The Weight of Lightness: Italian Opera and Parody in Congress Vienna

Abstract Recent scholarship at the crossroads of opera and Habsburg studies has emphasised the centrality of Italian opera within the political agenda of the Congress era (1814–22). It was a particularly effective means to project prestige, cosmopolitanism and belonging within a new geopolitical order, as the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia was integrated under the Habsburg Crown. While much attention has been given to performances of Italian opera at the Viennese court theatres, the role of suburban venues has so far been largely neglected. This article aims to demonstrate the ‘weight’ that the so-called ‘light’ genres carried within the cultural life of the capital and across the Habsburg lands. Two parodies written by Adolf Bäuerle for the Theater in der Leopoldstadt in Vienna – Tankredi (1817, music by Wenzel Müller) and Die falsche Prima Donna in Krähwinkel (1818, music by Ignaz Schuster) – serve as case studies for a discussion of the fluidity of genres, operatic voices and audiences, and the role of such singers as Gentile Borgondio, Angelica Catalani and Ignaz Schuster as ‘aural ambassadors’ of the Habsburg cultural project.