Opera smascherata – Opera between the lines, 1-2 July 2021
Musicological research on opera in the first decades after the unification of Italy has so far been considered in a highly compartmentalized way according to concepts of genre and literary register. Seen through this lens, the serious genre obtained a privileged position in the cultural panorama of the new Kingdom of Italy, while comic works, absent from the big theatres, were perceived as anecdotal. Some works of the canonical repertoire, notably the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, have raised questions about the distinction between serious and light works, as suggested by Piero Weiss in his study of the “fusion of genres”. In addition to such dramatic hybridity, the comic genres played a fundamental role in the aesthetic, conceptual and socio-political reflection of Unified Italy. This workshop aims to explore and transcend the notion of “fusion of genres” through an intergeneric approach. Their goal is to determine the way in which local and foreign repertoires participated in the construction of a national culture in Italy between 1860 and 1890 across geographical and generic borders.
Attendance: registration required (guillaume.castella@musik.unibe.ch)
For further information, please visit https://www.musik.unibe.ch/forschung/tagungen/index_ger.html.