Opera and the Spanish Empire: Genres, Encounters and Translations

Montevideo, Manila, Valparaíso, Havana, Vienna. These were some of the places evoked in the studies, music and reflections presented at this conference organized by Francesco Milella González-Luna (University College Dublin). The title of the event was deliberately broad – as broad as the Spanish Empire itself once was – and, like the empire, the programme was diverse and full of nuance, encompassing very different realities gathered under a label that at times revealed its own artificiality. The notions of ‘empire’ and ‘imperial’ were anything but uniform: in some papers they were approached as political structures, in others as cultural networks or shifting symbolic frameworks. Nor was the concept of ‘opera’ treated as fixed. The presentations embraced a wide range of genres – opera seria, operetta, sainetes, musical and dramatic comedies, tonadillas and, of course, zarzuelas – and highlighted the ways in which these forms circulated and hybridized across the Atlantic world. The conference brought together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic, with participants from several Latin American countries as well as from Europe and North America. Most speakers presented in person, and some participated remotely. Over four days, the sessions explored a range of topics that was broad in both chronology and approach. While the largest share of the papers was related to the nineteenth century, many focused on earlier periods; there was also general consideration of the ways in which cultural legacies from the early-modern period carried on into later times. Víctor Sánchez Sánchez (