The Greats of Italian Cinema and Recitative in opera: in search of musical styles
An innovative research by Francesco Erle that in a series of 8 video episodes presents results based on different methodologies, combined to explore different analysis objectives. The basis of the journey is a consideration of the only apparently unrelated historical evolution of the two great artistic moments.
In fact, countless reports describe how in the golden age of recitative in opera, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, singers literally stole the profession from the actors of the Comedy de l'Arte in different theatres. Much of this particular expertise was then forcibly lost with the evolution of melodrama. Subsequently, thanks to the reforms of twentieth-century studies, especially for Rossini's opera and buffa, much has been recovered, but almost exclusively on the basis of a refined directorial reading of the libretto, while in the study and production of today's recitative the relationship with the stylistic features of the composer's musical writing has remained minimal, and even the relationship between the melodic-harmonic stylistic features and the rhetorical figures codified in the score for singing and continuous bass as the basis of the representative language has remained almost absent.
A series of considerations and new measurements that will be presented during the various episodes of the video instead surprisingly give us a glimpse of how, recorded by the great actors who still had traditional training, ancient techniques are still recognizable and immortalized in great Italian cinema. Totò, Ninchi, Magnani, Gassmann, Masina give person and voice to a very precious documentation also from the point of view of musical analysis, and thanks to them it is possible to reconstruct precise stylistic behaviors, therefore applicable to the filmic dramaturgical language and actor gestural on the one hand, and to the ancient scores of recitative and continuous bass on the other.
The lessons are visible according to the calendar on Levi Foundation YouTube channel
CHAPTER I
Method and discovery of musical styles as the foundation of comic dialogue. Totò and Ninchi
October 30, 2023
I episode
The object and method of investigation are presented, clarifying the motivations and techniques (Totò and Ave Ninchi)
13th November 2023
Second episode
The surprising results of the observations are presented in terms of musical analysis, and starting the link with the interpretation techniques of the codified score for singing and continuous bass of the recitative
27th November 2023
Third episode
the musical stylistic features recognizable in the analysis are neatly presented, and where a "backward" practice towards the recitative in the opera is proposed to exploit the strength and interpretative techniques preserved in cinema
CHAPTER II
Every breath as the foundation of dramatic expression. Magnani
December 11, 2023
I Episode
the relationship between each type of actor's breath in the dramatic and excited style is analyzed, transforming the simple articulation into an expressive gradient
On 8 January 2024
II episode
Magnani's dramaturgical plan is formalized, specifying the techniques and their succession
CHAPTER III
Virtuosity: moving from mensurated recitative to free recitative. Magnani and Masina
On 22 January 2024
I episode
the secret of an impossible and very virtuous organization between two styles considered in common practice to be antithetical is highlighted
February 5, 2024
Second episode
the dramaturgical succession of artifices is revealed in the score
CHAPTER IV
Traditional intonation styles: the paroxysmal. Vittorio Gassman
February 19, 2024
Episode where the musical organization of frequencies and harmonic fields is analyzed which incredibly underlie a sublimely exaggerated style