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There are many ways of telling the story of Napoli. You can tell it through its ruins, through the temples of Paestum, through Pompeii and Herculaneum, through castles and churches, through the sea that connects it to the rest of the Mediterranean for thousands of years. You can tell it through its food, its streets, its fishermen, its saints, its superstitions and its extraordinary relationship with death.
Or you can listen.
Because Napoli has always been a city that sings. After following the sound of the tammurriata and the tarantella through the streets and popular traditions of Campania, it seems almost inevitable to enter another world of Neapolitan music: the theatre, the conservatories and the extraordinary musical culture that made Napoli one of Europe's great musical capitals during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
And at the heart of that story stands the Teatro di San Carlo.
On 4 November 1737, Napoli witnessed the inauguration of a new theatre. It was built by order of Charles of Bourbon, King of Napoli, who wanted his capital to possess a theatre that would reflect the importance and magnificence of his kingdom. The building was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano and Angelo Carasale and was constructed with extraordinary speed. The opening performance was Achille in Sciro, based on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio and set to music by Domenico Sarro. The date was not accidental. It was the feast day of the king's patron saint.
From its very beginning, therefore, the San Carlo was much more than a place where music was performed. It was a statement. Napoli was announcing itself. The theatre stood next to the Royal Palace and became a symbol of Bourbon power, but also of something much greater: the extraordinary musical culture that had been developing in Napoli for generations.
The Teatro di San Carlo is still active today and is officially recognised as the oldest continuously operating opera house in the world. Its original horseshoe-shaped auditorium became a model for the development of the Italian theatre tradition. And yet, strangely enough, the story of Neapolitan music does not really begin inside this magnificent theatre. It begins elsewhere.
Long before the San Carlo opened its doors, Napoli had already become an extraordinary centre for musical education. The city possessed several conservatories whose origins were connected to charitable and religious institutions. Over time, they became places where young musicians could receive an exceptionally rigorous education. This was one of the secrets of Napoli' musical success. Music was not simply something that talented people happened to do. It was an education, an occupation and an institution. The Neapolitan musical tradition produced generations of composers, singers and instrumentalists who would eventually travel throughout Europe.
Among the composers associated with the so-called Neapolitan School were Alessandro Scarlatti, Francesco Durante, Leonardo Leo, Francesco Feo, Leonardo Vinci, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Niccolò Jommelli, Tommaso Traetta, Niccolò Piccinni, Giovanni Paisiello and Domenico Cimarosa.
The expression "Neapolitan School" can be somewhat misleading if understood too literally: these composers did not all share a single style, nor did they necessarily belong to a formal institution called a school. What they shared was something perhaps more interesting: Napoli had become an exceptionally fertile environment for musical education, composition and performance. And the influence of these musicians travelled far beyond Napoli.
Composers educated in the Neapolitan tradition worked in courts and theatres throughout Italy and Europe. The city exported not only music but also musical education, theatrical conventions and a new way of thinking about opera. Napoli had become a musical laboratory.
Opera in the eighteenth century could be magnificent, serious and spectacular. Opera seria gave audiences kings, emperors, heroes, gods, conflicts, honour, sacrifice and impossible love. But another kind of opera was beginning to emerge. It was smaller. Funnier. More human. And much closer to everyday life. This was opera buffa.
Its characters were no longer necessarily kings and mythological heroes. They could be servants. Old men. Young lovers. Jealous husbands. Clever women. People trying to marry for money. People trying to escape marriages. People lying to one another. People falling in love. In other words: people.
The emergence of comic opera was part of a much wider transformation in European theatre, but Napoli played an exceptionally important role in its development. And perhaps this should not surprise us. Because Napoli had always possessed an extraordinary theatrical instinct. The city itself was theatre. Its streets were theatre. Its markets were theatre. Its religious festivals were theatre. Its processions were theatre. Its music was theatre. And its people had an extraordinary ability to transform everyday life into performance. The distance between the street and the stage was therefore not as great as it might appear.
One of the most fascinating figures in this story is Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. He died tragically young, at only twenty-six, but his musical influence was enormous. In 1733, he composed 'La serva padrona' -'The Maid as Mistress'- originally performed as an intermezzo between the acts of his opera Il prigionier superbo. Its story was wonderfully simple. Uberto, an elderly and rather grumpy bachelor, wants to marry. His clever servant Serpina gradually manipulates the situation until she manages to transform herself from servant into mistress. It is funny. It is human. It is theatrical. And it was revolutionary in its own way. The characters did not need to be gods or heroes. The drama could come from ordinary human relationships.
Pergolesi's music helped establish 'La serva padrona' as one of the emblematic works of the emerging comic tradition. Its enormous popularity later contributed to the famous 'Querelle des Bouffons' in Paris, when French intellectuals fiercely debated the relative merits of Italian comic opera and French operatic tradition. A little Neapolitan comedy had suddenly become a European cultural argument. That is quite a journey for a servant girl.
What fascinates me most about the Neapolitan musical tradition is not simply its importance in the history of opera. It is the connection between high culture and popular culture. A few days ago I was writing about the tammurriata and the tarantella. The tammurriata belongs to another world: village festivals, religious celebrations, the sound of the tammorra, dancing, singing and collective memory. And yet both traditions emerge from the same cultural landscape. One takes place in the street. The other takes place inside a theatre. One may be accompanied by a great drum. The other by an orchestra. One is transmitted through community and tradition. The other through conservatories, scores and professional musicians. But both share something fundamental.
Napoli does not separate music from life. Music is part of the city's identity. It accompanies religion. It accompanies love. It accompanies work. It accompanies death. It accompanies celebration. It accompanies heartbreak. It accompanies the sea. It accompanies the streets. And eventually, it enters one of the most magnificent theatres in Europe.
During the eighteenth century, the reputation of Napoli as a musical centre spread throughout Europe. The San Carlo became a destination for composers and singers and a place where a successful premiere could establish an artist's reputation. The theatre also became an important stage for the great tradition of opera seria, not only for comic opera. This is important because the history of the Neapolitan School cannot simply be reduced to opera buffa. The same musical environment contributed to the development and reform of serious opera.
Composers such as Niccolò Jommelli and Tommaso Traetta worked in different European courts and participated in the evolution of opera during the Enlightenment. Later, Paisiello and Cimarosa would become among the most celebrated representatives of comic opera.
The San Carlo therefore became a meeting point. Italian and foreign composers came to Napoli. Great singers performed there. Musical ideas travelled through its stage. And Napoli, once again, connected itself to the rest of Europe through the Mediterranean route of culture.
By the end of the eighteenth century, Neapolitan comic opera had become an international phenomenon. Domenico Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto, premiered in Vienna in 1792, became one of the most successful comic operas of its time. Giovanni Paisiello was equally influential, particularly with 'Il barbiere di Siviglia', composed decades before Rossini's much more famous version. The stories were changing. Opera was becoming increasingly interested in human psychology, social relationships and ensemble interaction. The single magnificent aria was no longer always enough. Duets, trios and ensembles allowed characters to react to one another on stage. Confusion could accumulate. Characters could interrupt each other. The final scenes could become musical chaos. And that chaos was wonderfully theatrical. The music was beginning to sound less like a parade of heroic individuals and more like a society talking to itself. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why opera buffa still feels so alive. It understands that human beings are ridiculous. And that love, money, jealousy, vanity and misunderstanding can be much more entertaining than mythology.
There is another curious paradox here. Napoli is a city of extraordinary religious devotion. It is also a city of superstition, irreverence, humour and theatricality. Its relationship with religion has always been intensely emotional and difficult to fit into neat institutional categories. The same city that could pray passionately to San Gennaro could also turn a saint's festival into a spectacular public celebration. The same city that lived surrounded by churches and catacombs could laugh, sing and dance in the street. The same city that took death seriously could make jokes about it. And perhaps opera buffa belongs naturally to this world. Because opera buffa does something very Neapolitan: it refuses to take human beings too seriously. It loves them too much to idealise them.
The San Carlo has survived fires, wars, political revolutions, changes of dynasty and the transformation of Napoli itself. A devastating fire destroyed much of the theatre in 1816. It was rebuilt remarkably quickly, reopening only a few months later. The rebuilding did not end the theatre's importance; the San Carlo continued to occupy a central position in the musical life of Napoli and Europe.
This is another thing I have learned from Campania. The stones remain. The temples remain. The theatres remain. The castles remain. The streets remain. People do not. And perhaps that is why music matters so much. A building can survive centuries. A score can survive centuries. But the person who sang it is gone almost immediately. A voice exists for a few minutes. A performance exists for one evening. And then it disappears. Only the memory remains.
When I think about Napoli, I cannot help seeing a connection between the musicians of the tammurriata, the dancers of the tarantella, the composers of the Neapolitan School and the magnificent stage of San Carlo. They belong to different worlds. But they are part of the same city. The same city that dances in a square can listen to Pergolesi. The same city that sings during a religious procession can fill an opera house. The same city that turns grief into ritual can turn love, jealousy and ridiculous human behaviour into comedy.
Perhaps this is the real story of Neapolitan music. It is not a succession of isolated traditions. It is a river. Sometimes it flows through a village. Sometimes through a church. Sometimes through a street filled with dancers. Sometimes through a conservatory. Sometimes through the orchestra pit of the San Carlo. But it keeps moving. And it keeps singing.
When I began this journey through Napoli, I thought I was writing about monuments. Greek temples. Roman cities. Castles. Churches. Ports. But the further I travel through this city, the more I realise that its greatest monument may not be made of stone at all. It may be sound. The sound of the sea. The sound of fishermen returning to the harbour. The tammorra. The tarantella. The voices of religious processions. The laughter of an opera buffa audience. The orchestra of San Carlo. And, above all, the unmistakable human voice.
For centuries, Napoli has transformed its history into music. From the popular traditions of Campania to the sophisticated compositions of the Neapolitan School, from the comic theatre of Pergolesi, Paisiello and Cimarosa to the magnificent stage of San Carlo, the city has repeatedly found the same answer to the passing of time: sing.
Because buildings may remain standing for centuries. Kingdoms disappear. Dynasties disappear. People disappear. But somewhere, someone is still singing the melody.
And perhaps that is why Napoli feels immortal.
Napoli did not merely produce music. Napoli learned to live through it.
More information: Teatro San Carlo
è affatto congeniale per me.
That mixture of joy and tenderness in Il matrimonio
is completely congenial to me.
Stendhal, on Domenico Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto
