Hvar City Theatre Days, Vol. 46 No. 1, 2020.
Original scientific paper
Reconstructing the Hvar Theatre Music Repertoire (17th-19th Century)
Marija Milošević Carić
Abstract
The music nurtured in the earlier past of the first European community theatre, i.e. the Theatre of Hvar – from the time of its establishment in 1612 to its temporary closure in 1888 (due to renovation finished twelve years later) – until today, has remained an entirely unfamiliar aspect of cultural history of the town of Hvar. Illuminating its practice of the time and the role of the public, secular music-making has been severely hindered by the lack of relevant archival sources, primarily of sheet music which would explicitly testify the musical, i.e. music and stage repertoire, that might have been represented to the audience of Hvar and its visitors by the guest Italian musicians and opera companies, as well as the local musicians gathered into vocal and musical ensembles. The musical practice within the theatre of Hvar has so far been represented by merely few, but diverse (newly) discovered archival sources, starting from the list of today lost sheet music publications of secular (and church) music, available in Hvar in the mid-17th century through the annotations made by contemporaries on (music) events in the 18th century, as well as preserved librettos, primarily of 19th century Italian operas, today preserved at the Hvar Heritage Museum. They were used as a foundation for this paper, which is a first attempt at a reconstruction of the musical practice and repertoire of the Hvar theatre within a wider chronological and social and political frame, characterised by the Venetian at first, then briefly French, and finally Austrian rule, mostly as an incentive for further research of this neglected but significant segment of Hvar’s musical and cultural history.
Keywords
music; Hvar; Theatre of Hvar, 17th – 19th century
Hrčak ID:
246503
URI
Publication date:
20.10.2020.
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