Diagonal: An Ibero-American Music Review

Determined to resuscitate its Ópera Italiana, Madrid serendipitously engaged no less a figure than Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870) to direct its inaugural season, in April 1826. As its first celebrity composer in recent memory, he spearheaded important successes that reaffirmed the institution’snecessity and enduring popularity, within weeks. Historians record Ópera Italiana’s adaptation to Spain’s theatres as an imposition of foreign ideals on autochthonous culture. However, deeper analysis of Mercadante’s Iberian sojourn uncovers a seemingly not hegemonic (not to mention less -than- opportunistic) rationale for furnishing new operas during this five-year period. His oft-stylized efforts contrast with his subsequent quest for style-maturity, betraying instead, a penchant for couleur locale and autochthonous subject matter (literary and historical). Thus, I due Figaro (Madrid, 1826) and Don Chisciotte (Cadiz, 1830), demonstrate Mercadante’s characteristic concern for audience appeal, and personal conviction to serve Spain’s theatrical interests. Within this new socio-cultural context, various elements of Spanish musical idiom are deftly employed, to further the composer’s agenda to advance taste-formation by providing innovations to conventional opera with which Spanish audiences would readily identify. Consequently, he occasionally revisited this idiom in other works to the end of his life- long career.

Until now, elusive sources and sporadic interest have prevented the emergence of a cohesive account and assessment of this aspect of Mercadante’s legacy, as being of import to the development of Spain’s national romantic lyric genres. Notwithstanding ambitious and highly publicised efforts leading to the two operas’ revival in recent decades, the continuing absence of both a competent, comprehensive Mercadante biography and history of opera in Spain during this seminal period continue giving rise to much scholarly conjecture and misinterpretation of historical events. Seeking to redress some of these imbalances over several decades of individual research (of which this study forms but a part), we explore the nature of Mercadante’s continued ensuing inclination towards ‘Spanishness’ and establish its rationale. Originally a question of the composer’s professionally motivated objective in incorporating local influences into his work for Spanish audiences, the compositional aspect of skill acquired via his innovations prevails beyond his presence in Spain. An examination of the material he left for the Spanish-character operas and subsequent works, in necessarily selective but salient examples, identify their sources of inspiration. Regarding the national genre question, interpreting available press and musical sources bespeaking these works provides evidence that the contribution of Mercadante was still engaged in Spain long after his ultimate 1831 departure. Regardless of prevailing inconclusive judgments, Mercadante’s hitherto unrecognized influence deserves serious reconsideration. Bysystematically extracting the circumstances of the Iberian career segment and opus from historical obscurity into a new narrative, this study aims to facilitate their restoration to the proper context and reveal implications for further scholarship.