Performing arts

Department of Performing arts

Upper division programs – 45 hours in 8 weeks

ITALIAN THEATER AND OPERA
This course examines the history and aesthetics of Italian theater from its classical origins to the contemporary period through the study and analysis of a selection of various Italian dramatic readings. Since theater is both an art form and a social institution, this course will analyze the dramatic-scenic structure as well as the social destination of plays and melodramas. Topics considered will also include theater architecture, acting, theater theory and the cultural politics of each historical period analyzed in class. While exploring Italian theater, students will also learn to appreciate Italian melodrama from the Sixteenth century to the Twentieth century focusing on the most representative works by such composers as Monteverdi, Pergolesi, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Mascagni, Leoncavallo and Puccini. Students will explore the musical text of the opera and also its relationship with the libretto, with special attention to the linguistic aspects of plays and melodramas. Lectures will combine historical, literary and musicological explanations and will introduce a variety of materials including dramatic texts, musical scores, critical reviews, CD, video and film recordings of major plays and operas. Students will also attend a live performance in one of the historical theaters of Siena.

MUSIC HISTORY
This course illustrates the principal aspects of Italian Music History from the Renaissance to the new trends of the Twentieth century. The aim of the course is to offer students a deep analysis of vocal and instrumental music developed in Italy over the past six centuries. Students will get to appreciate early Italian polyphony, madrigals, the birth of melodrama and its development throughout time. Course participants will also learn about the creation of new instruments by Italian crafters and luthiers and will listen to many instrumental masterpieces of the 17th, 18th and 19th century. Reading and listening assignments will be augmented by concert attendances and video viewings. Students will study works by all major Italian composers from Monteverdi, Scarlatti and Vivaldi to Boccherini, Rossini, Cherubini, Paganini, Verdi, Puccini and Mascagni. This course takes advantage of our location in Tuscany to explore the sites and environs where many of the composers, performers and instrument creators were born, worked and died. In particular there will be a guided visit to the prestigious and worldwide known Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and to the Museo degli strumenti musicali in Florence. No previous knowledge of music is required for this course.

HISTORY OF CINEMA, TELEVISION AND MEDIA
The Italian Cinema – from Cabiria (1917) to the great Neo-realism of Visconti, Rossellini and De Sica, from Federico Fellini’s opera omnia to that of Pier Paolo Pasolini – has contributed to the history of world cinema inspiring even great directors and writers. Normally a course on the history of Italian cinema will stop in the 70′s while this course begins from the analysis of the Italian “classics” to reach the reading of contemporary films. Obviously this route also deals with the influence of television in the Italian society and how such has influenced an keeps influencing the cinema of our time. The study goes further to outline views on which the new media is already having an effect.

THEY ARE JUST SIMPLE SONGS, OR ARE THEY? history of Italy through songs from 800 to our days
Italy is world famous not only for arias by Monteverdi, Verdi or Puccini, but also, and sometimes only for the so-called “folk songs” from the ’800s and for singers and musicians who transmitted and transmit images, emotions and feelings around the world. If “Volare” by Domenico Modugno is identified with the “economic boom” of the ’50s, other songs can bring out themes and messages in a generation and of a season of contemporary Italy. Nor can we forget that musicians such as Zucchero, De Gregori and Dalla are part of a wider musical tradition and lyrics of which they are the result. Gianna Nannini’s songs are better understood if one goes back to her Sienese origins and considers that her productions form part of in the Pucciniana tradition. The course aims to reflect on this heritage as an important language learning tool and to better understand today’s Italian society.