‘Che il pubblico non venga defraudato degli spettacoli ad esso promessi’ : The Venetian Premiere of La traviata and Austria’s Imperial Administration in 1853

Abstract

Historical myth (rather than scholarship) has it that the Austrians did everything in their power to make lovers of opera in the Habsburgs’ Italian provinces feel miserable, and that works by Giuseppe Verdi in particular were viewed with a persistent deal of suspicion. An image of ruthless censors, armed officers in the stalls and police spies in the corridors comes to mind. In the case of opera in Habsburg Venice, this idea was fostered by a tradition of politically motivated historiography that tended to justify Italians’ struggle for independence with the alleged despotism of Austrian rule in the region, closely linked to the image of the Empire as a ‘prison of nationalities’.