Economia di un disastro. Gestione dei teatri prima e dopo il terremoto di Lisbona (1755)

Abstract

The article reconstructs the substantial financial investments made by King Joseph I to implement a theatrical policy that would have placed Lisbon among the most sought-after international venues for singers, musicians, and actors. Between 1752 and 1755, the King of Portugal commissioned the construction of at least four theatres, engaging companies of artists from Italy as well as internationally renowned singers and actors. The earthquake of 1° November 1755 destroyed both theatres built within the main royal palace located in the Ribeira district of Lisbon. Both the wooden theatre constructed in the summer of 1752 and the grand theatre inaugurated in the spring of 1755 were reduced to rubble, along with the equipment, stage sets, and all apparatus necessary for staging performances. The article then considers the forced dismissal process of the companies and artists and the different strategies employed to find new professional opportunities. While in most cases the artists chose or were forced to leave the country, some redirected their skills to meet the new demands created by the emergency. The Bolognese training of the stage designers and theatre architects Giovan Carlo Sicinio Bibiena and Giacomo Azzolini enabled them to devote themselves to architecture, respectively in Lisbon and Coimbra. In the early years of Lisbon’s reconstruction, the unfulfilled project of a royal theatre intended for the new Baixa Pombalina district highlights the strength of a theatrical policy which, although diminished compared to the magnificence destroyed by the earthquake, continued to be promoted by the royal family throughout the eighteenth century.