Search results for " Opera"
showing 10 items of 3606 documents
Usiglio Emilio
2020
Biography of Emilio Usiglio
"Love has a bitter core, Vanessa". Un'aristocratica tragedia di Samuel Barber
2006
Il saggio affronta il problema dell'opera lirica nel quadro della cultura americana del secondo dopoguerra e considerando gli esempi offerti - tra gli altri - da Marc Blitzstein, Leonard Bernstein e Aaron Copland. Inoltre, vengono ricostruiti i percorsi biografici e artistici di Samuel Barber, con particolare riferimento alla genesi, alla drammaturgia e ai caratteri musicali dell'opera "Vanessa" (libretto di Gian Carlo Menotti).
L’intermezzo, Napoli e l’Europa
2018
The essay is an attempt to summarize the most up-to-date knowledge related to the history of the comic intermezzo. Some crucial examples of the Neapolitan scenic tradition are analyzed in order to highlight the progressive emancipation of comic scenes. An examination of the main dramatic and musical characteristics of the genre follows. The last part of the article concerns the European circulation of the Italian creations, with special attention to the famous "querelle des bouffons", which broke out in the mid-eighteenth century Paris following the performance of Giovambattista Pergolesi's "La serva padrona".
Calzabigi e Metastasio: Napoli, Parigi, Vienna e ritorno
2020
The relationship between Ranieri Calzabigi and Pietro Metastasio has been examined several times by historians of music and literature. According to some scholars, Calzabigi’s judgment on his older colleague remained consistent over time, while others have highlighted the profound difference between the ideas expressed in the "Dissertazione [...] su le poesie drammatiche del signor abate Pietro Metastasio" (1755) and those contained in the "Risposta di Santigliano" (1790). This essay retraces the stages of the complex bond between the two authors and, with the help of new observations as well as sources hitherto neglected, demonstrates that Calzabigi was influenced by Metastasio's verses in…
Madrid 1744: Calzabigi, Leo e i festeggiamenti per le nozze dell’Infanta di Spagna con il Delfino di Francia
2019
Sumptuous ceremonies were organized in Madrid in December 1744 to celebrate the marriage of the Infanta of Spain Maria Teresa, daughter of Philippe v and Isabella Farnese, with the Dauphin of France Louis, son of Louis xv and Maria Leszczyńska. Their union was of great political importance, as it reinforced the alliance between the two Bourbon kingdoms during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). Refined musical works were specially composed to solemnize the event: Corselli’s "Achille in Sciro" and Astorga’s "Le deità superate" were offered by the court at the Buen Retiro palace; moreover, two different allegorical serenatas, one by Mele and the other by Leo, were commissioned by …
I viaggi di Orfeo. Musiche e musicisti intorno a Ranieri Calzabigi
2012
Il volume raccoglie (e largamente rielabora) sei saggi dedicati ad altrettanti momenti della vita e dell'attività di Ranieri Calzabigi (1714-1795), figura centralissima della storia operistica settecentesca. In particolare vengono ricostruiti in dettaglio il primo e il secondo soggiorno napoletano (capitoli I e IV), che si collocano agli estremi della parabola esistenziale e professionale del librettista di Gluck. Il secondo capitolo lumeggia il suo coinvolgimento nella genesi e nella metamorfosi dell'«Ifigenia in Tauride» di Coltellini e Traetta per Vienna (1763). Il terzo e il quinto sono invece dedicati a due creazioni specifiche, il componimento drammatico «Comala», intonato da Pietro M…
Elogio del Jommelli
2022
Saverio Mattei (1742-1795) had a multifaceted personality. Born in Calabria but educated in Naples, he devoted himself to law and held important administrative positions. At the same time, he cultivated numerous cultural interests with inexhaustible enthusiasm: he was a translator of biblical psalms, a theorist of classical and modern dramaturgy, an author and reviser of librettos, a correspondent of Pietro Metastasio and the founder of the music library of the Conservatorio della Pietà de’ Turchini. His "Elogio del Jommelli o sia Il progresso della poesia e della musica teatrale" was printed for the first time in 1784 and published again one year later with a few but interesting variants. …
L'ultima stazione della Via Crucis. Dalle fiumane di Elizabeth Smart a "Superflumina" di Salvatore Sciarrino
2017
Introducendo la sua opera in atto Superflumina (2010) - undicesimo dei suoi lavori per il teatro musicale - Salvatore Sciarrino fa esplicito riferimento al romanzo di Elisabeth Smart, "Sulle fiumane della Grand Central Station mi sono seduta e ho pianto" (1945), da cui è nata l'idea del libretto. Come sempre, tuttavia, il compositore rielabora profondamente il testo originario e lo adatta al suo ideale di teatro essenziale e archetipico, traendone nuclei drammaturgici estremamente prosciugati. All'artificio verbale fa poi riscontro l'artificio della scrittura musicale: alla novità della concezione del suono - che ne ha fatto uno dei protagonisti del panorama musicale degli ultimi cinquant'a…
Drama bez heroja i nacije. Trendovi talijanske opere u doba Zajceva Nikole Subica Zrinjskog (Drama without Hero and Nation. Italian Opera and its Tre…
2018
The years after Italian unification (1861) were marked by five factors which determined development of opera. 1) The reaction of young writers and composers, close to «Scapigliatura», against the works of Giuseppe Verdi, who was considered to be the father of old Risorgimento opera with "Nabucco" and "I Lombardi alla prima crociata". 2) The search for the renewal of the drama against the formulas (opera by numbers) from the 1870s onwards under the influence of Wagner’s Musikdrama, thanks to Arrigo Boito and other composers from Milan to Bologna. 3) However, when Ivan Zajc was composing his trilogy, Italian opera was not influenced by patriotic or social features, which was otherwise the cas…
Salvadore Cammarano, Calisto Bassi e «l’orditura del libretto» di Alzira
2023
On August 12, 1845, Alzira, Giuseppe Verdi’s eighth opera, made its debut at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Against the composer’s own expecta-tions, the opera—to a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano based on Vol-taire—proved a failure, getting only about 20 performances. Even subse-quent stagings (13 between 1845 and 1858) met with lukewarm reception. A year after the first performance, on August 17, 1846, Calisto Bassi, an experienced librettist and translator, sent some comments on the libretto and proposals for improvements to the publisher Tito Ricordi. In this con-tribution, I aim to discuss this hitherto unpublished letter as well as to re-flect on the dramaturgy of this opera and the …