Opera as a Popular Genre? Verdi Parodies at the San Carlino Theatre in Naples.

This study addresses the central question: can opera become a truly popular genre? Focusing on the nineteenth-century Neapolitan context, it examines the role of operatic parodies, particularly those staged at the San Carlino Theatre, in the vernacularisation and popular dissemination of opera, with a special emphasis on the works of Giuseppe Verdi. Originally conceived for elite audiences within institutional settings such as the Teatro San Carlo, operas like Il Trovatore and Aida were reimagined in comic, dialectal, and prose forms by author-performers such as Pasquale Altavilla and Antonio Petito. Although structurally and linguistically simplified, these parodies offered accessible reinterpretations that integrated opera into the everyday life of lower and middle-class audiences. Far from ridiculing the original compositions, they often expressed admiration for Verdi’s music while satirizing the cultural rituals and bourgeois aspirations surrounding operatic consumption. Drawing on major contemporary theories of parody, the study frames these rewritings not as oppositional critiques but as forms of reverential parody that simultaneously democratize and celebrate the operatic tradition. In doing so, it highlights how parody functioned as a key cultural mechanism in the transformation of opera from an elite spectacle to popular entertainment.