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.