Riccardo La Spina | Independent Scholar (original) (raw)

Conference Presentations by Riccardo La Spina

Primer (I) Congreso “Música y Estudios Americanos” (MUSAM) y Sociedad Española de Musicología (SEdM) [Conference Programme/Abstracts], 2017

The new-world embodiment of mid-century Italian musical ideals, Antonio Barili (1826-1876), disti... more The new-world embodiment of mid-century Italian musical ideals, Antonio Barili (1826-1876), distinguished himself as opera conductor and pedagogue. While considering these his principal achievements, his successful Un paseo á Santa Anita, composed towards the end of his decade-long Mexico City residency, and premièred at the Teatro Nacional (17 November 1859), constitutes a significant contribution to Mexican musical theatre. Its anticipation prompted local press announcements of Barili’s “just having been handed the libretto”, likely given his still-mysterious formative experience —purportedly under Carnicer— as Madrid experimented marrying costumbrismo with Spanish musical idiom towards vernacular lyric-theatrical forms. Originally labeled ‘opereta’ and later “first characteristically Mexican opera” by historians, Paseo next appeared as Una noche en Sevilla (New York, 1866), reclassified ‘Spanish Opera’ by its composer. Alternate press references to both titles as zarzuela indicate its likely original conception.

While the project’s origins and associations behind them remain obscure, its recent literary inspiration — Niceto Zamacois’ first published piece after returning to Spain (El Museo Universal, 1857)— connects with vivid immediacy to the finished libretto. By Spanish expatriates, costumbrismo proponents José Casanova and Victor Landaluce, this incorporates prominently characters from Zamacois’ stage-works and similarities with the source-article’s setting: contemporaneous Mexico City’s immediate environs, canoes plying Santa Anita’s now-filled canals. Interspersed spoken dialogue reflects local traits, custom, jargon and political slants. This joint Euro-Mexican effort mirrors concomitant concern for reuniting estranged international and cosmopolitan artistic resources towards validating (though exoticizing) Mexico’s native culture beyond merely representing local color, as a subject worthy of treatment.

Long subject to misconceptions and bereft of a score, the work eluded serious study, now redressed with rediscovered documentation. Besides illuminating its philological aspects, I query both manifestations’ nature, Mexican or Spanish: camouflaged elements align with libretto fragments identifying corresponding settings, enabling partial reconstruction of musical examples – an integral facet bolstering my research.

Graham's insistence that the music followed the dance, later followed by Merce Cunningham's separ... more Graham's insistence that the music followed the dance, later followed by Merce Cunningham's separation from, and independence of, music. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, choreographers such as Mark Morris are returning to a reliance on musical dynamics to direct and shape their dance. Looking at Mark Morris's Falling Down Stairs (1998) to music by J. S. Bach, and Merce Cunningham 's Biped (1999) to music by Gavin Bryars, I will show how the choreographers in question have dealt with the musical accompaniment to each piece in ways governed by their own personal and idiosyncratic philosophies.

A Moral Case: the Outburst of La Traviata in London (1856) Massimo Zicari (Conservatorio della Sv... more A Moral Case: the Outburst of La Traviata in London (1856) Massimo Zicari (Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana)

En este congreso se propone un estudio del concierto como fenómeno social, cultural y musical en ... more En este congreso se propone un estudio del concierto como fenómeno social, cultural y musical en un periodo especialmente floreciente de la música española: del siglo XVIII al siglo XXI.

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Defined by civil war and political tumult, 1863 is well-known in Mexico’s History as one of singu... more Defined by civil war and political tumult, 1863 is well-known in Mexico’s History as one of singular import, but less so a milestone of national musico-cultural achievement. Nevertheless, from President Benito Juárez’ early-1863 passage of two more milestone reform laws, to the installation of Archduke Maximilian as Emperor, the following April, an unprecedented number of newly-composed operas by Mexican composers were staged, under newly rediscovered government patronage. Set to preexisting libretti (Felice Romani and Gaetano Rossi for Carlo Coccia and Vincenzo Bellini, respectively), these works were nevertheless the unique manifestation of a new school of Mexican composers expressing themselves en masse for the first time. The impending conflict bringing an exodus of resident Italian companies, left the field open to enterprising Mexicans, with Cenobio Paniagua (1821-1882), Octaviano Valle (1826-1869), and Bruno Flores in the forefront.
While Paniagua’s autographs and materials for I due Foscari by Mateo Torres Serrato remain unavailable, the period now lends itself to deeper scrutiny, thanks to the recent reemergence of other long-unavailable biographical information (especially Torres’), and musical and archival sources. Of these, fragments from the early Romeo by Melesio Morales (1837-1908), and Valle’s ill-fated Clotilde di Cosenza provide crucial insight, permitting these rarities to finally be sampled. Limited documentation has long presented further challenges to demystifying what might be considered a ‘legendary’ period. However, reviewing the underlying historic and political reasons for its impetus, our paper will explore and contextualize the circumstances behind this unprecedented operatic anno mirabilis during an historically challenging biennium for Mexico.

Before the advent of dedicated opera (1850) and Zarzuela (1856) theatres, early nineteenth-centur... more Before the advent of dedicated opera (1850) and Zarzuela (1856) theatres, early nineteenth-century Spain's approach to theatrical management blurred the lines of lyric-theatrical performance-specialization through a peculiar single-theater system, engaging all players as 'actors.' Archives brim with clauses and petitions seeking emancipation from multifarious performance-drudgery in favor of remaining within a preferred niche. Preceding the national romantic genres' development, the 1814-25 precursor of opera espanola and zarzuela singers straddled the 'lyric' divide, obligated to perform several functions outside specialization: alongside the national lyric genero chico (including tonadillas, sainetes and dance), singers (e.g. Correa) take dramatic roles, actors (e.g. Maiquez) operatic ones. Child-singers –of either sex – were popularly employed interpreting female roles or representative arias. Conversely, the Rossini-craze coincided with this period, reestablishing opera italiana on the boards: some Italians – once engaged – found fame performing Tonadilla (Sala, Madrid, 1819; Cortesi, Barcelona, 1825; Bressa, Cadiz, 1827), at the behest of their Spanish counterparts, all unwitting protagonists in evolving traditions and conventions, despite conflicting professional interests. While some instances constituted 'collaborative compromise,' somewhat forcing partnerships as an integral lesson of the profession, others define collaborative process, revealing the embodiment of “troupers,” whose transitional function to the evolving Spanish stage, transcending mere versatility, still eludes study. In context with the plight of the lyric actor-singer, we will examine how these peculiarly collaborative fads and practices springing from the upsurge in Italian opera around Spanish entertainments, influenced the act of conscious creative cooperation itself on the Spanish national stage.

In the 1820s and 1830s, the worlds of stage and salon (tertulias, in Spain) intersected, the latt... more In the 1820s and 1830s, the worlds of stage and salon (tertulias, in Spain) intersected, the latter drawing the operatic composer into its milieu, where, often unnoticed, new musical forms were evolving. Though himself a major operista, Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870) was not exempt from involvement in salon life (himself later known for hosting his own serate). An innovator in his stage works, his earlier contribution to the evolution – and possibly, re-introduction – of the vocal bolero has yet eluded the attention of scholars. This very likely stems from the fact that he demonstrated his grasp of the Spanish idiom mainly on the operatic stage, via two works composed in Spain, I due Figaro (Madrid, 1826), and Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamaccio (Cádiz, 1830). Yet, while not as well-documented, the salon also served as a forum of Mercadante's early bolero contributions. These, in turn, beg a case study as possible antecedents of the very term and idea of 'bolero' as a vocal salon form subsequently picked up by pianists, if not as the very point of origin, certainly as a hitherto overlooked antecedent of extraordinary early influence in the form's establishment and progression. Within the context of the fledgling ‘bolero' concept then existing as a newly-formed genre hybrid of certain Spanish song and dance forms, and with Susanna's ‘bolero' from (I Due Figaro) as flashpoint, new, unknown sources now bridge the composer's development of the form towards the song La Zingara Spagnuola. Introduced in 1835 Paris, this was later paraphrased by Liszt (whose admiration for the Italian composer is well-documented), bringing to mind a possible correlation with the virtuoso's later reference to a “Parisian bolero” type.

Our inquiry into both Mercadante's works and career, and musical life in early Nineteenth-century Spain (to c.1840) developed in relation to the interesting discoveries bespeaking the bolero's European salon origins outside Spain (Paris, in particular). In tracing the early development of the Bolero as song-form and its double-life origins between the operatic stage and salon in Mercadante's work, we transcend the mere representation of obscure, unstudied sources by raising the question of their role as a primordial influence over the bolero's early introduction and perception. We shall explore how the Italian composer as early non-Hispanic proponent of the 'bolero' song-form outside of Spain may have – by example – been responsible for the particular way in which it was eventually planted in the popular imagination and minds of his contemporaries, most famously List and, eventually Verdi, among them.

Spain’s constitutional revolution of 1820 ushered in a brief three-year period of liberalism, pro... more Spain’s constitutional revolution of 1820 ushered in a brief three-year period of liberalism, promising theatrical reform, made impossible during the politically severe sexenio absolutista (1814-20), when Luigi Mari unsuccessfully petitioned to perform in Madrid (1817). Founding Madrid’s first known Compañía de Ópera Italiana since the 1790s depended on the imminent political change. Though works by Rossini had been staged in Spanish translation, since 1816, Madrid had not heard a complete Italian opera in the original language in years: its’ theatres now under Municipal control, the City managed to repeal a decree prohibiting foreign-language performance. Mari’s 1820 initiative eventually drew personnel from Barcelona’s Ópera Italiana (and Madrid’s Compañía de Ópera Española), becoming a popular company under Adelaide Dalmani-Naldi, and affording the capital a taste of Rossini by modern singers. For three years (through February 1824), audiences were regaled with six Rossini titles, among earlier operas by others. The introduction of Rossini enabled a paradigm-shift in operatic repertory and taste, as older titles juxtaposed with the modern, making both ripe for dissection in the press.

Historically among the worst-documented and wildly confused by historians for want of sources, this crucial episode now transcends the lack of journalism later plaguing the 1826 company (under Mercadante). Besides facilitating Madrid’s first uninterrupted Italian opera seasons in decades, political reforms fostered a new freedom of the Spanish press, giving this initial wave of Rossini reception coverage through an unprecedented flurry of reviews in several periodicals, published in Madrid (1819-1823). Dismissed by Scholars as nonexistent, these newly rediscovered sources have eluded study. While complementing our previous archival findings, essential facts not manifest in either secondary or archival sources surface in pieces identifying people in key functions: playwright and editor José-María Carnerrero emerges as theatrical commissioner and the opera’s general manager, instrumental in establishing vehicles and standards of Spanish theatrical criticism. Other documents serve as an overview of opera attendance and popularity in Madrid, while comparative analysis reveals rare perspectives on opera criticism in articles on theatre politics, production reviews, critique of company singers, and editorials. These elements, though not uncommon to opera-loving Europe, had just begun reemerging in Spanish papers with the upsurge in opera’s popularity, as a new Rossinian paradigm took root during this crucial and significant historical period of intense progressive shift towards opera’s acculturation. This paper examines the elements of critical thought and review process, wherein the onset of a distinguishable system develops perceivably, reflected in the aforementioned periodicals, all in the context of the period’s first fully-fledged Italian seasons.

Papers by Riccardo La Spina

Diagonal: An Ibero-American Music Review, 2024

Defined by a civil war and political tumult, the year 1863 is well known in the history of Mexico... more Defined by a civil war and political tumult, the year 1863 is well known in the history of Mexico as one of singular import, but less so as a milestone of national musical and cultural achievement. Nevertheless, from January through the departure of Benito Juárez and his cabinet from the capital in May, to the installation of Archduke Maximilian as Emperor in November, an unprecedented number of newly composed operas by Mexican composers were staged. All set to preexisting Italian libretti (including titlesby Felice Romani and Gaetano Rossi for Carlo Coccia and Vincenzo Bellini, respectively), these works were nevertheless the unique manifestation of a school of Mexican composers expressing themselves en masse for the first time. With the impending conflict, an exodus of resident Italian opera companies by 1861 left the field wide-open to enterprising Mexicans, with Cenobio Paniagua (1821-1882) and Octaviano Valle (1826-1869) in the forefront. A fleeting moment in operatic history, this fascinating year now lends itself to deeper scrutiny, thanks to the resurfacing of long-unavailable musical and archival sources. While these works had remained lost until only recently, several scores have begun reemerging. Of these, limited availability of fragments from Romeo e Giulietta by Melesio Morales (his first effort) and Valle’s ill-fated Clotilde di Cosenza provide crucial insight, while permitting these rarities to be sampled for the first time. Paniagua’s autographs—though recently rediscovered—proved far less available, while materials for I due Foscari by Mateo Torres Serrato remain lost. Limited documentation has long presented further challenges to demystifying what might be considered a legendary period. However, reviewing the underlying politico-historic, artistic, and economic reasons for its impetus, this article will explore and contextualize the circumstances leading to this unprecedented explosion of operatic expression, making a sort of anno mirabilis of one of the hardest years in Mexico’s history.

Primer (I) Congreso “Música y Estudios Americanos” (MUSAM) y Sociedad Española de Musicología (SEdM) [Conference Programme/Abstracts], 2017

Diagonal: An Ibero-American Music Review, 2024

Diagonal: An Ibero-American Music Review, 2023

Determined to resuscitate its Ópera Italiana, Madrid serendipitously engaged no less a figure tha... more Determined to resuscitate its Ópera Italiana, Madrid serendipitously engaged no less a figure than Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870) to direct its inaugural season, in April 1826. As its first celebrity composer in recent memory, he spearheaded important successes that reaffirmed the institution’s necessity and enduring popularity, within weeks. Historians record Ópera Italiana’s adaptation to Spain’s theatres as an imposition of foreign ideals on autochthonous culture. However, deeper analysis of Mercadante’s Iberian sojourn uncovers a seemingly not hegemonic (not to mention less-than-opportunistic) rationale for furnishing new operas during this five-year period. His oft-stylized efforts contrast with his subsequent quest for style-maturity, betraying instead, a penchant for couleur locale and autochthonous subject matter (literary and historical). Thus, I due Figaro (Madrid, 1826) and Don Chisciotte (Cadiz, 1830), demonstrate Mercadante’s characteristic concern for audience appeal, and personal conviction to serve Spain’s theatrical interests. Within this new socio-cultural context, various elements of Spanish musical idiom are deftly employed, to further the composer’s agenda to advance taste-formation by providing innovations to conventional opera with which Spanish audiences would readily identify. Consequently, he occasionally revisited this idiom in other works to the end of his lifelong career.

Until now, elusive sources and sporadic interest have prevented the emergence of a cohesive account and assessment of this aspect of Mercadante’s legacy, as being of import to the development of Spain’s national romantic lyric genres. Notwithstanding ambitious and highly publicized efforts leading to the two operas’ revival in recent decades, the continuing absence of both a competent, comprehensive Mercadante biography and history of opera in Spain during this seminal period continue giving rise to much scholarly conjecture and misinterpretation of historical events. Seeking to redress some of these imbalances over several decades of individual research (of which this study forms but a part), we explore the nature of Mercadante’s continued ensuing inclination towards ‘Spanishness’ and establish its rationale. Originally a question of the composer’s professionally motivated objective in incorporating local influences into his work for Spanish audiences, the compositional aspect of skill acquired via his innovations prevails beyond his presence in Spain. An examination of the material he left for the Spanish-character operas and subsequent works, in necessarily selective but salient examples, identify their sources of inspiration. Regarding the national genre question, interpreting available press and musical sources bespeaking these works provides evidence that the contribution of Mercadante was still engaged in Spain long after his ultimate 1831 departure. Regardless of prevailing inconclusive judgments, Mercadante’s hitherto unrecognized influence deserves serious reconsideration. By systematically extracting the circumstances of the Iberian career segment and opus from historical obscurity into a new narrative, this study aims to facilitate their restoration to the proper context and reveal implications for further scholarship.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON TRADITIONAL POLYPHONY , 2018

Grounded in a tradition of stylistically disparate genres of music-making, the period’s songs are... more Grounded in a tradition of stylistically disparate genres of music-making, the period’s songs are often generalized in terms of ‘fad’, spuriously dismissed as predominantly English-language hapahaole (‘’half- white”), pandering to then-emerging trends. This paper explores the first recordings of local vocal ensembles made in Hawaii; the convergence of preserved traits drawn from various discernible styles beckons closer scrutiny. Using comparative methodology to trace outside stylistic influences, we can identify these traits as unique features of both truly polyphonic and heterophonic singing present in several specifically chosen examples, and ultimately, determine what (besides the language of the texts), binds them together as uniquely Hawaiian. Therefore, an approach to these pieces based on, or illustrating, the very act of recording as spontaneous performance may provide an essential platform for further analysis and study, a rare opportunity of stepping back in time towards better understanding them in terms of influence’ and cultural identity.

Plainsong and Medieval Music , 2015

José López-Calo, La música en las catedrales españoles, Música Hispana, Textos: Estudios 17. Madr... more José López-Calo, La música en las catedrales españoles, Música Hispana, Textos: Estudios 17. Madrid: ICCMU, 2012. xii + 214 pp. €45. ISBN 978 84 89457 48 5.

Studies in Musical Theatre Volume, 2013

Book Review