MUSICAL CRITICISM

The course aims to introduce attending students to the topical moments of musical theater.

The student will acquire basic notions on musical theater, both formal and historical; each work will be placed in the artistic context of its time.

The student should inquire about the main operatic titles, especially the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, using chronologies and he will find on the course homepage.

From Shakespeare to Verdi: Macbeth, Othello, Falstaff.

Verdi was Shakespeare's greatest interpreter in the music field. In Macbeth (1847), the unavoidable chapter of his 'political' theater, Verdi confronted closely with the vision of power that the English writer had, declined in one of his most gloomy and pessimistic dramas. The analysis of this masterpiece will allow exploring the production of the composer's youth, while the French version of the work (1865) is already on the path that will lead to the supreme outcome of his maturity. Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893), a psychological drama of tremendous impact and a lyric comedy that seal a very long career: a man of theater, as Verdi himself liked to call himself, for over half a century at the service of the public all over the world.

homepage: http://www-5.unipv.it/girardi/2019_STM/STM_2019.htm
Syllabus: http://www-5.unipv.it/girardi/2019_STM/STM_esame_2019.htm

JULIAN BUDDEN, The Operas of Verdi, London, Cassel, 3 voll., 1973-1981

Further texts will be reported on the course page.

Oral examinatione: interview on the topics discussed in the course

Lectures, with the help of all the tools of computer science, to propose material in video, diagrams, read and discuss on-line bibliography, musical examples also on the piano.

Italian

During the first lesson the articulation of the course will be illustrated. Presence is recommended.

oral