LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to develop awareness of the central questions of musical theatre in its historical development in the modern and contemporary period, giving students the necessary theoretical instruments for a critical evaluation of the interaction between music and theatre in the broader sense of the term.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course students will be able to competently interpret the musical theatre phenomena studied, recognising the contribution of different components that compose the aesthetic object of extreme complexity and the meaning that each component brings to the overall dialectic. 

TEACHING METHODS

Lezioni frontali, con impiego sistematico di supporti audio/video: CD, DVD, web.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Neapolitan workshop: a century of theatre for music (1699-1816)

The course will study the breeding ground of European musical theatre that was first Spanish Naples and then Austrian, Bourbon and finally French Naples. Exposed by the philosophes as the natural home of music, proclaimed in 1739 by Charles de Brosses «la capitale du monde musicien», during the whole 18th century the city of Partenope enjoyed undisputed international prestige. This was based on the wealth and variety of vast private and public, religious and social musical activity fed by excellent training institutions such as the four Academies of Music and the continuous renewal of generations of composers and musicians who, with their sought-after title of “Neapolitan choirmaster”, colonised Europe from Lisbon to Saint Petersburg. In a similar context musical theatre encountered an exceptional flourishing both in relation to the excellent aesthetics and the wealth of permanent experimentation that led to production that had a decisive influence on a continental scale in an impressive variety of genres: drama for music, interludes, musical comedy, comic opera, serenades. From this production, an overview of the pathway from 1699 from Stampiglia and Bononcini’s Partenope will be sketched, a glorification of the city through the myth of the founding nymph to 1816, a year that saw the restoration of the Bourbons, two Rossini titles for Naples, Othello and La Gazzetta that laid the path to 19th century melodrama, at the same time paying homage to typical Neapolitan tradition. An exceptional guide will take us on this path replete with composers, librettists and actors of the first order: Giuseppe Sigismondo whose musical apotheosis in the Kingdom of Naples which was drafted in 1820/21 has just been printed nearly two centuries later.

TEACHING METHODS

Lectures with systematic use of audiovisual support: CD, DVD, web.