Laughter between Two Revolutions: Opera Buffa in Italy, 1831-1848 (Eastman Studies in Music)

Izzo, Francesco

ISBN 10: 1580462936 / ISBN 13: 9781580462938

Editore: University of Rochester Press, 2013

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Laughter between Two Revolutions: Opera Buffa in Italy, 1831-1848 (Eastman Studies in Music)
• Editore: University of Rochester Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1580462936
• ISBN 13: 9781580462938
• Rilegatura: Rilegato
• Condizione: New

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

This study represents the first substantial assessment of Italian comic operas composed during the central years of the Risorgimento -- the period during which upheavals, revolutions, and wars ultimately led to the liberation and unification of Italy. Music historians often view the period as one during which serious Romantic opera flourished in Italy while opera buffa inexorably declined.
Laughter between Two Revolutions revises this widespread notion by viewing well-known comic masterpieces -- such as Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore (1832) and Don Pasquale (1843) -- as part of a still-thriving tradition. Also examined are opere buffe by Luigi Ricci, Lauro Rossi, Verdi (Un giorno di regno), and others, many of which circulated widely at the time. Francesco Izzo's pathbreaking study argues that in the "realm of seriousness" of mid-nineteenth-century Italy, comedy was not an anachronistic intruder, but a significant and vital cultural presence.
This important volume offers new insights into opera history and theories of comedy in the arts. It will be of interest to opera lovers everywhere and to students in music, philosophy, comparative literature, and Italian cultural studies. Francesco Izzo is senior lecturer in music at the University of Southampton.

Recensione

An indispensable departure point for anybody who wishes to deal with the forgotten genre of opera buffa during the 1830s and 40s or who wishes to take up the challenge of projecting it onto the wider European and world of its own day, in accordance with a widespread tendency in today's musicology. [Izzo's efforts help] reveal to us a piece of our history, with the richness and subtlety that our history (opera history, but not only that) deserves. BOLLETTINO D

The first substantial assessment of Italian comic operas composed during the central years of the Risorgimento -- the period during which upheavals, revolutions, and wars ultimately led to the liberation and unification of Italy. Francesco Izzo's pathbreaking study argues that in the "realm of seriousness" of mid-nineteenth-century Italy, comedy was not an anachronistic intruder, but a significant and vital cultural presence . . . [and] offers new insights into opera history and theories of comedy in the arts. It will be of interest to opera lovers everywhere and to students in music, philosophy, comparative literature, and Italian cultural studies. SARASOTA OPERA Full review at http://www.verdicycle.org/#!Laughter-between-Two-Revolutions-Opera-Buffa-in-Italy-18311848-by-Francesco-Izzo/fqely/568e92d70cf29139531eb747

Shed[s] light on some of the possible implications of such works within the larger political context. A refreshingly multifaceted picture of post-Rossinian opera buffa . . . that emerges as complex and tension-imbued as it could be. [Historical accounts need to consider] the lively, anti-defeatist voices and vital operatic tradition [that] Izzo has recovered and delivered to us. MUSIC & LETTERS [Frances Vella]

Izzo provides an enlightening, often entertaining corrective to the common notion that the music of the early Romantic period in Italy was exclusively dour, serious, and grim, with exceedingly few new works of brilliant light comedy. At the same time, he provides an informative overview of the nuanced changes in style and structure of the comic genre and of the broader political and social context. --Gabriele Dotto, co-general editor, Le Opere di Gaetano Donizetti