"Todos los extranjeros admiraron la fiesta"Farinelli, la música y la red política del Marqués de la Ensenada

Resumo

Carlo Broschi Farinelli, the most famous castrato singer in the History of Music, lived for more than twenty year in the Madrid court, arriving there in 1737 in coincidence with the rise of the power of the Marquis de la Ensenada. This article explores and discusses their relationship, revising well known sources as well as considering unknown ones. The starting point is a historiographical criticism in order to assess the scarce recption of the studies on Ensenada in Farinelli’s scholarship. Then, the article shows, on a documentary basis the interest on music of several Ensenada’s acquaintances: Montealegre, Huéscar, Ardore and Esquilache. In the following part, the court feasts promoted by Ensenada and Farinelli are studied, as well as the references to the Minister in the letters from Metastasio and Huéscar, with emphasis in the first operas and serenatas produced under the reign of Ferdinand VI. Unpublished sources are used to shed light on the process of fabrication and propaganda sourrounding these productions. Finally, the period following Ensenada’s fall is considered using the letters from Farinelli to the Spanish ambasador in Vienna. These and other sources are presented in the appendix that includes a translation into Spanish of the references to Ensenada in the Farinelli-Metastasio correspondence.