The cathedral of modern civilisation. The Teatro Real of Madrid and the definition of the respectable new elite, 1850-1895

Opera was a spectacle reserved for the aristocratic elite during the Ancien Régime. However, the liberal revolution and the redefinition of the mechanisms of social class identity that brought with it significantly modified this space. As Théophile Gautier said, opera houses became in the nineteen century “a radiating centre, a sort of worldly cathedral of civilisation” from which to spread progress. At the same time, they constituted a privileged social space for interaction between the old nobility and the new liberal elites. This article studies the Teatro Real of Madrid as one of the most important spaces for the sociability of the Spanish nineteenth-century elites. I aim to show how it contributed to redefining the profiles of the elite, facilitating the encounter between old and new aristocracies. For this purpose, I analyse the confrontation between the different social strata attempting to impose an aesthetic attitude, respectable behaviour, and modern taste inside the opera house. I propose to study this space as a social element that helped to modulate the patterns of distinction of the elites and to disseminate codes of conduct linked to civility.