Politics at the Opera

In Brussels, in August 1830, the revolution began at the opera. It was William I’s birthday and the fifteenth anniversary of this Dutch king’s rule over Belgium, a spoil of the Congress of Vienna. The evening was to crown three days of celebration—or so it was intended.

Surely the choice of opera was unwise. Auber’s La Muette de Portici tells of the 1647 uprising of Neapolitans, especially the lower classes, against the Spanish (who had been previous rulers o...