Responsabile nazionale
A. Roccatagliati (Università degli Studi di Ferrara)
Abstract
The local unity based at Sapienza University of Rome, which includes Franco Piperno and Emanuele Senici, intends to focus on two different themes, linked to the ongoing research interests of the two members. Piperno will work on the critical edition of Bellini’s penultimate opera, Beatrice di Tenda (1833). Such an edition is particularly necessary, given that the currently available scores are highly problematic, reflecting an especially complex compositional process. Bellini modified the score many times before and after the first performances. The autograph is therefore a complex document which bears significant traces of these interventions, especially in the act-2 finale. The critical edition aims to make available the previous versions as well, each of them worthy of being considered by scholars and performers alike. Senici will focus instead on Bellini’s operas on video. La sonnambula, Norma and, to a lesser extent, I Puritani have enjoyed a significant career in various video media and genres throughout the twentieth century and up to the present. What is more, some of their most famous pieces have either appeared as extradiegetic music in film soundtracks, or have been included in films as diegetic performances. Finally, Bellini himself has appeared as a character in several films, which naturally include a significant amount of his music. All these materials have till now received very little scholarly attention, and only from film scholars rather than musicologists.