Learning objectives
History of musical theatre:
At the end of the course the students - who do not require a previous disciplinary competence - will have acquired knowledge in the history and evolution of musical theatre in its various forms (from ‘intermedio apparente’ to musical drama, from opera to operetta, from musical to opera-rock) and derivatives (movie, videoclip, etc.).
Knowledge and understanding:
students will develop knowledge and understanding skills through the constant use of different sources (sound and multimedia materials, books and articles of scientific, educational and informative nature, archival documents, conferences, seminars, guided tours, etc.).
Applying knowledge and understanding:
students will be able to apply their knowledge and understanding skills to the critical analysis of their personal experience in music, theatre and entertainment in general, going back to the complex evolution of the relationship between different languages (word, music, image, movement) which is at the origin of musical theatre in its various forms and national peculiarities.
Making judgment:
students will develop the ability to collect and interpret data useful for determining independent judgments, establishing relationships and connections between genres of entertainment and different artistic expressions and interpreting them in the light of their relationship with historical, social and economic reality.
They will be able to critically consider their experience, assess the reliability of sources and information, and integrate the acquired knowledge.
Communication skills:
the student will put to good use the critical approach to the subject and the interrelation with the teacher and the other students during the lesson to develop the ability to communicate in a clear and well-founded way his personal experience and his reflections both during the lessons and during the exam and in non-educational context towards specialist and non-specialist interlocutors.
Learning skills:
thanks to the approach to the subject, which tends to problematic reflection and aims at the development of the critical sense, the students will develop the stimuli and skills necessary to increase their knowledge through further non-occasional studies and also conducted autonomously.
Poetry for music:
At the end of the course students will have THE KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING to orient themselves in Italian literature destined to set in music and in rhythmic and metric aspects of poetry. They will then be able to identify the most appropriate texts to deepen the specific research fields of their study paths with JUDGMENT AUTONOMY. They will have acquired the necessary KNOWLEDGE TO APPLY to critical listening of music as an artistic expression and form of knowledge and expression of thought. Without requiring analytical and technical skills in music, however, it is necessary to acquire sufficient COMMUNICATION SKILLS to describe the experience of listening literarture in music with correct terminology. Students will also acquire the LEARNING SKILLS needed to understand piece of music in order to identify their particular traits and traditions.
Prerequisites
No prerequisites are requested
Course unit content
History of musical theatre:
The course is dedicated to the following aspects of the musical theatre of European and North-American traditions from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century:
- forms and history of musical dramaturgy
- relationships with other artistic expressions
- national traditions: Italian, German, French, Slavic area
- economy and society: production and representativeness
- places: theatre and hall, outdoor place, virtual place
- technology: instruments, stagecraft, reproducers and speakers
- communication: shows, oral and press release, reproduction, mass media
- protagonists: authors, interpreters, implementers, managers, governors, communicators, public
- analysis of the model represented by the history of musical theatre in Parma
Poetry for music:
The course it will focus on relationship between text and music in vocal compositions from the middle ages to late Nineteenth Century
Full programme
History of musical theatre:
See 'Contents'.
Poetry for music: Stefano La Via, Poesia per musica e musica per poesia. Dai trovatori a Paolo Conte, Roma Carocci, 2006 (Libro e CD ROM completi)
Stefano La Via's text is very broad and complex. Instead of its full study, students can choose whether to study this alternative program:
1 Paolo Fabbri, Metro e canto nell’opera italiana, Torino, EDT, 2007
2 Luca Ziliani, L’italiano della canzone, Roma, Carocci, 2018
3 Two of the following programs of your choice
Programma A (Seventeenth Century)
Gabriello Chiabrera, Le Maniere de’ versi toscani, Genova, Pavoni, 1599 (copia digitale in http://www.letteraturaitaliana.net/pdf/Volume_5/t116.pdf); Nino Pirrotta, Scelte poetiche di Monteverdi, and Temperamenti e tendenze nella camerata fiorentina, both in Scelte poetiche di musicisti. Teatro, poesia e musica da Willaert a Malipero, Venezia, Marsilio, 1997, pp. 81-147 e 173-195; Stefano La Via, Poesia per musica e musica per poesia. Dai trovatori a Paolo Conte, Roma, Carocci, 2006, CD ROM "La fida Ninfa di Monteverdi" pp. [81-107]; Lucia Cristina Baldo, Silvana Chiesa, “Zefiro torna”, in Tempo e memoria: percorsi di ascolto fra letteratura e musica, Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, 2003, pp. 43-71
Programma B (Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century)
Paolo Russo, “Imitateurs inspirés de la corruption du gout”: travestimenti musicali nella “Cantate Française”, in Id. La parola e il gesto, studi sull’opera francese nel Settecento, Lucca, LIM, 1997, pp. 39-64; Jean-Michel Bardez, I dibattiti sulla musica nel secolo dei lumi e Walter Dürr, Poesie e musica nel Lied con pianoforte del romanticismo tedesco, in Enciclopedia della musica, a cura di Jean-Jacques Nattiez, IV: Storia della musica europea, Torino, Einaudi, 2004, pp. 588-605 e 548-872; Stefano La Via, Poesia per musica e musica per poesia. Dai trovatori a Paolo Conte, Roma, Carocci, 2006, CD ROM on "Erlkönig di Schubert" pp. [155-192]; Lucia Cristina Baldo, Silvana Chiesa, “Auf dem Wasser zu singen”, in Tempo e memoria: percorsi di ascolto fra letteratura e musica, Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, 2003, pp. 95-118.
Programma C (Italian Nineteenth Century)
Licia Sirch, Notturno italiano: Sulla musica vocale da camera tra Sette e Ottocento, in “Rivista italiana di musicologia”, 2005, XL, 153-226; Friedrick Lippmann, Introduzione and Ritmo poetico e ritmo musicale. Il loro rapporto nello sviluppo stilistico della musica operistica italiana tra Sette e Ottocento, in Id., Versificazione italiana e ritmo musicale. I rapporti tra verso e musica nell’opera italiana dell’Ottocento, Napoli, Liguori, 1986 pp. 11-34 e 265-323; Anselm Gerhardt, Verdi, Wagner e la “prosa musicale”, in Otello, Venezia, Teatro la Fenice, 2002 (http://www.teatrolafenice.it/media/libretti/62_8929otello_gv.pdf), pp. 127-148, Wolfgang Osthoff, Il sonetto nel Fastaff di Verdi, in Il melodramma nell’Ottocento. Studi e ricerche per Massimo Mila, Torino, Einaudi, 1977, pp. 156-183; Costantino Maeder, Il fiasco del Mefistofele fra idea e incompatibilità formale, in Il real fu dolore e l’ideal sogno. Arrigo Boito e i limiti dell’arte, Firenze, Cesati, 2002, pp. 53-73.
Programma D (Twentieth Century)
Lucia Cristina Baldo, Silvana Chiesa, “Coro di Morti” e “A Survivor from Warsaw”, entrambi in Tempo e memoria: percorsi di ascolto fra letteratura e musica, Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso, 2003, rispettivamente alle pp. 167-192 e 193-216; Raffaele Pozzi, Leopardi e l’ansia di rinnovamento: il Coro di morti (1940-1941) di Goffredo Petrassi, in Storia della lingua italiana e storia della musica: italiano e musica nel melodramma e nella canzone. Atti del 4. Convegno ASLI, Associazione per la storia della lingua italiana, Sanremo, 29-30 aprile 2004, a cura di Elisa Tonani, Firenze: F. Cesati, [2005], pp. 131-142; Candida Felici, Dante nel labirinto: parole e musica in Laborintus II di Berio e Sanguineti, in «AnDante». Dante e la musica: riflessioni interdisciplinari, a cura di Maria Teresa Arfini e Alberto Rizzuti, Torino, Università degli studi di Torino, 2018, pp.88-113 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328702327_Dante_nel_labirinto_parole_e_musica_in_Laborintus_II_di_Berio_e_Sanguineti); Emilio Sala, “Passaggio”: contesto, drammaturgia, messinscena (con un inedito di Virginio Puecher), in Le théâtre musical de Luciano Berio, I: De “Passaggio” à “La vera storia”, a cura di Giordano Ferrari, Parigi, L’Harmattan, 2016, pp. 65-94
Programma E (Italian "Cantautori")
Franco Fabbri, La canzone, in Enciclopedia della musica, a cura di Jean-Jacques Nattiez, I: Il Novecento, Torino, Einaudi, 2001, pp. 551-576; Lorenzo Coveri, Linguistica della canzone: lo stato dell’arte, Giuseppe Antonelli, Il complesso pop. Su una tendenza recente dei testi di canzone, both in Storia della lingua italiana e storia della musica: italiano e musica nel melodramma e nella canzone. Atti del 4. Convegno ASLI, Associazione per la storia della lingua italiana, Sanremo, 29-30 aprile 2004, a cura di Elisa Tonani, Firenze: F. Cesati, [2005], rispettivamente a pp. 179-190 e 219-232; Jacopo Tomatis, Storia culturale della canzone italiana, Il saggiatore, 2019, pp. 329-390; 427-496.
Bibliography
History of musical theatre:
Bibliography contains general reference texts. The final list for the preparation of the exam is provided at the beginning of the lessons on paper and on the Elly online teaching portal.
A)
- AA. VV., “Storia della musica”, voll. 5-10, cur. SIdM, Torino, Edt, 1982 sgg.
- AA. VV., “Storia dell'opera italiana”, voll. 4-6, cur. G. Pestelli e L. Bianconi, Torino, Edt, 1987 sgg.
- L. Bianconi, “Il teatro d'opera in Italia”, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1993
- AA.VV., “Musica in scena”, cur. A. Basso, Torino, Utet, 1995 sgg.
- “The New Grove Dictionary of Opera”, ed. S. Sadie, London, Macmillan, 1996
B)
- M. Capra, “La musica e il tempo libero. Domande e riflessioni sulla fruizione musicale nell’Ottocento”, in “Il tempo libero nell’Italia unita”, cur. F. Tarozzi e A. Varni, Bologna, Clueb, 1992, pp. 45-57
- Id., “Cronologie teatrali dal 1989 a oggi. Considerazioni sul metodo”, in “Rivista italiana di musicologia”, XXIX/2, 1994, pp. 210-224.
- AA. VV., “Giuseppe Verdi und seine Zeit”, hg. M. Engelhardt, Laaber, Laaber Verlag, 2001, pp. 117-142
- M. Capra, “Il teatro d’opera a Parma. Quattrocento anni, dal Farnese al Regio”, Cinisello B., Silvana Ed., 2007
- AA. VV., “Storia di Parma. X: Musica e teatro”, cur. F. Luisi e L. Allegri, Parma, MUP, 2013
- AA. VV., “La musica sulla scena. Lo spettacolo musicale e il pubblico”, cur. A. Rigolli, Torino, Edt, 2006
- AA. VV., “Verdi e Wagner nel cinema e nei media”, cur. S. Miceli e M. Capra, Venezia, Marsilio, 2014
Poetry for music:
Stefano La Via, Poesia per musica e musica per poesia. Dai trovatori a Paolo Conte, Roma Carocci, 2006 (Book and e CD ROM)
Teaching methods
History of musical theatre:
Following the guidelines of the course in "Languages, cultures, communication" (5051) on which teaching depends, the activities that take place in the first semester are held only AT DISTANCE.
These activities take place in telepresence through the use of Microsoft Teams and Elly platforms. In particular, the lessons take place both in synchronous (through Teams) and asynchronous mode (uploaded on the Elly page of the course). During the lessons in synchronous mode (direct), mainly frontal moments (with constant use of slides and audiovisual aids) alternate with interactive moments with the students. To promote active participation in the course, individual or small group activities are also proposed to be agreed with the students (including visits to theatrical buildings and to museums and archives, if the health situation allows it).
The exam preparation program (in the versions for attending and non-attending students) is available on paper and on the Elly portal at the beginning of the lessons.
The program for non-attending students provides additional bibliography that make up for the lack of attendance to the lessons.
All the texts indicated for the preparation of the exam can be consulted at the Library of Musicology at Casa della Musica (p.le San Francesco 1).
The teaching materials used during the lessons (diagrams, lists and slides in particular) or support for guided tours, seminars and conferences are available on the Elly portal after their use in class or during the mentioned events.
Poetry for music:
In relation to the health conditions of next November, this year the course will take place either in telepresence through the use of the Teams and Elly platforms or in presence in the classroom with lessons broadcast in streaming. Lessons will be held in both synchronous and asynchronous mode (loaded gradually on the Elly page of the course and made available ONLY FOR A FEW DAYS). During the lessons, mainly frontal moments will alternate with interactive moments with the students about the video or audio examples proposed: ample space will in fact be dedicated to the direct experience of listening, from which the teacher will take the lead for analysis, comments and insights. During the lessons, the terminology necessary for a summary analytical description of the listening experiences will be proposed and illustrated. Useful materials for attending the course will be deposited on the ELLY platform.
Assessment methods and criteria
History of musical theatre:
Oral exam.
Due to the evolution of the health emergency, the exam takes place IN PRESENCE (if the limitations to its execution have been removed) or REMOTE through the Microsoft Teams platform (if these limitations persist).
The exam consists of several questions aimed at verifying the degree of knowledge and awareness achieved by the student. For attending students 50% of the test focuses on the content of the lessons (including slides, multimedia aids, guided tours), the rest on the content of the texts (including the images contained in them) and on the listening musical pieces indicated in the exam program. For non-attending students the exam focuses on the content of the texts and on the listening musical pieces indicated in the program.
In particular, the following are evaluated:
- basic methodological awareness through the analysis of the different sources for research
- the knowledge of the presuppositions, of the characteristics, of the evolution of musical theatre in its various forms
- the awareness and the critical sense in relation to the actual daily reality and to the historical roots
- the ability to relate the musical experience in the theatre with other forms and artistic and cultural expressions
- the capacity for rationalization on specific topics and the correct presentation of the related results
- finally, but of primary importance, the ability to connect concepts and notions acquired during lectures and in the study of texts with specific listening experiences.
An insufficient evaluation is determined by the ignorance of the minimum contents of the teaching; the inability to formulate judgments in an autonomous and founded way, and to relate concepts and events between them and with the experience of listening to music; from the inability to express themselves adequately. A sufficient assessment (18-23 / 30) is determined by an acceptable level with respect to the aforementioned evaluation indicators; an average rating (24-27 / 30) reflects a level that is more than sufficient to good; a high rating (28-30 / 30 ‘e lode’) attests a very good to excellent level.
Poetry for music:
The test will consist of an oral interview at the end of the course according to the official calendar appointed by the Department. The interview will concern on the bibliography indicated. The interview will verify the understanding of the texts listed in bibliography; it will also verify the student's ability to navigate in the musical structures of the works discussed by bibliography: the students will therefore have to listen to them more than once while studying the critical texts. Failure to know the works is a cause of insufficiency.
The ability to elaborate further knowledge and to ask the teacher relevant questions will result in excellence. The lack of an understanding of the minimum content of the course are cause for failure of the verification. The ability to express oneself adequately, to solve problems related to information retrieval and the decoding of complex texts, as well as the ability to make independent judgments will be evaluated on a scale of thirty degrees.
The ability to develop further knowledge and to ask the teacher pertinent questions, even during the test, will result excellence. Likewise, the ability of integrated readings and cross-connections between the texts listed in the bibliography will cause excellent results.
Other information
If the health situation allows for examinations in PRESENCE, the place is at the Casa della Musica (p.le San Francesco 1)
