Time management at Turin's Teatro Regio: Galuppi's La clemenza di Tito and its alterations, 1759

Abstract

Margaret R.Butler Time management at Turin’s Teatro Regio: Galuppi’s La clemenza di Tito and its alterations, 1759Hitherto unexplored materials surrounding Baldassare Galuppi’s 1759 setting of Pietro Metastasio’s La clemenza diTito for Turin’s Teatro Regio shed new light on the work and how the theatrical administration’s priorities influenced its performance. Three manuscript tables tipped into the back of a copy of the printed libretto contain precise durations of every portion of the opera as well as the performance’s total running time. Markings in the tables and the libretto indicate cuts in many of the arias. This study considers the evidence in the tables together with that of other sources including the libretto text, manuscript scores, administrative documents and contemporary reports. It contextualizes the sources within Turin’s operatic culture, yielding a clearer picture of the opera as it was likely performed and considering the implications of this view for 18th-century operatic production and performance practices more broadly. It demonstrates the decisive role a theatre’s administration and production staff could play in shaping an 18th-century opera’s form, character and performance.