Prerequisites for admission
Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the course, students need a basic knowledge of the music, opera, theatre, and cinema history. So, it is advisable that students choose Musical Dramaturgy after having attended two or three of the afore mentioned courses.
Teaching Resources
Recommended reference book:
- Emilio Sala, Opera, neutro plurale. Glossario per melomani del XXI secolo, Milano: il Saggiatore 2024.
Part I (Filmed Opera)
- Emanuele Senici, "In the Score": Music and Media in the Discourse of Operatic Mise-en-scène, in The Opera Quarterly, vol. 35, fasc. 3, 2019, pp. 207-223 (available on unimi website).
- Emanuele Senici, Filmare l'aria: Franco Enriquez, Francesco Rosi, Peter Sellars, in La musica fra testo, performance e media, a cura di A. Cecchi, Roma: NeoClassica, 2019, pp. 195-218.
- Estela Ibáñez-García, Displaying the Magician's Art: Theatrical Illusion in Ingmar Bergman's "The Magic Flute" (1975), in Cambridge Opera Journal, XXXIII/3 (2021), pp. 191-211 (available on unimi website).
For this first part on filmed opera, students need to study these films and videos:
- Giuseppe Verdi, La traviata, TV broadcasting (1954), directed by Franco Enriquez (available on YouTube)
- Georges Bizet, Carmen, film-opera (1984), directed by Francesco Rosi (DVD)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Trollflöjten (Il flauto magico) (1975), directed by Ingmar Bergman (DVD)
- Georg Friedrich Händel, Theodora (1996), directed by Peter Sellars (DVD)
Parte II (Opera and Cinema)
- Matteo Giuggioli, Le forme dell'opera nel cinema. Sull'impiego cinematografico del "Trovatore" tra Gallone e Visconti, in La musica fra testo, performance e media, a cura di A. Cecchi, Roma: NeoClassica, 2019, pp. 339-355.
- Jacob-Evan Eidt, Aesthetics, Opera, and Alterity in Herzog's Work, in Comparative Literature and Culture, XIV/1 (2012), pp. 2-9 (available on unimi website)
- Matteo Giuggioli, L'eredità musicale verdiana alle origini del cinema di Bernardo Bertolucci, in Comunicazioni sociali, XXXII/1 (2011), pp. 102-112 (available on unimi website)
For this second part on the association between opera and cinema, students need to study these films and videos:
- Carmine Gallone, Il trovatore (1949), cinematic transposition of Verdi's opera (available on YouTube)
- Luchino Visconti, Senso (1954) (DVD)
- Bernardo Bertolucci, Prima della rivoluzione (1964) (DVD)
- Bernardo Bertolucci, Strategia del ragno (1970) (DVD)
- Werner Herzog, Fitzcarraldo (1982) (DVD)
Parte III (Intermediality)
- Emilio Sala, "I due timidi" di Nino Rota. Un'opera intermediale a cavallo fra radio, cinema, teatro e televisione, in Nino Rota: un timido protagonista del Novecento musicale, a cura di Francesco Lombardi, Torino: EDT, 2012, pp. 125-148.
- Jean Cocteau, La voix humaine, a cura di Filippo Annunziata, Pisa: ETS, 2021, "Dentro il testo", pp. 9-26.
- Jessica Tsun Lem Hui, Reconfiguring Voice in "The End": Virtuosity, Technological Affordance and the Reversibility of Hatsune Miku in the Intermundane, in Cambridge Opera Journal, XXXIV/3 (2022), pp. 364-379 (available on the unimi website)
For this third part on opera and intermediality, students need to study these films and videos:
- Nino Rota, I due timidi (1950), radio broadcasting (available on YouTube)
- Francis Poulenc, La voix humaine, television film (1971), directed by Dominique Delouche (utilizing the 1959 original recording) (DVD)
- Shibuya Keīchirō, The End (2013), vocaloid opera, performed by Hatsune Miku (available on YouTube).