The War of Succession and the new dynasty

The outbreak of the War of Spanish Succession in 1702 deeply affected commercial theatre, which found itself subjected to the vicissitudes of the war and even, on occasion, faced complete ruin. In 1711, the withdrawal of the court from Madrid meant disaster for the open-air municipal theatres, and by September of that year there were numerous days in which no profits at all were made. There were also times when ‘no se representó por no haber gente’ (there were no performances because nobody turned up) and others in which the takings were so scarce that the only profit consisted of 2 reales. During the long reign of Philip V, between 1700 and 1746, the primary influence in court theatre and, by extension, in Spanish theatre life, came from Italy rather than France. This preference for Italian theatre could have been due in part to the fact that Philip V's two wives, María Luisa of Savoy and Isabella Farnese, were Italian. However, the king himself shared their taste, and it was his decision, not theirs, to bring a company of commedia dell'arte actors from Italy and install it in Madrid.