scholarly journals Opera for the ‘country lout’: Italian opera, national identity and the middlebrow in interwar Britain

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Alexandra Wilson
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Italian Opera ◽  
Interwar Britain

THE ITALIAN MENACE: OPERA BUFFA IN REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL E. MCCLELLAN
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Italian Opera ◽  
Opera Buffa ◽  
Comedie Italienne

The Parisian premiere of Paisiello’s Nina, o sia la pazza d’amore on 3 September 1791 triggered a hostile reaction from French librettists and composers. Since the opéra comique on which Paisiello had based his opera remained in the active repertory of the Comédie-Italienne, Nina was considered an infringement of copyright legislation recently passed by the National Assembly. In the controversy that followed, matters involving intellectual property and opera aesthetics were linked to revolutionary struggle. At a time when clarity and transparency were identified as republican virtues in France, the carefully wrought balance between music and text that was associated with French operatic genres acquired new political resonance. Simultaneously, the perceived emphasis on sensual musical pleasure – at the expense of a coherent libretto – in Italian operas like Nina was eyed with suspicion, deemed a potential symptom of counterrevolution. In this way, the relative merits of French and Italian opera were superimposed on issues of revolution, reaction and national identity.

Comedy between Two Revolutions: Opera Buffa and the Risorgimento, 1831-1848

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Izzo
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
National Character ◽  
Giuseppe Verdi ◽  
The Political ◽  
Italian History ◽  
Italian Opera ◽  
Opera Buffa ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Scene

For more than a century discussions of the relationship between the operatic stage and the socio-political scene of the Risorgimento have relied almost exclusively on serious operas (particularly those of Giuseppe Verdi) and especially on the period after 1848. Roger Parker's recent revision of Verdi's ostensibly exclusive role as "Bard of the Risorgimento" provides an opportunity to reassess the politics of Italian opera during this period, considering also other composers and works. The purpose of this study is to discuss the interaction between opera and the Risorgimento in a group of comic works composed between the revolutions of 1831 and 1848, focusing in particular on the representation and implications of national identity in Luigi Ricci's Il nuovo Figaro(1832) and in two Italian versions of Donizetti's La Fille du rgiment (1840), as well as on the significance of military themes. Furthermore, relevant cases of censorship in these and other comic works are examined. These operas uncover numerous affinities with the political discourse in contemporary serious melodrama, showing that warlike themes, choruses, and other statements of patriotism were not a prerogative of Verdi's operas, nor an exclusive feature of the serious genre. Their authors used conventional buffa procedures, such as modern European settings and encoded allegories of national character, in ways that reveal connections with the tensions and aspirations of the Risorgimento. A better knowledge of this repertory can only improve our understanding of the politics of opera during this crucial period of Italian history.

National identity, national music and popular music in the Italian Music Press during the long 19th century

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 259-270
Author(s):  
Anna Tedesco
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Italian Opera ◽  
Political Unification ◽  
National Music ◽  
Italian Music

Discusses the notions of national identity, national music and popular music as they emerged in Italian music periodicals during the years 1840–1890, in relation to the process of Italy’s political unification and the dissemination of foreign operas such as French grands opéras in the years 1840–1870 and Wagner’s Musikdramen from 1871 on. Essays and articles by relevant critics and musicians, such as Abramo Basevi and Francesco D’Arcais are discussed. Articles by lesser known journalists such as Pietro Cominazzi and Mattia Cipollone are also taken into account. The use of words like “national” and “popular” is analysed when referring to Italian opera, to its history and to the operas by foreign composers.

Music, Letters and National Identity: Reading the 1890s' Italian Music Press

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Italian Opera ◽  
The North ◽  
Northern Cities ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Italian Music ◽  
Critical Methods

Much ink was spilled on the subject of music infin-de-siècleItaly. With the rapid expansion of the bourgeoisie during the last decades of the nineteenth century, opera-going in Italy was at its apogee, and as opera attendance surged so too did the demand for gossip about singers, titbits about the lives of composers and reviews of the latest works. This was a moment at which the booming Italian opera and journalism industries converged, particularly in the large northern cities, to produce an explosion of periodicals devoted to opera, encompassing a range of critical methods. The 1890s, however, also saw the development in Italy of a new branch of criticism devoted to more ‘serious’ types of music, penned by writers explicitly hostile to opera's domination of Italian musical life, who looked to the north as their cultural spiritual home.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document