THE SERENATA AND THE FESTA TEATRALE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE QUELUZ NATIONAL PALACE, 26–27 JUNE 2015

Communications: Conferences This international colloquium took place at the National Palace of Queluz in Portugal, a summer residence close to both Sintra and Lisbon and built in 1747 by the future King Pedro III, the consort of Queen Maria I. During the second half of the eighteenth century it became the royal family's preferred place for leisure and entertainment, including the performance of several serenatas, operas and other musical works. On the conference's second day, Danielle Lipp (Universität Wien) provided a 'prelude' to a session on the serenata in Lisbon by dedicating her talk to the cultural changes driven by the Archduke Charles's court in Barcelona and the celebrations of the marriage of his sister Maria Anna of Austria with King João V of Portugal in 1709. Regarding the second half of the century, Ricardo Bernardes (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) analysed the musical and dramaturgical structures of serenatas produced during the rule of Queen Maria I (1777-1792) by composers such as Sousa Carvalho and Leal Moreira, arguing that when dealing with historical subjects, these works tended to be conceived as reduced versions of opera seria. [...]art historian Pilar Diez del Corral (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) sketched the history of the theatre sponsored by Cardinal Troiano Acquaviva, Spanish ambassador to the Holy See (1735-1747), in the context of festivities held at the Palazzo di Spagna and the Roman politics of representation.