MUSICAL DRAMATURGY

The course falls between the related and integrative teaching of the contemporary curriculum of the Master's Degree in "History of Arts and Conservation of Artistic Heritage", with the aim of dealing with research topics in the field of musical dramaturgy, using a methodology strongly characterized by interdisciplinarity, a characteristic demand from musical theater, a real semiological monstrum. The student should be able to develop a critical conscience on the concept of dramaturgy, immanent to different declinations (theater of speech, lyric opera and so on), and at the same time to find a real relationship with a musical repertoire made not only of history, but also of a precise relationship with contemporary artistic crafts (concertation, direction, set design).

1. Knowledge and understanding: understand and be able to analyze critical and theoretical texts that deal with musical dramaturgy, know how to use the resources offered by computer platforms, with regard to audiovisual sources.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding: develop a critical conscience in relation to some essential works of musical theater.
3. Ability to judge: ability to formulate conscious exegesis, in relation to the social history of the arts and to politics.
4. Communication skills: reaching an advanced domain of public communication, in close dialogue with one's colleagues and interacting with the teacher, knowing how to exploit the many possibilities that the research offers modern means of communication.
5. Learning skills: knowing how to handle critical texts and bibliographies.

At the end of the course the student will have improved his knowledge of the European musical theater, thanks to the exemplary case in question, and attended a critical methodology appropriate to the peculiarities of the work in music, placed in its historical context.

The exam will focus on the subject actually carried out in the module, at the end of which the exam program and the reference bibliography will be specified. For the general arrangement see Lorenzo Bianconi, Music in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

The Venetian theater of the seventeenth century, between dirty old women and fickle lovers, with a look at gender studies in a queer key.

It is surprising that even today, in Italy, Gay Pride causes a scandal, when in seventeenth-century Venice there was great participation and full involvement of the public at shows in which priests dressed up as dirty old women performed (according to the fashion Romana') intent on giving advice to debauched and inexperienced young people in love, emasculated singers in both female and male roles but also casual women in love, licentious male deities who turn into women to seduce homosexual nymphs, in passionate adoration of chaste divas. The maxims extrapolated from the librettos highlight the erotic connotation of the events told, particularly in the works of Francesco Cavalli, the greatest opera composer in Venice at the time, an unbridled libertine.«Vada la castità co’ suoi compassi | a misurar le voglie ai freddi sassi», lines by the Venetian lawyer Gian Francesco Busenello (La Didone, 1641, III.1), former librettist of Monteverdi in Coronazione di Poppea (1643), is a rather eloquent expression. Not to mention many passages by the lawyer Faustini, for example:«Andiam ch’Amor ci invita ai bacci | andiam ch’Amor ci invita al letto.».Erabena says it – throughout the work disguised as a man with the name of Eumete – to her beloved Meonte at the moment of reunion (La virtù de’ strali d’amore, 1642, III.15). But remember that the princess is still disguised as a man when her beloved is struck by the stings of Love and exclaims:«Ei m’ha ferito, |ed invece che l’onta accresca l’ira, | ella placa lo sdegno. Ohimè qual foco | va per le fibre al core? | Eumete, non temere: ardo d’amore».

Most of the course will be dedicated to the vaporous and profound opera house that bears witness to the never too much regretted seventeenth-century Venetian society, wise and libertine. In conclusion, the methodologies of gender studies will be discussed, particularly in a queer key, to evaluate their usefulness in the analysis of dramaturgies: it makes sense to study the biography of an artist

For orientation, I suggest the preliminary reading of two essays describing the Venetian theatrical environment in the seventeenth century:Francesca Gualandri, Spettacoli, luoghi e interpreti a Venezia all’epoca della «Didone», «La Fenice prima dell’Opera», 7, 2005-2006, pp. 39-62, and Michele Girardi, L’opera a Venezia nel Seicento.To address the problem of gender studies from the perspective indicated above, read Davide Daolmi, Emanuele Senici,«L’omosessualità è un modo di cantare». II contributo ‘queer’ all’indagine sull’opera in musica, «il Saggiatore musicale», VII/1, 2000, pp. 137-178.

For each update, please refer to Homepage:http://www-5.unipv.it/girardi/2024_DM/DM_2024.htm

Mario Armellini, La nascita dell’opera impresariale >, in Storia della civiltà europea. a cura di Umberto Eco (2014)
Claudio Monteverdi’s Venetian Operas. Sources, Performance, Interpretation, a cura di Ellen Rosand e Stefano La Via, New York, Routledge, 2022 *
Eros in musica. Dramaturgie et pratique musicale chez Cavalli. Atti della giornata di studio, Aix-en-Provence, 12 juillet 2013 >
Readying Cavalli’s Operas for the Stage, a cura di Ellen Rosand, Farnham, Ashgate, 2013 > *
Ellen Rosand, Monteverdi’s Mimetic Art: «L'incoronazione di Poppea» >, «Cambridge Opera Journal», Vol. 1, No. 2 (Jul., 1989), pp. 113-137

Davide Daolmi, Emanuele Senici, «L’omosessualità è un modo di cantare». II contributo ‘queer’ all’indagine sull’opera in musica >, «il Saggiatore musicale», VII/1, 2000, pp. 137-178
MICHELE GIRARDI, Billy Budd e Capitan Vere, un Otello «refoulé» >, datt. >, «Rassegna musicale Curci», 1, 2015, pp. 20-33
―Obermann o Onegin ? >, in Musica di ieri esperienza d’oggi. Ventidue saggi per Paolo Fabbri, a cura di Maria Chiara Bertieri e Alessandro Roccatagliati, Lucca, LIM, 2018, pp. 381-397.
SUSAN MCCLARY, Feminine Endings. Music, Gender and Sexuality, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1991 *


LORENZO BIANCONI, Introduzione a La drammaturgia musicale, ed by Lorenzo Bianconi, Bologna, il Mulino, 1986, pp. 7-51
LORENZO BIANCONI, GIORGIO PAGANNONE, Piccolo glossario di drammaturgia musicale, da Insegnare il melodramma, ed. by Giorgio Pagannone, Pensa Multimedia, Lecce-Iseo, 2010.

Oral examination: the verification will be carried out in an interview centered on the topics covered in the course.

Lectures, with the help of all the tools of computer science, to propose material in video, diagrams, read and discuss on-line bibliography, musical examples also on the piano.

Italian

During the first lesson the articulation of the course will be presented. Presence is recommended.

Ca ’Foscari applies Italian law (Law 17/1999; Law 170/2010) for the support and accommodation services available to students with disabilities or specific learning disabilities. If you have a motor, visual, hearing or other disability (Law 17/1999) or a specific learning disorder (Law 170/2010) and you require support (classroom assistance, technological aids for carrying out exams or exams individualized, accessible format material, note retrieval, specialist tutoring to support the study, interpreters or other) contact the Disability and DSA office disita@unive.it.

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