L’opera romantica: Bellini e Donizetti. (Romantic Opera; Bellini and Donizetti) – Romantic Opera



Nineteenth century Italian opera has always been defined by an interest in emerging themes of the era. These themes are focused on new subjects and produced a corresponding transformation in the complexity of composition and treatment of vocal melodies, the larger musical and poetic forms and the characterization of prominent figures. Italian opera arrives in the nineteenth century with the spirit of romanticism. The musical embodiment of contrasting psychological states inspires a bending of musical motifs which depict the state of mind of the characters. Nature is not just the backdrop, but in and of itself unveils expressive tension as well as a mysterious force greater than Man; a force that also has the power to console him. Opera of the romantic period abandons the conventions of the preceding century and assumes its recognizable form a new effect that expresses itself from within the musical language, the libretto, in the treatment of scenes and of the work as a whole. The course will concentrate on discussion of the themes of this transformation of musical language that helps to define itself as Romantic and on two prominent composers of nineteenth century Italian opera: Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti. Donizetti has strong roots in the period of transition between the 18th and 19th centuries, finding motives of continuity and evolution with respect to his teachers Mayr and Rossini. In that time Donizetti revolutionized this new romantic sensibility that expresses the human condition not as abstractly heroic but in resonance with a sense of Bourgeois life and its character. Bellini, with the purity of his melodic inventions opens a portal to the enchanting and the spiritual consistent with the new values of dreaming, of abandonment and of melancholy.



Required Texts:

-Egidio Saracino, Invito all’ascolto di Donizetti, Mursia, Milano, 1984, pp. 285.

ISBN-10: 8842520659 - ISBN-13: 978-8842520658

-Bruno Gallotta, Invito all’ascolto di Bellini, Mursia, Milano, 1997, pp. 208

ISBN-10: 8842522104- ISBN-13: 978-8842522102