The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte

The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte PDF Author: Peter Jordan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136488243
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
A significant and original new study of a key dramatic form Author is both an historian and practitioner of the craft There are few up-to-date case studies of Commedia available in English

The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte

The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte PDF Author: Peter Jordan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136488235
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The Venetian Origins of the Commedia dell'Arte is a striking new enquiry into the late-Renaissance stirrings of professional secular comedy in Venice, and their connection to the development of what came to be known as the Commedia dell’Arte. The book contends that through a symbiotic collaboration between patrician amateurs and plebeian professionals, innovative forms of comedy developed in the Venice region, fusing ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture in a provocative mix that had a truly mass appeal. Rich with anecdotes, diary entries and literary – often ribald – comic passages, Peter Jordan's central argument has important implications for the study of Venetian art, popular theatre and European cultural history.

A History of Italian Theatre

A History of Italian Theatre PDF Author: Joseph Farrell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521802652
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
A history of Italian theatre from its origins to the the time of this book's publication in 2006. The text discusses the impact of all the elements and figures integral to the collaborative process of theatre-making. The distinctive nature of Italian theatre is expressed in the individual chapters by highly regarded international scholars.

Commedia dell'Arte in Context

Commedia dell'Arte in Context PDF Author: Christopher B. Balme
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108670571
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 709

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Book Description
The commedia dell'arte, the improvised Italian theatre that dominated the European stage from 1550 to 1750, is arguably the most famous theatre tradition to emerge from Europe in the early modern period. Its celebrated masks have come to symbolize theatre itself and have become part of the European cultural imagination. Over the past twenty years a revolution in commedia dell'arte scholarship has taken place, generated mainly by a number of distinguished Italian scholars. Their work, in which they have radically separated out the myth from the history of the phenomenon remains, however, largely untranslated into English (or any other language). The present volume gathers together these Italian and English-speaking scholars to synthesize for the first time this research for both specialist and non-specialist readers. The book is structured around key topics that span both the early modern period and the twentieth-century reinvention of the commedia dell'arte.

Performance and Literature in the Commedia Dell'Arte

Performance and Literature in the Commedia Dell'Arte PDF Author: Robert Henke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521643245
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This book explores the commedia dell'arte: the Italian professional theatre in Shakespeare's time. The actors of this theatre usually did not perform from scripted drama but instead improvised their performances from a shared plot and thorough knowledge of individual character roles. Robert Henke closely analyzes hitherto unexamined commedia dell'arte texts in order to demonstrate how the spoken word and written literature were fruitfully combined in performance. Henke examines a number of primary sources including performance accounts, actors' contracts, and letters, among other documents.

Inventing the Opera House

Inventing the Opera House PDF Author: Eugene J. Johnson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108421741
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
This book examines the invention of the architecture of the modern opera house in Italy between the late fifteenth and late seventeenth centuries.

Commedia dell’Arte for the 21st Century

Commedia dell’Arte for the 21st Century PDF Author: Corinna Di Niro
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000520978
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This book discusses the evolution of Commedia dell’Arte in the Asia-Pacific where through the process of reinvention and recreation it has emerged as a variety of hybrids and praxes, all in some ways faithful to the recreated European genre. The contributors in this collection chart their own training in the field and document their strategies for engaging with this form of theatre. In doing so, this book examines the current thoughts, ideas, and perceptions of Commedia – a long-standing theatre genre, originating in a European-based collision between neo-classical drama and oral tradition. The contributing artists, directors, teachers, scholars and theatre-makers give insight into working styles, performance ideas, craft techniques and ways to engage an audience for whom Commedia is not part of their day-to-day culture. The volume presents case studies by current practitioners, some who have trained under known Commedia ‘masters’ (e.g. Lecoq, Boso, Mazzone-Clementi and Fava) and have returned to their country of origin where they have developed their performance and teaching praxis, and others (e.g. travelling from Europe to Japan, Thailand, Singapore and China) who have discovered access points to share or teach Commedia in places where it was previously not known. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in Performing arts, Italian studies, and History as well as practitioners in Commedia dell’Arte.

The World of Harlequin

The World of Harlequin PDF Author: Allardyce Nicoll
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521058346
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The commedia dell'arte was an improvised drama performed by masked players. How did the actors react to these demands and limitations? What force kept this form of theatre alive for more than two centuries and made Harlequin such a potent image? In this study of the commedia dell'arte, originally published in 1987, Professor Nicoll's concern is not to provide an historical survey of its origins or to trace the ascent and descent of Harlequin or any or any other character or 'mask', but rather to explore critically the answers to these and related questions. His arguments are based on the evidence of the play scenarios and contemporary documents as far as possible, and are illuminated by many illustrations that are either little-known or had not previously been reproduced.

The Routledge Research Companion to Anglo-Italian Renaissance Literature and Culture

The Routledge Research Companion to Anglo-Italian Renaissance Literature and Culture PDF Author: Michele Marrapodi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317044169
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 679

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Book Description
The aim of this Companion volume is to provide scholars and advanced graduate students with a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research work on Anglo-Italian Renaissance studies. Written by a team of international scholars and experts in the field, the chapters are grouped into two large areas of influence and intertextuality, corresponding to the dual way in which early modern England looked upon the Italian world from the English perspective – Part 1: "Italian literature and culture" and Part 2: "Appropriations and ideologies". In the first part, prominent Italian authors, artists, and thinkers are examined as a direct source of inspiration, imitation, and divergence. The variegated English response to the cultural, ideological, and political implications of pervasive Italian intertextuality, in interrelated aspects of artistic and generic production, is dealt with in the second part. Constructed on the basis of a largely interdisciplinary approach, the volume offers an in-depth and wide-ranging treatment of the multifaceted ways in which Italy’s material world and its iconologies are represented, appropriated, and exploited in the literary and cultural domain of early modern England. For this reason, contributors were asked to write essays that not only reflect current thinking but also point to directions for future research and scholarship, while a purposefully conceived bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a detailed index round off the volume.

Performing Commedia Dell'arte, 1570-1630

Performing Commedia Dell'arte, 1570-1630 PDF Author: NATALIE. CROHN SCHMITT
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032088501
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Performing Commedia dell'Arte, 1570-1630 explores the performance techniques employed in commedia dell'arte and the ways in which they served to rapidly spread the ideas that were to form the basis of modern theatre throughout Europe. Chapters include one on why, what, and how actors improvised, one on acting styles, including dialects, voice and gesture; and one on masks and their uses and importance. These chapters on historical performance are followed by a coda on commedia dell'arte today. Together they offer readers a look at both past and present iterations of these performances. Suitable for both scholars and performers, Performing Commedia dell'Arte, 1570-1630 bears on essential questions about the techniques of performance and their utility for this important theatrical form. Winner of Ennio Flaiano Award in Italianistica, 2020.