Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Editorial Principles 1 EVENINGS AT THE OPERA Opera Seria, Sovereignty, Performance Ritual and Event Magic and Myth Public Opinion Evolutions Crisis and Involution 2 ARIAS: FORM, FEELING, EXCHANGE Ritornello Form as Rhetorical Exchange The Singer as Magus Rubbing into Magic Frame 3 PROGRAMMING NATURE, PARMA, 1759: FIRST CASE STUDY Enter Nature Remaking Viewers "Cruel Phaedra!": Ippolito ed Aricia Pastoral Redemption, or The Old Order Restored Appendix: Decree on Audience Behavior, Parma, October 4, 1749 4 FESTIVITY AND TIME Time and the Calendar Festive Realms / Festive Spaces Unbridling the Holy City Laughter, Ridicule, Critique Nature Revisited Appendix: Edict of Abuses in the Theater, Rome, January 4, 1749 5 ABANDONMENTS IN A THEATER STATE, NAPLES 1764: SECOND CASE STUDY Compounds of Royalty The Sack of the Beggars and the Gift of the King Didone abbandonata: Agonism and Exchange Apocalyptic Endings 6 MYTHS OF SOVEREIGNTY Of Myth and the Mythographer Themistocles, Hero History as Myth Four Sovereigns and Two Heros The Exemplary Prince and the Loyal Son: Artaxerxes and Arbaces The Conquering Lover-King: Alexander the Great A Hapeless Emperor: Hadrian Proud Hero and Imperial Autocrat: Aetius and Valentian III The King Cometh Bataille's Sovereigns: A Postscript on Identification 7 BOURGEOIS THEATRICS, PERUGIA, 1781: THIRD CASE STUDY A Theater for the Middle Class What Class is our Genre? Reworking Artaserse Whether Purses or Persons Toward the Ideology of a Bourgeoisie Appendix: Annibale Mariotti's Speech to the Accademia del Teatro Civico del Verzaro, December 31, 1781 8 MORALS AND MALCONTENTS Dedications to Ladies Conversations and "Femiuomini" Regarding the Senses: Continuity, Accordance, Truth The Family of Opera 9 DEATH OF THE SOVEREIGN, VENICE, 1797: FOURTH CASE STUDY The Death of Time Opera in a Democratic Ascension 16 pratile / June 4 La morte di Mitridate Summer Season: Caesar, Brutus, and Joan of Ark Moralizing the Spectator Epilogue References Index.