ribbon, on which was embroidered in gold and silver the private coat-of-arms of the officers of the Navy and respective dedication, a fan of flowers, a brooch with precious stones, a most elegant veil fan and some occasional sonnets." ("Essa s'ebbe in dono una cesta di fiori, un bouquet con nastri, un finimento in smalto d'orecchini e fermaglio con legatura in oro e con su dipinti a fuoco i monumenti romani di Pola, un braccialetto d'oro con una grossa perla circondata da brillanti, lavoro dell'oreficeria Janessich di Trieste e del valore di fiorini 300; uno stupendo mazzo di fiori con ricchissima galla bianco rossa, sulla quale era ricamato in oro ed argento lo stemma privato dei signori ufficiali di Marina e la rispettiva dedica, un ventaglio di fiori, una spilla con pietre preziose, un elegantissimo ventaglio in velo e dei sonetti d'occasione."); "Teatralia"*, L'Eco di Pola*, 21.4.1894.

<sup>110</sup> "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 27.5.1872.

<sup>111</sup> On this type of gift, see John Rosselli, *Singers of Italian Opera. The History of a Profession*. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 82.

<sup>113</sup> A brooch was given to the baritone Formichi at the Theatre of Rijeka in 1910; Report. Lump sum for the management of the Teatro Comunale pro 1910 (*Resoconto. Pausciale Direzione del Teatro Comunale* 

watches and gold chains, gold jewellery boxes, and letter-writing sets. Also contemplated were rings (like the luxurious one with diamonds and a sapphire given to the tenor Tomei at Pula),114 buttons with precious stones, and gold cufinks.

Gifts to the singers could also be made by the impresa. Examples were cofee sets, but also valuable bracelets, rings with precious stones, brooches or watches. Tere is evidence that both men and women received donations of gold coins.115 A gift in cash amounting to 50 crowns was also given to Tito Schipa when he sang at Šibenik in 1909.116 Te management of the theatre could also be directly involved in making these gifts, though without involving the shareholders. Or in other cases it could be the chorus. If the *seratante* happened to be the *maestro concertatore*, the gift could be made by the singers of the cast engaged for the season.

All of these gifts were displayed on the stage at the end of the performance. If they were particularly lavish and valuable, they might be mentioned in the newspapers. And if they were directly taken to the dressing-rooms before the performance, the singers would already know what they were going to receive before going onstage. Te public, on its part, would get an idea of the singer's worth by simply observing the quantity and quality of the presents. And among singers there could also develop a form of hidden competition to see who got the most gifts and could boast the biggest receipts on their beneft night.117

We have a further example with the collection made for the prima donna Erminia Castagnoli, wife of the impresario Castagnoli, at the time of her beneft night. Te fundraising document is particularly interesting because, among other things, we read: "Tere will be no bowl at the doors" (*Non vi sarà bacile alle porte*). We assume, therefore, that the custom of the collecting bowl had been abandoned here too. Te bowl, which collected not only the public's oferings in cash, but also presents, was usually found in the theatre foyer placed next to the *seratante* who welcomed the public at the beginning of the evening.118 It was exhibited at productions of both opera and spoken theatre. In the *borderò* forms of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar the "bowl" (*bacile*) constituted a specifc entry, included in the list

*pro 1910*), Rijeka, 1910, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>114</sup> "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.12.1890.

<sup>115</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 4.11.1893, or "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 12. 4.1906. A purse containing gold Napoleons was given to the baritone Negrini at his *serata d'onore* in Pula; "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 14.11.1891.

<sup>116</sup> See section 4.6.3 above "Do it yourself, if you want it done properly: the self-organised seasons of the Mazzolenis".

<sup>117</sup> On this subject, with reference to the gifts made in the world of spoken theatre and its actors, see Sergio Tofano, *Il teatro all'antica italiana*, Adelphi, Milano 2017.

<sup>118</sup> The custom is mentioned and described by, among others, John Rosselli, *The Opera Industry*, p. 12. See also Paola Daniela Giovanelli, *La società teatrale in Italia tra Otto e Novecento. Lettere ad Alfredo Testoni*, Bulzoni, Roma 1984, p. 59.

of nightly receipts.119 At the theatres of Šibenik and Trieste, on the other hand, the entry was not already printed on the form, but separate and added by hand under the list of tickets sold sector by sector.120

Te gifts were for the exclusive beneft of the singer and for no reason at all could the impresario consider them to be "revenue rights" (*diritti d'entrata*). Tere was indeed a case of an impresario who demanded that the prima donna hand over some of the trinkets collected after a beneft night. At her refusal the impresario in turn refused to pay her the last *quartale*. Te case came before a lawyer, who established that "the gifts in question are made to the person who sings, and cannot be considered as *diritti d'entrata*; they are mementos, pledges of esteem, or, as the French say, *souvenirs*; and the impresario, though he is partially involved in the production of the beneft concert, has nothing to do with these gifts, mementos or souvenirs."121 Te impresario could not, therefore, ask for all or part of it to be relinquished.

#### 7.4 The chorus singers

Te choral ensembles used for the opera seasons in the coastal region were put together from season to season, since there were no permanent choral organisations sufciently large to guarantee a continuous professional service. Local choristers were continually augmented with singers hired externally, from other theatres or other institutions of various kinds (philharmonic societies, choral societies, etc.). Teir recruitment was the responsibility of either the impresario or the theatre management, or even the chorus master (if there already happened to be one). Sometimes the recruits were singers, possibly employed in neighbouring

The chorus singers

<sup>119</sup> *Società del Teatro Nuovo di Zara*, various *borderò* forms, HR-DAZD, folder 7.

<sup>120</sup> See, merely as examples, the *Borderò*, Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, performance no. 20 of 28.10.1880, Šibenik, 28.10.1880, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3 and the *Borderò* of the Teatro Grande of Trieste for performance no. 18 of 26.10.1861, I-TSmt, folder 108. Here the receipts for the *bacile* were indicated separately.

<sup>121</sup> "i regali in oggetti si fanno alla persona di chi canta, e non possono considerarsi siccome *diritti d'entrata*; essi sono memorie, pegni di stima, o, come dicono i francesi, *souvenirs*; e l'impresario, comechè entri in parte nel prodotto della beneficiata, in questi regali, o memorie, o *souvenir*, non c'entra nulla". The lawyer further observed: "Anyone who gives a present means to give a memento, imagining that the recipient of the gift will preserve it as a sign of gratitude, without sharing it with anyone. Otherwise, it would be only right that the impresario should have a part in the flowers or bouquets that the admirers throw to the singers, which cannot be said without laughing about it." ("Chi fa un regalo intende dare una memoria, supponendo che la persona regalata la conserverà in segno di gratitudine, senza dividerlo con nessuno. In caso diverso converrebbe che l'impresario entrasse pure a parte dei fiori o *bouquets* che gli ammiratori gettano alle cantanti, la qual cosa non può dirsi senza riderne."); *Il Diavoletto*, no. 261, 23. 9.1854, p. 1100.

theatres during the same season or in adjacent seasons, who ofered their services. Tey could write to a theatre on their own behalf or on behalf of colleagues looking for a part.122 Tis, however, was quite rare.

Getting hold of good choristers doesn't seem to have been easy. Nor were the external musicians for the chorus and orchestra always taken from the same city; they could in fact come from diferent areas. Tey could be requested from the Teatro Comunale of Trieste or from surrounding theatres. Te former option was the safest from the professional and artistic point of view, as was then pointed out by Pietro Ciscutti, who considered the singers from the theatre in Trieste to be "gifted choristers, who with three rehearsals can go on stage in any opera of the repertoire requiring frst-rate voices".123 Getting their singers would therefore above all mean saving on the number of rehearsal, for they were better prepared than others and already used to being on stage. But of course that also meant checking to see if they were available, something that couldn't be taken for granted. Ciscutti himself, when he signed the contract with the Bellini-Piacentini impresa at Pula, found himself in the position of having to hunt for choristers and duly appealed to the Comunale: "I therefore wrote to Trieste, but owing to the unfortunate circumstance that opera seasons were opening at both the Filodrammatico and the Politeama Rossetti, all the choral groups were engaged, so I was ofered only six choristers, which, to be sure, was not good enough for me".124 So if an opera season or special inaugurations were taking place in Trieste at the same time, as in this instance, the choristers had to be sought elsewhere. Even in later years the same problem persisted in Pula, particularly as regards female singers. In 1901, of 32 choristers of both sexes (of whom the majority were men), as many as seven females had to be

<sup>122</sup> "Having learned from the chorus master Signor Escher", wrote the *comprimaria* Gilda Penso to the theatre of Zadar, "that there will be opera productions there in the spring with the operas Lohengrin and Carmen and, finding myself engaged in the present season as a *comprimaria*, I write to this honourable management to ask if it should ever have the need for some part, as also if it should need excellent sopranos (chorus), as also an excellent tenor and a fine contralto (all outsiders), I would very much like, as would my companions, to obtain the said engagement if the occasion should arise." ("Avendo appreso dal maestro de'cori sig. Escher", scriveva la comprimaria Gilda Penso al Teatro di Zara, "che costà in primavera ci sarà spettacolo d'opera con le opere Lohengrin e Carmen ed io trovandomi qui scritturata nell'attuale stagione quale comprimaria, mi rivolgo a questa onorevole Direzione se mai abbisognasse d'una qualche parte, come pure se ci fosse bisogno d'ottimi soprani (coriste), così pure d'un eccellente tenore ed un buon contralto (tutti forestieri), bramerei tanto io come i detti miei compagni poter all'occasione ottenere la detta scrittura."); Letter from Gilda Penso to the theatre management of Zadar, Udine, 18.3.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>123</sup> "coristi di arte, i quali con tre prove vanno in scena con qualsiasi opera di repertorio e di voci scelte"; "A proposito dei coristi", *L'Eco di Pola*, 28. 9.1889.

<sup>124</sup> "Scrissi adunque a Trieste, ma per una malaugurata incostanza dell'apertura del Filodrammatico e Politeama Rossetti con l'opera, tutti i corpi corali erano impegnati, per cui soltanto mi furono offerti sei coristi, i quali certo non potevano fare il fatto mio."; "A proposito dei coristi", *l'Eco di Pola*, 28. 9.1889.

brought in from outside.125 Tree years later, in 1904, an announcement was printed in *Il Giornaletto* asking for female choristers to come forward. Te management wrote: "Wanted are young ladies to sing as choristers in the opera productions at the Politeama Ciscutti in the autumn season of 1904 as well as in the big opera season to be given in Lent 1905. Te ladies wishing to take part may make their way to the dressing room of the theatre from 6 7 [*sic*] pm every day".126 As written, the announcement doesn't seem to ask for particular qualifcations, other than those of being generically *coriste* (hence female) and possibly young (*signorine*, and not *signore*). It is not given to know, however, how the selection process was carried out and indeed whether there was a genuine selection process with auditions.

Women were needed at Zadar too, for in 1884 there were only three male singers and no females.127 Here children's voices were even proposed as a means of replenishing the female section of the chorus.128 In 1901 there was a Unione Corale Zaratina in Zadar that could provide 20 choristers for the opera season. Each one would cost a forin a day from the frst rehearsal with the chorus master. Its director even ofered to prepare the chorus himself if given a separate contract with the impresa.129 Parallel to this association there was also a "Giuseppe Verdi" choral society. An attempt was made by the impresario De Monari to merge the two groups for use in the opera seasons (while including more qualifed singers from outside); this plan, however, came to nothing.

Nor did the Teatro Nuovo in Split fnd itself in a better position. As the theatre management itself explained to the impresario Antonio Lana in 1895, "there are no choral forces available, nor is there the possibility to prepare any suitable for the purpose".130 Clearly there was not even a chorus master who could rehearse with local singers (if there were any). Te chorus problem was also present at Rijeka as early as 1861, when a certain Politei, a secretary to the theatre, pointed out that the theatre was "in the awkward situation of not fnding six skilled and good-looking female choristers, because all the ones from the Veneto are now in

<sup>125</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 15.10.1901.

<sup>126</sup> "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 10. 8.1904.

<sup>127</sup> Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Sante Utili, Zadar, 27. 2.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>128</sup> "Maestro Traversi", the impresario Giorgio Trauner wrote to the theatre management of Zadar, "pointed out to me the benefit of engaging children singers, to reinforce the female chorus. On the subject I immediately spoke to Viscardi and Traversi himself so that they might find the required number, and I hope they have already done it." ("M° Traversi mi fece vedere l'utilità di scritturare dei ragazzi cantori, per rinforzare il coro donne, parlai subito in proposito col Viscardi e col Maestro stesso affinchè prendessero il numero necessario, e spero l'avranno già fatto."); Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 19. 4.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>129</sup> "forze corali non ci sono disponibili, né c'è la possibilità di prepararne idoneamente allo scopo"; Letter from the Unione Corale Zaratina to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 11.5.1901, HR-DAZD, folder 10.

<sup>130</sup> Letter from the vice-presidency of the theatre of Split to Antonio Lana, Split, March 1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

Piemonte; in spite of which it will be necessary to fnd them in the best possible way and at great sacrifce".131 Seven years later, an article in the Rijeka newspaper *La Bilancia* observed that the choruses in *Vespri siciliani* at the beginning of the season were "scant in number" (*scarsi di numero*).132 Te problem had therefore not yet been solved. On the posters, however, the numbers involved could be infated: a practice adopted by many theatres, probably to attract a larger audience,133 though naturally the spectators would note the small chorus once they were in the theatre.

Te chorus at Rijeka was also small, but unlike the other coastal theatres it had its own set of regulations (a *Regolamento*), which has fortunately survived. Te manuscript, undated, is a little fuller than a previous printed version of 1861. It is here given in full:


Te same measures will be taken against anyone who may arrive in a state of drunkenness, while furthermore the Deputation reserves the right to take any measures that it believes appropriate, even in concert with the authorities if necessary, to provide swift protection in the event of any disorder.134

<sup>131</sup> "nell'imbarazzo di non poter rinvenire sei coriste belle e brave perché tutte le venete sono in Piemonte, nonostante si dovrà provvedere nel miglior modo possibile e con grave sacrifizio"; Letter from the theatre secretary Politei to the theatre management of Rijeka, Venezia, 21.1.1861, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>132</sup> "Teatro civico", *La Bilancia*, 21.3.1868.

<sup>133</sup> See the Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 27. 9.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>134</sup> "1. I coristi e coriste addette al Teatro dipendono immediatamente dal Maestro istruttore e dalla Deputazione del Teatro. 2. È loro dovere di studiare le parti che vengono destinate dall'impresa, e di recarsi

Since the document was a set of regulations and not a contract, it lacked what in a genuine contract would be called termination clauses, which would establish, for example, that the singer could be dismissed if declared incompetent by the *maestro concertatore* or chorus master. Here it speaks merely of the chorister's generic 'dependence' on the chorus master and the theatre authorities (*Deputazione teatrale*). Regarding attendance, the choristers at Rijeka were obliged to be in the theatre 15 minutes before the performance: a shorter margin of time than that indicated in the printed version of 1861 of 30 minutes (as was also required of the choristers at Zadar, according to the contract of the Teatro Verdi).135 Unlike the orchestral player, the chorister had to put on his costume, which would take time. Being late putting on one's costume before going on stage could be a dismissal ofence.136 Otherwise, unpunctuality on a day of performance could be punished with a fne, as could being late for, or not coming to, rehearsals.

In 1867 the choristers at Rijeka were given the choice of whether or not to take part in the forthcoming opera season. A sheet was circulated on which they were to indicate their choice against their name. For those who declined to participate, the theatre would fnd a replacement.137 In fact not everyone could be available every day and at all hours, given

all'istruzione ed alle prove ogni qual volta vi vengono avvisati, di apprendere a memoria al più presto possibile i pezzi destinati ed eseguirli con la dovuta esattezza e precisione. 3. Dovranno comparire al Teatro a tempo debito per essere vestiti e pronti al loro posto ¼ d'ora prima che incominci lo spettacolo. 4. Gli onorari che i locali coristi stabiliranno colle relative imprese verranno loro pagati di tre in tre sere posticipatamente o tosto dopo l'esecuzione dello spettacolo qualora fosse unico. 5. Durante l'istruzione dovranno conservare la dovuta decenza silenzio ed attenzione nonché il debito rispetto al Maestro ed in Teatro tanto alle prove che durante lo Spettacolo a scanso di rigorose misure non si permetteranno delle licenze sia riguardo al vestiario che verrà loro dato, e circa il modo loro prescritto di comportarsi. 6. Chiunque venisse più tardi dell'ora stabilita sia alle prove come alle rappresentazioni pagherà la prima volta fiorini (1) uno di multa, la seconda volta fiorini due (2) e la terza volta verrà sospeso temporaneamente o difinitivamente. Le stesse misure saranno usate verso coloro che comparissero in istato d'ubbriachezza mentre d'altro canto la Deputazione si riserva prendere quelle misure che crederà opportune anche occorrendo di concerto colle Autorità, onde porre pronto riparo nel caso di qualsiasi disordine."; *Regolamento per Coristi* [Rijeka, n.d*.*], manuscript, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>135</sup> "Dei Coristi", in *Regolamento interno disciplinare del Civico Teatro di Fiume,* Rijeka 17. 9.1861, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>136</sup> "Tomorrow alone", the impresario Trauner wrote to the management of Zadar, "I will be forced to dismiss the local chorister Monar because in four performances only once was he dressed in the 4th act, claiming that part of his costume had been stolen." ("Domani solo", the impresario Trauner wrote to the management of Zadar, "mi troverò costretto licenziare il corista locale Monar perché in quattro rappresentazioni una sola si è vestito nel 4° atto adducendo che gli venne rubato parte del vestiario."); Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the management of Zadar, Milano, 19. 4.1898, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>137</sup> "The theatre deputation, with the resolution taken at the meeting of yesterday 7 October 1867, asks the ladies and gentlemen choristers of the city to declare promptly, using the formula "accept" or "decline" to be added to the attached sheet, whether or not they intend to offer their services in the forthcoming season of Lent and spring, under the impresa of Signor Adolfo Proni and at the same conditions of

that many had another occupation, as did most choristers in that period. Anyone deciding to take part would have to guarantee their presence at rehearsals: a commitment that doesn't always seem to have been maintained, judging from the complaints made to the theatre deputation of Rijeka, for example, in 1868 by the chorus master Felice Dall'Asta over the absences of choristers. On many occasions Dall'Asta reproached the ofenders but often found himself having to suspend the rehearsals. He found himself forced to beg the theatre management to take measures, otherwise he would decline all responsibility for the outcome of the forthcoming production.138 In response to this, it was the female choristers, most likely fearing their contracts would be terminated, who came forward and appealed directly to the theatre management. Tey claimed that the number of rehearsals was suffcient and that the chorus master's frustration was caused by the fact that some of them hadn't yielded to his "lustful desires" (*lussuriose brame*).139 We shall never know exactly what


the past year under the impresario Dr. Carlo Gardini. For those ladies and gentlemen choristers that decline, the deputation will straightaway take the necessary steps to provide for their replacement." ("La Deputazione teatrale con risoluzione presa nella seduta di ieri 7 ottobre 1867 invita i sig. Coristi e Coriste della città a dichiarare recisamente mediante la formula «accetto» o «rifiuto» da apporsi al presente foglio, se intendono o meno di prestare la loro opera nella prossima ventura stagione di Quaresima e Primavera, sotto l'Impresa del sig. Adolfo Proni alle medesime condizioni dell'anno decorso sotto l'Impresario Dr. Carlo Gardini. Per quei sig. coristi e coriste che rifiuteranno, la Deputazione provvederà d'ora in poi alla loro supplenza prendendo quelle disposizioni che saranno del caso."); Letter from the theatre deputation of Rijeka to the choristers of Rijeka, Rijeka, 8.10.1867, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

happened or how the story ended. What is certain is that a report had been made to the theatre management over an alleged episode of absenteeism. And the fact that it was the chorus master who reported the absences suggests that the theatre of Rijeka, unlike the nearby Teatro Comunale of Trieste, lacked the fgure of an inspector, whose job it was to check that every singer and orchestral player attended rehearsals.140

On the question of payments, the *Regolamento* of Rijeka mentions only that the fees would be paid after every three performances, or after the single performance if there was only one. Compared to more complex documents, like the contracts for choristers of the Teatro Comunale Verdi of Trieste,141 there was no reference, for example, to the singer's obligation to perform a secondary part (without extra pay) if the impresa should fnd itself without someone to fll it. And no distinction was made, for example, between a normal chorister and a "*capo-guida*" (section leader), who would usually be paid more. Nor was there any reference to the obligation, if required, of an additional period of service (15 days beyond the termination of the contract) during which the singer would be paid on a nightly basis; or to the prohibition of taking on other commitments in the course of the season.142 Such clauses, however, would be principally the prerogative of a contract rather than a set of regulations.

Tere was also the case of a theatre management being unable to pay the choristers the agreed sum for performances during the opera season. Together with the orchestral players the singers therefore formed a citizens' company in which conditions were regulated by contract. Tis happened at Šibenik for performances of *La traviata* and *Il trovatore* in 1909. An agreement was reached on the basis of the future outcome of the season. If, after

signature of our impresario Signor Dal Torso […]" ("[…] aspetta adesso il signor Dall'Asta da fare questa prottesta [*sic*] dopo tante prove che abbiamo fatte da sole tanto della Semiramide come pure delle cantate da eseguirsi sulla Galleggiante. Oppure perché alcune di noi non ha voluto obbedire alle sue lussuriose brame! … Noi siamo pronte a sottomettersi a qualunque prova d'altro maestro; perciò intendiamo che il nostro contratto abbia il suo corso, come lo attesta la firma del nostro impresario signor Dal Torso […]"); Letter from the female choristers of Rijeka to the management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 23.3.1869, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>140</sup> On the type of report used by an inspector to supervise the attendance of choristers and orchestral players, see for example the documentation in I-TSmt, folder 116. In 1868, among the theatre staff of the Teatro Adamich of Rijeka there were also a stage director (*direttore di scena*) and a generic police inspector (*ispettore di polizia*), but not a genuine theatre inspector; see the list of the theatre staff included in the Evenings' expenses of the personnel in the opera season, Rijeka, [n. d.], HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>141</sup> Engagement agreement for choristers, Impresa of the Teatro Comunale G. Verdi, Luigi Cesari e C. [n.d.], I-TSmt, folder 174. The engagement agreement from Trieste consisted of thirteen articles, in contrast with the six at Rijeka.

<sup>142</sup> See Articles 2, 3 and 4, Engagement agreement for choristers, Impresa del Teatro Comunale G. Verdi, Luigi Cesari e C. [n.d.], I-TSmt, folder 174.

deducting all expenses, there was a net surplus, this would be used to pay the orchestral players, while the chorus singers (only the men) would be given two crowns per person for each performance night. If, on the other hand, the net receipts should be insufcient to pay the full fees of players and singers, the pay of each would be reduced in proportion. And if there should be no proft at all, neither players nor singers could make any claim to payment. Te women, both players and singers, had the right to a free entrance ticket every evening for a member of their family.143 In short, a distinction was made between the male chorister (who had a right to payment in the event of a proft) and his unpaid female counterpart.

Tere were cases when choristers, regardless of sex, were paid not in cash but in kind. An example was that of the Società Filarmonica of Zadar whose members ofered to sing in the Prologue to *Mefstofele* in 1903 in exchange for free entrance to the theatre.144 For the same opera the senior choristers already connected with the theatre had asked for 2.40 crowns per night, the younger ones 1.60 crowns. Te chorus master Riccardo Talpo, who was involved in the recruitment of singers, reported that he could engage "8 boys for 50 cents per night each" (*8 ragazzi in ragione di 50 cent per sera ciascuno*). At Zadar a fee of 2.40 crowns was contemplated for a rehearsal plus an evening performance; just a crown for a daytime performance. According to the engagement agreement with the theatre, the chorister was entitled to payment from the day of the frst orchestral rehearsal. We fnd, therefore, distinctions in pay being made on the basis of age and experience.

Naturally the singers brought in from outside cost more than the locals. In 1868 an external chorister at Rijeka cost between 1.70 and 2 forins a day.145 A slight increase could be noted around ffteen years later in Zadar, judging from the negotiations between theatre management and the impresario Razzani, which mention a daily payment of 2.5 forins for external choristers. At Split the fgure for the following decade was 4 lire per day (hence in line with what was paid twenty years earlier at Rijeka, for with the forin equal to two lire, 4 lire corresponded to 2 forins),146 whereas for an external chorister at Zadar and Šibenik one could pay at least 6 crowns (or 3 forins) a day from 1909. We must remember that with the change of century payments were made in crowns. A forin was the equivalent of two crowns. Te following table provides a summary of the fgures found in the surviving documentation, regarding both local and external choristers:

<sup>143</sup> Engagement agreement between the management of the Teatro Mazzoleni and the orchestra and male chorus of the Società Filarmonica-drammatica of Šibenik, Šibenik, 1.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.

<sup>144</sup> The season was organised by Giorgio Trauner; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Giorgio Trauner, [Zadar, 1903], letter book, HR-DAZD, folder 21.

<sup>145</sup> General report on income and expenditure for the administration of the Civico Teatro of Rijeka in the Lent and spring season 1868, Rijeka, 1868, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>146</sup> Letter from Antonio Lana to the presidency of the theatre of Split, Milano, 2.2.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.


Te table shows a general increase in the pay of external choristers over the course of a ffty-year period, while that of the local choristers seems to have remained stable. It is not, however, possible to make generalisations about wages, given that each theatre was a case apart, especially considering the fact that at the time there were no standard pay tables. Consiglio Rispoli had already decided that the payment of Italian chorus singers was derisory and he found it difcult to understand "how there are people that devote themselves to such a poorly paid profession".147 Not surprisingly there were frequent requests for pay increases. For example, in the negotiations with Trauner for Zadar, the impresario complained that while the better singers refused to sing, the nine remaining ones were demanding "an increase of 40 cents a day in addition to payment starting 5 days before the frst performance".148 Impresarios like Trauner were against yielding to such demands, fearing that continual requests for higher wages from year to year would make it impossible for the theatre to open.

Such requests, however, were widespread and frequent also among the orchestral players.

<sup>147</sup> "come esista gente che si consacri ad una professione così poco remunerativa"; Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 72.

<sup>148</sup> "un aumento di cent 40 al giorno oltre all'entrare in paga 5 giorni prima della prima rappresentazione"; Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Badia, 8. 8.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

#### 7.5 The orchestral players

What has been said about the choristers – over the presence, or otherwise, of established ensembles – holds true also for the orchestral players. We have no information about how the players were recruited in the coastal region of the eastern Adriatic. When hiring them, were auditions or other selection processes held? Were competitive principles applied to their selection? Would the pupils of a player already working in the orchestra have precedence over external musicians? Word of mouth, to be sure, was certainly an efective means of gaining access to employment in an orchestra. It is true that various periodicals of the period, such as *La Gazzetta Musicale di Milano* or *La Gazzetta Teatrale Italiana*, published advertisements for vacancies in orchestras, but there is no trace of any such notices for the theatres in question, nor do we fnd any mention of auditions.149 A great infuence was undoubtedly wielded by the *maestro concertatore* and conductor, who was perhaps in a position to bring new musicians with him, perhaps even replacing the older players or those considered inadequate. One thing that remains certain is that several musicians still travelled with the impresarios, who recruited them for the diferent opera seasons and brought them to the various theatres. Testimony of this practice is ofered by the impresario Domenico Valenti, who, writing to the theatre management of Zadar to organise the spring season of 1896, claimed: "As regards the external orchestral players, I have never been supplied by Trieste, not even on the occasions when I was in Gorizia; almost always I have my usual excellent players, who always do several seasons a year with me, and they are from Bologna, Reggio [Emilia] and Parma".150 Tis implied a relationship of continuous collaboration, founded on trust and on the skills of musicians recognised as reliable, and not based, therefore, on a criterion of mere geographical proximity to the theatre needing them. Giorgio Trauner also recruited musicians in Venice ("I returned to Milan today after also going to Venice to secure certain orchestral players"),151 while Rafaello Faini would bring with him not only the orchestral players but also the conductor (when proposing his services for a season at Šibenik he stated: "I The orchestral players

<sup>149</sup> Of the neighbouring theatres, we know for example that the Teatro Comunale of Trieste had been organising auditions ever since 1819; Franco Piperno – Antonio Rostagno, "The Opera in Nineteenth Century Italian Opera Houses", in *The Opera Orchestra in 18th and 19th Century Europe*, vol. II, edited by Niels M. Jensen and Franco Piperno, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlino 2008, p. 11.

<sup>150</sup> "Riguardo ai Prof. d'orchestra forastieri io mai mi sono servito da Trieste, neanche le due volte che sono stato a Gorizia, io o [*sic*] quasi sempre i miei soliti Prof. bravissimi che fanno sempre con me parecchie stagioni ogni anno, e sono appunto di Bolognia [*sic*], Reggio e Parma." Letter from Domenico Valenti to Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak, Milano, 5. 2.1896, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>151</sup> "Ritornai oggi a Milano dopo essere stato anche a Venezia ad assicurarmi taluni elementi d'orchestra"; Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 30. 8.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

have with me the conductor along with 4 principal orchestral musicians, who will join those in situ").152

Some players, on the other hand, would be proposed by theatrical agencies, to which they had applied for employment.153 It is likely that the coastal region presented a combination of all these methods. One consolidated custom was that, in the event of an orchestral player giving up his position or dying, aspiring candidates could apply directly to the theatre management simply by sending a letter attesting their skills. Te candidate asked the management to be presented to the impresa. Tese direct applications had a spontaneous character and could be made even if the player was already employed elsewhere. Te trombonist Carlo Pasquini, for example, who was working at La Scala in Milan, ofered his services to the management of Zadar in the following words: "Honourable Management, if it should happen that the frst trombone was no good (not easy to happen!!!), write to me immediately, for though I am engaged at La Scala in the ballet, I will gladly come. Just make sure you pay from my trip and give me a higher salary! About my skills, you can ask the 1st horn Carafa who knows me […]".154 He evidently expected that a veiled allusion to the incompetence of his fellow trombonists would make their choice lean in his favour, especially since a musician of proven reputation and ability like the principal horn of La Scala could vouch for his skills.155 Given that the frst rehearsals were accompanied by the

<sup>152</sup> "tengo meco il Direttore d'orchestra con 4 principali guide professori, che si uniranno a cotesti del loco"; Letter from Raffaello Faini to the president of the Theatre of Šibenik, Poreč (Parenzo), 7.12.1896, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>153</sup> We have the case of Ettore Rabaglia, first trumpet for Split, who was proposed by the Frusta Teatrale agency for a contract with impresario Vecchi in 1895 in return for a 3% deduction on his salary as an orchestral player. Art. 2, Engagement agreement issued by the Frusta Teatrale agency, Milano, 26.10.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>154</sup> "Onorevole Direzione, caso mai che il primo trombone non fosse buono (che sarà difficile!!!) mi scriva subito, che sebbene io sia scritturato alla Scala nel ballo, verrò volentieri. Basta però che mi paghi il viaggio e la paga superiore! Sulle mie qualità Ella può domandare al I° corno Carafa che mi conosce […]"; Letter from Carlo Pasquini to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 20.1.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>155</sup> There was also the case of an aspiring orchestral musician who sent his garbled application to the wrong address: that of the violinist Antonio Korroschitz, whose application ended up at the naval command in Pula instead of the Politeama Ciscutti. The episode was even reported in the papers. Korroschitz wrote: "The most dutiful undersigned asks to be taken on in the Civil Orchestra of the Theatre of Pula, as first violin, or even as second or third if there wasn't a place, for at the theatre in Pula he has played as first violin in the rehearsal with the full orchestra and the conductor was pleased and promised to take me on immediately if a place came free, and also with the protection of the General, commander of the Imperial and Royal military navy. I ask you to take me on with a return journey free of expense and also the advanced payment for the first violin of the orchestra, if there is a place, otherwise for the second or third violin, for I have exerted myself with all diligence and I promise to take part in the orchestral rehearsals and show my skills with honour […]." ("Devotissimo sottoscritto", scriveva Korroschitz "prega di essere accettato nel Orchestra Civile del Teatro di Pola, come primo violino o pure

piano, all external orchestral players like Pasquini were engaged after the principal singers. Otherwise, the impresario would fnd himself having to pay musicians to remain idle at the *piazza* during the early rehearsals with the singers.156

As we already found in the case of the choristers, for certain musicians playing in the local orchestras used less frequently for opera seasons, orchestral playing was not their principal source of daily employment. And given that it was not their main occupation, it is plausible to suppose that the artistic standard was not of the highest. Once the opera season was over, the musician – unless already a member of a city band or other local ensemble – would have to fnd employment in other theatres, or look for work of another kind.

Te activities of the orchestral players at Rijeka were regulated, already from the 1860s onwards, by a document called "Te duties of the orchestra and of the professors forming it" (the *Doveri* for short).157 It was a set of rules that disciplined the collaboration between the players and the city theatre. Each player was expected to collect a copy of this document and leave a receipt for it. Still present in the *Doveri* is the customary distinction between the *direttore d'orchestra* (director of the orchestra) and the *maestro concertatore* (director of the singers), two roles that would be ofcially merged for the frst time in 1868 at La Scala in Milan, in the person of Angelo Mariani.158 According to this document, the *direttore*, on whom the orchestra depended and who in turn depended on the theatre deputation, would direct the performance of the music "in accord with the *maestro concertatore*" (*d'intelligenza* 

secondo o terzo se non fussi posto indove che a Pola nel Teatro a suonato di primo violino nella prova con tutta Orchestra e che il Direttore era contento e promesso prendermi subito che sarà un posto, e poi con protezione del sig. Generale I.R. Marina di guerra Comandante. Prego di prendermi con viaggio di andata e ritorno franco di spese e anche la paga antecipata per primo violino di Orchestra se e posto se no per secondo o terzo violino che con tutta diligenza si è attività si prometterà di fare nelle prove di orchestra e con onore di farsi vedere la sua capacità […]"); "Schizzo biografico di Paganini II", *Il Bulo*, I, 13, 15. 9.1872.

<sup>156</sup> As is confirmed, for example, by the impresario Domenico Valenti for Zadar: "[…] as for the external orchestral players, I cannot make them arrive together with the singing company, for first the singers have to rehearse the opera at the piano, which would mean that I would have to pay the aforementioned players for several days of doing nothing and for me it would be hundreds of lire wasted; and I believe other imprese would do the same, because this is business and if one isn't careful to make all imaginable and possible savings, there is no chance of succeeding." ("[…] i professori d'orchestra forastieri, non posso farli arrivare insieme alla compagnia di canto, dovendo prima gli artisti concertare l'opera al pianoforte, in modo che dovrei pagare i sud. professori parecchi giorni a fare nulla e per me sarebbero delle centinaia di lire sprecate e credo che le altre imprese avranno fatto egualmente, perché sono affari che se non si sta attenti a tutti i risparmi immaginabili e possibili, non si potrebbe riuscire."); Letter from Domenico Valenti to Giorgio De Nakic d'Osliak, Milano, 28.1.1896. HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>157</sup> *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka, 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>158</sup> In actual fact this fusion was momentarily tried out by Alberto Mazzucato in the two-year period before 1868; see Antonio Rostagno, "La Scala verso la moderna orchestra. Gli eventi e i motivi delle riforme da Merelli ad Aida"*, Studi Verdiani*, XVI (2002), p. 168.

*col maestro concertatore*).159 In the event of disagreements with the *direttore* the player could address his grievances to the deputation, while remaining, until a decision was made, obliged to obey the said *direttore*. 160 All acts of insubordination, towards either the *direttore* or the deputation, were judged according to situation and circumstances.

Te document included more prohibitions than provisions concerning what was allowed. It ranged from rules – of common sense, one would say – like those of not smoking in the theatre, not making a noise, not speaking loudly in the orchestra or not taking part in outbursts of applause from the audience, to more curious prohibitions like that of making predictions about the outcome of the performance: passing judgement or making such prognostications during rehearsals was considered inappropriate and punishable,161 as it could condition the orchestra and, by refection, the audience as well.

During performance nights the players also had to follow precise rules in their movements. Tey were instructed to return immediately to their seats after the breaks, also to give them time to tune their instruments, and to avoid making a "racket" (*frastuono*) with their instruments after tuning.162 Te players who had concluded their contribution to the performance were to leave the theatre exiting below stage (and also to enter from below stage on nights when there was a large audience), to prevent them from disturbing the public as they pass through the parterre.163 Teir physical appearance was also subject to scrutiny. Compared to the preceding version of the *Doveri* of 1861, which was three articles

<sup>159</sup> Art. 1, *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka, 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>160</sup> "2. All the gentlemen members of the orchestra, none excepted, must without opposition or comment play everything decided by the conductor" ("2. Tutti i signori membri dell'orchestra, nessuno eccettuato, devono senza opposizione o commenti suonare tutto che venga stabilito dal direttore"); *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka, 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>161</sup> See also the *Regolamento per l'Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Trieste*, Tipografia del Lloyd Austriaco, Trieste 1864, p. 13: "To any questioning each person must have the response of art and truth ready: that one can never make judgements about a performance at the rehearsals. Transgression of this rule will be considered a serious misdemeanour by the management." ("A qualunque interrogazione ognuno deve aver pronta la risposta dell'arte e della verità: che non si può decidere mai d'uno spettacolo alle prove. La trasgressione a questa prescrizione sarà considerata dalla Direzione come mancanza grave.").

<sup>162</sup> Art. 7, *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>163</sup> This part of the *Doveri* was evidently not always followed, if still in 1873 audiences complained of the coming and going of orchestral players in the parterre between one act and the next: "Given that many people from the public have complained that the players of the orchestra leave their seats at the end of each act and make their way in and out via the parterre, thereby disturbing the theatre-goers, on behalf of the theatre management I therefore enjoin them to use the small doors below the stage so as not to disturb the tranquillity of the spectators." ("Essendosi molte persone del pubblico lagnate che i sig. professori d'orchestra ad ogni finire di atto escono dai loro posti e passano e rientrano per la platea con disturbo dei frequentatori del teatro, così a nome della spettabile direzione teatrale li interesso ad usare delle porticine di

shorter, the updated version included, for the frst time in Rijeka, a note on the orchestral players' dress. Here mention is made of a "smooth theatre cap of cloth or velvet" (*liscio berretto da teatro*),164 though the option of playing without headwear was also allowed. We shall fnd further information on orchestral dress at a later date, in 1896, in the contracts for the orchestral players of Zadar and, at the same time, Šibenik. Although appended in the additional articles of the contracts, we learn there of how the conductor and players should be attired in the evenings: the conductor should wear a black *abito di società* (i.e. tails) and the players dark, possibly black, suits. Tis clause was directly borrowed from the tender specifcations, where similar wording was used. Te player was expected to come to work "decently dressed" (*decentemente abbigliato*) and "in a normal state" (*in istato normale*); a clause also included in the regulations for the choristers. Te mere need to specify that one should come to work in a 'normal' (i.e. sober) state certainly implies that there had been various cases of inebriated musicians working in the orchestra. Drunkenness was punished with a fne of two forins, doubled to four forins at a second ofence. At the third ofence the player was defnitively dismissed from the orchestra.165

Te updated regulations at Rijeka no longer mention the possibility of arrest if the orchestral player was guilty of serious misconduct and repeated ofences. Now the maximum penalty was to be sacked from the orchestra, after due warnings and fnes.166 Not specifed, however, is the recipient of the money raised by inficting fnes on orchestral players. At Trieste, for example, it was used to help colleagues (either still working or retired) or their families if they should be in need; in other words, it formed a kind of social fund. In other theatres the management could use it to reward the – otherwise unspecifed – most "deserving" (*meritevoli*).167 But what else was considered punishable apart from drunkenness? Arriving late was certainly one: failure to arrive a quarter of an hour before the start of rehearsals

sotto palco scenico onde non turbare la tranquillità degli spettatori."); see Circular letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the orchestral players of Rijeka, Rijeka, 7.10.1873, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>164</sup> It was a "cap of cloth or black velvet" (*berretto di panno o di velluto nero*); see also the *Regolamento diciplinare interno del R. Teatro Nuovo in Pisa,* Tipografia Nistri, Pisa 1867, p. 9.

<sup>165</sup> Art. 6, *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka, 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>166</sup> In the 1861 version of the *Doveri* at Rijeka, article 10 still mentioned the possibility of arrest: "Minor shortcomings will be punished with warnings, and serious repeat offences with fines or with arrest, at the discretion of the Deputation." ("Le mancanze lievi saranno punite con ammonizioni, e le recidive gravi con multe, o con l'arresto a giudizio della Deputazione."); *Doveri dell'Orchestra del Teatro e dei Professori che la compongono*, in *Regolamento interno disciplinare del Civico Teatro di Fiume,* Rijeka 17. 9.1861, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>167</sup> *Regolamento d'orchestra*, Trieste, 1861, I-TSmt, folder 107. There were also other theatres at which the money from fines was donated to charity. On the rewards for the "deserving", see Giuseppe Benelli, *Regolamento generale, ossia discipline per l'interno dei teatri,* Società Tipografica Bolognese e Ditta Bassi, Bologna 1855, p. 87.

and performances meant forfeiting one's nightly fee; the reference is generically made to the *compenso serale*. 168 Te actual amount of the fne is specifed in more detail in other regulations or contracts, such as the agreement drawn up in 1895 with Ettore Rabaglia, the frst trumpet at Split, in which the fnes for lateness range between a hundred and a thousand lire (*dalle cento alle mille lire*).169 If we consider that an orchestral player's nightly fee at the time could range between 5.50 and 7 lire, one readily understands that 100 or 1,000 lire are not only extremely high fgures, but perhaps even disproportionate. At both Rijeka and Zadar the latest one could arrive was 15 minutes before the start of the performance, which was not particularly strict if we consider that the deadline in other theatres was 30 minutes.170 Absence at rehearsals or performances without the manager's permission or without a medical certifcate (in case of illness) was punishable with a fne of two forins, increased to three forins at the second ofence and dismissal from the orchestra at the third.171

Among the prohibitions, one common provision stated that a player could not be substituted by another without the permission of the theatre deputation or conductor. Nor could they take on other paid jobs in the period of the contract's duration: a misdemeanour that was made worse if they presented a sick notice in order to take on a more remunerative job. In both cases the punishment was dismissal, though not without having frst fulflled one's contractual obligations. Te *Doveri* also included a ban on leaving town during the period of one's commitment towards the theatre "for any reason without prior permission from the theatre deputation or conductor".172 Te musicians were obliged to work only in the orchestra for which they were under contract and could play in neither other theatres of the city nor other places. Tis clause, however, was not always observed, as is attested by a letter written to the theatre management of Rijeka by the impresario Adamich in 1873. In the letter a complaint is made about orchestral players deserting rehearsals while at the same time engaged to play on a boat headed for the island of Krk (Veglia) for a pleasure trip. As customary, notice of the rehearsals had been delivered to each player by the callboy

<sup>168</sup> Art. 4, *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>169</sup> Art. 7, Engagement agreement issued by the Frusta Teatrale agency, Milano, 26.10.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>170</sup> See, for example, the rule applied at Pisa: "Half an hour before the start of rehearsals and performances the orchestral players must be at their seats and may not abandon them even for a moment without the permission of the conductor." ("Mezz'ora avanti il principio delle prove e delle rappresentanze gli Artisti di orchestra dovranno essere al loro posto e non potranno abbandonarlo neppure momentaneamente senza il permesso del Direttore"); *Regolamento diciplinare interno*, p. 7.

<sup>171</sup> Art. 12, *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>172</sup> "per qualsiasi motivo senza previo permesso della deputazione teatrale o del direttore d'orchestra"; Art. 12, letter g, *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

(*avvisatore teatrale*), but had clearly been ignored. Adamich therefore declined all responsibility if the evening performance connected to those rehearsals should turn out to be a failure.173 Moreover, this was not an isolated case. For example, at Zadar some years later, two players, the bassoonist Dosi and another otherwise unidentifed viola player, ran away on board the Sultan steamboat in the middle of the opera season. Te impresario Trauner suggested that the theatre management of Zadar should allow them to arrive at Pula, their destination, and have them arrested. Te possibility of arrest was therefore still contemplated, at least here.174 Tis prohibition, which was conveyed in the regulations, was also echoed in

174 Trauner wrote as follows to the theatre management of Zadar: "I hear that this evening two orchestral players, the bassoon and I believe the other to be the viola, are to flee on board the Sultan. I strongly urge you to deal with the matter in the interests of the successful performance of the opera, and if possible,

<sup>173</sup> Adamich wrote: "With no better reason than to guarantee the performance of the opera this evening, which during yesterday's dress rehearsal was still shaky and uncertain at times, the undersigned thought it proper to convene another orchestral rehearsal for midday today. Though the summons was issued to each single player by the callboy, the following gentlemen failed to be present: Santi Paolo – violin / Santi Antonio – ditto / Santi Luigi – double bass / Scrobogna – viola / Pasquali – violin / Sperber (father) – trombone / Sperber (son) – viola / Gasperini – 2nd clarinet (*clarino*) / Dimscher – 2nd trumpet / Pospischill – 1st horn / Licenzi – violin. Given that this is a very significant number of players, and moreover includes certain parts that are indispensable, the rehearsal could not take place. This episode is all the more deplorable insofar as it is generally known that the aforesaid individuals, in spite of the express prohibition made by your honourable office, abandoned their place in order to perform as musicians on board the steamboat that during the day made the pleasure trip to the island of Veglia, where opportunities for intemperance are offered. The undersigned, seeing that the note sent to your honourable office on this matter, which aimed to prevent acts of insubordination and indiscipline perpetrated by the said players, was to no avail, finds that in spite of himself he has to protest against any […] damage that might derive from an interruption of the performance or delayed start, and to decline all responsibility in the event of the failure of this evening's performance". ("Ad assicurare niemmeglio l'esecuzione dello spettacolo di questa sera, che durante la prova generale di ieri mostravasi ancora in taluni momenti vacillante ed incerto, la sottoscritta credette opportuno d'indire pel mezzo giorno di oggi un'altra prova d'orchestra. Spiccato a mezzo dell'avvisatore teatrale l'invito ad ogni singolo professore, mancarono all'appello i seguenti signori: Santi Paolo – violino / Santi Antonio – detto / Santi Luigi – contrabbasso / Scrobogna – viola / Pasquali – violino / Sperber padre – trombone / Sperber figlio – viola / Gasperini – 2° clarino / Dimscher – 2°tromba / Pospischill – 1° corno / Licenzi – violino. Trattandosi di un numero significantissimo di professori, tra i quali alcune parti indispensabili, la prova non ha potuto aver luogo. Questo fatto è tanto più deplorabile inquantochè si conosce generalmente che gl'indicati individui, in nota all'espresso divieto di codesta Spett. Carica, abbandonarono il loro posto, per ridursi in qualità di suonatori a bordo della vaporiera che in giornata intraprese la gita di piacere sull'isola di Veglia, dove offresi occasione all'intemperanza. La sottoscritta, visto che a nulla riuscì la nota diretta in proposito a codesta Spett. Carica, che tendeva a prevenire l'atto d'insubordinazione e d'indisciplina, tutto perpetrato dai mentovati professori, trova suo malgrado di protestare contro ogni […] danno che le potesse derivare per eventuale sospensione di recita, ritardo di andata in iscena, e di declinare qualunque responsabilità in caso di insuccesso della rappresentazione di questa sera."); Letter from Adamich to the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 5.5.1873, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

the contracts, which banned the orchestral player – like the singers, for that matter – from performing elsewhere, though in this case within a well-defned range of kilometres from the theatre. In the contracts drawn up with the Teatre of Split in 1895, for example, the range was 90 kilometres.175

When comparing the versions of the *Doveri* we also note an important change relating to pay. Te earlier document established that the players' pay would be based on a wage table, to which the impresario would have to adhere and from which the players themselves could ask for no increase. Te agreed sum would be paid every three nights, or, in the case of a single performance, immediately afterwards. In the later version, on the other hand, there is no mention of a table. Payment of the fee, which had been previously agreed on, was delegated to the impresa and was to be "made regularly" (*regolarmente corrisposto*):176 what was meant here by 'regular' payment was not specifed in detail. It is also unclear what would happen if the fee was not paid. Was there any form of safeguard from the danger of the impresario's bankruptcy? Article 11 established the player's right to appeal to the theatre deputation if, in the event of non-payment, he had cause to "doubt the soundness of the impresa" (*dubitare della solidità dell'impresa*).177 But how would the theatre deputation react? To be sure, it could force the impresario to pay the arrears, or perhaps remedy the matter by using the security deposit left by the impresario when signing the contract. But if this route turned out to be unfeasible, no mention is made of the deputation being directly involved in paying any debts to the orchestra.

Rarely did the orchestral players consider the pay equal to their merits. And those working in Rijeka were dissuaded from asking for a pay rise. But it was not only there that requests for higher wages were made. We also have the evidence of the theatre of Zadar, where members of the city orchestra wrote the following confdent message to the theatre management: "Te undersigned, forming part of the city's orchestra, take the liberty of informing this honourable management that on account of the ever-increasing cost of living in general, and with particular regard to the fees paid to the orchestral players in other cities, they have established

I would prefer to let them depart and have them arrested in Pula. That all sacrifices we make to pay them should reciprocated in this way!!" ("Mi consta, che questa sera fuggono a bordo del Sultan, due professori d'orchestra, il fagotto Dosi, e l'altro credo sia la viola. La interesso vivamente occuparsene pel buon andamento dello spettacolo, e se fosse possibile preferirei lasciargli partire e fargli arrestare a Pola. Che tutti i ns. sacrifici per pagargli sieno corrisposti in tal modo!!"); Letter from Giorgio Trauner to Cattich, Zadar, 26.4.[1898], HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>175</sup> Art. 2, Engagement agreement issued by the Frusta Teatrale agency, Milano, 26.10.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.

<sup>176</sup> Art. 10, *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>177</sup> Art. 11, *Doveri dell'Orchestra e dei Professori che la compongono*, Rijeka 3.3.1866, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

that from today onwards, their services should be remunerated as follows: principal parts 5 crowns, secondary parts 4 crowns a day".178 It is worth bearing in mind that in this area daily wages fuctuated between two and three crowns.179 Te tone of the letter was not so much of negotiation as of imposition. At Rijeka, on the other hand, such a stance would have been risky: if the players had persisted in such action, they could have been replaced with members of the military band, which was clearly paid less.180 In the city there is indeed a documented case that certain players from the orchestra conducted by Alessandro Scaramelli were excluded by the impresario Trevisan and replaced with musicians from the military band, for the simple reason that they asked for the same pay as in previous years (which was therefore higher than what the band musicians asked for).181 Other musicians from the same orchestra were not

<sup>178</sup> "I sottoscritti, formanti parte dell'orchestra cittadina, si permettono di partecipare ad Essa Spettabile Direzione che causa l'ognor crescente caro vivere in generale, e con riguardo anche ai prezzi che vengono pagati ai professori di orchestra nelle altre città, hanno stabilito, da oggi in poi, che le loro prestazioni dovranno essere contribuite come segue: prime parti corone 5, seconde parti corone 4 al giorno." The orchestral players of Zadar asked not only for a pay rise but also for free admission to the theatre for their families: "Considering that at the other theatres the members of the orchestra widely enjoy special treatment, the respectful undersigned here take the liberty of begging this honourable management to grant them the same treatment; in other words to determine that each of the players, during the productions of opera and operetta, may twice a week have two free entrance tickets for their families, and during the other productions, theatre companies, etc. one ticket per night at a reduced price." ("Nella considerazione che presso gli altri Teatri i componenti l'orchestra godono generalmente dei favori, i devoti sottoscritti si permettono di pregare Essa Onorevole Direzione a voler accordarglieli anche a loro cioè a deliberare che ciascheduno dei suonatori durante gli spettacoli dell'opera e dell'operetta possa ottenere due volte per settimana due viglietti d'ingresso gratuiti per le loro famiglie, mentre durante gli altri spettacoli, compagnie drammatiche, ecc. un viglietto seralmente a prezzo ribassato."); Letter from orchestral players of Zadar to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 19. 4.1909, HR-DAZD, folder 12. 179 See the Wage table for orchestral players, [Zadar, 1903], HR-DAZD, folder 11.

<sup>180</sup> Confirmation for this is signally given by a letter from a hitherto unidentified sender to the orchestral players of Rijeka, warning them that further pay claims from the players could turn out to be damaging: "Paolo Santi was invited by the secretary Signor Ernesto de Bonmartini to have the members of the orchestra sign for the forthcoming autumn comedies, though with the clause that any increase, even minimal, will be harmful to all in general; for in that case the aforementioned secretary will turn to the military band. Hence the orchestral players are begged to sign the contract with the evening's fee they obtained the previous year, neither more nor less, since every inconformity with the paylist that was valid the previous year (and is deposited at the theatre management) will be exposed." ("Invitato Paolo Santi dal segretario sig. Ernesto de Bonmartini a far firmare i componenti dell'orchestra per le prossime commedie autunnali, colla clausola però che qualunque aumento sia il minimo recherà danno a tutti in generale; poiché in tal caso il sopraddetto segretario si rivolgerà alla banda militare. Perciò vengono pregati i sig. professori di sottosegnarsi colla paga serale che acquistavano l'anno passato, né più né meno, poiché ogni abuso verrà scoperto dalla lista che l'anno passato vigeva trovantesi presso la Direzione Teatrale."); Letter from [illegible sender] to the orchestral players of Rijeka, Rijeka, 18.9.1873, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>181</sup> It appears that the players in the city band were prepared to perform for a "very low price" (*tenuissimo prezzo*); "Articoli comunicati", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 24.3.1865, p. 94.

employed for the current opera season for diferent reasons. An article in the *Giornale di Fiume* appealed to the theatre deputation to remedy the situation, given that "there will not always be the opportunity to make use of the Imperial and Royal military band".182 It would be better to follow the example of various Italian cities, where impresarios were required to respect the orchestral expenses indicated in the lists presented to them by the theatre deputations. Te contractors of the theatre could replace missing players, but not exclude those who were local.

Te replacement of orchestral players with musicians from the military band happened also at Zadar. In the contract with the impresario Trauner the management of the Teatro Nuovo had an additional article added that stipulated that "as a result of the increased expectations of certain local orchestral musicians, it is agreed between the parties that the orchestra for the next opera season at the said theatre run by Signor G. Trauner will be composed of 42 musicians, of whom 12 from the town, 15 military and the rest outsiders. In this regard, the honourable theatre management agrees to pay the said impresa the sum of 360 lire (equal to 162 forins) by way of supplementary endowment, which Signor Trauner accepts".183 More than a third of the orchestra was therefore made up of military musicians. In the coastal region there was also the case of Pula, where the orchestra of the Teatro Ciscutti, at least between 1901 and 1906, was that of the navy.184 Consequently, orchestral players working specifcally in the feld of opera were subject to the competition of fellow musicians who were probably less skilled and less familiar with the repertoire, but who represented a fnancial advantage in the eyes of any impresario.

In the provincial theatres it was usually the principal violin who was responsible for the formation of the orchestra and payment of salaries, for which he was provided with a budget.185 It could happen that he did not always perform his duties properly, either by recruiting players who were inadequate or by paying them less than he could (at worst also pocketing the diference). Bottura's chronicle makes veiled references to malfunctioning in the system of recruitment at Rijeka, where the main culprit appeared to be the principal violin, the well-known Alessandro Scaramelli: guilty, according to the sources, of recruiting

<sup>182</sup> "non vi sarà sempre l'occasione di servirsi dell'i.r. Banda Militare"; "Articoli comunicati", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 24.3.1865, p. 94.

<sup>183</sup> "in conseguenza delle aumentate pretese di alcuni professori d'orchestra locale, si stabilisce tra i componenti che l'orchestra per la prossima stagione d'opera al detto teatro assunta dal Sig. G. Trauner sarà composta di n. 42 professori di cui 12 del paese, 15 militari ed il rimanente forestieri. In relazione a ciò l'Onor. Direzione teatrale s'impegna pagare all'impresa suddetta la somma di L. 360 pari a F.i 162 a titolo di dotazione supplettoria, che il sig. Trauner accetta". Motion (*Istanza*) between the theatre management of Zadar and the impresario Giorgio Trauner, Zadar, [1898], HR-DAZD, folder 6.

<sup>184</sup> The Navy Orchestra of Pula had the famous Franz Lehár as its conductor in the period from 1894 to 1896.

<sup>185</sup> Franco Piperno – Antonio Rostagno, "The Orchestra in Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera Houses", p. 28.

poor orchestral players.186 Curiously, it was Scaramelli himself who, sometime earlier, had made a public complaint about the situation of the orchestras in Italy. According to Scaramelli, young musicians did not practise enough and were demotivated, for before their eyes they had examples of respectable older orchestral musicians who had trouble making ends meet; of fne orchestral players who, once they got ill, had no form of protection and were abandoned in hospitals or hospices, maintained by the charity of others. Discouraged by this bleak picture, the young envisaged only "a life of hardships" (*una vita di stenti*).

What were seen to be the causes of this situation? Firstly, the exorbitant salaries given to the singers; secondly, the theatre managements, whose concerns exclusively regarded "the trio of singers belonging to the so-called cartel" (*alla terna dei cantanti del così detto cartello*) and the "more or less French" couple of lead dancers, while paying scant attention to the orchestra and choruses; and thirdly, the impresarios, who, to serve their own interests, would pay only a small minority of the players engaged, who were in any case given very little to live on.187 As for the extras, they were employed in other occupations during the day and would turn up to rehearsals and performances tired, listless and inattentive. Te solution – according to Scaramelli – was to fnd ways of giving singers and dancers fairer wages and making the recruitment of orchestral players depend directly on the theatre managements instead of the impresarios, who were only interested in making a proft. Savings accounts would have to be set up to assist the sick, orphans and widows, and to give a pension to those who could no longer work.188 In such a scenario young musicians could view a career in an orchestra with greater trust and be able to look forward to a future that was more secure.

<sup>186</sup> "The man in charge of forming [the orchestra] recruited as many shoddy players or beginners as he could, whom he then paid little or nothing, thus pocketing most of what the *capocomico* was expected to spend on a good ensemble of players. It often happened that the fiercest and loudest whistling [= booing] was directed against the contempt in which the public seemed to be held, and the management did not fail to remind Scaramelli strictly of his duty, but it was wasted breath and one would lose both baby and bathwater." ("L'incaricato a formarla reclutava quanti più poteva suonatori dozzinali o principianti, che poi retribuiva con poco o nulla, intascando così la maggior parte di quanto il capocomico era obbligato a spendere per un buon complesso di suonatori. Accadde sovente che le fischiate più acri e sonore protestassero contro lo spregio in cui pareva si tenesse il pubblico, e la Direzione non mancava di richiamare severamente al dover suo lo Scaramelli, ma era fiato sprecato e ci perdeva il ranno e 'l sapone."); Bottura, *Storia aneddotica documentata*, p. 413.

<sup>187</sup> "Delle orchestra", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 30. 9.1865, p. 260.

<sup>188</sup> "In this way, when a man will see that by devoting himself to being an orchestral player he will be able to live decently and, when he is no longer able to play, will have provisions to support his old age, he will study hard and try to become accomplished so as to deserve a place for himself in a theatre; and from then on, the title of 'professor' will no longer be desecrated, as it is so often today, by certain café and tavern fiddlers or charlatan serenaders (or rather, disturbers of the nocturnal peace)." ("In questo modo quando un uomo vedrà che dedicandosi a fare il professore d'orchestra potrà vivere discretamente e che quando sarà inabile vi avrà un provvedimento per sostenere la sua vecchiaia, esso studierà e cercherà di perfezionarsi onde rendersi meritevole di un posto in un teatro, ed il titolo di professore

Young musicians or students could also be admitted to play in the orchestral ensemble without pay. In the 1861 *Doveri* of Rijeka provision was made for the pupils from the local music academy, the Istituto Musicale, to take part, "as a means of encouraging them in their progress" (*onde incoraggiarli nei loro progressi*), and thereby reinforce the main body of permanent players. While they were not paid for their services, they were nonetheless given free admission to the theatre.189 Te *Doveri* makes no distinction between musicians who were paid a salary and those who played for free. In other regulations – like those of the Teatro Comunale of Trieste – reference was made to "salaried and unsalaried professors" (*professori stipendiati e non stipendiati*) in 1861, whereas in 1864 a generic defnition of "*professori*" was adopted, without indicating whether they were paid or not.190 However, the fgure of the "pupil" (*alunno*) was a subject disciplined in various theatrical documents. By their very nature, the *alunno* was chosen from among the more talented or deserving young musicians attending the music schools, was not a stable fgure, and could be employed by the conductor to play in specifc performances or productions. In return for their unpaid work, they might hope that the management would give good references that could be used later to build a career.191

For the "salaried" players at Rijeka the contracts with the impresario were extremely rudimentary, at least in the late 1860s. In 1868, for example, the players could count on just one binding statement: "Te undersigned orchestral players undertake towards the impresario Signor Adolfo Proni to provide their services in the Orchestra del Civico Teatro in all the performances and rehearsals in the forthcoming season of Lent and Spring in return for the fee established below".192 Tis was followed by a list of 26 players, with the fee indicated alongside each name. No indication was given either of the precise number of performances and rehearsals, or of schedules: both matters that could turn out to be unfavourable to the musicians. A similar formula was used again in the following year. All that changed (apart from the name of the impresario) was a direct mention of the theatre deputation and the

in allora non sarà profanato come lo è tanto di sovente al dì d'oggi da certi strimpellatori da caffè e da bettole, o da certi cerretani suonatori (o meglio disturbatori del notturno riposo) di serenate"); "Delle orchestra", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 30. 9.1865, p. 260.

<sup>189</sup> See Art. 11, concerning the "Doveri dell'Orchestra del Teatro e dei Professori che la compongono", in *Regolamento interno disciplinare del Civico Teatro di Rijeka,* Rijeka 17. 9.1861, HR-DARI, RO 24, folder 6.

<sup>190</sup> See Art. 1, *Regolamento d'orchestra*, Teatro Comunale of Trieste, Trieste, 1861, I – TSmt, folder 107 and *Regolamento per l'Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Trieste*, Tipografia del Lloyd Austriaco, Trieste 1864. The 1861 document had in actual fact been approved already in 1828, so it was based, with minor adjustments, on what had been in use over thirty years earlier.

<sup>191</sup> See, for example, Giuseppe Benelli, *Regolamento generale*, p. 45.

<sup>192</sup> "I sottoscritti Professori d'orchestra si obbligano verso l'Impresario sig. Adolfo Proni di prestare la loro opera nell'Orchestra del Civico Teatro a tutte le recite e prove nella prossima stagione di Quaresima e Primavera verso il compenso in calce stabilito"; Contract between the orchestral players of Rijeka and Adolfo Proni, Rijeka, 8.10.1867, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

conductor: "Te undersigned orchestral players undertake towards the impresario Signor Dal Torso, and respectively towards the theatre deputation, to play at all the performances and rehearsals that are due to be arranged by the conductor in the opera season of Lent and Spring 1869". Tis was followed by at least 27 signatures, again with the overall fee indicated alongside each name.193 Te diferences in overall fees between one musician and the next were determined by the importance of the instrumentalist (principal part or otherwise), but could also refect the number of days the player would be used during the season.

Te contract merely mentioned the "Lent and Spring season" and might not indicate the date on which it ended. At times this led to misunderstandings between players and impresarios, as happened at the time of the impresario Giuseppe Cajani. In 1874 a complaint was made to the theatre deputation of Rijeka by the orchestral players and chorus singers, who claimed to have been engaged for the Lent and Spring season "until about 1st May 1874, i.e. through to the 5th of the current month";194 in which case, after this date they had the right to declare themselves released from all further commitments and to demand the payment of the last *quartale*, which still hadn't been made. According to them, the contractors of the Cajani impresa had claimed that the contract was binding until the 15th of the month, though they couldn't prove the point by exhibiting the original contract, which was given as lost. After asking to see the contract on several occasions, the players demanded not only payment of the *quartale*, but also further compensation for the alleged additional period, and insisted that their demands be met within a short space of time (within three days of their complaint, otherwise there would be unfortunate consequences).195 Te management,

<sup>193</sup> "I sottoscritti professori d'orchestra si obbligano coll'impresario sig. Dal Torso e rispettivamente con la Deputazione teatrale di suonare a tutte recite e prove che sono per essere ordinate dal Direttore d'orchestra nella stagione d'opera di quaresima e primavera 1869". The signatures included were those of Iginio Dall'Asta, Doia, Scrobogna, Amsaurck [?], famiglia Santi, Sponga, Pasquali, Birkler, Luzzato, Pospischil, Dimscher, Lonchi, Gugarich, Kafka, Cumagna, M° Fornari, Bau[…], Figaro, Elleny, Prohaska, Alessandro Scaramelli, Raspich, Giustini, Bolso, Küller, Sperber and Millinecaich; Contract between the orchestral players of Rijeka and Vincenzo Dal Torso, Rijeka, 5. 2.1869, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>194</sup> "al 1 maggio 1874 circa cioè sino a tutto 5 del corr. mese"; Letter from the orchestral musicians and chorus singers of Rijeka to the theatre deputation of Rijeka, Rijeka, [7.5.1874], HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>195</sup> "Since the contractors of the Cajani impresa claim instead that our contract is binding towards the impresa until no earlier than the 15th of the current month", the orchestral players and singers of Rijeka wrote, "without however proving their claim by showing the original contract (as frequently requested by us), which is concealed under trivial pretexts, whereas instead we claim that from the termination of our commitments on 5th May it naturally follows that we need not only to be paid the 4th *quartale*, but have also the right to new wages if the impresa should intend to carry on with the opera season; hence, with the present letter we express our most fervent protests concerning the aforementioned impresa and beg the honourable Theatre Deputation that, being correctly informed of the facts, it may ensure that we are given both the payment of the already expired *quartale* and also the wages for the afore-

however, sided with the impresario, citing – as evidence of the commitment until the middle of May – the fact that the contracts of the singers terminated on the 15th. Hence the orchestral players should have also considered this date as binding, given that the singers could obviously not perform on their own. At the end of this controversy the impresario admitted that he had failed to indicate a termination date in the contract with the chorus and orchestral musicians, but that they should have followed, as was customary, the printed opera programme, which indicated 30 performances of subscription nights and benefts. In addition, the impresario asserted that "it is a good principle to do as has always been done" (*per sua regola a quelli del paese si usa sempre di fare così*)".196 An appeal was made therefore to an unwritten custom, but one tacitly applied for years. Te management enjoined the musicians to desist from their demands.197 It was understood that if the impresario had


said period hereafter; and this so as to avoid disagreeable consequences that could ensue for the above impresa, if within three days our present complaint should not be favourably dealt with […]" ("Siccome gli assuntori dell'impresa Cajani sostengono invece che il nostro contratto è vincolativo verso l'impresa niente meno che sino il dì 15 corr. mese, senza però provare il loro asserto colla esibizione del da noi ripetute volte richiesto originale contratto, il quale viene occultato sotto futili pretesti, sostenendo noi invece la cessazione degli nostri impegni col dì 5 corr. maggio ne viene da sé che ci debba essere pagato il 4to quartale non solo, ma abbiamo pure diritto ad un nuovo compenso, qualora l'impresa intenda di proseguire collo spettacolo d'opera, per cui colla presente formiamo le nostre più solenni proteste di confronto alla piudetta impresa pregando la spettabile Deputazione Teatrale perché si compiaccia sino a ragione conosciuta farci garantire tanto il pagamento del già scaduto quartale, quanto anche pel proporzionato compenso dalla suddetta epoca in poi, e ciò a scanso di dispiacenti conseguenze, che ne potrebbero derivare alla suddetta impresa, qualora entro giorni tre non verrebbe favorevolmente evasa la presente nostra rimostranza […]"); Letter from the orchestral players and chorus singers of Rijeka to the theatre deputation of Rijeka, Rijeka, [7.5.1874], HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

wished to add further performances not indicated in the programme, he would have to give the orchestra and chorus additional pay.198

Already in the year in which Cajani was the impresario, the need was felt in Rijeka to have a bigger and better orchestra than the one available.199 Te problem of insufcient


*poster, then one must give a fee' /* 6th Because a right to compensation for performances after 5th May could be justifiable, if the said orchestral players and choristers could produce a copy of the agreement that carried the end date of ca. 1st May, only in which case could the mislaying of the contract by the impresa be construed as made in bad faith. It is for all these reasons that the theatre management advises the gentlemen orchestral players and choristers to desist from the petition dated 7.5.74, and it is hoped that the citizens employed at the theatre will not wish to place any obstacles to the current opera season that will come to an end in a few days." ("Interpellata l'impresa sociale Bartoli, Byron, Orsi e Sbordoni relativamente alla domanda da lor sig. presentata alla scrivente in data 7.5.1874 s'ottenne la seguente dichiarazione: Abbenchè siasi smarrita l'originale scrittura tra il sig. Cajani ed i sig. Professori d'orchestra e coristi cittadini, pure l'evidenza dell'epoca del contratto a tutta quaresima e primavera (21 maggio) risulta dai seguenti motivi: / 1° Perché i signori sopraindicati apposero le rispettive firme alla quitanza dei tre quartali ricevuti richiamando la quaresima e primavera come termine di stagione senza restituzione di sorta e di epoca. / 2° Perché il sig. Köhller (flauto) venne con contratto speciale scritturato sino il 15 circa di maggio, cioè in armonia colle scritture fatte ai compagni. / 4° [*sic*] Perché tutte le scritture fatte agli artisti di canto portano il 15 circa, né è presumibile che l'impresa intendesse fare le recite dal 5 al 20 maggio coi soli cantanti senza i cori e l'orchestra. / 5° Perché interpellato il sig. Cajani diede per lettera la seguente dichiarazione: '*la dichiarazione del termine di stagione non c'era nel contratto, giacchè sono scritturati per la quaresima e primavera ed anche se la stagione dovesse prolungarsi di qualche giorno bisogna che stiino (professori d'orchestra e coristi) al cartellone esposto al pubblico, cioè di fare le 30 recite di abbonamento e le beneficiate. Per sua regola a quelli del paese si usa sempre di fare così. Se poi l'impresa volesse fare altre recite non promesse nel cartellone allora bisogna dare un compenso*' */* 6° Perché potrebbe essere fatto valere un diritto d'indennizzo per le recite oltre il 5 di maggio, qualora i sig. professori d'orchestra e coristi potessero far valere un duplicato di scrittura che recasse il termine del 1° maggio circa, nel quale solo caso potrebbe ritenersi mala fede lo smarrimento del contratto per parte dell'impresa. Gli è per tutto ciò che la direzione teatrale consiglia i sig. professori d'orchestra e coristi a desistere dalla domanda d.ta 7.5.74, e si lusinga che i cittadini addetti al teatro non vorranno porre inciampi all'attuale stagione d'opera che in brevi giorni volge al suo termine."); Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the orchestral players and choristers of Rijeka, Rijeka, 9.5.1874, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

numbers clearly persisted, for even as late as 1918 the president of the theatre wrote to tell Antonio Smareglia that the number of orchestral players and chorus singers in town was extremely small and that the impresario would have to "make up both the orchestra and chorus largely with external elements".200

Te extra musicians for Rijeka were principally recruited from Trieste, though these players were not always available. For example, there were enormous difculties in November 1914, when players couldn't be found in Trieste because of the opera season at the local Politeama, while at the same time small orchestras were already working elsewhere in the city: at the Teatro Eden, at La Fenice and in the small cinemas and variety halls.201 So we can readily understand the difculty, in 1918, of securing an orchestra of 60 players, a number raised to 80 in the event of having to perform operas by Wagner.202

Te theatre management at Rijeka not only expressly asked for a list of orchestral players from the impresario (who – as has already been mentioned – was also obliged to supply any other instruments indicated by the composer, not to mention a stage band for all the operas and ballets requiring one),203 but also expected to attend a full rehearsal of the productions, thereby exercising the artistic control required by the city authorities. It would also check that the number of orchestral players indicated in the tender specifcations or contract were duly observed, in accordance with the type of spectacle in question.204 In 1864 the requirement

sono tali da non poter offrire artisti di canto di certo grido, non tolgono però che nella parte istrumentale il pubblico sia in diritto di esigere un'orchestra più completa e migliore della presente, poiché non v'ha dubbio che su di essa si basa principalmente l'esito dello spettacolo"); "Teatro civico", *La Bilancia*, 23.3.1874.

<sup>200</sup> "comporre tanto l'orchestra che il coro in gran parte con elementi forestieri"; Letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to Antonio Smareglia, Rijeka, 13. 4.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>201</sup> Letter from Enrico Gallina to Attilio Alpron, Trieste, 20.11.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>202</sup> Letter from the president of the theatre management of Rijeka to Zoltan de Jekelfalussy, Rijeka, 12. 2.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>203</sup> Art. 31, Tender specifications of the Teatro Comunale of Trieste for the three-year period 1864–1867, I-TSmt, folder 111.

<sup>204</sup> The management cared about this prerogative and didn't fail to enforce it. For example, in 1916 Meynier, the president of the theatre, admonished the impresario Carlo Polgar for failing to deliver the list of players for the operetta season, reminding him also of the importance of informing him of the dates and times of rehearsal. He wrote: "Since you have not hitherto submitted to the theatre management the list of the orchestra, and since it is widely understood that you intend to form the orchestra with about a dozen players reinforced by a harmonium, I find myself obliged to warn you that operettas at the Teatro Comunale have always been given with an orchestra consisting of at least 30 proficient players and that, even considering the exceptional circumstances in which [*illegible*] the present season, the management could not accept an orchestral ensemble that was much smaller than usual. At the same time I remind you that before allowing the operetta to take the stage, the management wishes to attend a full rehearsal, for otherwise it would find itself unable to exert that artistic control that the illustrious municipal authority has entrusted it with. Concerning the day and time arranged for the rehearsal, you will in due course inform the management through the secretary Dr. Elpidio Springhetti." ("Siccome Ella non ebbe finora

at Rijeka was for 34 musicians, including the conductor. Tis was not specifed in the tender specifcations, but in a manuscript draft outlining the conditions for running the Lent and Spring season.205 Yet we have seen that in 1868 and 1869 the number of players appearing in the actual lists delivered to the theatre management of Rijeka was 26 or 27. And this fgure was to remain unchanged in the following years: in 1874 the number engaged by the impresario Cesare Trevisan for the opera season was 27.206 Compared to a theatre like the Teatro Comunale of Trieste this meant a diference of more than a good twenty players: not a negligible number. Trieste, however, was by defnition a theatre of the frst rank, where the needs of the management were clarifed with greater precision already in the tender specifcations (which were fuller and better defned than those of the coastal region). According to the *capitolato* of the Teatro Comunale of Trieste for the years 1864–67, the orchestra was to consist of: "1 *maestro concertatore*, 1 principal violin and conductor for the opera, 1 leader and deputy, 1 frst violin and director for the dances, 16 violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, 6 double basses, 1 harp, 2 futes and piccolo, 2 clarinets, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 bombardon, 1 timpani, 1 bass drum, 1 cymbals", making a total of 55 players.207

For the inauguration of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka in 1885, on the other hand, the spaces added for flling in the numbers of orchestral players were left blank. A very discretionary formula was chosen in the document, whereby only the types of instrument were indicated but not the quantity: "No fewer than no. …orchestral players, perfectly suited

a sottoporre alla Direzione Teatrale l'elenco dell'orchestra e siccome da più parti si apprende che Ella intende formare l'orchestra, con una dozzina di suonatori rinforzati da un armonio, mi trovo in dovere di prevenirla che al Teatro Comunale le operette furono sempre date con un'orchestra composta di almeno 30 provetti suonatori e che, pur prendendo in riflesso le circostanze eccezionali in mezzo alle quali […] l'attuale stagione, la Direzione non potrebbe accettare un complesso orchestrale di molto inferiore all'usuale. Nel tempo stesso le faccio noto che prima di permettere l'andata in scena dell'operetta, la Direzione desidera assistere a una prova d'insieme, poiché altrimenti essa si troverebbe nell'impossibilità di esercitare quel controllo artistico che l'Inclita Rappresentanza Municipale le ha affidato. Del giorno e dell'ora fissati per la prova Ella vorrà a tempo debito avvertire la Direzione a mezzo del segretario dott. Elpidio Springhetti."); Letter from the president G. Meynier to Carlo Polgar, Rijeka, 25.4.1916, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.

<sup>205</sup> Conditions for the organisation of opera in the Lent and Spring season 1864, manuscript draft, [Rijeka, 1864], HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

<sup>206</sup> The names of the players listed in the document were "A. Scaramelli, Dall'Asta, famiglia Santi, Pasquali, Silenzi, Raspich, Giustini, Sponga, Doia, Scrobogna, Knezaurek, Cesaroni, Luzzato, Dimscher, Pospischil, Kafka, Baule, Jacopich, Klausbergher, Dal Zotto, Scotti, Bogasch, Recanatini, Sperber, figlio", Rijeka, 26. 8.1873, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4. At least half of these players had already worked in the previous seasons.

<sup>207</sup> "1 Maestro Concertatore, 1 primo Violino e Direttore per l'opera, 1 primo di spalla e supplente, 1 primo Violino Direttore pei balli, 16 Violini, 4 Viole, 3 Violoncelli, 6 Contrabbassi, 1 Arpa, 2 Flauti e Ottavino, 2 Clarinetti, 2 Oboi, 2 Fagotti, 4 Corni, 2 Trombe, 3 Tromboni, 1 Bombardone, 1 Timpani, 1 Gran Cassa, 1 Piatti"; Tender specifications of the Teatro Comunale of Trieste for the three-year period 1864–1867, I-TSmt, folder 111.

and competent, namely: …frst violins, …seconds, …violas, …cellos, …double basses, … futes, piccolo, …oboe, …horns, …clarinets, …bassoons, …trumpets, …trombones, 1 timpanist, 2 bass drum and cymbals, and the harp".208 In this way the theatre management made things more fexible, allowing the freedom to indicate the number of players needed even at the last moment. Te contract with the impresario Sciutti D'Arrigo of 1891 called for 30 orchestral players, without specifying the types of instrument.209 Nor were the instruments quantifed in the call for tenders of 1901, which merely indicated an overall total of 50.210 Tere was greater defnition (albeit partial) in the tender specifcations of 1909, where only the exact number of strings is mentioned out of a total of 60 players: "12 frst violins, 10 second violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos and 4 double basses".211

Over the years, and in line with the new requirements for opera, orchestras had got bigger. According to Rispoli, in the early 20th century (it was 1903 when he wrote *La vita pratica del teatro*), a big orchestra, such as was found "in the very big theatres and symphonic concerts", consisted – with minor variations – of "20 frst violins; 16 second violins; 12 violas; 12 cellos; 10 double basses; 3 futes and piccolo; 2 oboe and english horn, 2 clarinets and bass clarinets (*clarini e clarone*); 2 bassoons and double bassoon; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 2 cornets (*cornette*); 3 tenor trombones; 1 bass trombone; timpani, sistrum (*sistro*), bass drum and cymbals. A hundred parts in all".212 In the coastal area certain tender specifcations theoretically called for up to 60 players, but in the drawing up of the actual contracts this fgure could be lower, especially considering the constant difculty of recruiting players externally.

Te same considerations applied to the complementary *corps de ballet* used in the opera seasons. While the theatre of Zadar expected the classic "12 skilled chorus ballerinas",213 Rijeka

<sup>208</sup> "Non meno di n. …professori d'orchestra, perfettamente idonei e capaci, cioè: …primi violini, … secondi, …viole, …violoncelli, …contrabbassi, …flauti, l'ottavino, …oboè, …corni, …clarinetti, … fagotti, …trombe, …tromboni, 1 timpanista, 2 grancassa e piatti, e l'arpa"; Art. V, letter e, Tender specifications of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 1885, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6.

<sup>209</sup> Contract for the running of the season at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, [Rijeka, 1891], Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, theatre collection.

<sup>210</sup> Call for tenders for the running of the season at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, [Rijeka, 1901], Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, theatre collection.

<sup>211</sup> Tender specifications for the running of the Teatro Comunale for the three-year period 1 January 1909–31 December 1911, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6. The tender specifications for 1912 reasserted this requirement. In 1917, however, there was a sudden and substantial reduction in the number of players required, as testified by the contract with the impresario Carlo Polgar, which speaks of a minimum of 18 musicians: "the orchestra must be made up of at least 18 players" ("l'orchestra dovrà essere composta di almeno 18 suonatori"). Many men had been called up to fight in the War, musicians included, which could explain the reason for the cutback; Art. VI, *Protocollo assunto presso il Magistrato Civico di Rijeka addì 11 aprile 1917*, Rijeka, 11. 4.1917, HR-DARI, folder 1.

<sup>212</sup> Rispoli, *La vita pratica*, p. 118.

<sup>213</sup> "12 ballerine distinte di fila"; Tender specifications of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, Zadar, n.d., HR-DAZD, folder 4.

called for 30 in the early years of the new century. It would seem that the fnest dancers had been recruited for tours to America, whereas, as the impresario Giorgio Trauner found cause to complain, the onlys one remaining in the area were "ugly, old and full of pretences" (*brutte, vecchie e piene di pretese*).214 Even the theatre management of Zadar admitted that out of six dancers "four don't know how to dance. […] Te two that do are old". (*quattro non sanno ballare. […] Le due che sanno ballare sono vecchie*). What was called the "pitiful corps de ballet" (*misero corpo di ballo*) contributed to the public's displeasure. Te management pointed out that the impresario would absolutely have to bring in new ones ("who, even if they can't dance, are at least more presentable than these", was the comment made to the agent Gallina).215 Hence the need to fnd additional dancers for the corps de ballet; and consequently, more expenses.

Te orchestra of Šibenik also made use of musicians taken from the municipal band, as is confrmed by a receipt dated 1893, signed by the director of the band itself, Domenico Mateljan.216 Te band musicians would normally play on a variety of occasions, ranging from evenings of magic217 to the dances (*veglioni*) held during the Carnival season. If the band was engaged in other artistic activities (such as concerts outside the theatre, processions, etc.), all rehearsals at the opera house had to be postponed.218 Te success or failure of an opera depended naturally also on the quality of the orchestral players. By the theatre director Giovanni Mazzoleni's own admission, the orchestras in Šibenik were "wobbly" (*zoppicanti*) and largely made up of amateurs.219 "Here we don't have professionals," he wrote, "but

<sup>214</sup> Letter from Giorgio Trauner to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 12.7.1906, HR-DAZD, folder 26.

<sup>215</sup> "che se anche non sapranno ballare saranno almeno più presentabili di queste"; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to the agent Enrico Gallina, [Zadar, 1906], HR-DAZD, folder 21.

<sup>216</sup> "I the undersigned declare that I have received from the management of the Teatro Mazzoleni 192 florins as payment of the balance for the orchestra that took part in the opera season, in other words from 14 April through 11 May 1873 / The director of the Municipal Band / Domenico Mateljan." ("Dichiaro io sottoscritto di aver ricevuto dalla direzione del Teatro Mazzoleni fio 192 e questi a saldo della orchestra che prese parte durante la stagione teatrale cioè dal giorno 14 aprile a tutto 11 maggio 1873 / Il direttore della Banda Comunale / Domenico Mateljan."); Receipt from Domenico Mateljan for the theatre management of Šibenik, Šibenik, 12.5.1873, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3.

<sup>217</sup> An example was the evening of the magician Grassi organised at Šibenik in 1893.

<sup>218</sup> See, for example, what Giovanni Mazzoleni wrote to the impresario Giuseppe Ponzio concerning the 1911 season at Šibenik, which was to take place in the Easter period: "You must take note that rehearsals cannot be held on Good Friday, because many of the orchestral players belong to the city band, which will take part in the procession that evening." ("Deve notare che il Venerdì santo non si potranno fare prove, perché molti suonatori d'orchestra appartengono al corpo della banda cittadina, che in quella sera prende parte alla processione."); Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Giuseppe Ponzio, Šibenik, 1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

<sup>219</sup> See Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Cesare Matucci, Šibenik, 19. 2.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10.

only amateurs who blunder and need a lot of rehearsals".220 If instruments were missing, in certain cases they might be replaced by the harmonium, a type of substitution also found in productions of operetta. At times entire families of instruments might be lacking, like the entire viola section in the productions of the Lilliputian Company of Ernesto Guerra, which used a small orchestra with Guerra himself sitting at the piano. Te list of expenses for the eleven opera performances given in 1905, as well as telling us about how the ensemble was formed, also provides further important information, about how much the individual musicians were paid:


220 "Qui non abbiamo professori, ma dilettanti che guastano ed hanno bisogno di molte prove." Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Pietro Viti, Šibenik, 9. 9.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

 ------------- Assieme 712.62221

What stands out is the diference between an orchestral player from outside the town (7 crowns a day for each of the four musicians recruited from Trieste) and a local player (2 crowns, unless performing the functions of a principal part). Te pay, at least for the local musicians, remained more or less the same also the following year, when two opera performances were given by the same company, again directed by Ernesto Guerra:


Te "cornet from Split including travel" (*Cornetta da Spalato compreso il viaggio*) cost in all more than ten crowns per night, fve times what a local player was paid. Te evidence of these lists indicates that all the musicians that took part in the said seasons received their payment in cash. From the payroll of the orchestra and chorus for the season organised by the impresario Castagnoli in 1908, on the other hand, we have confrmation that not all the musicians were always paid wages. Some weren't paid in cash, but given entrance tickets instead. In this specifc instance the recipients of a ticket (*biglietto*) were principally the second violins and the percussionists at the timpani and bass drum. For other players a mixed mode of payment was applied, i.e. money plus ticket:

<sup>221</sup> Sheet of paper headed "Orchestra della stagione Compagnia Lillipuziana di E. Guerra", [Šibenik, 1905], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.

<sup>222</sup> List of expenses for the orchestra of the Compagnia Lillipuziana, Šibenik [May 1906], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.



Te female singers of the chorus performed free of charge and merely received a complementary ticket:


223 Orchestra, [Šibenik, 1908], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.


n. 11 biglietti224

For the male singers the situation was more fuid. Some were paid a fee; for others the same system of issuing a free entrance ticket was used:


biglietti 10 Cor. 14225

<sup>224</sup> Chorus (female), [Šibenik, 1908], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>225</sup> Chorus (male), [Šibenik, 1908], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

Enrico Mazzoleni was paid neither in cash nor in kind because he was related to the management (in the other case, that of Bregovic, the reason for non-payment is not known). It was naturally prohibited to sell the free ticket or give it to a third party because this would have constituted unfair competition, to the detriment of the impresa. Nor was it possible for the recipient to use up all the tickets on a single night.

Te payment list for orchestra and chorus for the opera season organised by Ponzio in 1911 more or less confrms the nightly fees paid to the players, while those for the singers are lower (though equal for both sexes). Present in the orchestra at Šibenik were also two women, still a rare occurrence at the time:

#### **Orchestra:**


Petrocchi Nicolò a Cor. 1- 10 sere cor. 10 581:--226

As we note in this and the preceding table, the pay given to the *maestro concertatore*, in this case Rafaele Patucchi, was about three times that of an orchestral player, or more.227 Tat of the *maestro sostituto*, here Rafaele Orsini, was half that of the *maestro concertatore*. As already pointed out above, the players were paid diferently depending on their role and instrument (principal parts or otherwise), whereas no distinctions were made among the singers, at least in the productions concerned. In the early years of the 20th century the fee for a principal part in Šibenik was generally fxed at 3 crowns, as against the 2 crowns for a second part.228 In proportion the fee for the principal part was less than half that of the *maestro concertatore*, which was in line with what happened in other Italian theatres.229 As a term of comparison, a principal part in Split in 1895 could aspire to earn 5.50 lire a day, the equivalent of around 2.75 forins (or little more than 5 crowns).230 Tis fgure difers slightly from that given by the impresario Antonio Lana (again in 1895), who mentions a daily rate at the Teatro Nuovo of 7 lire for a principal part (though one recruited from another town).231

<sup>226</sup> Costs, Opera season 1911, Šibenik, [1911], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. Of the players listed in the table, Simeone Descovich was also director of the municipal band of Šibenik, Antonio Descovich played the clarinet ("Itinerari della memoria. L'Italia a Sebenico", *L'Arena di Pola*, 1. 9.1979, p. 3), Rina Raimondi was a violinist, and Sylva Raimondi, indicated as a cellist in the previous tables, appeared in other sources as a pianist (*Grad i okolica,* Hrvatska Misao, Šibenik, 14 studenoga 1914). Dorino and Simeone Descovich moved to Pula in 1921.

<sup>227</sup> For 10 nights Patucchi earned 100 crowns (equal to about 50 florins). In comparison, the *maestro concertatore* at Zadar, Antonio Ravasio, earned about 200 florins per season in around 1885, though the figure was spread over more than double the number of performance nights; Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Sante Utili, Zadar, 27. 2.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

<sup>228</sup> Contract between the management of the Teatro Mazzoleni and the orchestra and male chorus of the Società Filarmonico-drammatica of Šibenik, 1.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.

<sup>229</sup> See, for example, the proportions between the salaries of the *maestro concertatore* and principal parts in the orchestra of La Pergola in Florence already in 1863, in Gloria Staffieri, "Firenze, Teatro della Pergola. Materiali per una storia dell'orchestra (dagli anni Venti dell'Ottocento all'Unità d'Italia)", *Studi Verdiani*, XVI (2001), p. 108. The salary of a *maestro concertatore* was 1,700 lire, that of a principal part 650 lire.

<sup>230</sup> See the Engagement agreement issued by the Frusta Teatrale agency between the impresario Alfredo Vecchi and the first trumpet for the theatre of Split, Milano, 26.10.1895.

<sup>231</sup> Letter from Antonio Lana to the presidency of the theatre of Split, Milano, 2.2.1895, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.


Even at Zadar an orchestral player at the start of the new century was paid between 2.40 and 3 crowns, as is shown by the payroll of the orchestra dating most likely to 1903:232

If we compare these fgures with the nightly fees paid over 25 years earlier (assuming the exchange rate 1 forin = 2 crowns), we notice that there was even a reduction in the fees in the more recent instance, for all except for the concertmaster (*violino alla spalla*) Giuseppe Zink:


 Indicated here is the daily rate, payable in advance every five days as from the first orchestral rehearsal; Payroll of the orchestra, [Zadar, 1903], HR-DAZD, folder 11.

 Giuseppe Zinck is recorded as a teacher in the strings department at the School of Music of Gorizia, post 1878; *Ottocento goriziano. Una città che si trasforma*, edited by Lucia Pillon, Istituto di Storia Sociale e Religiosa, Editrice Goriziana, Gorizia 1991, p. 220.


We also note that in the meantime some of the players had changed position or instrument: Riccardo Lazzarini moved from frst to second violin, Ernesto Albanesi from frst trombone to second horn, Francesco Cecoli from third trombone to tuba. Tere was always a diference in the fee for the concertmaster, who was paid either double or three times as much as a principal part. But this was normal and a privilege at many theatres: even at Trieste the *primo violino direttore* was paid exactly twice as much as one of the principal parts, precisely on account of his leadership role.235 We have no record here, on the other hand, of advanced payments: a beneft enjoyed by certain renowned principal parts in other theatres.236

We have already seen that, in order to complete the opera orchestra, Zadar had to resort to additional players from the military band; or alternatively, recruit them from the neighbouring towns, like Šibenik. In 1875 the musicians needed from outside were "a frst violin, a leader of the second violins, a cello, a double bass, a frst clarinet (*clarino*), two horns, a

<sup>234</sup> *Società del Teatro Nuovo of Zadar*, session of 3 April 1876, Zadar, 3. 4.1876, HR-DAZD, folder 4.

<sup>235</sup> For comparison, see the Contract between the impresario Carlo Raffaele Burlini and the *primo violino direttore d'orchestra* Antonio Cremaschi of 1864, I-TSmt, folder 116, and the Contract between the impresario Angelo Tommasi and the principal trumpet Enrico Cagnoni, Trieste, 8.3.1866, I-TSmt, folder 116. Cremaschi was paid 1,250 florins, Cagnoni 650 florins.

<sup>236</sup> For comparison, again at the Teatro Comunale of Trieste the principal trumpet Enrico Cagnoni was paid seven out of eight instalments in advance; Contract between the impresario Angelo Tommasi and the principal trumpet Enrico Cagnoni, Trieste, 8.3.1866, I-TSmt, folder 116.

frst trumpet, a frst bassoon and a timpanist".237 Hence about ten players. Ten years later the problem evidently persisted, for the instruments needed externally were three frst violins, two second violins, a cello, two double basses, frst fute, frst oboe, and again a frst clarinet, frst bassoon, frst trumpet and timpanist, adding up to a total of 14 players. For the opera season of 1899 the estimate contemplated the arrival of twelve external professionals (*forastieri*) and eight musicians from the military band; in other words, exactly 50% of the entire orchestra, as indicated in the following table:238


In 1885 the fee for a local player was 2 forins per night (or 5 lire), whereas a musician recruited externally cost more than double, 4.5 forins (or 11.25 lire).239 We have one instance in which the theatre management came forward and ofered to cover the diference between a local and external player and this was for the season organised by Giorgio Trauner in 1903. Te management acknowledged the "poor orchestral value" (*meschino valore orchestrale*) of the local second violins Boniccioli and Leditzki and told the impre-

<sup>237</sup> Contract between the presidency of the theatre of Zadar and Carlo Vianello, Zadar, 22.3.1875, HR-DAZD, folder 4.

<sup>238</sup> Table of the orchestra, season 1899, Zadar, [1899], HR-DAZD, folder 6. In 1894, five years earlier, the musicians of the military band were paid 2 florins a head; Receipt signed by Antonio Chera, "*sergente della musica*", Zadar, 27.3.1894, HR-DAZD, folder 8. The sum probably remained the same.

<sup>239</sup> Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Sante Utili, Zadar, 27. 2.1885, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

sario that he would make up the diference if they had to be replaced.240 Usually it was the impresario's job to take on this responsibility, but in this case it was clearly a necessity that couldn't be postponed.

Te following table aims to summarise the trends in pay for the orchestral players in the period under consideration, though the information is extremely incomplete owing to the lack of any substantial documentation on the subject:


It makes sense, perhaps, to try and compare the daily pay rather than the earnings for an entire season, not only because the actual number of performances is harder to grasp (in some of the documents it is even omitted), but also because that number could vary considerably, making it difcult to make balanced comparisons. In spite of the incomplete data, however, we can conclude that the daily pay for a local player in the second half of the 19th century could plausibly range from 0.80241 to 2 forins, whereas

<sup>240</sup> The management cannot have had much consideration for the musicians in question, or for that matter for some other of their colleagues in the orchestra, if it wrote to Trauner as follow: "Giving a lesson to Leditzki and Boniccioli is a good idea, but not to everyone, first of all because it would cost too much, but also because the general discontent would be dangerous." ("Una lezione a Leditzki e Boniccioli è bene darla, ma non a tutti perché costerebbe troppo in primo luogo e poi il malcontento generale sarebbe pericoloso."); Letter from the theatre management of Zadar to Giorgio Trauner, [Zadar, 1903], letter book, HR-DAZD, folder 21.

<sup>241</sup> A local player at Rijeka in 1868 could cost 0.80 florins a day, whereas one from outside town cost 2.40 florins. General statement of income and expenditure for the administration of the Civico Teatro of Rijeka in the Lent and spring season 1868, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4.

an external musician could hope to earn from 2.40 to 3.5 forins. With the new century, and the change of currency, the pay ranged from 2 to 3 crowns for a local player to 7 crowns for one recruited externally. Tis at least was the situation up to the years of the First World War.

### **8 Concluding note**

Tis research sets out to provide the notes for a history of opera management in the coastal region of the eastern Adriatic: hence in a particularly lively part of Europe, at a time (between the mid-19th century and the First World War) when the Italian, Croatian and Austrian cultures and ethnic groups lived side-by-side and confronted one another against a backdrop of nationalist ferment and political upheaval. Tis geographical area and its archives – hitherto unexplored in opera studies dealing with the 19th and 20th centuries – have here been investigated in a comprehensive way for the frst time. Tis volume therefore wishes to make a small contribution towards defning a disciplinary feld that has seen – if we consider the ideal broader picture – its most important landmarks in the works of Beth and Jonathan Glixon or Tomas Holmes for the 17th century,1 the studies of Richard Erkens for the 18th century and – before that – of John Rosselli,2 then the pivotal studies of Jutta Toelle on the 19th century and Michael Walter covering a time span that reaches up to the present.3

Concluding note

By examining the evidence documenting the work of the impresarios and theatre directors, it has been possible to delineate a complex modus operandi, one that steered an uneasy course between fnancial necessities, the requirements of programming, the availability of suitable casts, and the preferences of the public. Te resulting system of organising opera seasons highlights the interaction of diferent personalities and stakeholders: more than are found in other areas of Europe at the time. It is sufcient, for example, to make a comparison with the situation in the Austro-Bohemian territories, where the theatre director and the contracting impresario were often one and the same person and where the forms of intermediation were by no means as intricate as those prevailing in the coastal area.

Te study has taken into consideration theatres of diferent types and sizes, with some benefting from provincial and/or municipal grants for the running of their opera seasons,

<sup>1</sup> We refer in particular to Beth and Jonathan Glixon, *Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice*, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, and Thomas Holmes, *Opera Observed. Views of a Florentine Impresario in the Early Eighteenth Century,* University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1994.

<sup>2</sup> John Rosselli, *The Opera Industry in Italy from Cimarosa to Verdi: The Role of the Impresario*, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1984; Richard Erkens, "Engaging Italian Opera Singers for the Russian Court in 1734/35: An Insight into the Networks of Agents and Impresarios", in Cristina Scuderi, Ingeborg Zechner (eds.), *Opera as Institution. Networks and Professions (1730–1917)*, LIT, Vienna 2019, pp. 7–36.

<sup>3</sup> Jutta Toelle, *Oper als Geschäft. Impresari an italienischen Opernhäusern*, Bärenreiter, Kassel, 2007; Michael Walter, *Oper. Geschichte einer Institution*, Springer, Berlin 2016.

while others received no public subsidies at all. Over the period considered we have seen that higher-than-average endowments were ofered by the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, which was consequently also the place that hosted many more novelties in the opera repertoire. Other theatres, on the other hand, like that of Šibenik, counted principally on their shareholders and their membership fees (*canone sociale*) to help organise the seasons. Even in the publicly subsidised theatres the shareholders had a role to play in the choice of operas seasons, along with the theatre managements (which were usually made up of three or fve members). It was during their periodic meetings that the impresario engaged to run the opera season was chosen. Te impresario would have responded to the publication (where indeed they were published) of the tender specifcations: a document that summarised all the obligations to be fulflled in the running of the theatre. When the theatre management had found the right person for the purpose – who was generally, amid the various competitors, the one who proved to be fnancially the most solvent and most trustworthy (on the strength of past experience) and also, if possible, the one with the best references – the next step was to draw up the contract proper. In its fnal form the contract could also difer from the previous tender specifcations. In particular, there could be adjustments in the call for orchestral players and choristers: in the contract the number might be lowered due to both the difculties of fnding the musicians and the need to contain expenditure.

As conjectured, most of the impresarios and agents working in the area were of Italian origin. Over 280 have been recorded over a period of almost sixty years: a fgure that is clearly underestimated, given the incompleteness of the documentary material. In spite of the inevitable gaps, however, this is nonetheless a sizeable body of people, testifying to a category that is still insufciently studied (a point accentuated by the fact that the names encountered here are for the most part unknown). Tis preliminary survey – which complements the one drawn up over ffty years ago by John Rosselli and the more recent one by Livia Cavaglieri – may serve as a basis for tracking any further activities of the various subjects concerned, when more light is shed by documents from other archives. Additional valuable information is also provided by details collected from their rubber stamps and letterheads: not only addresses (and hence workplaces), but also specialisations, professional orientations, qualifcations and skills, enabling us to compare their activities with those of their counterparts in other areas of Europe. Examining the nature of their business activities in this way (by taking a cue from how they themselves defned their skills) is a good starting-point for describing above all how their work was organised.

In their various capacities the impresarios and agents interacted with the coastal theatres, proposing one or more seasons, or even short runs of opera performances, principally using Italian companies. Only at Šibenik and Split are there records of companies from Bohemia, Zagreb or Osijek, which is understandable since the contacts with the Croatian hinterland were stronger in these cities. Clarifying these connections with the Habsburg territories means to recognise the preferred channels used by these companies when they

planned their southward expeditions. On average they also presented a greater number of opera titles per season than the Italians. As a general rule, the opera companies came from outside the region: the presence of local singers was very rare, and even the basic musical forces were only partially local. Any resident orchestras were for the most part semi-professional. And the players that were lacking could be recruited from the orchestras of neighbouring theatres, wind bands and municipal philharmonic societies. Some of these players would no doubt be unfamiliar with the opera repertoire, fnding themselves having to perform it for the frst time. Hence fears about the quality of the productions were a common occurrence. Te fastest and safest solution might have been to recruit the choristers and orchestral players from the Teatro Comunale of Trieste, though cities like Venice or Milan could also provide good players when required. Te musicians were either engaged by an Italian theatrical agency (for there were no agencies working in the area of Istria and Dalmatia until the years of the First World War) or contacted by the impresario himself, who would bring a selection of trusted musicians with him to the *piazza*. Te singers could also be provided by agencies, but often their selection was the result of blending the combined wishes of the impresario, the *maestro concertatore* and orchestral conductor, and – above all, towards the end of the 19th century – the publisher.

Te choice of which operas to stage responded to motives that were purely fnancial and commercial; artistic motivations, as we might understand them today, were far from being contemplated. An attempt was certainly made to please the public, which at times wrote to the newspapers either to protest against this or that *impresa* or opera company or to suggest the titles of operas it would rather hear. Nonetheless, correspondences between impresario and theatre management were focused entirely on technical issues and the very decision whether to give a repertoire opera or a new opera, regardless of what was indicated in the tender specifcations, responded to fnancial criteria. Before an opera could be brought to the stage, its libretto was subjected to the censorship of the provincial government, which had a special ofce devoted to issuing (or not, as the case may be) a licence to perform. Te impresario also had to ensure compliance with the new safety regulations, which had become increasingly complex and detailed after certain fres in the region (and above all after the disaster at Vienna's Ring Teater in 1881). Te repertoire most frequently staged was that of the standard Italian works of opera seria and bufa, followed percentage-wise by various works by French composers; German operas, on the other hand, were the domain of few *imprese* and in a clear minority in this region, as were Russian, Czech or Croatian titles, which were staged solely in Šibenik or Split. Composers from Istria, Rijeka and Dalmatia were performed principally in theatres outside the area, though here we are talking about a number that is hardly signifcant when seen against the sum total of the composers programmed. Te scores were not always performed in their entirety, one reason being the conditions of the available musical forces and the quality of the singers and choristers.

By covering a sixty-year period of opera performances in the various cities concerned, we are now in a position not only to refect on the alternation of Italian, French, German or other opera titles from season to season, but also to observe the diferences in programming between neighbouring theatres. Moreover, this work will also permit us to compare the programming with that of other theatres of the same order and degree in diferent countries, provided, that is, that similar chronologies have already been compiled with a certain degree of completeness. For the frst time the chronologies of neighbouring theatres have been grouped together within a single work. Tis makes consultation on various levels possible: ranging from the immediate recovery of specifc historical data to the drawing up of fuller conclusions on the evolution of repertoire choices. It allows us both to observe the ways in which the opera repertoire became consolidated and to trace the fortunes of new operas by tracking their movements – or noting their absence – at this or that theatre, which in turn enables us to advance considerations of a political, social and cultural nature. Indirectly, the possibility of consulting a similar tool also allows us to refect on the forces required to stage these operas and the types of opera company needed.4

Since the opera companies arrived at the coastal cities principally by sea, bad weather conditions (in particular, when the bora wind blew) could mean the cancellation or postponement of a frst performance, or in any case hold up the arrival of stage materials, costumes, scores and separate parts. As the journey was also a long one, the impresarios tried to make savings on their costs by arranging additional performances at diferent *piazze* along the coast, negotiating the possible destinations as soon as they arrived in situ. In this regard, an interesting initiative was made by Pietro Ciscutti, the founder of the Politeama of Pula: that of creating a sort of organisational network and making the same productions circulate in the diferent theatres of the eastern Adriatic. Te scheme was readily embraced by the other theatre managements, but most likely Ciscutti's death, which took place shortly after he made the proposal, prevented this enlightened project from being developed.

A number of the processes, practices and tendencies described in this work have survived the passage of time and are still very relevant today, after some 150 years. Among the examples: the need to secure good references on the part of anyone wishing to propose an artistic project to a superintendency; the ways of managing (and strategies for retaining) a sponsor that is granting subsidies; the demands for wage increases from the workforce; or even the very topical need to 'join forces' and forge alliances between performing arts institutions as a means of limiting organisational costs.

So just as attempts were made (then as now) to forge alliances and develop dialogues as a means of optimising the management of an opera season, in the same way there is a need today to make alliances and 'join forces' as a means of optimising the works of scientifc

<sup>4</sup> In the absence of a European database of theatre chronologies, this work at least offers a preliminary record for the entire area, in anticipation that these data may migrate to a suitable platform.

reconstruction such as the one proposed in this study. Tere is still a lot of work to do: for many theatres there are no chronologies; the music periodicals of the period need to be systematically sifted; and, above all, archives need to be inventoried and catalogued (which is indeed a primary problem). Moreover, there are materials, also of a certain artistic value, that run the risk of deterioration and need to be digitised; and there are private archives, which could ofer up important documentation, that need to be identifed. Stated diferently, this can be seen therefore as an appeal to the academic community to join forces and ensure that similar research may beneft from the support and skills of many colleagues. Only through shared and collaborative work can one hope to enrich the puzzle, delineate more coordinated and complete landscapes, and write macro-histories that bridge the individual micro-histories.

© 2024 Böhlau Verlag | Brill Österreich GmbH https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205216537 | CC BY 4.0

# **Archival sources (manuscript, typewritten and printed)**

Archival sources

Archival sources

(manuscript, typewritten and printed)

(manuscript, typewritten and printed)

Addendum, Contract between the theatre management of Zadar and Giuseppe Valentini, Zadar, 11. 2.1914, HR-DAZD, folder 13. Advertising bill for a special production of *Educande di Sorrento*, Šibenik, 14.5.1906, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 7. Advertising bill for *Ernani*, Šibenik, 20. 4.1908, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 7. Advertising bill for the Compagnia Lillipuziana of Ernesto Guerra, Šibenik, 21.10.1905, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 7. *Borderò* for 19. 6.1871, Šibenik, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. *Borderò* for the Compagnia Becherini, Šibenik, July 1882, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. *Borderò* for the evening of *Per l'amore*, Šibenik, 5.12.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. *Borderò* of the Teatro Grande of Trieste for performance no. 18 of 26.10.1861, I-TSmt, folder 108. *Borderò*, Teatro Mazzoleni of Šibenik, performance no. 20 of 28. 10.1880, Šibenik 28.10.1880, HR-DAŠI-103 *Borderò*, Teatro Mazzoleni Šibenik, Šibenik, 1873, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. *Borderò*, Teatro Mazzoleni Šibenik, Šibenik, 1882, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. *Borderò*, Teatro Mazzoleni Šibenik, Šibenik, 1885, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. Brochure advertising the Rosati e Zammarchi property frm, Zadar, [1899], HR-DAZD, folder 6. Brochure of the Agenzia Musicale e Teatrale Luigi Bernini, Zadar, 1891, HR-DAZD, folder 7. Brochure of the Agenzia Teatrale Cesare Castelli, [n. d.], HR-DAZD, folder 7. Brochure of the Compagnia Lillipuziana, [n. d.], HR-DAZD, folder 11. Brochure of the Compagnia Lirica Internazionale, [n. p.], [n. d.], HR-DAZD, folder 26. Brochure of the Compagnia Sociale Lirica "Donizetti", [n. p.], [n. d.], HR-DAZD, folder 5. Call for applications for the post of custodian, Šibenik, 25. 6.1906, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4. Call for tenders for the running of productions at the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 22.5.1900, Maritime and Historical Museum of the Croatian Littoral, theatre collection. Call for tenders, Rijeka, 13. 7.1914, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1. Certifcation from Giovanni Mazzoleni for Rafaele Patucchi, Šibenik, 14.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9. Chorus (female), [Šibenik, 1908], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. Chorus (male), [Šibenik, 1908], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. Circular letter from the theatre management of Rijeka to the orchestral players of Rijeka, Rijeka, 7.10.1873, HR-DARI, DS 60, folder 4. Circular letter of the Teatro Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, 30.3.1904, HR-DAZD, folder 22. Circular letter, [Zadar, n. d.], HR-DAZD, folder 2. [Commemoration of Paolo Mazzoleni], [n. p.], [n. d.], HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.


Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Antonio Ronzi, Šibenik, 20.3.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Bianchini, Šibenik, 22.11.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Cesare Matucci, Šibenik, 1.3.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Cesare Matucci, Šibenik, 19. 2.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Enrico Gallina, Šibenik, 1.12.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Enrico Gallina, Šibenik, 19. 9.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 6. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Enrico Gallina, Šibenik, 19. 9.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 6. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Enrico Gallina, Šibenik, 6. 6.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 6. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Erminia Daelli, Šibenik, 12.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Erminia Daelli, Šibenik, 1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Eugenio De Monari, Šibenik, 6.3.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Ezio Carelli, Šibenik, [n. d.], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Ezio Carelli, Šibenik, 20.1.1920, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Ezio Carelli, Šibenik, 6. 6.1920, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Giuseppe Castagnoli, Šibenik, 3.12.1910, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Giuseppe Ponzio, [Šibenik], 8. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Giuseppe Ponzio, Šibenik 4. 4.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Giuseppe Ponzio, Šibenik, 1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Gobbi, Šibenik, 11.12.1912, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 3. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Leon Dragutinović, Šibenik, 4. 6.1914, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 10. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to M. Sampietri, [Šibenik, post 1911], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2a. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Maurizio Parigi, Šibenik, 21.11.1911, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, [Šibenik], 1.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, [Šibenik], 6.2.[1909], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, Šibenik, 17.3.1909, folder 9. Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Paolo Rocca, Šibenik, 21. 2.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.


Letter from Giovanni Mazzoleni to Pietro Viti, Šibenik, 9. 9.1913, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 2b.


Letter from Gustavo Argenti to Giorgio Nachich d'Osliak, Milano, 6. 2.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.

Letter from Gustavo Argenti to Giorgio Nachich d'Osliak, Milano, 10. 2.1899, HR-DAZD, folder 6.


Letter from Meynier to the civil magistrate of Rijeka, Rijeka, 30.1.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1.


Letter from Rafaele Patucchi to Giovanni Mazzoleni, Milano, 17.3.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 9.


Letter from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Zadar, 18. 4.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.


Letter from the district captain to the lieutenancy of Zadar, Split, 15.9.1881, HR-DAZD-562, folder 1.



DAZD, folder 5.


Letter from Umberto Braida to the theatre management of Zadar, Pula, [1914], HR-DAZD, folder 12.

Letter from Vincenzo Ceruso to the president of the theatre of Split, Milano, 9.1.1898, HR-MGS: Kazalište 1/ kut. I–XII.

Letters from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 3. 2.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.

Letters from Sante Utili to the theatre management of Zadar, Milano, 11. 2.1883, HR-DAZD, folder 5.


Meeting of the shareholders of the Teatro Nuovo, session of 5. 4.1876, HR-DAZD, folder 4.


Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 29.1.1900, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

Minutes of the meeting, Šibenik, 5. 6.1910, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 4.

Minutes of the shareholders' meeting of 25. 8.1896, Split, 25. 8.1896, HR-MGS: Kazalište 3/ kut. I–XII.


Poster for *Ernani*, 11. 4.1909, HR-DAŠI-103, folder 7.


*Regolamento d'orchestra*, Trieste, 1861, I-TSmt, folder 107.

*Regolamento interno disciplinare del Civico Teatro di Rijeka,* Rijeka 17. 9.1861, HR-DARI, RO 24, 6.


Sheet of paper headed "Orchestra della stagione Compagnia Lillipuziana di E. Guerra", [Šibenik, 1905], HR-DAŠI-103, folder 1.


*Società del Teatro Nuovo di Zara*, various *borderò* forms, HR-DAZD, folder 7.


Tender specifcations of the Teatro Comunale of Rijeka, Rijeka, 1885, HR-DARI, RO-24, folder 6. Tender specifcations of the Teatro Comunale of Trieste for the three-year period 1864–1867, I-TSmt, folder 111.

Tender specifcations of the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi of Zadar, Zadar, [post 1901], HR-DAZD, folder 29. Tender specifcations of the Teatro Nuovo of Zadar, Zadar, [n. d.], HR-DAZD, folder 29. Teatre programme of 1867, HR-DAZD-102, folder 283.

Typewritten note of the theatre management of Rijeka, Rijeka, 5.4.1918, HR-DARI-557, folder 562/1 Typewritten report without title or signature, [Šibenik], 1932, HR-DAZD, folder 29.

## **Historical periodicals**

*Agramer Zeitung*, 27.3.1900. "Alberto Vernier e Teatro Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 28. 7.1894. *Almanacco italiano*, vol. XXXVII, 1932. "Ancora del teatro…balcanico", *Il Dalmata*, 15.5.1894. "Antonio Ravasio maestro di Cappella della Basilica Metropolitana di Zara (1857–1897)", *Il Dalmata*, no. 68, 1897. "A proposito dei coristi", *L'Eco di Pola*, 28. 9.1889. *Ars et labor. Musica e musicisti*, vol. LXVI, 1911. *Ars et labor*, 1908. "Artisti scritturati – Emma Zilli", *Il Cosmorama*, 17. 4.1897. "Artisti scritturati – Emma Zilli", *Il Cosmorama*, 6.5.1897. "Articoli comunicati", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 24.3.1865. *Asmodeo*, 1888. "Autoincensamento. Una querela", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 30.3.1903. "Avviso di concorso [per l'appalto del Teatro Comunale di Fiume]", *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, anno XLIV, no. 43, 27.10.1889. "Carmen???", *Il Dalmata*, 26.5.1894. "Compagnia lirica lillipuziana in Pola", *Omnibus*, 7.5.1906. "Confdenze di casa", *L'Eco di Pola*, 7. 7.1888. "Confdenze di casa", *L'Eco di Pola*, 17.10.1890. "Confdenze di casa", *L'Eco di Pola*, 29.10.1892. "Consiglio di città", *Il Popolo Istriano*, 24.11.1900. "Corrispondenze", *L'Alba*, anno 3, no. 18, 25. 4.1874. "Cose d'arte", *L'Eco di Pola*, 8. 7.1893. "Cose d'arte", *L'Eco di Pola*, 2. 9.1893. "Cose del Comune", *Omnibus*, 18. 4.1906. "Cronaca Locale. Teatro Comunale", *Il Teatro*, anno III, no. 27, 30. 9.1869. "Da Fiume", *Il Teatro*, anno IX, no. 239, 12. 8.1875. "Da Fiume", *Il Teatro*, anno IX, no. 240, 12. 9.1875. "Da Fiume", *Il Teatro*, anno IX, no. 241, 5.10.1875. "Dalla Dalmazia", *II Teatro Illustrato*, 1892. "Dalle terre di Germania", *L'Eco di Pola*, 8.10.1892. "Da Pola", *Il Teatro Illustrato*, 1892. "Da Zara", *L'Eco dell'Adriatico*, 17–18.1.1907. "Delle orchestra", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 30. 9.1865. "Dichiarazione", *L'Eco di Pola*, 13. 8.1892. "Due rappresentazioni al Politeama Ciscutti"*, Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 4. 4.1903. "Estero", *L'Euterpe*, anno II, no. 9, 3.3.1870.

Historical periodicals Historical periodicals

"Fiume"*. L'Arte*, anno V, no. 5, 14. 2.1874. *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, XXVIII, no. 23, 8. 6.1873. *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, XLII, 1887. *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, no. 31, 2. 7.1876. *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, XLVII, no. 44, 30.10.1892. *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, no. 1, 1901. "Gazzettino Dalmato", *L'Eco di Pola*, 5.1.1895. "Giacomo Puccini a Fiume", *Il Cosmorama*, 16.5.1895. "I denari dei contribuenti", *Omnibus*, 15. 2.1906. "Il binoccolo sulla città. Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 8.10.1887. *Il Corriere Italiano*, anno IV, no. 55, 9.3.1853. *Il Diavoletto*, no. 261, 23. 9.1854. *Il Diavoletto*, anno XVII, no. 101, 30. 4.1864. *Il Goriziano*, anno II, no. 79, 8. 4.1877. *Il monitore dei tribunali*, 1895. *Il Nazionale*, anno II, no. 29, 11. 4.1863. "Il nostro Teatro civico", *La Bilancia*, 4. 6.1870. "Il nostro Teatro civico", *La Bilancia*, 11. 6.1870. "Il nostro Teatro civico", *La Bilancia*, 25. 6.1870. "Il nuovo teatro a Spalato", *Il Diritto Croato*, 30.1.1889. "Il nuovo teatro a Spalato", *Il Diritto Croato*, 26. 2.1890. *Il Palcoscenico,* 7. 2.1870. *Il Piccolo*, X, no. 3292, 14.1.1891. "Il placito di Carlo Magno e i Croati nell'Istria", *Il Diritto Croato*, 24.10.1888. "Il Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 11.5.1901. "Il Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 5. 8.1893. "Il Politeama Ciscutti nuovamente chiuso", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 24. 6.1912. "Il ritiro di un impresario teatrale", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 12. 9.1900. "Il Teatro"*, La Bilancia*, 8.1.1875. "Il Teatro", *Pola*, 26. 4.1885. "Il Teatro", *Pola*, 10.5.1885. "Il teatro chiuso…fno a nuovo ordine", *La Fiamma*, 27. 4.1912. "Il teatro comunale di Spalato", *Il Diritto Croato*, 2. 4.1890. *Il Teatro illustrato,* XII, no. 143, 1892. *Il Teatro illustrato,* 1908. "Il teatro nazionale croato", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 31.10.1911. "Il Trovatore", *Il Dalmata*, 9. 6.1894. "Il Trovatore al Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 9.3.1904. *Il Vaglio*, no. 50, 16.12.1843. "Impresa Trevisan", *La Bilancia*, 25.11.1879. "In margine ad un cinquantenario. Il nostro Ciscutti ed un esempio da imitare", *Corriere Istriano*, 4.11.1932. "In teatro", *L'Eco di Pola*, 24.11.1888.


"Pirano", *Egida*, no. 56, anno II, 21.5.1905. "Pola ex lege", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 24. 4.1912. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 17.5.1901. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 4.11.1901. "Politeama Ciscutti"*, Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 22.11.1900. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 25.11.1900. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 28.12.1900. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 8. 9.1901. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 6.11.1901. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 16.3.1903. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 10. 8.1904. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 12. 4.1906. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 19.3.1907. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 12.10.1907. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 9.10.1911. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giornaletto di Pola*, 19.5.1913. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giovine Pensiero*, 2.11.1893. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Giovine Pensiero*, 1. 6.1895. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Popolo Istriano*, 4.3.1899. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Popolo Istriano*, 18.5.1901. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 15.10.1901. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Il Proletario*, 5.10.1904. "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 24.10.1891. "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 14.11.1891. "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 4.11.1893 "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 20.10.1894. "Politeama Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 27.10.1894. "Politeama Ciscutti", *Omnibus*, 19.5.1906. "Prospetto del movimento musicale nei teatri d'Italia", *Gazzetta musicale di Milano*, anno XX, no. 21, 25.5.1862. "Quanto Pola deve a Pietro Ciscutti", *L'Eco di Pola*, 26.1.1890. "Redditi del Teatro Civico di Fiume", *La Bilancia*, 11. 8.1875. *Riječki novi list*, 4. 4.1911. *Rivista di Roma*, 1904. "Scritture e disponibilità", *La Scena*, anno IV, no. 23, 4.10.1866. *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 19, 1877. *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 13, 1889. *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 45, 1892. *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 7, 1893. *Signale für die musikalische Welt*, no. 59, 1893. "Schizzo biografco di Paganini II", *Il Bulo*, I, 13, 15. 9.1872. "S.M. L'imperatore Francesco Giuseppe al Ciscutti", *L'Arte*, 21. 9.1882. "Sovvenzione negata", *L'Indipendente*, 8.11.1892.

"Spalato 4 giugno", *La Scena*, 15. 6.1865. "Stagione d'opera", *La Bilancia*, 26.1.1874. "Sul concorso d'appalto al Teatro Comunale", *L'Arte*, anno III, no. 12, 20. 4.1872. "Sulla compagnia d'operette", *La Bilancia*, 11.5.1877. "Stadt-Teater", *Grazer Zeitung*, 2. 6.1877. "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.10.1887. "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 25.10.1890. "Teatralia"*, L'Eco di Pola*, 13.12.1890. "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 22.12.1890. "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 9.5.1891. "Teatralia", *L'Eco di Pola*, 12.11.1892. "Teatralia"*, L'Eco di Pola*, 21. 4.1894. "Teatralia"*, L'Eco di Pola*, 21. 4.1894. *Teatri, Arti e Letteratura*, anno 30°, vol. LVII, no. 1443, 12. 8.1852. "Teatri"*, Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, XXV, no. 32, 7. 8.1870. "Teatri – Pola", *Gazzetta Musicale di Milano*, anno XXXVI, no. 40, 2.10.1881. "Teatri esterni", *La Scena*, 18.10.1866. "Teatro Civico", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 8. 4.1865. "Teatro Civico"*, Il Giornale di Fiume*, 29. 4.1865. "Teatro Civico", *Il Giornale di Fiume*, 20.5.1865. "Teatro Civico", La Bilancia, 21.3.1868. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 12. 2.1870. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 5.3.1870. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 19.3.1870. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 16.5.1871. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 31.5.1871. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 26. 6.1871. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 26. 2.1872. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 30.3.1872. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 10. 4.1872. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 6.5.1872. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 27.5.1872. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 24.1.1873. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 23.3.1874. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 8.5.1874. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 18.5.1874. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 1. 6.1875. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 2. 6.1875. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 3. 6.1875. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 14. 4.1876. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 2.3.1877. "Teatro Civico", *La Bilancia*, 3.12.1878. "Teatro Civico"*, La Bilancia*, 5.3.1879.


### **Bibliography**

*Atti della dieta provinciale dalmata*, vol. VIII, Zadar, 1868.


Bibliography Bibliography


*Regolamento per l'Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Trieste*, Tipografa del Lloyd Austriaco, Trieste 1864.


*Statuto della Società del Teatro di Sebenico*, Tipografa S. Anich., Šibenik 1870.

*Teatro Sociale di Crema. Inventario degli atti d'archivio, sec. XVII-*1937, [n. p.], Bergamo 2012.

*Verbali del Consiglio della Città di Trieste*, Tipografa del Lloyd austro-ungarico, Trieste 1877.


Antolini, Bianca Maria. "Teatri d'opera a Milano: 1881–1897", in *Milano musicale,* edited by Bianca Maria Antolini, LIM, Lucca 1999, pp. 21–42.

Ascoli, Prospero. *Della giurisprudenza teatrale: studj*, Pellas, Firenze 1871.

Avetta, Carlo and Carlo Falchi. *Teatri: luoghi di spettacolo e accademie a Montepulciano e in Valdichiana*, Editori del Grifo, Montepulciano 1984.

Azzaroni, Giovanni. *Del teatro e dintorni. Una storia della legislazione e delle strutture teatrali in Italia nell'Ottocento*, Bulzoni, Roma 1981.

Bačić, Radoslav. *Dvadeset godina. Narodnog kazališta u Osijeku* 1907–1927, Antun Rott, Osijek 1927.


—. *Emma Carelli impresaria del Costanzi*, Palatino, Roma 1962.


Jurišić, Šimun. *Splitsko kazalište od godine 1893. do 1941*, Logos, Split 2008.


Villani, Rina, Gastone Coen. *Teatro Verdi di Zara*, Zajednice Talijana, Zadar 2007.

Vranicki, Božidar. *Narodno kazalište – Split 1893–1953*, Slobodna Dalmacija, Split 1953.


*Gesellschaftlichstaatliche Kohäsionskräfte im 19. Und 20. Jahrhundert,* edited by V. Jörg Zedler, (Spreti-Studien, 4), Utz, München 2014, pp. 13–57


Yriarte, Charles. *Trieste e l'Istria*, Treves, Milano 1875.

Zechner, Ingeborg. *Das Englische Geschäft mit der Nachtigall. Die italienische Oper im London des 19. Jahrhunderts*, Böhlau, Wien 2017.

Zubini, Fabio. *Civitavecchia*, Italo Svevo, Trieste 2006.


### **Sitography**

*Azione, Teatro Fenice. Fiume, maggio 1912.* http://www.passaporto-collezionismo-scripoflia.com/ wp-content/uploads/2014/08/1912-Teatro-La-Fenice-Fiume.jpg [accessed 19. 4. 2020].

Sitography Sitography


www.gondrand-logistic.com [accessed 26.11. 2020].

### **Index of names and authors <sup>1</sup>**

#### **A**

Abelić, Casimiro 67 Abelić, Pietro 56, 67 Abriani, Geremia 130, 174, 175, 198, 287, 343, 413 Acerbi, Domenico 254, 349 Adam, Robert 361 Adamich (theatre) 19, 22, 39, 63, 64, 65, 83, 119, 225, 230, 232, 239, 249, 250, 253, 448, 455, 456, 491 Adamich, Lodovico De 63 *Adani, Giuseppe* 383 Adeogora, Nico 473 Agonia, Maria 67 Albanesi, Ernesto 476, 477 Alberani, Lorenzo 253 Alberti (family) 64, 69, 340 Albini, Rafaele 345 Albini, Srećko 349 Aleksa, Giuseppe 319 Aleksa, Pietro 47 Alemanni-Vianelli, Giuditta 138, 142 Alessi, Galeazzo 130, 131 Alexandroviez, Maria 344, 345 Alferi, Stipan Ante 76 Alpron, Attilio 126, 130, 131, 245, 246, 247, 254, 401, 429, 466 Alpron-Battaglia (impresa) 106, 130, 175, 176, 182, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, 359, 429 Amati, Luigi 128 Amato, Achille 398 *Ambiveri, Corrado 217, 277, 376*  Ambrosini, Francesco 125, 130, 138 Amsaurck (orchestral player) 463 Andrioli, Girolamo 111, 166 Andrović, Nicolò 67

Andrović, Pietro 67 Anelli, Oreste 71, 309, 310, 315, 319 Angelichio, Francesco 473 Angelichio, Giovanni 473 Angelini (company) 303 Anguissola, Azzo 113, 125, 126, 130, 131, 140 Ansaldo (company) 127, 222, 223 Ansaldo, Giovanni 130, 213, 287, 338, 399 Anselmi, Oscar 254 Anselmi, Pietro 118, 130 Antićević, Jakov Ivanov 76 Antini, Niko 77 *Antolini, Bianca Maria 40* Antonelli, Ines 414 Antonelli, Teresa 414 Apolloni, Giuseppe 25 Arassich (professor) 314 Archibugi, Aristide 130, 256, 286 Argenti, Gustavo 104, 121, 125, 132, 142, 189, 374, 411, 412 Arneri (family) 64 Arnerich, Urbano 476 Arrighi, Giovanni 160 Artusi (boxholder) 65 Ascoli, Davide 399, 401 *Ascoli, Prospero 40, 102* Auber, Daniel 276, 434 Augenti, Giulia 474 Augenti, Giuseppe 474 Augenti, Mario 320 *Avetta, Carlo 382*  Azimonti Magistrelli, Erminia 116 Azzarelli, Giustino 109, 127, 132, 133, 178, 179, 269 *Azzaroni, Giovanni 116, 432* 

Index of names and authors Index of names and authors

1 The authors are indicated in italics to distinguish them from the names.

#### **B**

Babić, Maria 67 Baccarcich, Giuseppe 66 Bacco-Venturoli, Carlo 420 Baci, Adolfo 222, 376 Bachich, Nicolò 66 Bačić, Radoslav 319 Badia, Luigi 373, 450 *Baedeker, Karl 22*  Bagattin, Luigi 132 *Baia Curioni, Stefano 95, 404*  Bajamonti (theatre) 21, 22, 35, 36, 39, 44, 56, 64, 208, 209, 328, 328, 329, 330, 331, 347, 353, 385, 434 Bajamonti, Antonio 22, 35, 36, 45, 56, 208, 209, 328, 329, 330, 361 Bakmaz, Pasquale 67 Ballia, Maria 418 Bambacioni, Giovanni 344 Banchi, Annita 413 Bane (sisters) 71 Bane, Marietta 71 Bánfy, Nicolò 132, 247, 248 Baraccović, Spiro 322 Baraldi, Armando 132 Barbacci (chorister) 308 Barbacini, Enrico 125, 132, 136, 318 *Barbaranelli, Fabrizio 380* Barbani, G. 164 Barbareschi, Nice 341 Bard, Franz 160 *Barigazzi, Giuseppe 420* Barlani-Dini (impresa) 132, 212, 222 Barone (conductor) 246 Barone, Anita 68, 418 Barsan (boxholder) 65 Bartoli (conductor) 114, 222, 464, 465 Bartoli, Alessandro 235, 250, 252 Bartolich, Matteo 65 Bartolini, Giuseppe 132 Bartolomei, Giuseppe 66 Basadonna, Ermanno 177 Basadonna, Nicolò 66 Basilico, Benedetto 476

Basilisco, Antonio 476 Basilisco, D. 67 Bassi (company) 455 Battaglia, Francesco 132, 245, 253, 254 Battaglia, Pietro 132 Battaglierini (heirs) 66 Battara (heirs) 67, 312 Battistelli, Carlo 123 *Batušić, Nikola 319* Bavagnoli, Gaetano 224, 326, 349 Becherini (company) 109, 290, 326, 381, 382, 410 Becherini, Luigi 113, 132, 198, 238, 251, 258, 290, 326, 381 Belamarić (worker) 320 Bellen, Antonio 66 Belletti (impresa) 125, 279, 280 Bellincioni, Gemma 243, 344 Bellini, Vincenzo 330 Bellini-Piacentini (impresa) 228, 443 Bellini-Venturini, Ernesto 138, 140, 154, 222 Bellotti, Amilcare 132 Bellucci, Emma 413, 419 Bellucci, Paolo 224 Beloli (orchestral player) 308 Beltrami, Calisto 128 Beltramo (company) 224, 284, 289 Bencinich, Stefano 66 Beneggi, Giambattista 328, 347 *Benelli, Giuseppe 455, 462* Benigni (singer) 429 Benini, Gaetano 60 Benussi, Bernardo 51, 52 Bergamin, Giuseppe 119, 120, 121, 125, 132, 152 Bergonzoni, Filippo 132 Bernardi, Enrico 251, 421 Bernardi, Luigi 109, 132, 215, 222, 223, 421 Bernasci, Antonio 280 Bernhardt, Sarah 118 Bernini, Luigi 124, 132 Beros (family) 56, 309 Beroš, Giorgio 71 Beroš, Pietro 71 Beroš, Willi 71

Bersa, Blagoje 37 Bersa, Vladimir 379 Berti (company) 304 Berti, Alessandro 125, 132, 266 Berti, Ettore 134, 288 Bertoja, Pietro 398 Bertoletti (shoemaker) 311, 402 Bevilacqua, S. 402 *Bezić Bozanić, Nevenka 331, 334, 336, 347, 379, 383* Bianchi (capocomico) 206, 207, 314 *Bianchi, Carlo 255*  Bianchi, Livio 276 Bianchini 289 Biancofore, Filippo 308, 413, 419 *Bianconi, Lorenzo 40, 91, 429*  Bignardi, Achille 121, 125, 134, 135, 136, 186 Bignotti, Angelo 277, 278 Bilić, Giuseppe 71 Billaud, Arnaldo 146, 216, 224 Billaud, Guido 146, 216, 224 Binetti (chorus master) 224 Bini, Giuseppe 111, 134 Biondi (sisters) 67 Biondi, Antonio 287 *Biondi, Marino 277*  Bioni, Giuseppe 71 Bioni, Vittorio 71 Birkler (orchestral player) 463 Bišćan, Mijo 357 Bizet, Georges 276, 280, 332, 359 Bizzoni, Achille 134 Blasich, Antonio 66 *Blažeković, Zdravko 32, 373, 379*  Blonek (composer) 333 Boccalari, Edoardo 128, 288 Bocci, Bruto 59, 60, 134, 135, 266 Bogić, Gregorio 57, 306 Boglić, Ante 76 Boglić, Anton 33 Boglich (theatre director) 341 Bogner-Šaban, Antonija 319 *Bogneri, Marcello 36, 37, 65, 110, 111, 113, 193, 209, 210, 211, 217, 220, 221, 398, 401* 

Bognolo, Carmela 474 Bognolo, Mario 474 Bognolo, Oreste 315 Bognolo, Vittorio 473 Bolcioni, R. 126 Bolcovich, Anna 55 Bolis, Emilia 71 Bolis, Francesco 70 Bolis, Lodovico 70 Bollani, Frane 76 Bolognese, Luigi 134, 179 Bolso (orchestral player) 463 Bolzicco (impresa) 36, 215, 218 Bolzicco, Alessandro 126, 134, 214, 217, 218, 223, 224, 375 Bonacich (agency) 126, 134 Bonardi, Liduino 126, 327 Bonaventura (costume workshop) 339, 400, 315, 401 Bonaventura, Giovanni 400, 401 Bonda, Luca 21 Bonetti (theatre) 23, 183, 193, 406 Boniccioli (orchestral player) 478, 479 Bonicioli, Riccardo 222 Boniciolli, Enea 476 Bonifacio, Faustino 134 Bonmartini, Ernesto 409, 459 Bonola (impresario) 229 Bontempo, Antonio 57, 71, 72, 73, 304, 316 Bonturini, Ettore 110, 134, 135, 267 Bonvicini, Eugenio 120 Boracchi, Ercole 126, 134 Borboni (impresa) 377 Borboni, Gino 127 Borboni, Giuseppe 123, 126, 134, 224, 284, 289 Borćić, Lovro 76 Borelli, Medea 242 Borovich, Demetrio 70 Borovich, Giorgio 71 Borri, Carmelo 223 Boscarini, Silvio 222, 223 Bossi, Pietro 476 Bottari (seratante) 440 *Botteri, Guido 256* 

Botteri, Pietro 67 *Bottura, Carlo 104, 414, 461*  Bovi, Arturo 327, 346, 349 Bovi-Campeggi (company) 326 Bovi-Campeggi, Diana 439 Bovi-Campeggi, Riccardo 118, 122 Braga, Antonio 433 Braida, Umberto 125, 134, 190, 225 Braida-Gorlato (impresa) 190, 248 Brainovich, Giuseppe 476 Braiz, Anna 472 Braiz, Carlotta 473 Brancaleone, Ettore 341 Branciforte (agent) 130 Brandini (impresa) 135, 190 Brandini, Felice 108, 134, 175, 222, 267 Branizza, Matteo 474 Bratic (chorister) 473 Brauer, Anna 474 Bregovic (chorister) 473, 474 *Brelich, Ernesto 63* Brelich, Margherita *65* Bremini, Ireneo 256 Breschi (copist) 310 Bresoni, Silla 308 Briccialdi, Giulio 434 Brigoni, Andrea 134, 337 *Brizzi, Giacomo 132, 186* Broglio [see Grabinski Broglio, Luigi] Brosovich, Carlo 119, 126, 136 *Broucek, Peter 204*  Brugetti, Girolamo 66 *Brugnera, Caterina 373 Brugnoli, Pierpaolo 383* Brunello (impresario) 229 *Brunetta, Gian Pietro 110* Brunetti, Ettore 136, 137 Bubani, Ciro 126, 136 Bubić, Lorenzo 72 *Budden, Julian 243*  Budil, Vendelin 46, 136, 198, 331, 335, 336, 342, 348, 361 Budriesi, Annita 437 Buglich, A. 49, 409

Bulat, Ante 56 Bulat, Gajo Filomen 21, 40, 59, 76, 179, 180, 181, 270, 329, 330, 333, 338 Bulić, Frane 329 Buranelli (agent) 136 Burgstaller (boxholder) 65 *Burić Ćenan, Katica 22, 373* Burić, Marko 76 Burlini, Carlo Rafaele 48, 136, 256, 286, 328, 347, 477 Busi, Anna 175 Buttazzoni (publisher) 404 Buzenac, Giulio 212, 222 Byron (impresa) 464, 465

#### **C**

Cabussi, F. 265 *Caccamo, Francesco 56, 52 Cace, Manlio 48, 73, 316, 318, 325, 517* Cagnoni, Enrico 228, 477, 488 Caimini-Zoncada (company) 191 Cajani, Cleopatra 114, 136, 235, 250 Cajani, Giuseppe 114, 115, 235, 136, 250, 463, 464, 465 Calcagno, Francesco 136, 203, 204 Calussi, Andrea 67 Calvi, Guido 126, 127, 136 Camber, R. 136, 137, 192, 243, 252 Cambiaggio (agency) 120, 136, 137 Cambiaggio, Carlo 120, 136 Cambiaggio, Giorgio 126, 136, 144, 146, 147 Camerra, Maria 66 Camonese 311 Camus (hall) 24 Cannussio, Vittorio 136 Canovai, Giovanni Battista 373 Cantoni, Fortunato 224 Cantoni, Luigi 245, 254 Cantù, Angelo 67 Cantù, Maria 67 Canuto Soriani 323, 398 Capone (colonel) 206 Cappello, Marco 276 *Caprin, Giuseppe 35, 435*

Capuri, Luigi 476 Capuzzo, Andrea 402 Caracciolo, E. 136 Carafa (horn player) 452 Carbonetti, Amelia 309, 311 Carbucicchio (boxholder) 65 Carelli, Augusto 113 Carelli, Emma 113 Carelli, Ezio 112, 136, 289, 290, 323, 325 Carina, Giovanni 66 *Carlini, Antonio 91* Carlo Magno 211 Carobbi, Silla 344, 345 Carola, Giuseppe 160 Carozzi, Enrico 121, 123, 126, 136, 148, 187 Caruso, Enrico 243, 341, 344, 420 Caruson, Guglielmo 242 Caser, Luciano 177 Casiraghi, Francesco 434 Cassin (impresario) 126 Castagnoli (impresa) 24, 305 Castagnoli, Erminia 44 Castagnoli, Giuseppe 109, 136, 179, 199, 305, 306 327, 393, 441, 471 Castelli, Cesare 116, 117, 136 Catani, Enrico 430, 431 Catani, Filippo 429, 430 Cattalinich, Giovanni 66 Cattaneo (costume workshop) 401 Cattanj 76 Catti, Giorgio 65 Cattić, Nicolò 67 Cattich, Cirillo 67 Cattich, Giuseppe 67 Cattich, Manfredo 67 Cattich, Simeone 67 *Cavaglieri, Livia 27, 108, 112, 120, 482*  Cavallini (impresa) 145 *Cavallini, Ivano* 373 Cazzola, Giosuè 402 Cecoli, Francesco 476, 477 Ceinotti (chorister) 473 Ceirano, Antonio 127 Celebrini, Antonio 66

Cerati, Achille 349 Ceruso, Vincenzo 115, 126, 138, 171, 335, 336 Cesari, Luigi 127, 138, 183, 242, 251, 422, 448 Cesari, Pietro 127, 286 Cesarj 125, 138, 187, 198, 242 *Cetnarowicz, Antoni 250*  Cheldonda, Lorenzo 223 Chiachich, Michele 65 Chiappa (costume workshop) 338, 402 Chielli di Molco (agency) 130 Chierego, Giuseppe 66 Chiericoni, Aristodemo 126, 130, 138 Chinaglia, Aroldo 223, 386 Chinelli, Angelo 119, 126, 128, 138, 139, 142, 187, 281 Chmelenský, Ladislav 138, 139, 331, 332, 348, 386 Chovanec, Jan 335 Christofdis, P. 138, 191 Ciancarini, Enrico 380 Ciclitira, Antonio 41 Čičmir 315 Cicognani (impresa) 46 Cicognani, Annibale 127, 138, 191, 192, 198, 259, 277, 287, 407 *Cigarini, Claudio 383 Cigui, Rino 48* Cimadori, Adolfo 47, 242 Cimarosa, Domenico 40, 176, 316, 481 Cimini, Gaetano 213, 222, 240, 251, 252, 253, 349 Ciotta, Giovanni 66 Ciscutti, Pietro 19, 50, 111, 138, 188, 193, 194, 222, 242, 260, 443, 484 Ciuti (singer) 406, 407 Clivio (chorus master) 287 Coceich-Mazzarotto (boxholder) 65 Codecasa, F. 120, 138 Codognola, Luigi 326 *Coen, Gastone 204, 411 Colas, Damien 26* Colombani, Luigi 263, 264 Colombo, Cristoforo 320 Colombo, Pietro 320

Colombo, Tommaso 309, 310, 315, 320 Comici (impresa) 316, 327 Comida, Margherita 308, 311, 413, 419 Comoli (impresa) 138, 289, 327 Conopim (orchestral player) 308 Contadini (bass) 235 Conti, Alfredo 342 Conti, Augusto 138 Conti, Giuseppe 138, 269 Conti, Foroni 49 Contini, Lodovico 338 Coppola, Vincenzo 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 418, 419 Corbetta (impresa) 244, 298, 344, 387 Corbetta, Giuseppe 111, 138, 223, 253, 298, 326, 344 Cornet (heirs) 66, 301, 471 Corruccini, Roberto 127, 138, 139 Cosati, G. 138, 173, 174 Cosolo, Antonio 138, 310, 316, 321, 327 Costanzi (theatre) 113, 399, 402 Cosulich, Casimiro 66 Cotta Brandini, Teresa 416 Covac, Ernesto 472 Covac, Nico 472 Covacecić, Cristoforo 72 Covacecić, Emilia 72 Covacecić, Liubislavo 72 Covacer, Albina 309 Covacer, Mile 470 Covacev, Nicolò 474 Covacevich, Pietro 70 Cremaschi, Antonio 477 Crespi, Luigi 67 Crespi, Onorato 67 Creti (bass) 393, 394, 418 Cristani, Lamberto 138 Cristofoli, Carlo 269 Crucinisca, Salomea [see Krushelnytska, Solomiya] Cumagna (orchestral player) 463 Curiel (agency) 111, 119, 120, 138, 139, 140, 141, 285, 318, 414, 422, 425 Curiel, Angelo 120, 138

Curiel, Marco 120, 126, 140, 168, 289, 318 Curti (bass) 242

#### **D**

D'Agostino, Emma 417 D'Aste, Tito 160 Daddi (tenore) 140, 410 Dadone (bariton) 282 Daelli, Erminia 306, 307, 413, 414, 420 Dal Fiume (chorus master) 252 Dal Torso, Vincenzo 140, 250, 429, 448, 463 Dalfabbro, Luigi 476 Dall'Armi (impresario) 140 Dall'Asta (boxholder) 65 Dall'Asta, Enrico 231 Dall'Asta, Felice 447, 448 Dall'Asta, Francesco 63 Dall'Asta, Giovanni 66 Dall'Asta, Giuseppa 66 Dall'Asta, Iginio 463, 467 Dall'Asta, Luigi 65 Dall'Oro, Giovanni 42, 67 Dalle Feste, Giovanni 291, 326 Dalmas, Cesare 140 Damiani, Giuseppe 140 Dammacco, Giacomo 413, 420, 423, 424 Danilo, Francesco 67 *Danziger, Filippo 228, 229, 256, 373 De Angelis, Marcello 83* De Begna Borelli, Silvia 67 De Begna, Cosimo 56, 67 *De Benvenuti, Angelo 56* De Bonmartini, Ernesto 409, 459 De Borelli (family) 64 De Borelli, Andrea 67 De Borelli, Uberto 67 De Born (agency) 113, 126, 140 De Cambj, Bašce 76 De Capogrosso, Jerko 76 De Caro, Antonio 399, 400, 402 De Caro, Giulia 114 De Clemente, Camillo 117, 141 De Difnico (family) 56 De Difnico, Giovanni 72, 304, 306, 312

De Difnico, Melchiorre 70, 72 De Domini (theatre director) 242 De Fanti [De Santi] 140, 223 De Ferrari, Amedeo 331 De Filippi, Ermanno 140, 174 De Giorgi (impresario) 140, 142 De Giosa, Nicola 381 De Grandis (boxholder) 65 De Höberth, Anna 68 De Höberth, Giuseppe 68 De Lagarde, Roberto 68 De Lantana, Amelia 68 De Lantana, Giuseppe 56, 68 De Lauzières, Achille 158 De Lovries (impresario) 140 De Magistris, Luigi 142 De Marassovich, Maria 67 De Monari, Eugenio 110, 121, 123, 125, 128, 142, 143, 189, 198, 246, 247, 280, 288, 354, 355, 359, 374, 393, 444 De Paitoni, Evelina 67, 68 De Petris, Giocondo 75, 292 De Petris, Giuseppe 69 De Ponte, Carlo 69 De Ponte, Valerio 67, 69 De Sabata (chorus master) 252 De Schwarzthal, Anna 68 De Stermić, Petronilla 69 De Stermić, Antonio 69 De Stermić, Francesco 42, 69 De Stermić, Leopoldo 69 De Stermić, Nicolò 69, 180, 255, 257, 258, 263, 277, 373, 378, 380, 428 De Stermić, Simeone 69 De Stermić, Pietro 180, 223, 277, 287, 296, 374 De Tomsić, Pietro 69 De Trigari, Nicolò 69 De Trigari, Remigio 69 *De Vidovich, Renzo 20* De Zorzi, Giovanni 66 Deboni, Nicoletto 398 Defranceschi (boxholder) 66 Degiovanni, Nicolò 67, 68 Degli Alberti 69

Del Cupolo, Federico 254 Del Papa (singer) 49 Delfn, Pietro 470, 471, 472, 474 Delic, Augustin 472, 474 Delic, Nicolo 472 Deliliers, Vittore 120, 121, 140, 141 Delinato (impresario) 140, 222 Dell'Acqua, Alberto 349 *Della Seta, Fabrizio 388* Delli Ponti, Rafaele 342 Demarchi-Rougier, Elena 67 Demartini (boxholder) 65 Depiera (theatre) 24 Derenzini (boxholder) 65 Descovich, Antonio 65, 474, 475 Descovich, Dora 474 Descovich, Dorino 474, 475 Descovich, Giovanni 66 Descovich, Simeone 474, 475 Deseppi, Antonio 66 Dessanti, Luigi 109, 198 Devereux, Roberto 204 *Di Profo, Alessandro 26* Difnico, Melchiore [see De Difnico Melchiorre] Dimitrović, Jozo Nikin 76 Dimscher (orchestral player) 457, 463, 467 *Dini, Albano 217* Ditmar (company) 321 Dombroska, Alessandrina 341 Domenica Maria (child) 57 *Domínguez, Josè María 355, 409* Domini, Vincenzo Conte 66, 183 Donati, Elena 68 Donati, Maria 420 Donati, Marin (singer) 398 Donato (singer) 310 Dondan, Niccolò 275 Dondini, Achille 142 Donizetti (opera company) 178, 269 Donizetti, Gaetano 330, 357, 385 Dorigo, M. 132, 142, 306 Doroni (impresario) 142 Drago, Adolfo 142

Dragutinović, Leon 142, 199, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 322, 327 Dreossi (politician) 52 Drog, Giovanni 126, 199, 288 Držić, Marin 35 Du Regne, Francesco 65 Ducci, Vittorio 308, 413, 419, 420 *Dudan, Alessandro 208* Dudan, Natali(n)a 61, 68, 103 Dudan, Niccolò 68 Dufau, Pietro 288 Dufriche, Eugène 242 *Dugulin, Adriano 118, 205 Duraković, Lada 221* Durbessich, Giovanni 65 Dussich [Dusich], Pietro 108, 269, 270, 275, 287

#### **E**

Eirich, Otto F. 160 Elez, Iko 310, 320 Elleny (orchestral player) 463 Engelberth, E. 248 Ercegh, Tommaso 201 *Erkens, Richard 481* Errante, A. 252, 287 Erzegovich (scene designer) 398 Escher (chorus master) 443 Evangelista, Carlo 309

#### **F**

Fabbri, Attilio 142, 252, 287 Fabrici, Natale 230, 231 Fagotti, Enrico 429, 430 Faini, Rafaello 109, 142, 143, 451, 452 *Fairtile, Linda 205 Falchi, Carlo 382* Falconi (conductor) 223, 374 *Faller, Nikola 355, 357, 360* Fano, Ugo 122 Fantony, Giuseppe 317, 318 Fantuzzi, Angelo 142, 212, 222 Farinelli, Guido 109, 142, 254 Felicinovich (De), Nobile Natale 67 Fenzi (family) 56 Fenzi, sorelle 72

Fenzi, Emanuele 72 Fenzi, Francesco 70, 72, 201 Feoli, Antonio 192, 193 Feralli, Luigi 126, 142 *Feresini, Nerina 24* Ferrara, Amalia 382 Ferrara, Elvira 382 Ferrara, Ernesta 109, 112, 113, 142, 198, 290, 326 Ferrari, Alfonso 382 *Ferrari, Franco 110* Ferrari, Rodolfo 246, 254 Ferraù (agent) 130 Ferretti, M. 142 Ferri, Cesare 398 Feruglio, Felice 224 *Festanti, Maurizio 383* Fiacchi, Antonio 116 Fidora, Natale 111, 144, 145, 278 Fiegna, Camillo 144, 189, 413, 420, 421 Figaro (orchestral player) 463 Filippi (theatre director) 42 Filippi, A. 68 Filippi, Donato 68 Filippi, Giambattista 35, 68, 126, 144 Filippi, Giuseppe 68 Filippi, Natale 56, 68 Fiorani, Francesco 126, 144 Fioravanti, Giovanni 292 Fischer, Annetta 435 Fischer, Giovanna 113, 114, 144 Florio (steamship company) 392 Flotow, Friederich von 360 Fontana, Rachele 415 Forastiero, Ettore 126, 127 *Forcella, Pierluigi 213* Forcesini, Giovanna 414 Forconi, Dante 246, 247 *Foretić, Miljenko 63* Fornari (orchestral player) 463 Fosco (printing press) 308, 310 Fosco, Giovanni 70, 72, 309 Fosco, Guido 72 Fosco, Nicolò 72 Fosco, Ugo 56, 61, 72, 303, 304

Fossa, Antonio 472 Fragiacomo (boxholder) 65 Frampolesi (singer) 308 Franceschini, Pietro 144, 292 Francesco Giuseppe 211 Franchetti, Alberto 433 *Franchi, Achille 63* Franci (boxholder) 65 Francioli (opera company) 192 Franciolli, F. 164, 165 Franciolli, Roberto 192, 223 Francovich, Giovanni 66 Frangiolini, Giuseppe 415 Frank, Giorgio 66 Franzini, Umberto 144 Franzoni, Augusto 223, 338 Frari (family) 56 Frari, Luigi 70, 72 Freund, Alfred 242, 292 Frisotti, Nino 144 *Forbes, Elisabeth 270* Fulgori, Giovanni 473 Fulvi, Serafno 66 Furian (chorus master) 222

#### **G**

Galardi, Cesare 413 Gallerani (bariton) 418 Gallina, Enrico 53, 54, 118, 121, 122, 123, 126, 144, 145, 189, 191, 247, 285, 301, 302, 303, 307, 313, 323, 394, 398, 413, 425, 466, 469 Gallina, Giacinto 118 Gallo (theatre) 404 Gallo, Antonio 404, 406 Gallo, R. N. 127 Galvani (family) 56 Galvani, Eugenio 72 Galvani, Fed. Antonio 70, 72 Galvani, Vincenzo 70, 72 Gambardella (singer) 294 Ganzari, Augusto 144, 269 Garavaglia, Egidio 346 *Garbin, Daria 20* Garbocchi, C*.* 126, 144

Gardini, Carlo 144, 197, 228, 229, 230, 249, 250, 447 Gargano, Giovanni 144, 242 Garignani, Giuseppe 258 Gariup, Giuseppe 204 Garofolo, Rosa 65 Gasperini (orchestral player) 457 Gaudiosi, Gennaro 326 *Gavrilovich, Donatella 113* Gazzone, Lucia 113, 324, 325 Gelcich, Francesco 65 Gelcich, Tomaso 65 Gelletich (theatre director) 242 Gelmi (boxholder) 65 Gentilli (family) 111 Gentilli, Giacomo 146, 147 Gerusalemm (orchestral player) 471 Gherbaz, Antonio 66 Ghirardi, Antonio 402 Ghirlanda, Luigi 402 Giachettich, Francesco 146, 287 Giacich, Antonio Felice 65 Giadorov [Giadrov], Vincenzo 70 Gialdini, Gialdino 217, 223, 224, 252, 253 Giani (impresario) 109, 113, 146, 190, 222, 259, 286 *Giger, Andreas 205* Gigliuzzi, Alberto 128, 146, 338, 348 Gilardi, Ferdinando 73 Gilardi, Giuseppe 470 Gilardi, Giustina 73 Gilardi, Luigia 73 Gilberti, Alberto 183 Gilda (role) 429 Giljanović (family) 64 Giljanović [Ghiglianovich], (family) 64 Giljanović [Ghiglianovich], Giacomo 68 Giljanović [Ghiglianovich], Roberto 68 Giordano, Umberto 346 Giorgieri (chorus master) 222 Giori (seratante) 440 Giotta, Pietro 188 Girardi, Augusto 203 *Girardi, Michele 238*

Giudici (publisher) 160, 404 Giufrida (agency) 130 Giuppani, Giulio 67 *Giuricin, Ezio 32 Giuricin, Luciano 32* Giuseppino (quay) 392 Giusti, Giusto 251 Giustini (orchestral player) 463, 467 Giustini, Adolfo 65, 250 Glezer, Felice 51, 56, 65, 219 Gligo, Erminia 68 Glissich, Giovanni 68 Gliubich, Giusto 146 *Glixon, Beth 481 Glixon, Jonathan 481* Gnone, Napoleone 146 Gobbi 317 Gogala Galvani, Luigia 73 Goldmark, Karl 360 Golini, Gracco 206, 207 Golisciani, Gino 252, 288 Gondrand (company) 265, 394, 406 Gonzales, Germano 146 Gopeau (impresario) 126 *Gortan Carlin, Ivana Paula 20, 23* Gos(s)etti Smirich, Giulia 68 Gospodnetic (family) 64 *Gosset, Philip 387* Gotthardÿ, Adolfo 66 Gounig, Eugenio 68 Gounod, Charles 49, 176, 333, 434 Grabinski Broglio, Luigi 115, 116, 120, 124, 126, 146, 186, 338, 344 Grandi (master) 470 Grassi (magician) 469 Gregurevich, Natale 66 Gregurinich (boxholder) 66 Grenc, Karlo 26 Grgić (theatre member) 335 Grgić, Eduard 333 Grgić, Marko 76 Grimani 310 Grisanti, Giuseppe 222, 223, 252 Grisogano, Rosina 473

Grisoli, Antonio 308, 413 Gritti, E. 128 *Großegger, Elisabeth 319* Guarini, Ferdinando 146, 339, 341, 343 Guarnieri, Antonio 224, 254 Guarnieri, Giovanni 222 *Guccini, Gerardo 91* Guerra, Ernesto 121, 126, 128, 146, 179, 191, 199, 216, 224, 288, 301, 302, 303, 313, 319, 326, 349, 382, 383, 384, 470, 471 Guerra, Mimmo 146 Guerrara, N. 251 Gugarich (orchestral player) 463 Guida, Nicola 112, 125, 146, 185, 186, 279, 287, 417 Guidi, Clementina Noel 433 Guidicelli, Lorenzo 398, 399 Gutersohn, Giulio 376 Güttemberg (singer) 242, 412 Gye, Frederick 425 Gÿuito, Carlo 66

#### **H**

Haehr, Rosa 68 Harambašić, August 334 *Hartleben, Adolf 396* Higga (boxholder) 66 Hill, Carlo 66 Hodach (orchestral player) 476 Hofmann (boxholder) 66 Hofstätter (costume workshop) 315, 400, 401 *Holmes, Tomas 481 Holý, Jiří 335* Hreljanović, Ivoplem 331 Hübner, Václav 331 Hunyadi, Laszlo 248

#### **I**

*Illiano, Roberto 411* Inchiostri (company) 312 Inchiostri, Antonio 73 Inchiostri, Francesco 61, 73 Inchiostri, Marco 61 Inchiostri, Vincenzo 73, 292, 472 Ipavec, Benjamin 333

Iustolini (chorus master) 225 Ivancich, Bonifacio 66 Iviglia, Ernesto 123 Ivon, Girolamo 73

#### **J**

Jacovacci, Vincenzo 45 Jacovich, Giovanna 66 Jekelfalussy, Zoltan de 466 Jelić-Dražoević, Juraj 76 Jellouscheg, Francesco 66 Jlić, Ivan Dominik 76 Jovcich, Maria 474

#### **K**

Kafka (orchestral player) 463 Karaman (family) 64 Karaman, Edouard 76, 333, 335, 336, 341, 348 Karaman, Giuseppe [Josip] 110, 146, 187, 191, 206, 338, 409 Karaman, Srećko 76 Karczag, W. 160 Karl Albert (archduke) 211 Karl Stephan (archduke) 183 Kasandrić, Pietro 206 Katalinić (theatre member) 335, 341 Katalinić, Angjeo 76 Katalinić, Petar 58, 333 Katalinić, Vicko 76 Katalinić, Vincenzo 58 *Katalinić, Vjera 256, 378 Kečkemet, Duško 22, 35, 36, 37, 45, 56, 208, 328, 329, 330, 361* Keller, Achille 258 Kienzl, Wilhelm 360 Kiswarday, Giovanni 68 Kleindl, Giorgio 68 Knežević, Marco 73 *Kobler, Giovanni 19* Koch, Cirillo Metodio 220 Kohen (brothers) 66 Köhller (orchestral player) 464, 465 Kolitscher 308 *Kopecký, Jiří 332 Kos, Koralijka 379*

Kovac (orchestral player) 471 *Kraus, Rodolfo 190* Krekic (family) 64 Krekich, Natale 68 *Křupková, Lenka 332* Krushelnytska [Krusceniski], Solomiya [Salomea] 305, 439 Kugel, Ignaz 112, 148, 243 Küller (orchestral player) 463 *Kuret, Primoz 373 Kutsch, Karl Josef 305, 336*

#### **L**

La Rotella, Pasquale 182, 246, 254, 428 Lacroma (hotel) 396 Lamberti (agent) 148 Lamm (hotel) 162 Lamperti (impresario) 119, 148, 266 Lamperti, Giuseppe 148 Lamponi, Alessandro 432 Lana, Antonio 88, 90, 102, 109, 110, 127, 148, 171, 173, 179, 180, 181, 188, 189, 255, 270, 337, 444, 449, 475 Lanari, Alessandro 109, 271 Landi, Alberto 148, 198, 336, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 345, 348 Landi, Torquato 148 Lanzi, Torquato 148, 173 Lapenna, Luigi 68 Lapenna, Tea 68 Latkovic, Giovanni 148 Lattad (family) 111 Lattad, Raimondo 111, 148 Lazzarini, Riccardo 476, 477 Lediski [Leditzki] 476 Leghissa, Adolfo 257, 308, 413, 425, 426, 427 Legrand Howland, William 376 Lehár, Franz 460 *Lehmann, Adolph 232* Léhrie, Paul 243 Lenac (stagehand) 320 Leoncavallo, Ruggero 280, 288, 368, 433 Leone, Paolina 436, 440 Leoni, F. 176

540 Index of names and authors

Leonide, Beresine 65 Lesa, Giovanni 126 Lessi, Francesco 288 Leto 144 Levi, Giuseppe 127, 148 *Levi, Vito 256, 281* Levis, Giuseppe 187 Lewis, Samuele 178 Libani, Giuseppe 238 *Licciardi, Fabiana 37, 120, 281* Licenzi (orchestral player) 457 Lilla (chorister) 473 Lima, Josè 342 Link, Antonietta 434, 435 Lisgono, Natale 473 Lisinski, Vatroslav 357, 361, 379 Liszt, Franz 436 *Livaković, Ivo 27, 323, 325* Lobasso, Maria 472 Locas, Simeone 70, 73, 293 Lombardi, Eugenio 132, 215 Lombardo, Carlo 206 Lombardo-Baxa (boxholder) 65 Lombardo-Bourguignon (boxholder) 65 Lonchi (orchestral player) 463 Lorenz, Fr. 228 Lovati Cazzulani, Carlo 127, 148, 150 *Lovorka, Ruck 20, 239, 247, 249, 355* Lovrich, Olimpo 110, 150, 199, 281, 283, 288, 343, 405 Lucca (publishing house) 232, 404 Lucca, Francesco 404, 406 Lucerna, Francesco 111, 194 Lucigrai (theatre) 24 Lukšić, Vicko 76 Lupi, Achille 150 Luppis (boxholder) 65 Lusardi, Giuseppe 150 *Luther, Helmut 281* Luxardo (family) 56 Luxardo, Demetrio 68 Luxardo, Michelangelo 68 Luxardo, Nicolò 68 Luzzato (orchestral player) 463, 467

#### **M**

Macale, Antonio 70 *Maddalena, Edgardo 255* Maddalena, Giacomo 68 Madirazza, Nikolo 76 *Maehder, Jürgen 91* Maglio, G.B. 150, 151 Magnani (company) 203, 217 Magni, Carlo 399 Magni, Costantino 399 Magni, G. 399 Magotti, Alessandro 267 Magotti, Antonio 267 *Magri, Geo 431* Mahler, Gustav 333, 344 Malibran (theatre) 261, 404 Malibran, Maria 387 Malik, Paulo 328 Malipiero, Francesco 258 Malipiero, Gian Francesco 258 Malusà (boxholder) 65 Malý, Josip 150 Mamula, Lazar 204, 205, 206 Manasteriotti, Teodoro 66 Mandic, Antonio 308 Manelli, Carlo 120 Manfrini, Luigi 433 Manger, Ivan 330, 348 Mangiamele, Giovanni 150, 198, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 250 Manzella, Salvatore 308, 415 Manzin, Rodolfo 221 Manzoni, Giovanni 65 Maraspin, Giovanni 110, 150, 244, 253 Marassovič, Gerolamo 73 Marassovich, Maria 67, 68 Marassovich, Melchiorre 73, 75 Marcello, Benedetto 111 Marchelli, Delfno 150, 261, 265 Marchesini, An(n)ita 257, 413, 425, 426, 427 Marchetti (impresario) 64, 185, 226 *Marcotti, Giuseppe 20, 21, 22, 393, 395* Marenzi (orchestral player) 471 Margherita (role) 436

Mariani, Angelo 453 Marin, Gioachino 253 Marinella (ball) 385 *Marinelli-König, Gertraud 319* Marini, C. 150 Marini, Pio 127, 148, 150 Marinoni (boxholder) 65 Mario (tenor) 425 Mariotti, Ettore 222, 287, 338, 348 *Marković, Tatjana 25* Marković, Mihajlo 150, 319, 323, 327 Marrarosa, Carlo 145, 150 Marrone, Giuseppe 225, 436 *Marrone, Romualdo 383 Marsetič, Raul 111, 220, 401 Martin Jensen, Niels 451* Martinelli, Giuseppe 401 Martinelli, Roberto 150 Martinez 144 Martini, Giovanni 66 Martinis, Olga 71, 73 Martinolli d'Arcy, Adriano 380 Martinz, Alfredo 224 Mascagni, Pietro 176, 278, 297, 332, 356, 358, 359 *Maschek, Luigi 20* Mascheroni, Edoardo 246, 254 Masini, Ercole 426 Massenet, Jules 216, 217, 224, 278, 287, 345, 349, 357, 359, 368, 369, 370 Massimini, Paolo 83, 120, 126, 127, 150, 180, 198, 259, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 283, 287, 410, 416, 421 Mastrović [Mastrovich], Karolina [Carolina] 59, 76 Matacic 309 *Matejčič, Radmila 20, 94* Mateljan, Domenico 469 Matone (captain) 207 Mattessich, Valentino 66 Mattiassevich, Teodoro 152, 220, 376 Mattiazzi (bursar) 47 Mattiazzi, Giacinto 73 Mattiazzi, Vincenzo 73

*Mattiello, Giulia 425* Matucci, Cesare 152, 184, 185, 203, 300, 469 Mauretich 310 Maurizi Enrici, Ernesto 108, 152, 267, 269 May, Renato 304 Mayer Grego 228 Mayer, Enrico 228, 290, 326 Mazza (impresa) 416 Mazza, Osvaldo 152, 181, 256, 286 Mazzoldi (conductor) 326, 471 Mazzoldi, Giuseppe 470, 472 Mazzoleni, Enrico 304, 306, 473, 474 Mazzoleni, Ester 54, 284 Mazzoleni (family) 20, 402, 441 Mazzoleni, Francesco 20, 36, 70, 73, 74, 291, 433 Mazzoleni, Giovanni 53, 54, 57, 73, 81, 118, 122, 152, 179, 183, 184, 185, 190, 285, 289, 290, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 322, 323, 324, 325, 333, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 406, 411, 412, 413, 414, 421, 423, 436, 469, 470 Mazzoleni, Ida 291, 433, 434 Mazzoleni (impresa) 257, 304, 420, 421, 422, 424, 425 Mazzoleni, Paolo 20, 54, 70, 74, 108, 152, 192, 193, 201, 202, 290, 292, 293, 298, 410 Mazzoleni (theatre) 20, 22, 27, 35, 36, 47, 48, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 70, 113, 121, 183, 184, 190, 191, 200, 201, 203, 209, 284, 289, 290, 292, 295, 296, 298, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304, 314, 315, 316, 318, 323, 324, 325, 398, 399, 411, 415, 418, 427, 439, 442, 449, 469, 475 Mazzucato, Alberto 453 Medanich (heirs) 66 Medea, Bianca 414 Medini, Achille 127, 128 Medini, G. 125 Medovich, Demetrio (De) 68, 81, 152, 206, 285, 287 Meichsner, E. De 71 Meichsner, Luigi De 71, 306 Melitone (role) 263 Melli, Leonardo 402

Melossi, Nunzio 127 Meneguzzi, Placido 255, 287 *Menini, Giulio 64* Menon, Cesira 342 Meola, Alessandro 116 Merelli, Bartolomeo 271, 453 Merlak, Giovanni 309, 473 Messa, Giuseppe 67 Mestrovich, Aldo 44, 68, 152 Mestruzzi (impresario) 152 Metella Koslowska, Mary 342 Meyerbeer, Giacomo 49, 357 Meynier G. 67, 246, 410, 466, 467 Miagostovich, Doimo 57, 60, 74, 191, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 418 Miagostovich, Giovanni 472 Miagostovich, Gregorio 57 Miagostovich, Ludmilla 58 Miaković, Giovanni 470 Miazzi, Giovanni 152, 238, 251 Micheluzzi, G. 114, 152, 238, 250, 251 Micić 310 Migalo (custodian) 299, 309, 310, 315 Mikaćić, Mate 76 Milani, Giulio 117, 118, 120, 121, 124, 125, 126, 127, 152, 153, 179, 188, 337, 338, 348, 388, 389 Milcović, Elia 74 Milcović, Francesco 74 Milcovich, Michele 68 Miler, Ferdo 357 Mileta, Giovanni 473 Milić Stercalj, Antonio 74 Miliharann (impresario) 152 Millinecaich (orchestral player) 463 Minak, Francesco Giuseppe 65 Minciotti, Pietro 152, 178, 349 Mirco (impresa) 113 Mirco, Carlo 109, 152, 190, 222, 228, 258, 286, 291, 292 Mirco, Flora 434 Mirco, Giovanni 152 Mistura, Nicolò 474 Mitrović, Andro 321, 322, 327, 349 Mixa, G. 228

Mocchi, Walter 113, 356, 358 Modun, Elena 315, 320 Modun, Giovanni 315, 320 Modun, Giuseppe 299, 309, 315, 319, 321, 474 Modun, Piero 473 Modun (sisters) 474 Mokovich, V.a 65 Molajoli, Lorenzo 349 Molini 342 Molini, Oscar 152 Mollich (signorina) 187 Monaldi, Gino 123, 152 Monari Rocca, Federico 109, 412 Monass, Innocente 62 Mondini, Francesco 474 Montalcino, Fabio 154, 388 Montalcino (signora) 278 Montanari, Antonio 74 Montanari, Gemma 472 Montanari, Gino 473 Monteleone, Ida 342 Montella, Carmine 342 *Montemorra Marvin, Roberta 205* Monti, Giacomo 287 *Monzali, Luciano 56, 330* Monzini, Antonio 154 Morandi, Lola 263 Moranzoni, Roberto 288, 436 *Moroni, Gabriele 206* Morpurgo, Emilio 188 Morpurgo, Izak Mojsije 76 Morpurgo, Jozo David 76 Morpurgo, Vid 76 Moschini, Al. 228 Moscotto (scene designer) 398, 399 *Mossa, Carlo Matteo 238* Mrar 308 Muscas, Alberto 184 Mutti, Emma 414 Muzzatti (heirs) 376

#### **N**

Nachich [De Nakic] d'Osliak, Giorgio 68, 104, 125, 188, 189, 285, 374, 394, 412, 421, 451, 453

Nammer, Adolfo 476 *Nani, Umberto 232* Nápravník, Eduard Francevič 361 Negovetich (boxholder) 66 Negovetich, Natale 66 Negri, Pio 74, 325 Negri, Primo 74 Negrini, Carlo 422, 441 *Niccolai, Michela 411* Nicholas I of Montenegro, 110 Nicolelli, Giacomo 402 Nicoletti Frari, Maria 74 Nicoletti Kormann 401 Nicoletti, Cosimo 74 Nicoletti, Tullio 74 *Nicolò, Cecilia 119, 244 Nicolodi, Fiamma 40* Nouvellier, Amos 76 Nouvellier, Josiz 76 Novak, Dušan 75 *Novak, Grga 37, 45* Novelli (company) 304 Novotny (orchestral player) 476

#### **O**

Obradovich, Vladimiro 68 Orioli, Luigi 154 Oro, Enrichetta 434 Orrigoni, Antonio 311, 402 Orsetti (worker) 320 Orsi (impresa) 464, 465 Orsini, Antonio 176, 308, 318, 327, 472, 474 Orsini, Pericle 154, 155 Orsini, Rafaele 475 Ortoic (orchestral player) 471 Ossoimak, Gennaro 66 Osturi, Michele 470 Oziani, Carl 183

#### **P**

Pacor, Anna 309, 310, 311 *Paganuzzi, Enrico 383 Pagni, Vivaldo 217* Paicurich, Mattio 66 Pajani, Umberto 473

*Palić-Jelavić, Rozina 378 Palinić, Nana 20* Palminteri, Antonio 277, 282, 283, 287, 288, 436 Panni, Annibale 402 *Paoletti, Matteo 356, 358* Pappafava, Olga 69 Pappafava, Vladimiro 69 Parigi, Maurizio 396 Parisi (company) 397, 398 Parnell, Evelina 429 Pascucci, Giovanni 286, 382 Pascutti (conductor) 340 Pasquali (orchestral player) 457, 463, 467 Pasquini, Carlo 452, 453 Pasta-Borzone, Vincenza 434 Paterni, Ottorino 126, 154, 278, 279, 288 Patti, Adelina 118, 242 Patucchi, Rafaele 224, 304, 306, 307, 308, 312, 318, 326, 327, 394, 396, 411, 436, 471, 472, 474, 475 *Pauer Peretti, Feri 24* Paulović Grafca, Anna 76 Paulović Grafca, Marianna 77 Pavanello (hotel) 395 Pavićić, Petar 77 Pavissich, Marco 69 Peano, Luigi 154 *Pederin, Ivan 30* Pedrazzi, Pietro 154, 213, 224 Pedrini (violinist) 308 Pegan, Catterina 69 Pekas, Giuseppe 476 Pellizzoni, Sigismondo 413 Penso, Gilda 443 Perazzini, Nazzareno 109, 154, 335 Percuoco (singer) 49 Percuoco, Franco 127, 154 Peri, Achille 255 Perich, Richard 154 *Perigozzo, Lorenzo 343, 348, 349* Perlini (sisters) 69 Perlini, Giuseppe 69, 188, 194, 257, 267, 271, 278, 289

Perlini, Marco Giuseppe Antonio 69 Perlini, Venceslao 69 Perosi, Lorenzo 384 Perosio, Ettore 287 Perozzi, Valdeburgo 382 *Perpich, Edoardo 374, 375* Perrisich, Antonio 476 Persicalli, Ascanio 69 Persicalli, Evelina 69 Persicalli, Manfredo 69 Persich (boxholder) 66 Perteghini, Anna 414 Pesaro, Girolamo 11, 154, 155, 172, 180, 181, 198, 256, 257, 264, 286 Pessi, Vincenzo 66 Pessina (agency) 132, 142, 355 *Pestelli, Giorgio 40, 91, 429* Petinelli (co-owner) 220, 376 Petrella, Enrico 239 Petrić (goldsmith) 311 Petricciolli, Giovanni 69 Petricciolli, Giovanna 69 Petris, Giocondo 75, 292 Petris-Wolgemuth (boxholder) 65 *Petrobelli, Pierluigi 238* Petrocchi, Nicolò 475 Petrovich, Spiridione 69 Petruzzelli (theatre) 156 *Pettan, Hubert 379* Pezzana (company) 304 Pezzi, Giacomo 472 Pfefer, Max 169 Pfeifer, K. 154 Piacentini-Bellini, Ernesto 154, 222 Piccinni (theatre) 146, 185, 186 *Pillon, Lucia 256, 382, 476* Pini Corsi (spouses) 269 Pini Corsi, Antonio 269, 270, 294 Pinto, Augusto 127, 154, 418, 421 Pintorno, Vincenzo 288 Piperata, Giuseppe 75 Piperata, Rosa 75 *Piperno, Franco 451, 460* Pirola (costume workshop) 235, 402

Pistek, Johann 154, 198, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 337, 348, 361 Pitacco, Giovanni 470 Piva, Luigi 470 Pizzorni, Carlo 128 Plater, Elsa 344 Pltz (bariton) 412 Podesti, Vittorio 251 Poggi, Augusto 224 Poggi, Paolo 342 Poggi, Sigismondo 416 Pogna, Lazzaro 403 Polacco (conductor) 245 Polese, Icilio 116 Polgar, Carlo 90, 154, 199, 247, 254, 466, 467, 468 Polla (boxholder) 65 Polla, G. 436 Pollina, Luigi 127 Pomè, Alessandro 251 Ponchielli, Amilcare 212, 270, 273 Ponzio, Giuseppe 154, 183, 199, 200, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 327, 393, 400, 406, 469, 474 Popović 75 Popovich, Spiridione 70 Poschich (boxholder) 65 Pospischil (orchestral player) 457, 463, 467 Postiglione, Ada 308, 311, 413, 419, 435, 436 Pozzati, Alfonso 49, 269 Pozzesi, Giuseppe 154 Pozzi Branzanti, Virginia 440 Pražak, Otakar 333 Prebanda, P. 75 Prebanda, Vincenzo 313 Pregel (co-owner) 220, 376 Premuda (boxholder) 66 *Premuda, Noemi 378* Prevel (signore) 426, 427 *Probst, Elisabeth 227* Prodam, Giovanni 63, 66 Profli, Dante 154, 285 Profondo, Sante 130, 156, 417 Prohaska (orchestral player) 463 Proni, Adolfo 156, 197, 250, 446, 447, 462

Pták, Bohumil 336 Puccini, Giacomo 187, 243, 244, 248, 281, 338, 359, 410 Puccini, Elvira 243 Purga, Francesca 69 Purkardhofer, Giovanni 65, 66

#### **Q**

Quadri, Enrico 65, 342 Quaranta, Antonio 112, 156 *Quazzolo, Paolo 118, 205*

#### **R**

Rabaglia, Ettore 452, 456 Rachich, Giacomo 70 Radinovich, Marco 472, 474 Raditic, Gemma 473 Radman, Martino 476 *Radole, Giuseppe 229* Radovani (professor) 69 Ragazzioni, Giulio 472 Raggio (impresario) 156, 258 Raicich (boxholder) 65 Raimondi, Antonio 61, 74, 75, 304 Raimondi, Giovanni 70, 75 Raimondi, Rina 470, 471, 472, 474, 475 Raimondi, Silvia [Sylva] 470, 471, 472, 474, 475 Raineri Vaschetti, Teresa 113, 126, 187, 281 Rambelli, Francesco 144 Rancati, E. 337, 338, 340, 403 Randich, Antonio 66 Randich, Natale 66 Raspich (orchestral player) 463, 467 Ravagnoli, Manlio 277, 287 Ravasio, Antonio 180, 188, 255, 256, 260, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 286, 287, 373, 410, 475 Ravizza, Pietro 116 Razzani, Francesco 109, 124, 127, 156, 188, 198, 211, 222, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 267, 287, 449 Rechlinger (agent) 136 Reinach (theatre) 163, 338 Reitterer, H. 373 Relja, Luciano 69

Revere & Gallina (agency) 118, 122, 123, 284, 289, 427 Revere, Luciano 118, 122, 156, 413, 425 Riboldi, Enrico 222 Riboli (hotel) 395 Riboli-Giacich (family) 65 Ricci (brothers) 381 Ricci, Federigo [Federico] 381 Ricci, Luigi 223, 238, 239, 250, 251, 433 Ricci, Virgilio 224 Ricci Signorini, Antonio 277, 287 Ricci Signorini, Giacinto 277 Ricordi (publishing house) 81, 95, 216, 232, 242, 338, 344, 354, 356, 375, 404, 405, 412 Ricordi, Giulio 345 Ricordi, Luigi 146, 156, 406 Ricordi, Tito 388, 406 *Riemens, Leo 305, 336* Righi, Francesco 156, 255 Righini, Giovanni Battista 156, 188, 267 Rigotti, Pietro 65 Rinaldi de Ferdinando 65 Rinaldi, Giovanni 65 Rismondo, Ante 77 *Rispoli, Consiglio 29, 40, 48, 59, 83, 88, 98, 393, 417, 422, 426, 450, 468* Riva, Vittorio 127, 156, 187, 224, 344, 345, 349 Rivabella, Pietro 127 *Rivarolo, Leda 344* Rizzi (family) 65 Rizzi, Antonio 249 Rizzi, Lodovico 52 Rizzoli, Luisa 414 Rocca, Paolo 124, 125, 127, 156, 160, 173, 187, 304, 306, 307, 310, 344, 345, 392, 394, 395, 396, 397, 399, 413, 415, 416, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 427 Rocco (honourable) 52 Roda, Evasio 156 Roggia, Giovanni 156 Rolli, Antonio 69 Rolli, Eugenio 69 Rolli, Giovanni 69 Romanelli, Alessandro 392

Romei (impresa) 125, 132, 279, 280 Romeo, Enrico 254 Romiti (impresario) 124 Romiti, Angelo 278, 279 Romiti, Augusto 126, 127, 156, 198, 287 Ronzi, Antonio 319 Ronzi, Arturo 156 Ronzone, Carlo 127, 259 Roos, Hans 158, 269 Rosani, Francesco 158 Rosati (property frm) 403 Rosati, Pietro 158 Rosi (costume workshop) 311 Rosi, Francesco 399, 402 Rosini, Rinaldo127, 158, 189 *Rosmini, Enrico 404, 415, 429* Rossegger (impresa) 166 Rossegger, Augusto 104, 158, 183, 242, 251, 252, 359 *Rosselli, John 27, 40, 85, 107, 108, 110, 120, 256, 267, 271, 404, 429, 440, 441, 481, 482* Rossetti (district captain) 209 Rossetti (politeama) 37, 177, 188, 193, 216, 281, 443 Rossetti, Gino 158 Rossi (boxholder) 65 Rossi (scene designer) 398, 399 Rossi, Giovanni 213 Rossi, Giulio 121, 125, 126 Rossi, Maria 472 Rossi, Nico 472 *Rossi-Gallieno, Giuseppe 104, 105, 182, 416, 425* Rossi-Lana, Barberina 109 Rossini, Vincenzo 158, 290, 291, 292, 326, 410 *Rostagno, Antonio 451, 453, 460* Rotoli, Augusto 434 Rott, Antun 319 Roveri (bass) 242 *Rowden, Clair 380* Rubino, Giuseppe 224 Rude, Giovanni 309, 311 Ruggi, Francesco 382 Ruotolo, Gabriele 125, 126, 127, 128, 158, 172, 199, 223, 252, 345, 346, 349

Rupnick, Antonio 222 Russo (family) 292 Rustia Traine, Eugenio Dario 21 Rustia Traine, Maria 21 Rütti, Emma 412

#### **S**

*Sabalich, Giuseppe* 41, 180, 255, 373, 380 Sabatini (distributor) 320 Sabatini, Antonio 474 Sachs, Milan 349 *Sadie, Stanley 305* Saint Saëns, Camille 280, 359 Salghetti Drioli, Francesco 69 Salghetti Drioli, Simeone 69 Salghetti, Giovanni 56 Salt, Enrico 158 *Salucci, Ermanno* 45, 94, 426 Salvi (singer) 435 Salvi, Giulia 341, 342 *Samani, Salvatore 25, 26* Sampieri (agent) 126, 134 Sampieri, Ersilia 383 Sampietri, M. 158, 303 *Škunca, Mirjana 22, 35, 45, 328, 329, 347, 385* Smareglia, Antonio 20, 177, 190, 213, 215, 217, 222, 223, 224, 374, 375, 401, 433, 436, 466 San Benedetto (theatre) 404 San Fernando (theatre) 180 San Giovanni in Conca 144 *Sandri, Annalisa 217* Sangiorgi (impresario) 158 Sanguinazzi (impresario) 158, 222, 328, 329, 347 Santi (family) 463, 467 Santi, Antonio 457 Santi, Luigi 457 Santi, Paolo 457, 459 Santini, Giovanni 426 Saranelli, Giuseppe 75 Sarasate, Pablo de 433 Sartorio, Francesco 65 *Sarri, Sergio 120 Sassi, Francesco 384* Savelli (impresa) 223

Savelli, Salvatore 126, 158 Sbavaglia, Oreste 252 Sbordoni (impresa) 464, 465 Scala, Francesco 470 Scalaberni, Luigi 238 Scalamera (boxholder) 66 Scalvini (company) 124, 292 Scalvini, Antonio 124 Scarabelli, Enrico 158 Scaramelli, Giuseppe Alessandro 229, 230, 231, 249, 250, 459, 460, 461, 463, 467 Scariza, Luigi 473 Scarneo, Giovanni 158, 174, 175, 343 Scarpa (theater director) 242 Scarpa, Iginio 66 Scarpa, Pietro 66 Scarpetti, Edoardo 282 Scasserra 349 Schiavoni, Giovanni 158 Schiller, Albert 242 Schipa, Tito 243, 284, 308, 311, 413, 414, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 435, 441 Schmidl, Carlo 240, 258, 305, 307, 309, 310, 318, 375, 404, 406 Schubert (singer) 282 *Schubert, Gabriella 319 Schürmann, Joseph 118* Scipioni, Pietro 265 Scirinz, Giuseppe 476 Sciutti d'Arrigo, Francesco 158, 183, 198, 242, 252, 468 *Scotti, Giacomo 329* Scotti (musician) 467 Scotton, Rocco 201 Scotton (brothers) 309 Scotton Defzza (chorister) 473 Scrobogna (orchestral player) 66, 457, 463, 467 *Scuderi, Cristina 324, 481 Secchi, Angelo 428, 429* Secondo, Gina 421 Seglin, Ferdinando 69 Selles, Lodovico 54, 116, 158 Senipa 311

Šenoa, August 334 Sepich (boxholder) 65 *Sessa, Andrea 373, 384* Sforza, Rafaele 103, 160, 199, 243, 244, 252, 253, 254, 297, 359 Sgardelli (boxholder) 65 Sigismondi, Arturo 349 *Silvestri, Noemi 11, 331* Silvetti, Luigi 308, 394, 413 Simonetti, Giovanni 117, 118, 120, 124, 127, 160, 189, 243, 338, 383, 413, 418 Simunich (boxholder) 66 Siracusa, Antonio 144, 341, 348 Sirich, O.F. 160 Sisgoreo, Antonio 70 Sisgoreo, Paolina 70, 75 *Škunka, Mirjana 21, 328* Smaich, Bartolomeo 66 Smareglia, Antonio 20, 177, 190, 213, 215, 217, 374, 375, 401, 433, 436, 466 Smareglia, Francesco 374 Smareglia, Giulio 222, 223, 224, 375 Smetana, Bedřic 333, 334, 361 Smirić, Antonio 69, 257 *Smiric, Eligio 343* Smith (boxholder) 66 Smoquina, Carlo Maria 224 Sofriti, Carlo 160 Sofritti, Davide 224 Sofritti, Paride 254 Solari, Luigi 277, 278, 287 Soldatini, Giuseppe 160, 161 Sonzogno (publishing house) 189, 278, 280, 297, 342, 346, 354, 356, 358, 374, 405, 407 Sonzogno (impresa) 118, 127 Sonzogno, Edoardo 277, 278, 279, 356, 357, 358, 359, 374, 404, 407, 411, 412 Soriani, Canuto 311, 323, 398, 399 Sorlini, Francesco 160 Sormani, Ercole 337, 338, 398, 399 Spano, Michele 115, 127, 160 Sperber (orchestral player) 457, 463 Spina, Giovanni 382 Sponga (orchestral player) 463, 467

548 Index of names and authors

Sporer, Carlo 65 Springhetti, Elpidio 410, 466, 467 Spuk, Ante 308 *Staferi, Gloria 475* Stagno, Roberto 243, 344 Stancic (impresario) 238 Stancic (signorina) 187 Stancich, Antonio 398 Stancich, Giovanni 162, 250 Stancich, Timoteo 476 *Stefanović, Ljubomir 94* Stefenoni, Cesare 162, 223 Stehele, Achille 343, 348 Steiner, M. 309, 396, 397 Stekel, Alexandro 19 Stelich, Niccolò 308 Stercagl, Antonio 70, 75 Sterni, Francesco 162 Staher, Rosa 69 Stiglić, Giulia 374 Stipanovich (co-owner) 220 *Stipčević, Ennio 26* Stojković, Milivoj 313 Stolzmann, Anna 114 Strada (publishing house) 160, 232, 404 Stradella, Alessandro 333 Strakosch (impresa) 198 Strakosch, Ferdinand 162, 242, 243 Strakosch, Maurizio 118, 242 Strauss, Johann 217 Strauss, Richard 246, 355 Strino, Michele 379 Strino, Salvatore 331, 342 Strkalj (custodian) [see Migalo] Sturani, Giuseppe 253 Sucich (boxholder) 66 Suppè, Faustino 65 Suppè [Suppé], Franz von 379, 380 Supuk (company) 321, 322 Supuk, Vincenzo 309, 310 Švanda, Pavel 332 Svanković (branch) 310

#### **T**

Tacconi, Antonio 330 Tadić, Marko 77 Talli, Virginio 247 Talpo, Riccardo 288, 289, 449, 476 Tamagni, Aldo 412, 413 Tamagno, Francesco 344 Tambornino, Guido 123, 127, 162, 163 Tani (company) 292 Tarabocchia (boxholder) 66 Tartaglia (family) 64 Tassinari, Arturo 162 Tasso, Enrico 287 *Tatò, Grazia 218* Taurone, Carmine 162 Tavernari, Anacleto 127, 223, 338 Tecilazić, Ante 77 Tedeschi, Achille 160 Tencajoli, Lena 413, 414, 415, 418, 423, 425, 428, 432 Teodorović, Maria 69 Terzanovic, Pio 309 *Testoni, Alfredo 441* Tettoni, Luigi Enrico 132 Tierrÿ, Federico 66 Ticci Giganti, Maddalena 433 Ticulin, Anna 472 Tilić, Rodolfo 321 Till (politician) 52 Tocigl, Rodolfo 69 Tocigl, Špiro 77 Todeschini, Antonio 162 *Toelle, Jutta 29, 30, 40, 420, 481 Tofano, Sergio 441* Tomić, Josip Eugen 357 Tommaseo (family) 64 Tommaseo, Leonardi 77 Tommaseo, Nicolò 293, 294, 296, 298, 305 Tommasi, Angelo 104, 413, 414, 428, 432, 477 Toniatti, Antonio 69 *Toniolo, Antonio Renato 232* Torchi, Maria 308, 411, 413, 419 Tornaghi, Eugenio 281 Tosti, Pietro 190

Toth, Antica 77 Toth, Škarica 77 Traini, Giuseppe 472 Tramontano, Attilio 162 Trauner, Giorgio 81, 83, 125, 126, 127, 162, 186, 199, 277, 281, 282, 283, 284, 287, 288, 290, 291, 344, 346, 356, 359, 399, 412, 444, 445, 446, 449, 450, 451, 457, 458, 460, 469, 478, 479 Traversi, Fiorello 287, 288, 444 Traversi, T. 327 Trebbi (clarinet player) 314 Tremont, Edoardo 66 Trevisan, Cesare 83, 84, 104, 114, 162, 197, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 235, 239, 249, 251, 459, 467 Trifoni, Maria 472 Trifoni, Nina 472 Trigari, Nicolò 56, 68, 69, 188 Trigari, Remigio 69 Trina, Ferdinando 162 *Trinchese, Stefano 56* Tripalo, Frane 77 Tripalo, Petar 77 Trnski, Ivan 357 Troccoli (hotel) Troccoli, Luigi 164 Troÿer, V.a Maria 65 Trufaldino, Mate 320, 321 Turcich (boxholder) 65

#### **U**

Ubaldi (deputy conductor) 288 Ubaldi, Giovanni 164, 231, 234, 235, 249, 250 Ullmann (family) 111 Ullmann, Giuseppe 118, 127, 164, 172, 191, 267, 337, 392 Ullmann, Rodolfo 118, 205, 287 Ullmann, Vittorio 118 Ungherini, Mariano 164, 355, 359 Unich, Ernesto 472, 474 Usigli, Gerolamo 250 Usiglio, Emilio 274, 410

Utili, Sante 20, 119, 120, 124, 127, 164, 165, 175, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 264, 265, 266, 267, 392, 444, 475, 478

#### **V**

Vagnetti, A. 164, 165 Valenti, Domenico 47, 127, 164, 188, 190, 198, 279, 287, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 301, 326, 393, 394, 420, 421, 451, 453 Valentini (compagnia) 289, 318 Valentini, Giuseppe 126, 164, 417 Valerio (family) 65 *Valle, Giovanni 416, 431* Vanjek, Franjo 327 Vanoli (hotel) 392 Vanzo, Vittorio Maria 243, 252 Vapore (hotel) 395 Varani, Federico 166, 291, 326 Vareton (family) 65 Vareton, Guglielmo 51, 56 Vaschetti, Antonio 113, 126 Vatavuk, Pasco 315, 320 Vecchi, Alfredo 125, 128, 166, 174, 267, 293, 338, 400, 427, 452, 475 Vela, Melchiorre 349 Velebi (hotel) 396 *Vella, Francesca 391* Ventura, Lionello 238 *Venturini, Valentina 425, 426* Verdi (casa) 277 Verdi (choral society) 444 Verdi (opera company) 300 Verdi (society) 424 Verdi (theatre) 23, 25, 35, 36, 37, 44, 55, 86, 90, 95, 96, 100, 101,103, 117, 118, 130, 131, 167, 176, 203, 206, 249, 254, 271, 281, 285, 383, 415, 420, 422, 424, 432, 446, 448 Verdi, Giuseppe 20, 25, 26, 34, 35, 36, 40, 49, 120, 176, 204, 205, 206, 243, 248, 249, 254, 262, 263, 270, 271, 285, 291, 328, 330, 337, 357, 376, 406, 414, 433, 434, 481 Vergnani, Alberto 287 *Vernazza, Ruben 410* Verneda, Ernesto 65

Vernier, Alberto 22, 89, 90, 111, 166, 192, 194, 195, 214, 222, 223, 252, 269, 287, 338, 348 Veronese, Giovanni 470, 471, 472 Veronesi, Valeria 473 Versina, Giovannina 75 Versina Spiridione (heirs) 75 Versina, Teresa 75 Vertova (conductor) 225 Verzenassi, Giuseppe 65 *Veselić, Nenad 379* Vettach, Antonia 414, 422 Vianelli (costume workshop) 402 Vianelli, Pietro 138, 142, 166 Vianello, Carlo 84, 166, 198, 256, 257, 264, 286, 406, 478 Vicevich, Giorgio 66 Viezzoli, Vincenzo 220, 376 Vignardelli, Giovanni 166 Vigoni, Giuseppe 287 Villa, Angelo 126, 166 Villaforita, Giuseppe 128, 166 Villalta (tenor) 344 Vio, Antonio 66 Vio-Bossi (boxholder) 65 Viscardi, Enrico 60, 110, 121, 123, 128, 166, 167, 189, 191, 197, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 301, 326, 418, 444 Vitale (conductor) 246 Vitaliani (company) 304 Viti, Piero 470 Vitturi (impresario) 166 Viviani, Orlando 119, 128, 138, 139, 142 Vlahov, Roberto 69 Volani, Antonio 66 Voncina (boxholder) 65 Vram, Eugenio 168 Vujatović, Marietta 75 Vujatovich, Maria 70 Vukasović, Ivanica 77 Vušković, Vicko 77

#### **W**

Wagner, Richard 176, 359, 466 Walluschnig, Antonio 66

Walluschnig, Nicolò 66 *Walter, Michael 47, 114, 205, 232, 354, 420, 423, 481* Wanisek, Francesco 328 Wassermann (family) 65 Weber, Carl Maria von 434 Weinberger, J. 160 *Wiggermann, Frank 65* Wild, J. 160 Wilhem, Tom 178 Wolf, Samuele 328, 346, 437 Wranÿcźanÿ, Matteo 66

**X**

Ximenes, Ettore 293, 297

#### **Z**

Zagni, Mario 113 Zaytz [Zajc, Zaijc], Giovanni [Ivan] de 20, 26, 35, 94, 357, 378, 379 Zalampich, Maria 66 Zammarchi (property frm) 403 Zanchi (hotel) 396 Zanchi, Pietro 291, 326 Zanchi, Silvia 472 Zanetti, Osvaldo 222 Zangaro (orchestral player) 308 Zanotti, Enrico 177 Zanti, Anita 414 Zappert, Francesco 128, 168 Zappert, Luigi 128, 168 Zaratin [Ziranski] 473 Zarda, Emilia 472 *Zechner, Ingeborg 423, 481* Žigrović-Pretočki, Franjo 355 Ziliotto (orchestral player) 477 Ziliotto, Luigi 43, 67 Zilli, Emma 119, 244, 280 Zink, Giuseppe 476 Zink, Guglielmo 476 Zonghi, Alfredo 413 Zoppolato, Roberto 123, 128, 166, 168 Zorić, Petar 321 Zorzenoni, Alessandro 470 Zorzi, E. 66, 168

*Zubini, Fabio 118* Zuccani (conductor) 246 Zuccoli, Gino 224 Zuccoli, Guido 289 Zucconi-Pilotto (company) 214 Zuliani, Amelia 75 Zuliani, Gemma 75

Zuliani, Emilia 75 Zuliani, Luigi 70, 75 Zuliani, Pietro 327 Zuna, Milan 349 *Županović, Lovro 378, 379* Zvonimir (company) 341, 343