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Opera and Monuments: Verdi’s Ernani in Vienna and the Construction of Dynastic Memory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2018
Abstract
This article examines the first production and early reception of Verdi’s Ernani in Vienna in relation to cultural processes supporting strategies of imperial representation promoted by the Habsburg Court. By discussing newspaper reviews, archival documents, sketches of the sets for the first Viennese production, I show how the opera responded to official narratives of the Habsburg Empire and to specific facets of the local culture of monumentality. I argue that particularly the Act III Finale functioned along the lines of memorial practices that projected the Habsburg dynasty as the source of unity of the empire and its peoples. Finally, I consider the Viennese reception of Ernani in the broader context of its Italian dissemination, suggesting how fluctuating political readings of the opera depended upon (rather than undermining) multidirectional cultural exchanges.
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- © Cambridge University Press 2018
Footnotes
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Claudio Vellutini, University of British Columbia, Canada; [email protected].
I wish to express my gratitude to Berthold Hoeckner, Philip Gossett, Martha Feldman, John Boyer, Fabrizio Della Seta, Francesco Izzo, Emanuele Senici, Martin Eybl, Cathy Ann Elias, Janos Simon, Elizabeth Parker and the two anonymous readers of this journal for their helpful suggestions during the preparation of this article. An early version of it was presented at the conference ‘Italian Opera and Urban Culture, 1810–1870’ (University of California, Berkeley). I am very grateful to Mary Ann Smart, who invited me to the conference, as well as to Roger Parker, Nicholas Mathew, Benjamin Walton and Melina Esse for their insightful comments after my presentation. Many thanks, too, to the following institutions for their generous support: the University of Chicago, the American Musicological Society, the Österreichischer Austauschdienst, the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (Bloomington) and the University of British Columbia.
References
1 Although Nabucco was not as triumphantly received in Vienna as in Milan, it was nonetheless greeted very positively, gaining Verdi a reputation as the most promising young Italian opera composer; see Dauth, Ursula, Verdis Opern im Spiegel der Wiener Presse von 1843 bis 1859 (Munich, 1981), 65–77 Google Scholar.
2 On 1 June 1844, two days after the opera’s premiere in Vienna, reviews were published in the Allgemeine Wiener Musik-Zeitung, Der Wanderer, the Allgemeine Theater-Zeitung, Der Sammler, and Der Humorist. Another review appeared in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode on 5 June 1844.
3 These remarks appear emphatically in August Schmidt’s review for the Allgemeine Wiener Musik-Zeitung (1 June 1844), 263, but fit with all other articles published in the aftermath of the Viennese premiere of the opera: see Dauth, Verdis Opern, 79–92.
4 ‘Ich habe freilich die Sache politisch eingefädelt, aber wenn ich nun ruhig nachdenke, gewahre ich doch allen Ernstes, daß Verdi jeder Aufmunterung werth ist.’ Der Wanderer (1 June 1844), 527.
5 See, for instance, Kimbell, David, Verdi in the Age of Italian Romanticism (Cambridge, 1981), 467–470 Google Scholar, and, more recently, Sorba, Carlotta, ‘Ernani Hats: Italian Opera as a Repertoire of Political Symbols during the Risorgimento’, in The Oxford Handbook of the New Cultural History of Music, ed. Jane F. Fulcher (New York, 2011), 428–451 Google Scholar.
6 The most articulate discussion of the theoretical and methodological tenets of histoire croisée is found in Werner, Michael and Zimmermann, Bénédicte, eds., De la comparaison à l’histoire croisée (Paris, 2004)Google Scholar. Previously, they had shaped their ideas in ‘Vergleich, Transfer, Verflechtung. Der Ansatz der histoire croisée und die Herausforderung des Transnationalen’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28 (2002), 607–36; and ‘Penser l’histoire croisée: Entre empire et réfléxivité’, Annales 58 (2003), 7–36. For a more recent discussion in English, see their ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, History and Theory 45 (2006), 30–50.
7 See Marjanen, Jani, ‘Undermining Methodological Nationalism: Histoire croisée of Concepts as Transnational History’, in Transnational Political Spaces: Agents – Structures – Encounters, ed. Mathias Albert, Gesa Bluhm, Jan Helmig, Andreas Leutzsch and Jochen Walter (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 2009), 240 and 253–4 Google Scholar. The notion of ‘travelling concept’ as a category of cultural analysis is discussed in Bal, Mieke, Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide (Toronto, 2002)Google Scholar, and in the editors’ introduction to Neumann, Birgit and Nünning, Ansgar, eds., Travelling Concepts for the Study of Culture (Berlin, 2012), 1–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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9 See, among others, Hortschansky, Klaus, ‘Die Herausbildung eines deutschsprachigen Verdi-Repertoires im 19. Jahrhundert und die zeitgenössische Kritik’, Analecta Musicologica 11 (1972), 149 Google Scholar; Gartioux, Hervé, La réception de Verdi en France. Anthologie de la presse, 1845–1894 (Weisenberg, 2001), 16 Google Scholar; Alessandro Di Profio, ‘“Ernani in Gondoletta”. La ricezione de Il proscritto a Parigi (Théâtre Italien, 1846), Victor Hugo e lo spettro del teatro francese’, in La drammaturgia verdiana e le letterature europee: Convegno internazionale: Roma 29–30 novembre 2001 (Rome, 2003), 150–90; and Martin, George W., Verdi in America: Oberto through Rigoletto (Rochester, NY, 2011), 49–70 Google Scholar. As Marcello Conati has pointed out, the international reception of Ernani contrasts significantly with the generally laudatory reaction of the Italian press: see his ‘“Ernani” di Verdi: le critiche del tempo. Alcune considerazioni’, in Ernani ieri e oggi: Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, ed. Marisa Di Gregorio Casati, Pierluigi Petrobelli and Marcello Pavarini (Parma, 1987), 207–72. The international dissemination of Ernani is discussed in Julian Budden, The Operas of Verdi, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1992), 1: 170–1. A selected chronology of performances is provided in Kaufman, Thomas G., Verdi and His Major Contemporaries: A Selected Chronology of Performances with Cast (New York, 1990), 293–311 Google Scholar.
10 See the statistics provided in Jahn, Michael, Die Wiener Hofoper von 1836 bis 1848 (Vienna, 2004), 443 Google Scholar, and Jahn, , Die Wiener Hofoper von 1848 bis 1870: Personal-Aufführungen-Spielplan (Tutzing, 2002), 693 Google Scholar.
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12 ‘Die Partitur des “Ernani” ist eine Fattura ganz nach dem Geschmacke des jetzigen italienischen Publicums … So erscheint mir denn “Ernani” als eine Oper, die in Italien Glück machen mußt, und gut aufgeführt, auch in Wien des günstigen Erfolges gewiß seyn kann, immerhin aber als eine leider flüchtige, wenig geprüfte, schnell verfertigte Arbeit eines jungen Mannes, der weit Gehaltvolleres leisten könnte.’ Der Wanderer (1 June 1844), 527.
13 Gundula Kreuzer has provided an enlightening account of how ‘anti-Italian clichés – sensuality, effeminacy, superficiality, populism, shallow tunefulness, cheap effect, noise and so on – came to stand for Italian opera in general’: see Kreuzer, , Verdi and the Germans: From Unification to the Third Reich (Cambridge, 2010), xiv Google Scholar.
14 Within the vast body of scholarly literature on the topic, see in particular Seifert, Herbert, Die Oper am Wiener Kaiserhof im 17. Jahrhundert (Tutzing, 1985)Google Scholar; Goloubeva, Maria, The Glorification of Emperor Leopold I in Image, Spectacle and Text (Mainz, 2000)Google Scholar; Herr, Corinna, Seifert, Herbert, Sommer-Mathis, Andrea and Strohm, Reinhard, eds., Italianità: Image and Practice (Berlin, 2008)Google Scholar; and Hunter, Mary, The Culture of Opera Buffa in Vienna: The Poetics of Entertainment (Princeton, 1999)Google Scholar; and Spaepen, Bruno, ‘“Governare per mezzo della Scala”: L’Austria e il teatro d’opera a Milano’, Contemporanea 6 (2005), 593–620 Google Scholar.
15 For a discussion of these debates, see Vellutini, Claudio Google Scholar, ‘Cultural Engineering: Italian Opera in Vienna, 1816–1848’, PhD diss. (University of Chicago, 2015).
16 According to Seyfried, ‘Italy no longer has great composers: Rossini is at rest, Donizetti belongs to foreign countries … Because Italy has no good composers, it also lacks good new operas that could sustain the repertory … and quite naturally the result is that an emerging talent does not have neither time nor leisure to create’ (‘Italien hat keine großen Componisten mehr; Rossini ruht, Donizetti gehört dem Auslande an … Weil Italien keine großen Componisten mehr hat, mangeln ihm auch gute neue Opern, welche sich am Repertoir erhalten; … und so kommt es auf ganz natürlichem Wege, daß den aufkeimenden Talenten nicht Zeit und Muße zum Schaffen bleibt’). Der Wanderer (1 June 1844), 527. Similar remarks appear in Moritz Saphir’s review in Der Humorist (1 June 1844), 527.
17 Sedlnitzky’s official report, sent to the Highest Chamberlain Count Rudolf von Czernin on 22 July 1844, is preserved in the Vienna Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv, General-Intendanz der Hoftheater (henceforth HHStA, Gen.Int.), Box 74, 1844, 1604. This clause was then included in the extension of impresarios Carlo Balocchino and Bartolomeo Merelli’s concession from 1 July 1845 to 30 June 1847: a copy of the new contract is in HHStA, Gen.Int., Sonderreihe 55/2, ‘Pachterneuerung mit Balochino [sic] und Merelli vom 1. Juli 1845 bis 31. März 1847’.
18 ‘Daß Verdi schön zu schreiben, glücklich zu erfinden, auch mit einfacheren Mitteln großen Effect zu machen wisse, bewies das treffliche Finale des dritten Actes, ein Musikstück, welches seinem Compositionstalente alle Ehre macht, und auch bei der hierortigen Aufführung so entschieden und allgemein durchgriff, daß man es stürmisch zur Wiederholung verlangte. Es wird in neueren italienischen Opern wenig Stücke geben, welche sich diesem schönen Finale an die Seite stellen lassen.’ Allgemeine Theater-Zeitung (1 June 1844), 550.
19 Der Humorist (1 June 1844) (Saphir), and Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode (5 June 1844).
20 Hanslick, Eduard, Die moderne Oper. Kritiken und Studien (Berlin, 1875), 220–222 Google Scholar.
21 See Walton, Benjamin, ‘“More German than Beethoven”: Rossini’s Zelmira and Italian Style’, in The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini, ed. Nicholas Mathew and Benjamin Walton (Cambridge, 2013), 159–177 Google Scholar; and Vellutini, ‘Cultural Engineering’, 163–82 and 226–305.
22 Rehding, Alexander, Music and Monumentality: Commemoration and Wonderment in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford, 2009), 9 Google Scholar.
23 Rehding, Music and Monumentality, 14.
24 For a revision of the traditional view of the slow decay of the Habsburg Empire during the nineteenth century, see Sked, Alan, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 2nd edn (Harlow, 2001)Google Scholar. An insightful investigation of the interaction between ‘national’ and ‘imperial’ identities in the empire is Cohen, Gary B., ‘Nationalist Politics and the Dynamics of State and Civil Society in the Habsburg Monarchy’, Central European History 40 (2007), 241–278 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More recently Pieter Judson has discussed the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history of the Habsburg Empire as a continuous effort ‘to build a unified and unifying imperial state’, as well as ‘an ongoing project that engaged the minds, hearts, and energies of many of its citizens at every level of society’, see his The Habsburg Empire: A New History (Cambridge, MA, 2016), 4–5.
25 See Whaley, Joachim, ‘Austria, “Germany”, and the Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire’, in The Habsburg Legacy: National Identity in Historical Perspective, ed. Ritchie Robertson and Edward Timms (Edinburgh, 1994), 3–12 Google Scholar.
26 Whaley, ‘Austria, “Germany”’, 9.
27 Sked, The Decline and Fall, 264–5.
28 Magris, Claudio, Il mito asburgico nella letteratura austriaca moderna (Turin, 1963)Google Scholar.
29 Urbanitsch, Peter, ‘Pluralist Myth and Nationalist Realities: The Dynastic Myth of the Habsburg Monarchy – A Futile Exercise in the Creation of Identity’, Austrian History Yearbook 35 (2004), 105 Google Scholar.
30 Judson, The Habsburg Empire, 6.
31 On the concept of translatio imperii, see LeGoff, Jacques, Medieval Civilization 400–1500, trans. Julia Barrow (Oxford, 1988), 171–172 Google Scholar.
32 Timms, Edward, ‘National Memory and the “Austrian Idea” from Metternich to Waldheim’, The Modern Language Review 86 (1991), 903 Google Scholar.
33 Timms, ‘National Memory’, 195.
34 See Fuchs, Martina, Karl V. Eine populäre Figur? Zur Rezeption des Kaisers in deutschsprachiger Belletristik (Münster, 2002), 16–18 Google Scholar, where the contrasting reception of Charles V in nineteenth-century Austria and the German States is discussed in relation to different attitudes towards the idea of Großdeutschland. For a historiographical analysis that takes into consideration the rise of German nationalism, see Kohler, Alfred, ‘Karl V. in der deutschsprachigen Historiographie’, in The Histories of Emperor Charles V. Nationale Perspektiven von Persönlichkeit und Herrschaft, ed. C. Scott Dixon and Martina Fuchs (Münster, 2005), 17–27 Google Scholar.
35 The Italian original is quoted in Conati, Marcello, La bottega della musica: Verdi e la Fenice (Milan, 1983), 97 Google Scholar.
36 Italian original quoted in Conati, La bottega della musica, 99; translated in Claudio Gallico, ‘Introduction’, in Giuseppe Verdi, Ernani, The Works of Giuseppe Verdi I/5 (Chicago, 1985), xvi.
37 During the composition of the opera, Piave and Verdi had already emended the last two stanzas of the chorus so that it sounded less politically subversive: see Bruno Cagli, ‘“…Questo povero poeta esordiente”: Piave a Roma, un carteggio con Ferretti, la genesi di Ernani’, in Ernani ieri e oggi, ed. Casati et al., 15–16. Moreover, David Rosen has discussed a heavily sanitised version of the Ernani libretto that Ricordi published to allow the opera to circulate also in the Papal States and in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where the censorship was stricter than in the States under Habsburg rule. It comes as no surprise that the piece reworked most thoroughly was the chorus in the conspiracy scene: see Rosen, David, ‘“Si ridesti il Leon di Castiglia la fiamma sopita”: Ricordi’s Censored Libretto of Ernani and Some Vicissitudes of the Conspiracy Scene’, Verdi Forum 34 (2007), 9–27 Google Scholar.
38 On the differences between the libretto and Hugo’s drama, see Zanichelli, Silvana, ‘Alcuni appunti sulla trasformazione dell’ “Hernani” di Hugo’, in Ernani ieri e oggi, ed. Casati et al., 43–59 Google Scholar. Della Seta, ‘Ernani’, 26, draws a parallel between Hugo’s rendition of the character of Don Carlos and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
39 The first issue contains a statement of intent which opens as follows: ‘The goal of this journal is to make the inhabitants of the imperial and royal States acquainted with one another and to foster love of the fatherland through knowledge of the fatherland’ (‘Der Zweck dieser Blätter ist: die Bewohner der kais-königl[.] Erbstaaten mit sich selbst näher bekannt zu machen und Vaterlandsliebe durch Vaterlandskunde zu befördern’): Vaterländische Blätter für den österreichischen Kaiserstaat (10 May 1808), ‘Plan dieser Zeitschrift’.
40 ‘Materialen zur ältern und neuern vaterländischen Geschichte, besonders Nachrichten von merkwürdigen historischen Denkmahlen’. Vaterländische Blätter (10 May 1808).
41 Pierre Nora proposed this ‘official’ definition in ‘From Lieux de mémoire to Realms of Memory’, the introduction to the first volume of Nora, ed., Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York, 1996), xvii. This edition is an abridged version of the French original, Les Lieux de mémoire, 7 vols. (Paris, 1984–92). Another, more recent English translation, is Rethinking France: Les Lieux de Mémoire, trans. Mary Trouille, 4 vols. (Chicago, 2001–10).
42 Megill, Allan, Historical Knowledge, Historical Error: A Contemporary Guide to Practice (Chicago, 2007), 35 Google Scholar. The antithetical pole to this definition of memory is his view of historiography, derived from Michel de Certeau, as ‘a breach or break between past and present’, and of the historian as ‘an “other” to history’ (38). On Megill’s own admission, the evocation of what he calls the ‘“separation” principle’ is not to be thought of in absolute terms (few nowadays would be willing to support the belief that a historian can be separated from his or her subjectivity), but as a methodological guideline reminding that ‘history worthy of the name carefully distinguishes between past and present’ (39).
43 Megill, Historical Knowledge, 34.
44 Although several initiatives were undertaken in earlier ages, it was only during the long reign of Franz Joseph (1848–1916) that a centralised committee for the preservation of monuments was created in the Habsburg Empire: see Frodl, Walter, Idee und Verwirklichung: Das Werden der staatlichen Denkmalpflege in Österreich (Vienna, 1988), 59–60 Google Scholar.
45 See the article ‘Über die neuesten Verschönerungen Wiens’ (‘On the Newest Beauties of Vienna’), Der Wanderer (20 May 1817), 561–3.
46 See Timms, Edward, ‘National Memory and the “Austrian Idea” from Metternich to Waldheim’, The Modern Language Review 86 (1991), 901–904 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Telesko, Werner, Geschichtsraum Österreich: Die Habsburger und ihre Geschichte in der bildenden Kunst des 19. Jahrhundert (Vienna, 2006), 26–28 Google Scholar.
47 See Altfahrt, Margit, ‘Die Denkmähler für Franz I Stephan, Joseph II und Franz I im Bereich der Wiener Hofburg: Zur Motivation, Aussage und Funktion dreier Wiener Kaiserdenkmäler’, Jahrbuch des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien 38 (1982), 74 Google Scholar.
48 See Telesko, Geschichtsraum Österreich, 164–74, and Krasa-Florian, Selma, Allegorie der Austria: Die Entstehung des Gesamtstaatsgedankens in der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie und die bildende Kunst (Vienna, 2007), 45–59 Google Scholar. Significantly, the laying of the foundation stone took place strategically on the thirtieth anniversary of the battle of Leipzig. Although the monument was not completed until 1846, the ceremony acquired an ideological aftertaste as a memory site of the first major military victory of the recently founded Austrian Empire: see Altfahrt, ‘Die Denkmäler’, 78.
49 See Magdalena Hawlik-van de Water, ‘Die Kaisergruft in Wien und ihre Geschichte. Die Sarkophage unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts sowie über die in ihnen beigesetzten Persönlichkeiten’, MA diss. (Universität Wien, 1986), 15.
50 The latest burial performed according to imperial protocol was that of Otto von Habsburg (1912–2011), who was entombed in the crypt on 16 July 2011.
51 Rigney, Ann, ‘Embodied Communities: Commemorating Robert Burns, 1859’, Representations 115 (2011), 77 Google Scholar.
52 See Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar, esp. 142–4; originally published as La production de l’espace (Paris, 1974). For a case study of how nineteenth-century monuments contributed to the shifting interpretation of the figure of Joseph II from authoritative imperial ruler to Volkskaiser, see Wingfield, Nancy B., ‘Statues of Emperor Joseph II as Sites of German Identity’, in Staging the Past: The Politics of Commemoration in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848 to the Present, ed. Maria Bucur and Nancy B. Wingfield (West Lafayette, 2001), 178–205 Google Scholar.
53 See Gallico, ‘Introduction’, xxi.
54 See the reviews published in the Allgemeine Wiener Musik-Zeitung, Der Wanderer and Der Humoris on 1 June 1844.
55 Vienna, Theatermuseum, HOpÜ 4848.Th. Giuseppe Brioschi (1802–58), a lesser-known figure among mid-nineteenth-century Italian scenographers, studied architecture at the Brera Academy in Milan and became a student of Alessandro Sanquirico, the scenographer of La Scala. In 1836, Merelli and Balocchino hired him at the Kärntnertortheater. Brioschi worked and lived in Vienna until his death. Thereafter, his son Carlo took over his post at the Court Opera. See Hadamowsky, Franz, ‘Brioschi, Giuseppe’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 14 (Rome: 1960–), 324–325 Google Scholar.
56 No documentation on the settings for the original Venice production, by Pietro Venier, has come down to us. Bertoja’s 1846 sketches are discussed and compared to Liverani’s 1844 drawings for a production in Faenza in Mercedes Viale Ferrero, ‘Le prime scene per “Ernani”: Appunti di scenografia verdiana’, in Ernani ieri e oggi, ed. Casati et al., 195–206, which provides a reproduction of the images. On Bertoja’s activity in Venice, see also Teresa Muraro, Maria and Ida Biggi, Maria, L’immagine e la scena: Giuseppe e Pietro Bertoja scenografi alla Fenice 1840–1902 (Venice, 1998)Google Scholar. Several drawings by Liverani for other productions of Ernani are published in Vitali, Marcella, Romolo Liverani scenografo (Faenza, 1990)Google Scholar, and in Degrada, Francesco, ed., Giuseppe Verdi: l’uomo, l’opera, il mito (Milan, 2000)Google Scholar. Many of them present the Gothic architectural features discussed in this article, with the exception of a drawing unrelated to any specific performance (preserved at the Biblioteca Comunale di Forlì in the Fondo Piancastelli; a reproduction can be found in Vitali, Romolo Liverani scenografo, 62), and the sketches for the La Scala revival in 1849. Note, however, that the sets for the following La Scala production (1852) feature massive Gothic arches: see Vitali, Romolo Liverani scenografo, plate xiii.
57 Victor Hugo, Hernani, trans. John Golder, in Victor Hugo, Four Plays: Marion de Lorme – Hernani – Lucretia Borgia – Ruy Blas, ed. Claude Schumacher (London, 2004), 169.
58 Della Seta, ‘Ernani’, 28.
59 Della Seta, ‘Ernani’, 32.
60 Della Seta, ‘Ernani’, 28.
61 See Beghelli, Marco, La retorica del rituale nel melodramma ottocentesco (Parma, 2003), 102–110 and 145–63Google Scholar.
62 See Gallico, ‘Introduction’, xvi.
63 Kimbell, Verdi, 469–70.
64 The piece is discussed in detail in Rosen, ‘“Si Ridesti”’, 20–3.
65 See Sorba, Carlotta, ‘Il Risorgimento in musica: l’opera lirica nei teatri del 1848’, in Immagini della nazione nell’Italia del Risorgimento, ed. Alberto Banti and Roberto Bizzocchi (Rome, 2002), 143–145 Google Scholar. On the Bologna performance see also Gossett, Philip, ‘Becoming a Citizen: The Chorus in Risorgimento Opera’, Cambridge Opera Journal 2 (1990), 57 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
66 See de la Grange, Henry-Louis, Vienne. Histoire musicale, 2 vols. (Arles, 1990)Google Scholar, I: 213. For Theophil Antonicek, instead, the popularity of Italian opera is a manifestation of the craving for all sorts of new music that was typical of Viennese society between the Congress of Vienna and the 1848 revolution. According to him, such high level of consumption favoured quantity over quality and ultimately resulted in a ‘creative crisis’ (‘[eine] Krise des Schöpferischen’) and a vacuum in the production of ‘serious’ music after Beethoven and Schubert passed away in 1827 and 1828 respectively, which cost the city its centrality in European musical life until the arrival of Brahms in the 1860s: see his ‘Biedermeierzeit und Vormärz’ (with contributions by Rudolf Flotzinger, Rudolf Hopfner and Alfons Hubner), in Musikgeschichte Österreichs, ed. Rudolf Flotzinger and Gernot Gruber, 2nd edn, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1995), 3: 280. Arguments such as these are steeped in the historiographical tradition that pictured Viennese cultural life during the Metternich regime as frivolous, superficial and morally decadent. As early as 1961, Paul W. Schroeder has pointed out that this negative view emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a result of the pressing campaigns of liberals and German nationalists: see his ‘Metternich Studies since 1925’, The Journal of Modern History 33 (1961), 240. By the same token, Schroeder also argues that the revisionist nature of Heinrich Ritter von Srbik’s colossal three-volume biography, Metternich. Der Staatsmann und das Mensch (Munich, 1925–54) found support among scholars of neoconservative political inclinations.
67 The scholarly literature reconsidering the relationship between Verdi and the Risorgimento is now vast. Among the first studies in this direction is Pauls, Birgit, Giuseppe Verdi und das Risorgimento: Ein politischer Mythos im Prozess der Nationenbildung (Berlin, 1996)Google Scholar. Central to ongoing discussions on this matter are Parker, Roger, ‘Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati’: The Verdian Patriotic Chorus in the 1840s (Parma, 1997)Google Scholar and Gossett, Philip, ‘“Edizioni distrutte” and the Significance of Operatic Choruses during the Risorgimento’, in Opera and Society in Italy and France from Monteverdi to Bourdieu, ed. Victoria Johnson, Jane F. Fulcher and Thomas Ertman (Cambridge, 2007), 181–242 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Vella, Both Francesca (‘A Passion for Italy’, Cambridge Opera Journal 23 (2012), 191–200)Google Scholar and Smart, Mary Ann (‘Magical Thinking: Reason and Emotion in Some Recent Literature on Verdi and Politics’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 17 (2012), 437–447)Google Scholar provide an overview of recent literature on this issue.
68 Rehding discusses the aesthetic qualities associated with musical monumentality in terms of their magnitude and opulence – two features that can be traced in the Act III Finale of Ernani. As Francesca Vella notices, however, these features do not exclude the possibility that musical monuments can be ‘constructed’ through other stylistic means: see her ‘Verdi’s Don Carlo as Monument’, Cambridge Opera Journal 25 (2013), 92–3.