Opera, Theatrical Culture and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples

A specialist in 18th-century Neapolitan music, musicians, and culture, DelDonna (musicology, Georgetown U.) focuses here on theatrical traditions, specifically opera and ballet, and on selected works in Naples during the last third of its greatest century. He looks at the dramatic stage as the primary lens through which contemporary culture was presented and examined. Among his topics are opera, antiquity, and the Neapolitan Enlightenment in Paisiello's 1775 Socrate immaginario; Naples, carnevale, and the commedia per musica: Il convitato de pietra (1783); Debora e Sisara and the rise of Lenten tragedy; Piccinni's Gionata (1780) as drama and diplomacy at the precipice of revolution; and the Neapolitan Ballet d'Action and the art of experimentation. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Anthony R. DelDonna, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Musicology and Director of the Music Program at Georgetown University. He is a specialist in eighteenth-century topics, in particular Neapolitan music, musicians and culture. Professor DelDonnaa€?s research has focused primarily on opera, archival studies, performance practice and ballet, and has been published in the peer-reviewed journals, Early Music, Eighteenth-Century Music, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Recercare, Studi musicali and CiviltA musicale and in various scholarly collections on eighteenth-century music. He is the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Opera (with Pierpaolo Polzonetti; 2009) and editor for Genre in Eighteenth-Century Music (2008). Professor DelDonna is the co-editor (with Anna Celenza) of the forthcoming book, In Pursuit of a Cultural Mission: The Jesuits and Music and a collection of clarinet and piano transcriptions by Ferdinando Sebastiani (with Antonio Caroccia for Castejon Music Editions) as well as a forthcoming critical edition of the oratorio Trionfo per la€?Assunzione della Santissima Vergine for the series Fondazione Arcadia.