Giulio Cesare que Verdi nunca compuso.

El artículo hace referencia a una conversación ficticia entre Giuseppe Verdi y Arrigo Boito respecto de la pieza Shakesperiana de Julio César con miras a la preparación de la trama argumental, para una supuesta ópera que el compositor posteriormente llevaría al pentagrama. El diálogo transcurre en la Villa del maestro y se centra fundamentalmente en la tipología de los personajes centrales, Julio César, Bruto y Casio.

Between the inkwell and the scalpel: Italian literary transfigurations in medicine and anatomy from the 19th to the 21st century

Arrigo Boito, author of Lezione di anatomia ( Anatomy Lesson), was able to sum up the deepest cultural theme of the 19th century in Italy using one single verse (‘Son luce e ombra’). Notably, the development of the dialogue between natural sciences, literature, anatomy and art illuminates the mixture of sincere admiration and fear felt by writers and poets like Igino Ugo Tarchetti, Emilio Praga and Carlo Dossi. The mood of Positivism, which could be found even in Fine Arts Academies, was the perfect backdrop and the very root of many ‘clinical details’ in the first examples of Italian mass literature. Dossi portrayed in Note azzurre his friend Paolo Gorini, a scientist and anatomical preparator. Thus, Gorini becomes a literary character, presumably being also the inspiration for the identification of peculiar death aesthetics and for other similar characters. Efisio Marini, another Italian scientist, almost coeval with Gorini, shared with him similar interests and practices. Marini, who died in Naples in 1900, used to petrify corpses for anatomical museums; he is the main character of a series of five historical and noir novels written through the first decade of the 21st century by the Sardinian author Giorgio Todde, establishing a link between the 19th and 21st centuries.

L’Altrove e i suoi viaggi in Arrigo Boito novelliere

Ilaria Crotti’s essay analyzes the short stories by Arrigo Boito (L’Alfier nero, Iberia, La musica in piazza. Ritratti di giullari e menestrelli moderni, Il pugno chiuso, Il trapezio), published between 1867 and 1874, paying particular attention to the aesthetic debate of the Scapigliatura movement. The journey theme is also examined, in its various meanings, interpreted by observing plot’s construction and the innovative elaboration of character status in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Mefistofele Triumphant—From the Ideal to the Real

Arrigo Boito sought to escape the limiting conventions of contemporary melodrama in order to revolutionize Italian opera. However, the most radical expression of that effort, his adaptation of Goethe’s Faust, Mefistofele (Mephistopheles), which premiered at La Scala in 1868, did not attain the desired result. In reworking the score, the composer took practical concerns into account, making the opera more pleasing to the mainstream audiences who demanded melodious vocal lines and a tighter dramatic pace. The revised version staged in Bologna in 1875 and the subsequent revivals marked an important turning point: what had been an avant-garde work now entered into the repertoire of all the major theaters. This chapter retraces Boito’s journey from the setback of the premiere to the success for which he strove so diligently, highlighting the creative process that forged a new relationship between poetry and music, which Giuseppe Verdi later exploited in his collaboration with the poet.

CONGEDO MUSICALE

We end up our meeting presenting two DVD which will enable to listen and see Arturo Toscanini conducting his american orchestra, the NBC Symphony, in two interesting fragments of compositions of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. Verdi will be represented by the “Hymn of the Nations”, a cantata written in the years 1861-1862 on a text by Arrigo Boito; and Wagner by the fragment “Siegfried’s Death and Funeral March” taken from the Götterdämmerung. The written text underlines the role of Maestro Toscanini in introducing Wagner’s music in our country, and in showing the art of Verdi with a critical and intellectual approach which was missing in the generic “routine” of the nineteenth century.

A PORTRAITURE OF HELEN, QUEEN OF TROY IN BOITO'S Mefistofele: Coincidentia Oppositorum

In this study we attempt to understand some of the aesthetical features implemented by Arrigo Boito (1842-1918) for the dramaturgic formation of the final act of the opera Mefistofele. Doing that, we will focus on the bifocal character of Helen, both as flash-and-blood woman and as the divine Queen of Troy. Disregarding the controversial criticism of the value of the music, the analysis below reveals deep concern for the dramatic coherence practiced by musical associations and cultural signals. It shows that the composer has sincerely made an effort to characterize both facets of Helen-i.e. femininity and Royalty in the manner of collision of contrasts- Coincidentia Oppositorum. That special polar aesthetic approach constitutes a convincing musico-dramatic whole made out of extremes.