Back in the early eighteenth century opera was banned in Rome, evidently as a rather odd thank-you to God from the Pope for an earthquake that had caused no fatalities; which seems to presume that God was supposed not to like opera. Smart music-loving cardinals such as Pietro Ottoboni cheated the ban by employing composers in-house and staging their works at their palaces – sometimes even with women singing, another big no.
22 February 2018, The Tablet
Putting faith into opera
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