19th Century Italian Opera

Nineteenth-century prima donnas were continually on the move, and making a living as a famous diva meant travelling as far and as wide as possible under conditions that were not always terribly pleasant. Pauline Viardot’s life was no exception to this rule. Her journeys have been amply documented by her biographers with the intriguing exception of one of the most important trips she took in the later years of her operatic career: during the months straddling 1857 and 1858, Viardot visited Warsaw and various cities in Germany, where she appeared in opera productions as well as in public and private concerts. While she was away, she wrote to her husband Louis every day -- long, chatty letters that often filled numerous pages. Throughout each of these communications she wove detailed descriptions about the music she sang, the people she encountered, and the money she earned. These letters, in other words, provide a clear and nearly unprecedented picture of the life of a nineteenth-century virtuosa on the road. In this article, the focus is on the letters that she wrote to Louis over the course of this tour. As John Rosselli has demonstrated in the person of the nineteenth-century impresario, the complexities of life on the road were manifold, generating a heightened level of uncertainty and anxiety that seeped into every interaction with other artists traversing the same rocky terrain. The letters Viardot wrote during her trip to Warsaw and Germany provide a vivid and unusually detailed picture of these vagaries from a diva’s perspective.

In 1850, after five years of planning, Liszt began composing music for his Italian opera, _Sardanapalo_, after Byron. It was central to his ambition to attain status as a European composer, but he abandoned the project halfway through. La Mara (1911), Humphrey Searle (1954) and others declared the manuscript fragmentary and partially illegible, but in 2016 this verdict was categorically overturned when work began on an edition of what Liszt notated: almost the entirety of Act 1. This article draws on an array of sources – published and unpublished – significantly to update our knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Liszt’s composition and abandonment of _Sardanapalo_. In light of his inconsistently Italianate music and idiosyncratic treatment of the libretto, it also reinterprets Liszt’s mid-century aesthetic orientation, as a confidant of Wagner and would-be pillar of Franz Brendel’s future neudeutsche Schule. By contextualizing key aspects of the uncovered musical score and libretto within Liszt’s mid-century writings on aesthetics, it posits character, declamatory melody and the visuality of the stage as (initially) critical criteria in the communication of a literary narrative, and suggests that Liszt’s impulse towards symphonic poetry may first have been kindled within the aesthetic potential of opera.

The problems of the Odessa opera enterprise activity being managed by the Riznich family and their partners in 1831-1838 are investigated. On the basis of the involved regional archival sources, the local and the Italian press the basic directions of the Italian opera entrepreneur's activity (economic, organizational and financial) are analysed. The communications of Odessa enterprise with Italian theatrical agencies and also with the municipal and regional power are emphasized. The entrepreneur's qualified activity «at home» and abroad promoted the successful solution of many problems arisen in opera and scenic practice and in the theatre everyday life. Keywords: the Italian opera enterprise, the Odessa Italian opera troupe, the Italian opera theatre, the theatrical agency. For the majority of classical vocal art connoisseurs opera is just the activity which take place on the stage of the Opera house only. The situation hasn't changed much since the first quarter of the 19 th century when the audience was less interested in the process of theatrical engagement, transfer of the actors and musicians and arrangement of their conditions of life as well as the renovation of the theatre hall, façade and other premises of the theatre and so on: these problems were not attractive for the music-theatre experts who showed preference for analyzing performances. But the success of Italian opera and financial stability of the theatrical enterprise relied much on how effectively the entrepreneur solved these problems.

Rossini’s operas often feature a situation in which a father opposes his
daughter’s love for a man, since he has destined her for marriage to
another man on account of financial and/or political convenience. The
essay investigates this situation in the context of the family, marriage,
and intergenerational relationships at the time, which have received
sustained historical scrutiny.
Ancien régime society had promoted an extended patrilinear family
based on the principle of paternal authority, but in the second half of
the eighteenth century this model was questioned by a new attention
to an individual’s right to happiness. The insistence on these themes
in early nineteenth-century serious opera is symptomatic of concerns
raised by the crisis of traditional family institutions inscribed in reformist
and revolutionary laws, which the Restoration was trying to
counter – with little success. Rossini’s operas stage these preoccupations
by promoting models of aristocratic self-control, in opposition to
the immediate expression of feeling encouraged by Enlightenment and
Romantic culture.

Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896), one of the most famous opera composers of Italian Opera from the Americas during his lifetime, is still largely unknown outside his home country of Brazil. Gomes lived and trained in Milan for several years, starting in 1864, with four of his operas premiered at La Scala. His output spans the heights and collapse of the Brazilian empire, and the rise of the so-called Italian Risorgimento. Gomes’s operas are here situated during these transitional times in both Brazil and Italy. The focus of this study is Gomes's opera Lo schiavo (The Slave), premiered in Rio de Janeiro in 1889, and it reevaluates Gomes’s artistic achievements within Italian musical and dramatic traditions. Lo schiavo is shown to be not only an exemplar of contemporary musical practices; it points forward to verismo operas such as Cavalleria rusticana (1890) by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945), Pagliacci (1892) by Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857/58-1919), and La bohème (1896) by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). At the same time, Lo schiavo displays Brazilian influences, broadening our cultural understanding of Gomes’s creative output. An abolitionist and multiracial individual, Gomes aimed in Lo schiavo to celebrate the abolition of slavery in Brazil, declared one year before the premiere of his opera. On account of complex political developments in the country and because of references to the old regime in the libretto, the opera was not performed in Brazil in the following years, while copyright issues prevented Lo schiavo from being performed in Italy. Not only the opera reflects the subject of slavery during and before the time it was composed, Lo schiavo's subject also remains relevant today, as issues concerning racial inequality and conflict in both Brazil and the United States continue to be observed. In the four main chapters of this study, I situate Lo schiavo in Gomes's life and work, analyze key musical and dramatic features of the opera in the context of then current Italian opera traditions and other national influences, and finally explore aspects of the opera that are distinctively Brazilian. With this project I aim to stimulate a revival of interest in Gomes's music outside of Brazil and to promote reconsideration of Lo schiavo, not only for its musical riches but also for its historical lens on social issues of ongoing importance.

The earliest known aria in Greek was heard in Corfu in January 1827, was composed by Nikolaos Halikiopoulos Mantzaros and -predictably enough- was entitled Aria Greca. It was performed by an Italian singer during her beneficial night and its characteristic was that in its score the Greek verses were written with letters of the Latin alphabet, in order to facilitate the soloist. Until recently it was believed that the aforementioned composition was a unicum and that the absence of professional Greek-speaking singers (especially those of the “fair sex”) was a factor that prevented the composition of vocal works of the operatic genre in Greek language. Nonetheless, the last few years research revealed several references to arias and other brief works of operatic character “in Greek idiom”, both original and translations of standard repertory works. Most of these compositions were once more performed during beneficial performances or charity galas. The paper will attempt to investigate the archival references and the works themselves (were available), will raise some questions regarding the practical use of such compositions from the Italian singers perspective, and will commend on the need for works related to the operatic genre in Greek in the Ionian theatres of the British Administration especially in a period, during which even the slightest reference to the Greek language was considered an emblem of national (self)determination.

En 1920, faltando un año para las celebraciones del Centenario de Independencia, acontece una situación particular en la historia de la cultura de la capital del Perú. Por primera vez se presentan dos compañías de ópera consecutivamente, por lo que se producen seis meses ininterrumpidos de canto lírico. A este hecho, se sucede también la inauguración del Teatro Forero y la representación de la ópera nacional Ollanta, a casi cumplirse un año del segundo gobierno de Augusto Leguía, dentro de un periodo conocido como “Patria nueva”. Si bien ambas temporadas fueron exitosas, los diarios y revistas de la época instigaron una rivalidad entre las dos empresas que se inició meses antes de su arribo, y continuó hasta el fin de la segunda temporada.
El presente artículo aborda la recepción de estas dos compañías a través de las columnas teatrales en las revistas Hogar y Mundial para ilustrar el lugar que ocupaba la ópera en Lima, reflejando las particularidades de la representación dentro del contexto político-cultural de la capital en el año 1920, pero también poniendo en evidencia dos modos de representar el género lírico que se extendieron durante los inicios del siglo XX a lo largo y ancho de Latinoamérica.

In 1920, almost a year before the centennial celebrations of Independence, a particular situation in the cultural history of the Peruvian capital occurred. Two opera companies arrived one after the other, producing six uninterrupted months of opera. Alongside this event, the Teatro Forero was inaugurated and the national opera Ollanta was staged, after almost a year of Augusto Leguía’s second government known as “Patria nueva”. Even though both opera companies were successful, newspapers and magazines of the time instigated a rivalry between them that started before their arrival, and continued until the end of the second season.
This article explores the reception of these two companies through the detailed readings of the theatre columns published in the magazines Hogar and Mundial to illustrate the place that opera occupied in the city, portraying their particularities within the political and cultural context of Lima in 1920, but also showing two modes of producing opera that extended all along Latin America during the beginning of the twentieth century.

Arnold Jacobshagen: Zur Kategorie des verismo in den Opern Puccinis und seiner Zeitgenossen, in: Puccini-Handbuch, hrsg. von Richard Erkens, Stuttgart/Weimar (Metzler-Verlag) 2017 (Druck in Vorbereitung). Mit der Kategorie des verismo wird traditionell die einer »realistischen« Ästhetik verpflichtete Hauptströmung der italienischen Oper am Ende des 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts in Verbindung gebracht. Die genaue Definition des Begriffs ist in der Forschung allerdings ebenso umstritten wie die Frage, welche Rolle Puccini in diesem Zusammenhang zuerkannt wird. Wenn etwa Ray MacDonald im Untertitel seiner Puccini-Monographie den Komponisten als »König des Verismo« bezeichnet, so vertritt er damit eine exzentrische Position, die in der Puccini-Literatur eher eine Ausnahme bildet. Gewöhnlich wird Pucci-nis Verhältnis zum verismo zwiespältig gesehen, und nicht wenige Autoren haben einige Mü-he darauf verwandt, in dieser Hinsicht eine klare Abgrenzung zwischen Puccini und den »veristischen« Opern einiger seiner italienischen Zeitgenossen vorzunehmen.

The popularity and controversy of Rossini’s Otello in France has previously been linked to two important contexts: it relied on French sources (especially Jean-Francois Ducis’s play of the same name) and arrived at a moment of burgeoning Shakespearemania in France. Yet, a third important context remains unexamined: the opera speaks to issues of race and slavery that were urgently debated at the time in France. I explore these issues through the lens of the Willow Song, which contains a crucial and previously unexplored detail that appears in no other ver-sion of Shakespeare’s play: the song was taught to Desdemona by an enslaved African person, and thus dramatizes the potential for musical and personal rela-tionships between free and enslaved persons. I argue that restoring this forgotten context allows us to understand the ways this work may have spoken to anxieties around race and slavery in Restoration France, as well as how we might attend to these issues in the present.

The article concerns the issue of operas by Puccini in the context of nineteenth-century (romantic and later) concepts and theoretical approaches to the pathos considered as an aesthetic concept. In the first part of the article aforementioned concepts were reconstructed, on the basis of reflection, among others, of Aubin-Louis Millin de Grandmaison, Peter Lichtenthal, and George Harris, including the characteristics of pathos emerging from these theoretical descriptions. In the second part three selected scenes from Tosca and Madama Butterfly were analyzed to investigate the musical means by which composer realizes the features of musical pathos.

Nuova Rivista di Letteratura Italiana XII, 1-2 2009 Edizioni ETS 1. Così in WILLIAM ASHBROOK, Donizetti: la vita, Torino, EDT 1986, p. 66 e ID., Donizetti: le opere, Torino, EDT 1987, p. 306. I due volumi sono la traduzione di Donizetti and his operas, London, Cambridge University Press 1983, a sua volta versione di molto ampliata e riscritta della precedente biografia, Donizetti, London, Cassel 1965. Segnalo, tuttavia, che nella biografia scritta dalla moglie di Romani, EMILIA BRANCA, Felice Romani ed i più riputati maestri di musica del suo tempo, Torino-Firenze-Roma, Ermanno Loescher 1882, p. 218, si legge, forse per un errore di stampa, che l'opera fu rappresentata la prima volta il 12 maggio 1833. 2. Cfr. BRANCA, Felice Romani…, pp. 217-8. Secondo ASHBROOK, Vita…, p. 66, Donizetti avrebbe avuto assai più tempo essendo stato interpellato con almeno dieci settimane di anticipo. A proposito dell'opera, Branca racconta (pp. 225-226) che la celebre romanza del secondo atto Una furtiva lacrima non era che il recupero di una musica da camera precedentemente scritta da Donizetti e inserita contro la volontà di Romani che la trovava fuori contesto e inutile; i dubbi del Romani furono confermati, secondo la moglie, dal fatto che i critici avrebbero trovato il secondo atto «deboluccio», tanto da essere meno applaudito del primo. Sempre nel secondo atto, tuttavia, anche la barcarola del senator Tredenti Io son ricco e tu sei bella, a due voci, cantata da Adina e Dulcamara, riutilizza un motivo già scritto da Donizetti per una poesia di Carlo Porta, la Lettera a Barborin, di cui Branca riporta la prima quartina. Ma in questo caso, e sembra una contraddizione con quanto da lei scritto poco sopra, la barcarola ebbe un tale successo che fu necessario replicarla. 3. BRANCA, Felice Romani…, p. 17. GIAN PAOLO RENELLO INVERSIONI EROICHE NE L'ELISIR D'AMORE I. Introduzione L'elisir d'amore fu rappresentato per la prima volta al Teatro alla Canobbiana di Milano (poi Teatro Lirico) il 12 maggio 1832 1 . Il successo fu immediato e ancora oggi l'opera, o meglio, il melodramma giocoso di Donizetti è presente nei cartelloni dei teatri musicali di tutto il mondo e nei repertori dei massimi artisti. L'aneddotica vuole che questo autentico capolavoro sia stato scritto da Donizetti a tempo di record, 14 giorni per l'esattezza, metà dei quali servirono al librettista, Felice Romani, per adattare in italiano un libretto scritto l'anno precedente da Eugène Scribe intitolato Le philtre e musicato da Daniel Auber 2 .

'Cimbasso'. Term used in Italy since the early 19th century for various bass and double bass lip-reed aerophones.
(1) A type of upright wooden serpent with a large flared bell of brass and between one and four keys. The instrument is peculiar to Italy, differing from the French basson russe in both bell shape and in the arrangement of keys. Its name may be derived from the abbreviated form of ‘corno in basso’ (‘c. in basso’); variants are encountered, such as simbasso, gimbasso, and even gibas. Produced by makers such as Magazari, Piana and Papalini, the wooden cimbasso replaced the serpent as the lowest member of the brass family in about 1816, making its first appearance at La Scala where it was noticed by Spohr. Paganini was perhaps the first composer to adopt the instrument, in his Violin Concerto no.1 in E♭ (1816); he was followed by many Italian composers, including Donizetti, Bellini and Giovani Pacini. It cannot be stated with certainty that these parts were always played on a true cimbasso; where the instrument was unavailable, the part could have been played on a keyed ophicleide, an instrument known to have been in use at this time despite its absence from contemporary Italian scores. The wooden cimbasso remained popular until at least the mid-1830s.
(2) After about 1835 the term, like the term ‘ophicleide’ or ‘oficleide’, tended to be used generically to describe the lowest orchestral brass instruments, which were in a period of fast-developing innovation. The cimbasso required by Verdi in his earliest operas was probably a valved ophicleide, like those being made at the time by Apparuti and Uhlmann. In other orchestras the parts were actually played on euphonium- and tuba-like models, which Italian and Austrian makers usually called 'bombardoni'. This explains why Italian scores of the 1840s often exhibit the eccentric habit of naming a new instrument at the start of each section without making any change to the writing of the part in question (see the Appendix of the Italian version of the present paper).
In 1845 Giuseppe Pelitti (1811–1865) invented the pelittone (patented in Austria in 1847), a contrabass tuba designed to supersede all existing low brass instruments in Italian orchestras; in 1851, he devised the even larger 'generale pelittone'. The fashion for ever-increasing bore size and sound was strongly opposed by Verdi in 1881 when he expressed his dissatisfaction with these huge instruments.
(3) In 1881 G.C. Pelitti (1837–1905) created, at Verdi’s request, a new low brass instrument, the trombone basso Verdi. In spite of its ‘basso’ epithet, it was in fact a contrabass trombone pitched in B♭. Verdi scored for this instrument in his subsequent operas, Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893); thereafter it was quickly adopted by almost all Italian orchestras (Prout, It. trans., 2/1901). It gradually became customary to perform all parts ever conceived for the cimbasso on the trombone basso Verdi, at least until the bass tuba was adopted in Italy during the 1920s. The dissemination of this trombone, which continued in occasional use in Italy into the late 20th century, obscured the history of the cimbasso before 1881 and affected the nature of the recent revival of the instrument: modern models are trombones frequently pitched in F rather than B♭ whereas in fact no instrument called a cimbasso was a trombone before 1881, neither was it ever pitched in F. .

Paperback corrected reprint of the critical edition published in 1996 as part  of "Works of / Le opere di Giuseppe Verdi," Series I, Operas / Opere teatrali, Vol. 19.  The critical commentary for this volume, in English and Italian, is available for free of charge at VerdiEdition.org.

Drawing upon Freudian psychoanalysis, in this article I argue that decapitation in Puccini’s Turandot—that is, the beheading of Turandot’s suitors—functions as an enactment of the male castration complex. As such, it is the site upon which fears of castration on the part of Puccini and the patriarchal society to which he belonged, are played out. The opera illuminates the composer’s latent misogyny—a misogyny which permeated a substantial proportion of the national psyche during the early twentieth century in Italy, as well as many men’s attitudes towards women during this period which saw the aftermath of the rise of the movement for female emancipation. I begin by discussing the theme of decapitation in the opera before examining the archetypal suffering heroine in Puccini’s œuvre. I will then focus on a secondary character from the opera, Liù, Puccini’s partial addition to the dramaturgy: Liù is made to suffer for approximately fourteen minutes during the final act, after which, somewhat sadistically, she is made to commit suicide. Following recent work by feminist musicologist Carolyn Abbate and philosopher Adriana Cavarero, I argue that Liù’s ‘undoing’ in the dramaturgy is surpassed by the ‘envoicing’ of the diva — the female performer — singing her role.

This article gives an overview of the various opera and libretto competitions held by the Milanese publisher Edoardo Sonzogno and their impact on contemporary Italian opera production. The present version is a greatly-expanded revision of the original essay published in "Renaissance and other Studies - Essays presented to Peter M. Brown" (University of Glasgow, 1988).

One of the best loved of Verdi’s operas, Il trovatore has accumulated a considerable critical literature, and yet commentators have rarely enquired into its ‘meaning’, apparently out of the conviction that, precisely because it is a pre-eminently ‘popular’ work, it has no particular ideological, social or indeed human message to convey. One received opinion concerning the opera is that it has an obscure libretto: much of the story refers to a prior event that is not presented on stage. We know that Manrico and the Conte di Luna have clashed, but we don’t know how often, or anything about the dynamic of this confrontation, while Manrico’s true identity remains elusive. However, rather than condemning the intrinsic absurdity of Il Trovatore, we would do better to view this as a structural characteristic. The evocation of facts from the past and the lack of clarity concerning their chronological order allude to a temporal structure typical of traditional narrations in which the distinction between before and after and the relationship of cause and effect are ignored. Personal identity is not a problem for the logic of the emotions, which has no knowledge of the principle of non-contradiction, according to Freud’s theory of the unconscious as developed by Ignacio Matte Blanco. In applying this principle to the theory of literature, Francesco Orlando revealed the formal procedures by which the work of art achieves the reinstatement of contents that have been repressed on account of social censorship, attenuating them and disguising them to make them acceptable. This essay argues that in Il Trovatore poet and musician have given scenic and musical form to an idea that is central in Western, and particularly Romantic, imagination, one which Freud reformulated in his maturity: the presence, in human nature, of an inextricable alliance of the urge to live and the death drive (in mythological terms, of Eros and Thanatos). These two impulses are incarnated in variable proportions in all four protagonists, with a progression that culminates in the absolute predominance of the death wish in Leonora. This thesis is verified by means of an analysis focusing on both the verbal components of the drama’s message – including a comparison with the Spanish play on which the opera is based – and the function of the musical components, in particular the virtuoso vocal writing assigned to Leonora. This interpretation requires a revision of the position usually attributed to Il Trovatore in Verdi’s creative development as a retrospective work. Precisely the systematic use of old-fashioned vocal forms and styles denotes a new phase in the composer’s parabola, as the tenacious adhesion to life and love of the heroes of the youthful operas, even when defeated, gives way to the disillusionment and quest for «peace» and «forgetfulness» that characterise Verdi’s mature and last works.

Self-referential operas began to proliferate in Italy during the 18th and 19th centuries alongside the literate discussion about the dialectical relationship between music and poetry in opera. The self-referential operas under consideration formed the fundamental research field of my doctoral thesis, The Artist as Theatrical Character in Italian Comic Operas of the 18th and 19th Centuries. My research noted the appearance of a significant number of self-referential operas in the history of opera which have important thematic affinities to Benedetto Marcello’s famously sarcastic satire, Il teatro alla moda (Venice, 1720). Most significantly, I compiled the first known catalogue of self-referential operas. This catalogue, which includes 340 titles, provides a full picture of the genre by recording the production period, the popular locations of performances, and the multiple revisions and reproductions of these works. The catalogue also aims to show the impact of self-referential operas in the context of the opera in opera genre.

HrsTORICAL, AESTHETIC AND SocroLOGICAL AsPECTS RENATO Rrcco Virtuosismo violinistico e direzione orchestrale: rapporti storici e scissione dei ruoli GrLLES DEMONET Naissance, épanouissement et subordination du directeur musical CLAUDIA CoLOMBATI La figura del direttore d'orchestra nella dimensione storico-estetica dell'Ottocento . Xl 3 25 6I 83 95 135 153 RUBEN VERNAZZA * D esidero ringraziare Alessandro Di Profto per aver ampiamente discusso con me la materia di questo studio , e Paolo Russo per la lettura critica della prima versione del testo. ' ANONIMO. 'Edoardo Masch eroni', in: La musica popolare, IVII (rs gennaio r8 85), pp. r-2. ' . Cfr. C HUSID , Martin. 'A Letter by the Composer abo ut Giovanna d'Arco and Some R emarks on the Division of Musical Direction in V erdi's Day', in: Peiformance Practice R eview, m / r (primavera 1990), pp. 7-57 (ristampato in : Studi verdiani, n. 7 (1991], pp . 12-56); j ENSEN, Luke. 'The Emergence ofthe Modern Conductor in r9 'h-Century ltalian Opera', in: Peiforman.ce Practice R eview, rv / r (1991 ), pp . 34-63; CAVALLINI,

Arnold Jacobshagen / Elisabeth Schmierer (Hrsg.): Sachlexikon des Musiktheaters. Laaber-Verlag 2016
667 Seiten mit 163 Abbildungen.
Geb. € 78,– (Subskriptionspreis bis 31.10.2016, danach ca. € 88,–)
ISBN 978–3–89007–781–9
Das Musiktheater mit seinen Hauptgattungen Oper, Ballett und Musical ist unter den darstellenden Künsten die beliebteste: Es zieht in Deutschland weitaus mehr Besucher an als das Sprechtheater. Das Sachlexikon des Musiktheaters erschließt erstmals umfassend und alphabetisch die Praxis und Theorie sowie die Gattungen und Schauplätze des Musiktheaters in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Es richtet sich nicht nur an alle Interesssenten und Besucher des Musiktheaters, sondern ist als Kompendium für angehende Sänger, Orchestermusiker, Dirigenten, Dramaturgen oder Regisseure ebenso konzipiert wie für Studierende und Lehrende an Universitäten, Hochschulen und weiterführenden Schulen.
Ein zentrales Augenmerk gilt dabei der Bühnenpraxis: Wie sieht eine Sängerlaufbahn aus? Welche rechtlichen und ökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen sind im Musiktheater zu berücksichtigen? Was geschieht beim Umbau des Bühnenbildes? Wie werden Requisiten, Kostüme und Kulissen hergestellt? Wie teuer ist die Oper wirklich? Welche Medien werden bei Produktionen des Musiktheaters eingesetzt? Ebenso umfassend wird die Theorie des Musiktheaters behandelt, von den musik- und theaterwissenschaftlichen Fachbegriffen bis zur historischen Darstellung aller einschlägigen Gattungen und Genres. Nicht zuletzt werden auch die nationalen und internationalen Theaterzentren in Städteartikeln vorgestellt.
Die breite inhaltliche Ausrichtung spiegelt sich auch im Spektrum der Autorinnen und Autoren: Neben Musik- und Theaterwissenschaftlern haben auch zahlreiche renommierte Experten aus der Bühnenpraxis, darunter Intendanten, Dramaturgen, Künstler, Bühnentechniker und Kulturmanager am Sachlexikon des Musiktheaters mitgewirkt.

Examines the careers and personae of three female singers who became famous in one or more male roles during the 1820s and 1830s as case studies in how expectation for women in male roles changed during the transition from opera seria to Romantic opera.  Critical reception of Giuditta Pasta as Rossini's Tancredi (1813); Rosmunda Pisaroni as Malcolm and Arsace, heroes of Rossini's La donna del lago (1819) and Semiramide (1823); Marietta Brambilla as Maffio Orsini in Donizetti's "Lucrezia Borgia" (1836). Pasta succeeded in creating male characters through her beauty, noble style, & power as a singing actress. Pisaroni was celebrated for combining a strong voice and ugly, un-feminine appearance.  Brambilla created a less heroic, less "masculine" type characterized by charm and youthful androgyny.

The article critically reviews the musicological discussion, arisen since the
mid-1990s, on the relationship between Italian opera, Verdi and the Risorgimento,
in order to highlight the main ideological assumptions of the different
positions. A new reading is proposed, starting not from the ‘external’
historical data but from the dramatic-musical language of the operas;
this is understood as a semiotic system that is a vehicle of historical meaning.
The analysis focuses on five topics recurring in the Verdian oeuvre,
and, to a lesser extent, in other authors: 1) the oath; 2) the old warrior; 3) the
role of women; 4) the intra-family and inter-generational relationships;
5) the potential conflicts between social classes. Finally, it is suggested that
these topics, understandable to anyone living in the social and cultural
context of nineteenth-century Italy, could be interpreted as an invitation to
political action by the narrow elites engaged in the Risorgimento movement.

The purpose of the article is to investigate the history of one of the most successful Italian theatrical enterprises in Odessa city theatre of the first half of the nineteenth century has been investigated in the context of the non-scenic activities of the former while the impresario J. Jullien. Research methodology involves the use of the semiotic method, mosaic reconstructions and cross-disciplinary research that allow us to study musical theatre as a holistic social and cultural space. Scientific novelty. Repertoire innovations, specific form of vocal and performing composition of the troupe have been shown on the basis of publications in the foreign and local Odessa press, the analysis of artists’ performances in most opera representations during three theatrical seasons of the enterprise has been implemented, methods of communication between the artists and the audience in the auditorium have been disclosed. Conclusions. The qualitative changes in the troupe composition is proved to happen during the period of J. Jullien’s enterprise in Odessa Italian opera, also the repertoire has been significantly updated. All of that has contributed to increase the popularity of Italian opera in Odessa and has predetermined the high assessment for its activities in the musical and theatrical groups of Italy. At the same time impresario’s ignoring the need of the key problems of material support of the theatre solution has been shown to result in loss of enterprise reputation.

Si sa che fare del Macbeth un'opera fu da parte di Verdi, nel 1847, un'operazione di grande audacia culturale, che contribuì in maniera decisiva ad allineare l'Italia al movimento europeo di riscoperta di Shakespeare. Negli anni Quaranta egli attuò praticamente quello che il Romanticismo letterario italiano non era riuscito a fare negli anni Dieci e Venti e che in Francia si era realizzato verso il 1830 col teatro di Victor Rugo e dei suoi sodali. Già da tempo vari studiosi hanno sottolineato che, nel comporre il Macbeth, Verdi era consapevole dell'interpretazione che della tragedia aveva dato il maggior critico romantico tedesco, August Wilhelm Schlegel, e qualche anno fa mi è accaduto di osservare che egli potrebbe essersi ispirato a Schlegel non solo per la concezione di singole opere, ma più in generale per la sua poetica teatrale(1), ovvero che la sua concezione del teatro risponde ai requisiti richiesti da Schlegel, secondo cui il poeta drammatico ottiene l' "effetto" sul pubblico "con la chiarezza, con la rapidità, con l'energia", al qual fine "è uopo di strumenti strepitosi d'un ritmo chiaro e robusto, il quale co' suoi raddoppiati impulsi acceleri i battiti del cuore e imprima un rapido movimento alla vita" (2) . Questa definizione è cliiaramente modellata sull'esperienza del teatro di Shakespeare, ma essa può essere utilizzata tale e quale per descrivere il carattere della musica di Verdi, quel carattere che un tempo era sentito come rozzo, e che invece è il segreto della sua inesauribile capacità di conquistare il pubblico di ogni tempo e di ogni paese.

The Italian opera of the city of Odessa as the unique art phenomenon is grateful its more than the centenary history not only to the provincial authorities supporting in every possible way, and also to the experience and the mobility of the local impresarios.
The close acquaintance with the Italian theatrical business, knowledge of the specificity of the opera engagement, and also the presence of their personal contacts in the musical-theatrical environment on the Apennines have formed the advantage of the impresario-the former performers or opera directors.
The Italian troupes have got the notable support of the representatives of the local Italian diaspora in Odessa which members not only were the habitues of the opera performances, but helped to deliver by sea the goods for the theatre by their own ships, worked as a scene painters, belonged to the different attendants (scene workers, tailors, seamstresses, hairdressers, supervisors, watchmen etc.).
The Italian actors arrived usually to Odessa overland, spending on the journey huge material and physical resources, crossing some frontiers in a way. With distribution of the steamship communication the majority of them has chosen this more convenient and faster way passed the channel of Danube or provided moving through the Black sea Passages.
The considerable part of the actors and musicians arrived to Odessa together with their families. Unmarried woman-singers went accompanied by their parents in hope to find in this rich seaport favourable matrimonial party.
The essential part of the enterprise budget was spent for fee of the Italian theatrical agencies located in Milan, Bologna, Cremona and other Italian cities. They not only carried out troupes’ selection, but also created the Odessa enterprise positive image in the local musical-theatrical press. The complementary withdrawals about the Odessa theatre in the Italian periodicals supported constant interest of the musicians’ and singers’ professional guild of Italy best representatives to Odessa as a potential place of their musical talents application.

Il saggio prende spunto dallo scambio epistolare tra Giuseppe Verdi e Arrigo Boito sulla scala musicale alterata che la «Gazzetta Musicale di Milano» aveva pubblicato il 5 agosto 1888, invitando «musicisti e dilettanti di curiosità armoniche» a cimentarsi nella sua armonizzazione; nell’accogliere la sfida, Verdi compose l' "Ave Maria su scala enigmatica armonizzata a quattro voci". Come sottolinea nelle sue lettere a Boito, era la quarta volta che metteva in musica la preghiera mariana, dopo il 'Salve Regina' nel primo atto de "I Lombardi alla prima crociata" (1843), l' "Ave Maria su testo volgarizzato da Dante" per soprano e archi (1879-80) e la preghiera di Desdemona nel quarto atto di "Otello" (1887). Pezzi molto eterogenei, con testi e organici sempre diversi e destinati a pubblici e contesti esecutivi differenti, ma accomunati dalla scelta di un’unica fonte testuale di riferimento.
Seguendo il filo rosso delle "Ave Maria" verdiane, il saggio esplora la complessità del rapporto di Verdi con l’orizzonte del sacro e della spiritualità femminile, mettendola in relazione con la retorica dei generi musicali, la diffusione del culto mariano nello spazio religioso dell’Ottocento, la proliferazione di riferimenti mariani nell’ambito della letteratura e della poesia, il ruolo del cattolicesimo nell’invenzione della Nazione e il revival del sacro.
L’ultima parte del saggio si concentra sull’analisi comparativa dei pezzi, e in particolare sugli abbozzi che documentano il processo creativo della preghiera di Desdemona, conservati nel Fondo Toscanini della New York Public Library. Confrontando le diverse stesure del Cantabile di Desdemona, si evidenzia come la ricerca di Verdi sia orientata verso un’ideale di purezza e semplicità che viene perseguito attraverso la progressiva epurazione di tutti gli elementi musicali convenzionalmente associati a un’espressività sentimentale, enfatica e melodrammatica.

Life and works of Vincenzo Bellini. This monograph examines all the operas from a literary, musical, and theatrical point of view without neglecting the sacred, chamber, and instrumental output. The composer's life is read in its historical-social and economic context.

The history of one of the most successful seasons of the Italian opera enterprise during 1850-1854 in the Odessa city theatre from the stage of the troupe formation in Italy to the final beneficiary performances of the leading artistes has been investigated. Particular attention has been paid to the study of the repertoire in its connection with the specifics of the vocal and dramatic soloists’ talents, the identification of the theatrical audience behavior patterns and forms of artistes’ communication with Italian opera admirers, as well as to clarifying the circumstances of the present enterprise financial problems.

Part One; Verismo in ltalian Opera: A Historical Perspective, provides an overview of Italian operatic activity between the years 1890 and 1930 inclusive and is subdivided into four chapters which follow a roughly chronological sequence.

Chapter One, Cavalleria and the Preceding Decade, covers the period 1880 to 1890 and describes the fortunes of the two principal music publishers, Ricordi and Sonzogno. The first and second Sonzogno competitions are outlined in detail together with their importance in stimulating interest within the ranks of the younger Italian composers, leading eventually to the appearance of Pietro Mascagni’s pioneering work, Cavalleria rusticana. Contemporary critical reaction to the opera is chronicled and the reasons for its success fully analysed (two interesting precursors, Mariska and Mala Pasqua! are also described).

Chapter Two, Towards a Definition of verismo, shows the extent of the gulf between literary and operatic realism and examines contemporary attitudes to the question. The lack of any artistic manifesto for the movement is attributed to the unwillingness or even inability of its main practitioners (both composers and librettists) to formulate one, despite isolated attempts such as the Pagliacci prologue. Ultimately any definition must take into account the evidence of the libretti themselves together with the influence of contemporary literary trends and the artistic proclivities of individual librettists and the remainder of the chapter examines these factors in some detail, arriving at a final profile of a typical verista opera of the Cavalleria mould to which we may apply the generic term verismo puro.

Chapter Three, Growth and Consolidation: 1890-96, demonstrates the extent to which Sonzogno capitalized on the immense success of Cavalleria and chronicles the methods used to promote verismo puro as a viable operatic commodity. A chronological profile of the principal composers and works of the giovane scuola is accompanied by an account of the Ricordi-Sonzogno rivalry and the chapter concludes with an examination of the various factors which led to a temporary abatement in verismo puro opera production.

Chapter Four, Diversification and Decline: 1897-1920, describes how verismo puro, despite being fragmented into a series of closely allied genres (each of which is examined and commented upon), enjoyed several revivals in the first two decades of the twentieth century, none of which could arrest the downward trend in the fortunes of Casa Sonzogno. The eventual demise of the movement (circa 1918) is therefore due as much to insufficient editorial promotion as to the changing tastes of post-war Italian. audiences.

Part Two, Verismo Puro: A Structural Analysis, outlines in four chapters the basic framework of a typical libretto of the genre. The introduction presents a cross-section of twelve works which will be extensively analysed and commented upon in the ensuing discussion, giving reasons for their choice together with short plot summaries.

Chapter One, Character Patterns, shows how the prevailing ethos of verismo puro can be interpreted in a Durkheimian light and isolates three main character-types: the Rebel, the Traditionalist and the Victim, each of which is examined both individually and collectively within the context of the sample operas. The concept of a "central core" consisting of these three figures is introduced and a model of dramatic development proposed in which a tripartite progression from Characters through Contracts to Conflicts provides the mainspring of the on-stage action (expressed otherwise, the “central core" of Rebel-Traditionalist-Victim is held together by a complex web of contractual obligations which, when broken, form the basis for immediate conflict).

Chapter Two, Contractual Patterns, examines the various kinds of agreements made between the Rebel, Traditionalist and Victim and classifies them under two main headings: Moral and Legal Obligations (these are once again defined in Durkheimian terms). The labels Primary and Secondary are then used to describe the narrative importance of such contractual obligations (broadly speaking Primaries occur on-stage, Secondaries off-stage). Three phases in contract development are isolated: lnitiations, Breaks and Reinforcements, with each permutation (e.g. Primary Contract Reinforcements of the Moral variety) being fully analysed with reference to the sample operas.

Chapter Three, Conflict Patterns, demonstrates how the breaking of contractual obligations eventually leads to acts of violence which both expiate the crime committed and restore social equilibrium. Three types of conflict are described (Mental, Verbal and Physical); these form various Primary and Secondary combinations which are then annotated and documented. One major conclusion arrived at concerns the relative importance of violence in verismo puro, which is shown to have been grossly exaggerated by previous commentators.

Chapter Four, Dramatic Structure, brings together the constituent elements of the genre (namely Characters, Contracts and Conflicts) and shows how these coalesce into one dramatic entity within the libretto. A linear approach is adopted; the sample works are first analysed following the traditional Exposition-Development-Climax model which is further refined by the addition of what are termed Subsidiary Forces (Catalysts, Stabilizers, Divine, Societal / Environmental, Mental and Miscellaneous Forces; these are given either a Positive or Negative polarity depending on whether they decrease or increase tension within the libretto). Each sample opera is now graphically depicted as a series of interactive structural devices whose cumulative dramatic effect can be precisely measured. The outcome of such an analysis is to show a remarkable degree of similarity in both narrative techniques and dramatic intensity between otherwise dissimilar works.

(NB Part Three is currently being revised and will appear in Academia once this revision is completed)

Part Three, Italian Opera Production, 1890-1920: A Statistical Survey contains details of all performed and unperformed Italian operas (i.e. those set to original Italian libretti by both Italian and foreign composers and librettists either staged or completed during the period 1 January 1890 to 31 December 1920 (almost 900 works in all). Data has been tabulated by computer under the following headings (full details of each are to be found in Part Three, together with a more extensive summary of the overall aims of the volume):

Section One: Master Catalogue

Section Two: Composer Catalogue

Section Three: Librettist Catalogue

Section Four: Source Catalogue

Section Five: Genre Catalogue

Section Six: General Chronology

Section Seven: Act Analysis

Section Eight: Statistical Analysis

Two further sections list a general bibliography for the entire thesis together with technical information on the methods used to compile Part Three.

The activity of Italian opera troupes has been investigated in the context of organizational, legal and social status of private theatrical enterprise in the city of Odessa, developing step by step in the direction of artists’ and musicians’ engagement abroad. There  have been identified the ways of formation and personal composition of opera performing troupes . The Italian opera in Odesa is proved to gain quick popularity due to the support of the city administration, the singers’ high professionalism, and carefully selected operatic repertoire. Regular cash grants from the municipality have been proved to be an important factor of the Italian theatrical enterprises economic stability retention. The majority of such cash grants were fixed in the contracts with the impresario. The positive public responses and feedbacks about the Odesa Italian opera in aristocratic circles led to attempts for its new engagement in the metropolitan centres of Russian Empire.

The Odessa Italian opera theatre activity upon the Riznich family and its partners enterprise is investigated: the repertoire formation, specificity of the troupe musical-drama activity and the main performers’ vocal and artistic features of creativity. The special attention is given to the analysis of the actors’ and audience’s mutual relations in the musical-theatrical and socially-cultural communications systems, and also to the Odessa Italian theatre activity perception in memoirs of contemporaries.
Key words: the Odessa Italian theatre, the Italian opera, opera repertoire, theatrical audience, the Italian opera performers.