Ballet Music of Italy
Italian supports to ballet are less known and appreciated than in other places of classical music. Italy, particularly Milan, was the Euro...
https://worldhitz4u.blogspot.com/2014/01/ballet-music-of-italy.html
Italian
supports to ballet are less known and appreciated than in other places of
classical music. Italy, particularly Milan, was the European center of court choreography
as early as the 15th century in the form of such things as ritual
masked balls. The early choreographers and composers of ballets include Fabrizo
Caroso and Cesare Negri, the pattern of ballet is called spectacles
all’italiana imported to France from Italy caught on, and the first ballet
performed in France in 1581, ballet comique de la Royn, was composed by an
Italian, Baltazarini di Belgioioso, better known by the French version known as
Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx. Early ballet was followed by considerable
instrumentation, with the playing of horns, dulcimers, bagpipes, trombones and
kettle drums etc. Although the music has not survived, there is assumption that
dancers themselves may have played instruments onstage, then, in the wake of
the French Revolution, Italy again became a center of ballet, largely through
the efforts of Salvatore Vigano, a choreographer who worked with some of the
most important composers of the day. He was made the balletmaster of La Scala
in the year 1812. The best-known instance of Italian ballet from the 19th
century is possibly Excelsior, with music by Romualdo Merenco and choreography
by Luigi Manzotti. This was composed in 1881 and it is a lavish tribute to the
scientific and industrial progress of the 19th century, this is
still performed and was staged as currently in the year 2002.
source of picture: www.thomasoboelee.com
Presently,
major Italian opera theatres maintains ballets companies, they exists to
provide incidental and traditional dancing in several operas like Aida or La
Traviata. These dance companies usually maintain a different ballet season and
perform the standard list of classical ballet, little of which is Italian. The
Italian equivalent of the Russian Bolshoi Ballet and similar companies that
exist only to perform ballet, independent of a parent opera theater is La Scala
Ballet, which is directed by Frederic Olivieri. Since the year 1979 there has
existed in Italy a recent dance company, the Aterballetto, based in Reggio
Emilia, the company performs all over the world under the leadership of
choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti.
