Argentina – “Literature in Italian opera” series of talks to open in Buenos Aires

The Italian Institute of Culture (IIC) of Buenos Aires has organised a series of meetings on “Literature in Italian Opera”. The series will take people on a guided tour of musical fragments to explore the fruitful and close relationship between literature and opera. Melodrama emerged in Florence in the late 16th century and has always sought inspiration from literature. However, the processes by which a literary text was adapted to an opera libretto and what kind of changes librettists and musicians brought to the original texts merit closer examination. The first meeting is scheduled for April 5 at the Institute and was organised by Professor Nora Sforza. It will analyse the ties between Tirso de Molina’s Don Juan, and the Don Giovanni Tenorio versions by Da Ponte-Mozart and Bertati-Gazzaniga. The second talk by Professor Sforza will be held on May 30 and will look at how Schiller’s Don Carlos was adapted for Giuseppe Verdi and on how the composer and his librettists Joseph Mery and Camille du Locle reworked the tragedy, focusing in particular on the political and ideological content previously set forth by the German writer.