entry July
2009
Rossini & Barbaia
The building named Palazzo
Barbaia is one of those that you don’t notice on via Toledo (aka via Roma). The
building, with its straightforward neo-classical
architecture doesn’t stand out compared to others around
it. It is across from the small square known officially as
Piazzetta Duca d’Aosta
and popularly as Piazzetta
Augusteo, site of the main cable-car (opened in
1885; archts: Adolfo Avena, Stanislavo
Sorrentino) and the adjacent Augusteo Theater (built
in 1926-9; archts:
Arnaldo Foschini, Pier Luigi Nervi). That
theater, itself, replaced a smaller theater built by Luigi Vanvitelli within the
Palazzo Tomacelli, demolished to make room for newer
construction. The small square handles the flow of people
from both the cable-car and theater. The Palazzo Barbaia
is also adjacent to the via
Roma entrance of the gigantic Galleria Umberto. All of that is
what you notice in the area; about the only thing that
stands out on the Palazzo Barbaia is the sign in front
that tells you that Rossini lived here, and thereby hangs
one of those stories that you hope is true.
Domenico
Barbaia (also spelled “Barbaja”) (1778-1841) (also
see this link), himself,
was noted as the “prince of impresarios” and even as the
“viceroy of Naples.” He ran the music business in the city
and was liked first by the French (rulers of Naples, under
Murat, for the first decade of the 1800s), who had invited
him to Naples in the first place, and also by King
Ferdinand of Bourbon, who returned after Murat and the French had left.
Barbaja was born in Milan and started out as a waiter in a
coffee shop. They say he invented the cappuccino and was so
successful that he soon owned a string of his own
establishments. He also had the franchise to run the
gambling casino on the premises of La Scala opera house.
The Napoleonic wars (next to the cappuccino, the other great event of
that age) came along, and Barbaia cleaned up selling
munitions. In 1809 the French rulers of Naples offered him
the job of running the San Carlo
theater, which he did until 1824. In 1826, he took
over the management of La
Scala in Milan for a while and then returned to
Naples and the San Carlo until his death.
It is
difficult to overstate Barbaia’s importance in the
history of Italian opera. He was not only behind the young
careers of Rossini (image,
right), Bellini and Donizetti, but he changed the
nature of the music, itself, by turning opera into a
money-making proposition, which is to say that he wanted
to produce opera that people would flock to hear. That
meant changing San Carlo from somewhat the “workshop” for
young graduate composers from the Naples conservatory
intent on cranking out yet another piece of music set to
the mythological opera
seria libretti of Metastasio
to a vehicle for more modern European themes. Barbaia was
energetic in the extreme; he got the young and already
successful Rossini to come to Naples and compose for San
Carlo, and a partial list of Rossini’s operas composed in
Naples gives an indication of the new direction European
opera was taking: Otello,
Moses in Egypt, The Lady of the Lake,
Maometto II.
There is not a classical Greek theme among them. (That
shift away from classical themes would continue,
obviously, through Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi.) Barbaia
was also energetic enough to have the San Carlo theater
rebuilt in less than a year after it burned in 1816. (You
can’t repave the San Carlo parking lot that fast these
days.)
Anyway,
the story that you want to be true is that Barbaia hosted
Rossini in his home on via
Toledo (image, above) when the young composer
first moved to Naples, and that Barbaia locked Rossini in
the house until Rossini finished an opera he had promised
to compose. For a great composer, Rossini was notoriously
attached to secondary things such as women, wine, food,
travel, fishing and whatever else might give him an excuse
to take a few days or months off.
Alexander Dumas (father) in his
1841 book travelogue, il
Corricolo, tells the story, no doubt with some
embellishment, but Rossini also repeats the story1, so it seems to have
taken place in some form or another. The essentials are
these: Rossini arrives in Naples in late 1815 and moves
into Barbaia’s home. The composer promises to write his
first opera for San Carlo “soon.” After five months (!) of
waiting, Barbaia shows up to see how the music writing is
going. It isn’t, says Rossini. He hasn’t started, and he
can’t start today because he is going fishing out in Baia.
Barbaia disappears. Rossini goes to the door a bit later
and finds himself locked in from the outside! His
screaming does little good since even modern amplified
music doesn’t do too well against thick Neapolitan walls
from the 1700s. Barbaia comes back—“You called?” says
the impresario. Rossini demands to be let out. Not until I get an opera,
says Barbaia. Apparently, it worked; a few days later, the
overture to Otello is finished and shortly thereafter the
whole opera is done. (Rossini was known as a fast
composer. He wrote The Barber of Seville
in three weeks.) Somewhat anticlimactically, the opera had
to be premiered at the “other” official theater, il Teatro del Fondo
(still standing and today called the Mercadante Theater) since
San Carlo had just burned down.
Rossini
had his revenge. Barbaia may have taken over San
Carlo, but Rossini took over Spanish soprano Isabella
Colbran, Barbaia’s mistress, and married her in 1822.
notes:
1. in Gioachino Rossini, Lettere e documenti, three volumes ed. by Bruno Cagli and Sergio Ragni: vol. I Urbino 1992, vol. II Urbino 1996, vol. III Urbino 2000.
© 2002 - 2023