Una rappresentazione varsaviense della goldoniana Donna di garbo

Due to the interest in the Italian Theater by the Court of Saxony in the mid-18th century, some comedies by Carlo Goldoni were exported from Venice to Dresden and Warsaw. For greater ease of the German and Polish public, the plot of the comedies was summarised in special printed brochures, many of which are now kept at the Landesbibliothek and the Staatsarchiv in Dresden. The leaflet of La Donna di garbo, which is studied here, presents interesting differences compared to the comedy that Goldoni printed since 1750. These differences allow us to partially reconstruct how the comedy was actually represented between the date of its composition, 1742, and the first printed edition controlled by Goldoni.

«Il Sacchi mi mandava tratto tratto de’ fasci di quelle strane, e mostruose opere di quel Teatro…»: Carlo Gozzi e il teatro spagnolo

The contribution proposes a reflection on the greatest author of the 18th Century Italian theater who drew on the dramaturgical heritage of the siglos de oro. The main elements dealt with are: Carlo Gozzi's theoretical reflection on the characteristics of Spanish theater; the fundamental role in the repêchage that the actors of Antonio Sacco's company had in that theater, for which the author provided - according to him - a "voluntary friendly assistance"; finally, the most significant data that emerge, or could emerge, from the first National Edition of the works of Carlo Gozzi (launched in 2011).

Ortografie della nuova scena testoriana

Giovanni Testori was one of the fundamental intellectuals of the Italian twentieth century, who inaugurated a new way of conceiving and decline the languages of art within society. Among the many aspects of his artistic character emerges that of man of the theater, since the art of performance was the form of ‘total art’ in which he reached the highest expressive vertices. It is no coincidence, in fact, that Testori’s posthumous rediscovery took place mainly within the perimeter of the scene, through an exceptional intensification of his shows in contemporary Italian theater. Leveraging on a precise historical-critical methodology and an updated theatrological approach, the essay analyzes the current stage fortune of the Lombard ‘scribe’, through the examination of six testorian theatrical productions realized in 2019. The study conducted on the grammar of scenic writing, on the compositional procedures of the directorial work, and on the forms of the acting of these productions led us to elaborate a completed prospectus of the new testorian scene; a vivid theatrical mapping of his artistic renaissance, linked to the practical and intrinsic memory of his dramaturgical corpus. The results of the analysis illustrate the cultural and social reasons of the rediscovery of Testori, the concrete ways in which the scenic ‘reactivation’ of his works is performed today, and the strengths, connected to the role of the actor and the ritual dimension, of this intense testorian vague.

Animation, Plasticity, and Music in Italy, 1770-1830

This path-breaking study of Italian stage works reconsiders a crucial period of music history. Through an interdisciplinary examination of the statue animated by music, Ellen Lockhart deftly shows how Enlightenment ideas influenced Italian theater and music, and vice versa. As Lockhart reveals, the animated statue became a fundamental figure within aesthetic theory and musical practice during the years from 1770 to 1830. Taking as its point of departure a repertoire of Italian ballets, melodramas, and operas from the period around 1800, Animation, Plasticity, and Music in Italy traces its core ideas between science, philosophy, theories of language, itinerant performance traditions, the epistemology of sensing, and music criticism.

Viviani and the others: Scarpetta, Pirandello, and Eduardo and Peppino De Filippo

This article reconstructs Raffaele Viviani’s ties with some of the greatest representatives of 19th and 20th century Italian theater, dwelling in particular on his relationships with Scarpetta, Pirandello, and Eduardo and Peppino De Filippo. The tools for such an investigation are letters and theatrical reviews. In order to highlight Viviani’s relationship with the theatrical scene of his time and with the preceding dramaturgical tradition, the article illustrates Viviani’s close relationship with Luigi Pirandello. In the space of a 20-year period, Viviani performed and transposed into the Neapolitan dialect three of Pirandello’s plays: La patente (1924), Pensaci, Giacomino! (1933), and Bellavita (1943). The analysis of this relationship dwells not only on the novel and effective linguistic operation carried out by Viviani compared with the original texts (in the case of transpositions/rewritings), but also draws attention to the system of characters in Viviani’s theater that have a Pirandellian origin, such as Don Mario Augurio (from the play by the same name) and Giovanni Scardino ( Fuori l’autore). Moreover, the article examines Viviani’s interest in Eduardo Scarpetta; in 1940, Viviani staged Scarpetta’s indisputable masterpiece, Miseria e nobiltà. Finally, the article considers Viviani’s relationship with Eduardo and Peppino De Filippo. The unusual relationship Viviani had with Eduardo De Filippo, a kind of ‘relationship/non-relationship’ that had its basis in the different poetic choices of the two men, is analysed.