Festmusik mit persönlicher Note

Abstract

Abstract Festa teatrali were an established music-theatrical means of celebrating courtly festivities around the middle of the 18th century when Margravine Wilhelmine of Bayreuth began to adopt this form at her court. After a brief description of the general development of the Festa teatrale in the context of courtly festive culture, the successive appropriation and special organisation of the Feste teatrali under the margravine, who herself provided the textual basis for two works, will be discussed. The status of the printed French prose version will be analysed in this context. It is not a translation of the Italian text set to music, as was usual with bilingual printed libretti, but a version that preceded it in the creation process. The article clarifies to what extent this version can claim its own aesthetic value, how it can be categorised in literary genre traditions, and how Wilhelmine von Bayreuth positions herself as an author.