The image of judges in history and culture in light of selected operatic works of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Abstract

Almost from the birth of opera, law has been an inspiration for its creators, in terms of libretto and music, as well as interpretation and reception. With the development of this stage genre and the expansion of the audience, which occurred from the end of the eighteenth century, the image of representatives of the justice system evolved dynamically. This article attempts to characterise judges and the justice system they represent within their historical and ideological contexts, and to present this subject through the lens of selected operatic works from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Using historical and legal analysis, and related multi-level and interdisciplinary methods from musicology and opera studies proposed by, among others, Filippo Annunziata and Giorgio Fabio Colombo, the article examines the image of judges and the judicial apparatus, including trials. The analysis considers selected operatic works in their legal, historical, and cultural contexts, with reference to the main layers of opera: music, libretto, interpretation, and reception. Analysing serious, semiseria, and comic operas, such as Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Salieri’s L’Axur re d’Ormuz, Mayr’s L’amore coniugale, Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Pacini’s L’ultimo giorno di Pompei, Kuhlau’s Elverhøj, Bellini’s La straniera, Donizetti’s Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal, Auber’s La Muette de Portici, Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, Halévy’s La Juive, Wagner’s Lohengrin, Verdi’s Aida, Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, and Puccini’s Tosca, the article identifies changes in the image of judges and law depending on the historical and cultural period, and argues that a diverse image of the justice system, often though not exclusively drawing on stereotypical ideas about the law and its representatives, depends on the historical and cultural period of the operas.