MUSICAL DRAMATURGY

Università degli Studi
"G. d'Annunzio"

Chieti - Pescara

Single discipline educational activity

Course Sheet

Course code:

FLT030

Academic Year of enrolment:

2021

Year of supply:

2021/2022

Type of Course:

Related/Supplementary

Degree:

Course of 2nd Cycle Degree in PHILOLOGY, LINGUISTICS AND LITERARY TRADITIONS

Disciplinary Sector:

Musicology and Music History

Location:

CHIETI

Credits:

Programme Year:

Professor and Collaborators:

PAGANNONE Giorgio

Cycle:

Second semester

Hours of classroom activity:

Individual study hours:

108

Prerequisites:

No prerequisites are required, apart from a basic knowledge of the Italian metrics.
We recommend the following support and in-depth tools (optional).
For the rudiments of Italian metrics and the relationship between music and versification:
- Avviamento alla metrica italiana, ed. by T. BALBO, L. BIANCONI and N. BADOLATO, (on-line in powerpoint format:
http://archivi.dar.unibo.it/files/muspe/wwcat/corso/corsi/sdm/metrica1%2...
http://box.dar.unibo.it/files/didattica/Metrica%204%205%206%20NB.ppt).
- P. FABBRI, Metro e canto nell'opera italiana, Torino, EDT, 2007, pp. 119-141 (chap. 10).

For the melodramatic vocabulary and musical dramaturgy:
- L. BIANCONI - G. PAGANNONE, Piccolo glossario di drammaturgia musicale, in G. PAGANNONE (ed. by), Insegnare il melodramma. Saperi essenziali, proposte didattiche, Lecce, Pensa Multimedia, 2010, pp. 201-263 (available online: http://box.dar.unibo.it/files/didattica/Glossario-di-Drammaturgia_musica...).

Students who have not taken the Storia della musica moderna e contemporanea (History of modern and contemporary music) exam in the triennial course are advised to read one of the following texts:
- M. BEGHELLI, Morfologia dell’opera italiana da Rossini a Puccini, in Enciclopedia della musica, diretta da Jean-Jacques Nattiez, vol. IV (Storia
della musica europea), Torino, Einaudi, 2004, pp. 895-921.
- P. FABBRI, Metro e canto nell'opera italiana, Torino, EDT, pp. 119-141 ('Il pieno Ottocento').

Objectives

The teaching contributes to the achievement of the learning objectives of the Degree course, with particular reference to the following abilities:

Skills and understanding
Knowledge of the features of the history of the opera and of the fundamentals of musical dramaturgy, with particular reference to the nineteenth century Italian melodrama and Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti.
Knowledge of some issues concerning operatic philology (variants, genesis, tradition).
Knowledge of the metric forms used in nineteenth-century opera.

Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
Acquisition of a method of analysis of the melodrama, as an integrated system of text, music and scene.
Ability to recognize and reconstruct the metric form of an opera libretto, and more generally the morphology of a nineteenth-century opera, with reference to the opera in question.
Ability to compare the libretto to the literary source, highlighting links and differences.

Indipendence of judgment
At the end of the course students will have acquired some technical notions, and the conceptual tools that will enable them to deal autonomously and critically with an operatic text, intended as a combination of poetry, music and drama. They will also be able to grasp the relationships that the librettistic text, as a "derivative" text, has with the literary or theatrical hypotext.

Communication skills
Students must know how to explain the course contents and key concepts with appropriate and clear terms. They will be able to report in a satisfactory way also the listening experiences, both in class and during their individual study. They will also be able to describe and analyse an operatic scene using the appropriate vocabulary.

Contents

The romantic Opera: "Lucrezia Borgia" by Felice Romani and Gaetano Donizetti.

Extended Syllabus

A pivotal opera of Donizetti's new course, clearly oriented towards "romantic" melodrama, Lucrezia Borgia, premiered at the Scala Theater in Milan in December 1833, is taken from the homonymous play by Victor Hugo, premiered in Paris in February of the same year. It stages a gloomy story in which hatred, conspiracies and maternal sentiments are intertwined. As Romani wrote in the preface of the libretto, paraphrasing Hugo's own words, in this drama the protagonist's "moral discrepancy is purified by motherhood". It is one of the few melodramas that are based on a maternal figure, Lucrezia in fact, torn by her feeling for her son and by the desire for revenge.
The course, after an extensive introduction on the philology of librettos, musical dramaturgy and the morphology of nineteenth-century opera, aims to analyze in detail the work in question, highlighting the relationships between text, music and scene, as well as the relationships between the libretto and its dramatic source. The authentic variants, which Donizetti included in subsequent versions of the opera, between 1839 and 1840, will also be analyzed.

Recommended Bibliography

On the 'libretto':
L. BIANCONI, “Il libretto d’opera”, in “Il contributo italiano alla storia del pensiero. Musica”, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma, 2017, pp. 187-208.
On the musical dramaturgy:
- C. DAHLHAUS, Drammaturgia dell'opera italiana, Torino, EDT, 2005 (or alternatively: G. STAFFIERI, Un teatro tutto cantato, Roma, Carocci, 2012).
For a historical overview of Donizetti and the Italian Opera in the early nineteenth century:
F. DELLA SETA, “Italia e Francia nell’Ottocento”, Torino, EDT, 1991 («Storia della musica», 9), pp. 68 75 (“Morfologia dell’opera italiana”) e pp. 165-208 (“Oltre Rossini. L’opera italiana dal 1830 al 1848”).

On ‘Lucrezia Borgia’ by Romani and Donizetti (INDICATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY: the texts to be studied will be specified at the beginning of the course):
- W. ASHBROOK, Donizetti. Le opere, Torino, EDT, 1987, pp. 121-129.
- L. BIANCONI, "Veleni e gorgheggi", in Lucrezia Borgia, programma di sala, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, stagione 2000/01, pp. 5-11.
- F. D’AMICO, “Lucrezia Borgia”, in ID., “Forma Divina. Saggi sull’opera lirica e sul balletto”, I, Firenze, Olschki, 2012, pp. 112-118.
- "Lucrezia Borgia. Storia e mito", a cura di M. Bordin e P. Trovato, Firenze, Leo S. Olschki, 2006.
- "Lucrezia Borgia", "Quaderni della Fondazione Donizetti" n. 9, 2007.

NON-ATTENDING students are advised to contact the teacher for additional readings.

To follow the lessons it is necessary to have the LIBRETTO of the opera. A copy of the libretto of the first performance will be made available at the
beginning of the course.
NB. Do not use other librettos available online or in CD booklets.
The vocal score of the opera can be found at the following website: .
NB. THE FULL LISTENING AND THE VISION of the opera in question is an INTEGRAL PART OF THE PROGRAMME.
NB. Material will be provided during the course. NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS are required to find the study material. For any problems or doubts concerning the bibliography and the retrieval of the
materials, please contact the teacher (giorgio.pagannone@unich.it).

Teaching Methods

A mixed method. After a few introductory lessons aided by the use of slides and support materials, the course will take place in seminar form, with the involvement of the students in the analysis and discussion of the opera in question.

Evaluation methods

Verification of learning:

The final assessment consists of an oral exam on the entire syllabus, with
the final mark expressed in thirtieth. The aim is to assess students’ skills
and in particular, an understanding of the issues discussed during the
course, an appropriate knowledge of the bibliography in the course
programme, a correct command of the specific language as well as
critical and methodological abilities will be evaluated. The grading scale
goes from 1 to 30 with honours (cum laude): 1-17 fail, 18-21 sufficient,
22-24 fair, 25-27 good, 28-29 very good, 30-30 with honours (cum laude)
excellent.

Contacts/More Information

Regular attendance is strongly recommended, given the seminar-based structure of the course.

Università degli Studi
"G. d'Annunzio"

Chieti - Pescara

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