The “Opera of all Operas’” Debut beyond Europe on 20 September 1821 in Rio de Janeiro and its Cultural-Political Context
On 20 September 1821, Da Ponte’s and Mozart’s Don Giovanni was performed for the first time in Brazil, by the “Companhia italiana” at the Real Theatro de São João in Rio de Janeiro; in those days Rio was the capital of the Kingdom of Brazil then united with the Kingdom of Portugal. That evening, the opera was seen and heard for the very first time beyond Europe – five years before the famous first New York performance of 25 May 1826 at the Park Theatre by the Garcia Opera Troupe, with the involvement of Lorenzo da Ponte, the opera’s poet.
Fourteen years prior to the Rio Don Giovanni, on 29 November 1807, the evening before the occupation of Lisbon by Napoleon’s army, the Portuguese Court left for Brazil. On 8 March 1808, Rio de Janeiro became the new capital of the Império Português. This brought about essential changes in the social and cultural infrastructure of the city and in the political framework of the colony.
The city was, for example, enriched with the construction of a new opera house, opened in 1813.
Two years later, the colony (a viceroyalty), as a result of the Vienna Congress enactment from 16 December 1815, was raised to the rank of a kingdom, thus putting it on a par with Portugal. Three months after, on 20 March 1816, at the death of Queen Maria I, the united crowns devolved upon her son the Prince Regent, thenceforth King João VI of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves.
At that period, the King looked for a bride for his 19-year-old eldest son and successor Dom Pedro de Alcântara, and found her in the second daughter of the Austrian Emperor Francis I, the Archduchess Leopoldina who disembarked in Rio de Janeiro on 5 November 1817.
The nuptials were accompanied by an imperial expedition, reputed to be the 19th century’s most remarkable European one to Brazil.
When the Archduchess arrived in Rio, the Salzburg-born composer and pianist Sigismund Neukomm was residing there as a member of King João’s Court. A pupil of both the Haydn brothers (Michael in Salzburg, Joseph in Vienna), he became the music teacher of Dom Pedro and Dona Leopoldina.
On 23 April 1821, four years after the Austrian wedding, the Portuguese Court left Brazil. The King installed his son Dom Pedro Prince Regent who with his wife remained in the country. The following five months prior to the premiere of Don Giovanni were politically turbulent, with mutinies and revolts proving the political manoeuvrability of the 23-year-old new Príncipe regente. On 2 September 1822, not even one year after the premiere, the Council of State, convoked and presided over by Dona Leopoldina, enacted the secession of Brazil from Portugal. On 7 September the news reached Dom Pedro who stayed with his entourage on the Ipiranga River near São Paulo where he proclaimed Brazil’s independence with the legendary Grito de Ipiranga, “Independência ou Morte”.
Thus, the first performance of Don Giovanni in Rio de Janeiro can be seen as an exemplary intersection of cultural, diplomatic, and political transfers between the Old and the New World, to be analysed at the conference in Vienna in September 2022.
THEMATIC KEY ASPECTS
Theatre in Brazil in the 18th and early 19th centuries:
- In what specific ways and on which occasions has “opera” been installed in the Portuguese colony during the 18th century? What were the European models, and how were they remodelled to specific Brazilian performance practices? Did there already exist a “thoroughly sung” opera in the 18th century? What was the role of music in Brazilian plays, and in which ways did Brazilian composers participate in this process?
- What influences did the Court’s presence have on the opera practice in Rio as well as in other Brazilian cities, be it in repertoire, performance style, or the recruitment of singers and musicians?
- What was the international ranking of the musicians before they left Europe for an engagement in Brazil? Among them were the singers Carlotta d’Aunay, Teresa Fascioti, Isabella Ricciolini, Marianna Scaramelli, Juan Lopez Estremero, Pompilio Panizza, Michele Vaccani, and Mariano Pablo Rosquellas; the mandolin player Bartolomeo Bortolazzi; and the dancer Luis Lacombe (Scaramelli and Bortolazzi were also engaged by Viennese theatres before their Rio arrival).
- Did the Court want to glorify its transfer to Brazil – f.e. with the myth of Ulissea and O trionfo da America, just to mention two plays with music by José Mauricio Nunes Garcia?
- Did theatre serve as a public = political space? By what means did the theatre reflect the sensible process of a potential separation from Portugal? Was it mere coincidence that King João’s birthday on 13 March 1822 was celebrated with the musical comedy As tres sultanas (about the domestication of a despotic ruler) and the ballet O desertor frances? What was the political meaning of oriental dramas in the “tropics”, considering that on the day of Dom Pedro’s acclamation as Emperor (12 October 1822) a drama with the title Independencia da Escócia (by Kotzebue?) was given, and on the day of his coronation (1 December 1822) Rossini’s Isabel de Inglaterra?
- How did the three Companies – the Brazilian, the Italian, and the Dancing one – at the Real Theatro São João interact? Did “music” serve as an integrating factor? What does the repertory of plays, operas, and ballets tell us about the time of the Portuguese Court’s presence in Brazil?
- What was the role libretto prints played in the perception of operas? When and where have the first libretti been printed in Brazil? After the arrival of the Portuguese Court in Rio, were libretti edited exclusively for courtly celebrations? What provoked the folhetos de cordel for the audiences of Brazilian theatres?
- How were the Brazilian theatres financed and sustained during the Court’s presence there?
- How was theatre organised after the Declaration of Independence, i.e. during the reign of Dom Pedro I (1822–1831)?
Don Giovanni and the global establishment of the Don Juan theme during the late 18th and early 19th centuries:
- Which political processes preceded and accompanied the Rio premiere of Don Giovanni?
- To what extent can we reconstruct the Rio performance of 1821? Are there sources beyond the Diario di Rio de Janeiro? How did the score find its way from Europe to Rio? What can we say about the singers and their contributions to the opera’s roles?
- Is Mariano Pablo Rosquellas a link to European Don Giovanni productions? Is the libretto of Rosquellas’ Buenos Aires production from 1827 a credible source for reconstructing the Rio performance? How is the Buenos Aires libretto related to the opera’s libretto prints of the early 19th century, especially the Italian ones?
- Are the texts of the Don Juan plays in Brazil identical with the Portuguese Comédia nova intitulada O Convidado de Pedra ou Don João Tenório o Dissoluto written in the 1760s in Lisbon by an unknown author, passed down by diverse manuscript copies submitted to the Portuguese censorship, and first published in Lisbon in 1785? The print is an adaption of Molière’s Dom Juan ou Le festin de pierre with a happy ending with the renewed union between D. João and D. Elvira his “espoza”. Where has this play been performed in Portugal and in Brazil during the 18th and 19th centuries? Do we know about other Don Juan versions in Portuguese language?
- In English versions, and after North America (Philadelphia 1792, pantomime), Don Juan came to Africa (Cape Town 1811, pantomime), Asia (Calcutta 1821, Byron`s Don Juan), and Australia (Sidney 1833, musical extravaganza). How can we reconstruct these global transfers?
Concert life in Brazil in the early 19th century:
- What do we know about the concerts given in Brazil in the early 19th century – from chamber music to the performance of orchestral works?
- How was the concert music written in Brazil distributed? Who produced, and who purchased the scores? Who were the musicians interpreting it?
- What have been the concert venues – from the Court to salons of the Portuguese and Brazilian gentry?
- What do we know about the reception of this music?
The composer Sigismund Neukomm in Brazil (1816–1821):
- What was Neukomm’s influence on music composed in Brazil? Is it legitimate to call him “the Father of the Brazilian Chamber music”?
- How did Neukomm modify his style in sacral music in light of the locally prevailing taste? In what ways does his mass written in Rio for the Austrian Emperor differ from the sacral music conceived for the Portuguese Court?
- Did his Rio pieces for orchestra contribute to the local theatrical culture?
- What exactly was his input to the Brazilian Haydn book of 1820?
- How is Neukomm’s role in the history of Brazilian music seen by Latin American Musicology?
The Imperial Brazil Expedition:
- What were the scientific, economic, political, and cultural aims of this expedition? How was it organised? What had the artists’ role been?
- What were the results? In which ways were they communicated? How was the interaction with the scientific community in Europe?
- How was the Vienna Brasilianum organised and structured, and how it was received by the public?
Dona Leopoldina and Dom Pedro:
- What was Leopoldina’s educational background and progress in Vienna?
- Which political calculations were involved in the marriage between Dom Pedro and the Archduchess?
- In which public forms, notably theatrical and musical ones, was this union celebrated in Austria, in Portugal and in Brazil?
- What do we know about Leopoldina’s impact on the cultural life of Brazil?
- How has her political influence been understood in the course of historiography, and how can it be characterized according to current approaches?
- Dom Pedro, who shared his wife’s love of music, is known as the composer of the Hino de Independência (1822). He wrote many other works, among them a Marcha imperial, an Abertura para a Independência do Brasil, the Hino da Maçonaria (1822), the Hino da Carta (1834) which served as the Portuguese anthem from 1834 to 1910, a Credo, various Te Deum, and a Mass.
- To which compositional models did he refer?
- Which role did these works play in his political staging?
- What do we know about the reception of his works in Europe?
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We invite paper proposals of maximum 500 words that address the above-mentioned topics, along with a short biography or academic CV, by 15 June 2022 to this Email address:
don-juan-in-rio@donjuanarchiv.at
Scholars interested in presenting a paper but unable to travel to Vienna for the conference date will be given an opportunity to present their papers via Zoom.