Which Italian form of improvised comic drama was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries?
"Harlequinade Harlequinade is a British comic theatrical genre, defined by the ""Oxford English Dictionary"" as ""that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts"". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation or variant of the Commedia dell'arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine's greedy and foolish father Pantaloon (evolved from the character Pantalone),"
"for and depicted common people with more common problems. High-flown language was generally avoided in favor of dialogue that the lower class would relate to, often in the local dialect, and the stock characters were often derived from those of the Italian ""commedia dell'arte"". In the early 18th century, comic operas often appeared as short, one-act interludes known as intermezzi that were performed in between acts of opera seria. There also existed, however, self-contained operatic comedies. ""La serva padrona"" (1733) by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736), is the one intermezzo still performed with any regularity today, and provides an excellent example"
"Greek. For example, Seneca's ""Phaedra"" was based on that of Euripides, and many of the comedies of Plautus were direct translations of works by Menander. During the 16th century and on into the 18th century, Commedia dell'arte was a form of improvisational theatre, and it is still performed today. Travelling troupes of players would set up an outdoor stage and provide amusement in the form of juggling, acrobatics and, more typically, humorous plays based on a repertoire of established characters with a rough storyline, called ""canovaccio"". Plays did not originate from written drama but from scenarios called lazzi, which were"
"to the Arcadian Academy and was firmly in line with its theories. A libretto by Metastasio was often set by twenty or thirty different composers and audiences came to know the words of his dramas by heart. In the 17th century comic operas were produced only occasionally and no stable tradition was established. Only in the early years of the 18th century was the comic genre of ""opera buffa"" born in Naples and it began to spread throughout Italy after 1730. Opera buffa was distinguished from opera seria by numerous characteristics: In the second half of the 18th century comic"
"flourish in Naples with Alessandro Scarlatti's ""Il trionfo dell'onore"" (1718). At first written in Neapolitan dialect, these works became ""Italianized"" with the operas of Scarlatti, Pergolesi (""La serva padrona"", 1733), Piccinni (""La Cecchina"", 1760), Paisiello (""Nina"", 1789), Cimarosa (""Il matrimonio segreto"", 1792), and then the great comic operas of Mozart and, later, Rossini and Donizetti. At first, comic operas were generally presented as intermezzi between acts of more serious works. Neapolitan and then Italian comic opera grew into an independent form and became the most popular form of staged entertainment in Italy from about 1750 to 1800. In 1749, thirteen"
"a separately unfolding comic plot as sort of an ""opera-within-an-opera."" One reason for this was an attempt to attract members of the growing merchant class, newly wealthy, but still not as cultured as the nobility, to the public opera houses. These separate plots were almost immediately resurrected in a separately developing tradition that partly derived from the commedia dell'arte, a long-flourishing improvisatory stage tradition of Italy. Just as intermedi had once been performed in between the acts of stage plays, operas in the new comic genre of ""intermezzi"", which developed largely in Naples in the 1710s and '20s, were initially"
"Madrigal comedy Madrigal comedy is a term for a kind of entertainment music of the late 16th century in Italy, in which groups of related, generally ""a cappella"" madrigals were sung consecutively, generally telling a story, and sometimes having a loose dramatic plot. It is an important element in the origins of opera. The term is of 20th-century origin, popularised by Alfred Einstein. The first collection of madrigals, sung as a set and telling a coherent (and highly comic) story, was ""Il cicalamento delle donne al bucato"" (the gossip of wives in the laundry), by Alessandro Striggio, which was written"
"Macchietta Macchietta (literally ""little spot""; Plural: macchiette) is a form of comedy act which was common in Italian theatre between the late 1800s and the second half of the 1900s. The ""macchietta"" consisted in comic musical monologues caricaturing stock characters. It was generally committed to the observation of reality, and it sketched characters featuring particular defects or manias, which were further deformed and exaggerated for comical and satirical effects. Every monologue had some music serving as backdrop for the whole performance and the acting was interspersed by brief couplets sung by the comedian. Macchiette were performed in café-chantants, revues and"
"Vecchi. Madrigal comedy Madrigal comedy is a term for a kind of entertainment music of the late 16th century in Italy, in which groups of related, generally ""a cappella"" madrigals were sung consecutively, generally telling a story, and sometimes having a loose dramatic plot. It is an important element in the origins of opera. The term is of 20th-century origin, popularised by Alfred Einstein. The first collection of madrigals, sung as a set and telling a coherent (and highly comic) story, was ""Il cicalamento delle donne al bucato"" (the gossip of wives in the laundry), by Alessandro Striggio, which was"
"English and Italian. Characters such as Harlequin, Pulcinella and Pierrot often appear in Verdirosi's paintings. These are characters from the commedia dell'arte that used to be a popular form of improvised theatre in Italy where it originated in the 16th century, or even before, and can perhaps be seen as the prototype of Shakespearean comedy. Umberto Verdirosi Umberto Verdirosi is a painter, actor, sculptor and poet who was born in Piedmont in northern Italy. He lives in Rome where he has his studio, and another one in Orvieto. His father was a Sicilian and his mother came from Veneto. After"
"1613),"" The Penitent Magdalene"" (Mantua, 1617), and ""The Centaur"" (Paris, 1622). From the first of these three volumes, which are extremely rare, Italians have often asserted that Milton, travelling at that time in their country, took the idea of ""Paradise Lost"". Giambattista Andreini Giambattista Andreini (9 February 1576 – 7 June 1654) was an Italian actor and the most important Italian playwright of the 17th century. Born in Florence to stage stars Isabella Andreini and Francesco Andreini, he had a great success as a comedian in Paris under the name of Leylio. He was a favourite with Louis XIII, and"
"alternate tragedies with comedies or the farces of Molière without problem. Comedy at the Royal Academy of Music had always been rather limited. In the eighteenth century, Italian opera evolved greatly, considerably faster than ""tragédie lyrique"" or ""tragédie en musique"" (typically French), until it split into two genres: ""opera seria"" (with serious themes from librettos by Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio) and ""opera buffa"", or comic opera (from ""buffo"" = deriving from ""to laugh"", ""grotesque"", ""farce”), which included comic interludes marked with lightness, innocence, simplicity, irrationality, and the triviality of daily life. If ""comic ballet"" could be represented by ""Platée"" (""Plataea""),"
"On 20 June 1627, Monteverdi informed Striggio that Strozzi had expanded and arranged the text into five acts, under the new title ""La finta pazza Licori"". Feigned madness was a standard theme in the ""commedia dell'arte"" tradition that had established itself in Italian theatre in the 16th century. In Strozzi's plot, the first known attempt at comic opera, the woman Licori disguises herself initially as a man, then as a woman, and then pretends to be mad, all as part of a strategy to win the heart of her lover, Aminta. Monteverdi was, at least initially, much taken with the"
"comedy such as Commedia dell'Arte. Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldoni, two Venetian writers, were moving away from the old style of Italian theatre, which threatened the work of the Granelleschi Society. In 1757 Gozzi defended Commedia dell'Arte by publishing a satirical poem, ""La tartana degli influssi per l'anno 1756"", and in 1761 his comedy based on a fairy tale, ""The Love for Three Oranges"" or ""Analisi riflessiva della fiaba L'amore delle tre melarance"", he parodied Chiari and Goldoni. To perform his play, he obtained the services of the Sacchi company of players, a Commedia dell'Arte troupe who had been out"
"L'Italiana in Londra L'Italiana in Londra (""The Italian Girl in London"") is one of eight comic operas, termed intermezzi, which Domenico Cimarosa wrote between 1777 and 1784 for the Teatro Valle, a handsome neo-classical Roman theatre built in 1726, which still stands today. Intermezzi grew out of small-scale comic pieces which were inserted for light relief between the acts of weightier opera seria works, chiefly in Naples and Venice. They usually had only two singers, perhaps with the addition of actors. Typically characters were drawn from what was supposed to be real life, but servants were often pitted against their"
"Dramma giocoso Dramma giocoso (Italian, literally: drama with jokes; plural: ""drammi giocosi"") is a genre of opera common in the mid-18th century. The term is a contraction of ""dramma giocoso per musica"" and describes the opera's libretto (text). The genre developed in the Neapolitan opera tradition, mainly through the work of the playwright Carlo Goldoni in Venice. A ""dramma giocoso"" characteristically used a grand ""buffo"" (comic or farce) scene as a dramatic climax at the end of an act. Goldoni's texts always consisted of two long acts with extended finales, followed by a short third act. Composers Baldassare Galuppi, Niccolò"
"Opera buffa Opera buffa (; ""comic opera"", plural: ""opere buffe"") is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ""commedia in musica"", ""commedia per musica"", ""dramma bernesco"", ""dramma comico"", ""divertimento giocoso"". Especially associated with developments in Naples in the first half of the 18th century, whence its popularity spread to Rome and northern Italy, ""buffa"" was at first characterized by everyday settings, local dialects, and simple vocal writing (the basso buffo is the associated voice type), the main requirement being clear diction and facility with patter."
"to the exclusion of the castrati. This led to the creation of the characteristic ""basso buffo"", a specialist in patter who was the center of most of the comic action. (A well-known basso buffo role is Leporello in Mozart's ""Don Giovanni""). Notes Sources Opera buffa Opera buffa (; ""comic opera"", plural: ""opere buffe"") is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ""commedia in musica"", ""commedia per musica"", ""dramma bernesco"", ""dramma comico"", ""divertimento giocoso"". Especially associated with developments in Naples in the first half of the"
"Piccinni, and Joseph Haydn set Goldoni's texts to music. The only operas of this genre that are still frequently staged are Gioachino Rossini's ""L'italiana in Algeri"" (1813) and ""La Cenerentola"" (1817), and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte's ""Don Giovanni"" (1787) and ""Così fan tutte"" (1790). However, Mozart entered these works in his catalogue as ""opera buffa"". Dramma giocoso Dramma giocoso (Italian, literally: drama with jokes; plural: ""drammi giocosi"") is a genre of opera common in the mid-18th century. The term is a contraction of ""dramma giocoso per musica"" and describes the opera's libretto (text). The genre developed in"
"characters (such as a saint or an angel) and matters of Christian doctrine and ethics had to be carefully explained to them in minute detail. If the inspiration for this type of drama could partly be found in the ""autos sacramentales"" and the ""comedias de santos"" introduced to Naples during the era of Spanish domination (1559-1713) it was also in some ways a continuation of the old popular tradition of the ""sacra rappresantazione"" (a sort of ""mystery play""), meaning ""traditional religiosity, saturated in popular hagiography and rather naive in taste"", which already featured comic characters expressing themselves in dialect, continual"
"Lope de Vega and Christopher Marlowe. From the 16th to the 18th century commedia dell'arte performers improvised in the streets of Italy and France. Some Commedia dell'arte plays were written down. Both the written plays and the improvisation were influential upon literature of the time, particularly upon the work of Molière. Shakespeare drew upon the arts of jesters and strolling players in creating new style comedies. All the parts, even the female ones, were played by men (""en travesti"") but that would change, first in France and then in England too, by the end of the 17th century. The earliest"
"age. The notorious Pietro Aretino might also be included in the list of the best writers of comedy. The 15th century included humorous poetry. Antonio Cammelli, surnamed the Pistoian, is specially deserving of notice, because of his pungent ""bonhomie"", as Sainte-Beuve called it. But it was Francesco Berni who and satire, carried this kind of literature to perfection in the 16th century. From him the style has been called bernesque poetry. In the Berneschi we find nearly the same phenomenon that we already noticed with regard to ""Orlando furioso"". It was art for arts sake that inspired and moved Berni"
"L'Amfiparnaso L'Amfiparnaso is a madrigal comedy by composer Orazio Vecchi. It was composed in Italy in 1594. Madrigal comedy, or Commedia harmonica (as known in the 16th century Italian vernacular) was a genre that flourished briefly from 1590 for about twenty years, previous to the first operas. Some of them were collections of pieces, while others used commedia dell'arte characters and told a full story through the medium of three or five-voice ensemble. The two principal composers were Adriano Banchieri and Orazio Vecchi, both contemporaries of Monteverdi. Premiered in 1594. Pantalone - central figure of Commedia dell'arte Doctor Gratiano -"
"piazza. The form of theatre originated in Italy, but travelled throughout Europe and even to Moscow. The ""commedia"" genesis may be related to carnival in Venice, where by 1570 the author/actor Andrea Calmo had created the character Il Magnifico, the precursor to the vecchio (old man) Pantalone. In the Flaminio Scala scenario for example, Il Magnifico persists and is interchangeable with Pantalone, into the seventeenth century. While Calmo's characters (which also included the Spanish Capitano and a dottore type) were not masked, it is uncertain at what point the characters donned the mask. However, the connection to carnival (the period"
"Italy in the fourteenth century. These performances were for popular audiences with understanding of biblical stories and faith in the divine mysteries. Their entertainment relied on heavily on spectacle. The ""sacre rappresentazioni"" plays had stagings of all kinds of frightful miracles and martyrdoms (ex. the skinning of St. Bartholomew with the use of adroit manipulation and flesh-colored lights). Because the public was already accustomed to this level of shock value, ""commedia erudita"" writers had to find a way to include spectacle in their shows as well. These didactic literary experiments were almost always prose pieces, written by students, teachers, and"
"years after Pergolesi's death, his ""La serva padrona"" swept Italy and France, evoking the praise of such French Enlightenment luminaries as Rousseau. In 1760, Niccolò Piccinni wrote the music to ""La Cecchina"" to a text by the great Venetian playwright, Carlo Goldoni. That text was based on Samuel Richardson's popular English novel, ""Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded"" (1740). Many years later, Verdi called ""La Cecchina"" the ""first true Italian comic opera"" – that is to say, it had everything: it was in standard Italian and not in dialect; it was no longer simply an intermezzo, but rather an independent piece; it"
"because an audience 'has lots to catch up on' during the performance, and could not care less about meaning. Metastasio's text became wildly popular and was also composed by Tomaso Albinoni in 1725, Chiocchetti in 1726, Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, Leonardo Leo in 1741 and Giovanni Battista Martini in 1744. The intermezzo was heard in different versions all over Europe. Orlandini's version was performed in Copenhagen, Sarro's in London in 1737. Leonardo Leo's version was performed in Vienna (1747), Potsdam (1748). ""L'impresario delle Isole Canarie"" may have been Metastasio's single venture into comic opera, but it had far reaching influence. Carlo"
"alternative for burlesque. Burletta In theater and music history, a burletta (Italian, meaning ""little joke"", sometimes burla or burlettina) is a brief comic opera. In eighteenth-century Italy, a burletta was the comic intermezzo between the acts of an ""opera seria"". The extended work Pergolesi's ""La serva padrona"" was also designated a ""burletta"" at its London premiere in 1750. In England, the term began to be used, in contrast to burlesque, for works that satirized opera but did not employ musical parody. Burlettas in English began to appear in the 1760s, the earliest identified as such being ""Midas"" by Kane O'Hara,"
"plots were taken from classical authors such as Plutarch and Suetonius, and from Italian, French and Spanish short-story collections. The Greek tragic authors (Sophocles and Euripides) would become increasingly important by the middle of the 17th century. Important models for the 17th century's comedy, tragedy and tragicomedy were also supplied by the Spanish playwrights Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina and Lope de Vega, many of whose works were translated and adapted for the French stage. Important theatrical models were also supplied by the Italian stage (including the pastoral) and Italy was also an important source for theoretical"
"its characters, into the harlequinade. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, the harlequinade became the larger part of the entertainment, and the transformation scene was presented with increasingly spectacular stage effects. The harlequinade lost popularity towards the end of the 19th century and disappeared altogether in the 1930s, although Christmas pantomimes continue to be presented in Britain without the harlequinade. During the 16th century, Commedia dell'arte spread from Italy throughout Europe, and by the 17th century adaptations of its characters were familiar in English plays. In English versions, harlequinades differed in two important respects from the Commedia original. First,"
"Comic opera Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, ""opera buffa"", emerged as an alternative to ""opera seria"". It quickly made its way to France, where it became ""opéra bouffon"", and eventually, in the following century, French ""operetta"", with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner. The influence of the Italian and French forms spread to other parts of Europe. Many countries developed their own genres of comic opera, incorporating the Italian"
"In reality, the play reflects the seventeenth century fashion for mixing elements of tragedy and comedy in a style first identified by Sir Philip Sydney in 1579 as being 'mongrel tragicomedy’; thus while death intrudes on the final act, it only strikes unsympathetic characters. There is also regular light relief provided by two comic characters, Cornego and Cockadillio, as well the cameo appearances of Signor No and Medina as a French Doctor. The two groups of characters at the centre of the play are on one hand, the ruling cabal, that is the King, his Italian Queen and their supporters,"
"of comedies of intrigue include Niccolò Machiavelli's ""The Mandrake"" (1524), the anonymous Italian play ""The Deceived Ones"" (1531), Shakespeare's ""The Merchant of Venice"" (c. 1596) and ""Much Ado About Nothing"", Thomas Heywood's ""The Wise Woman of Hoxton"" (c. 1604), Molière's ""Scapin the Schemer"" (1671), and the plays of Aphra Behn and Thomas D'Urfey. Comedy of intrigue The comedy of intrigue, also known as the comedy of situation, is a genre of comedy in which dramatic action is prioritised over the development of character, complicated strategems and conspiracies drive the plot, and farcical humour and contrived or ridiculous dramatic situations are"