'Bianca de'Rossi' as play, ballet, opera: contours of "modern" historical tragedy in the 1790's
Article Abstract:
The 13th century story of Bianca de'Rossi, which is the tale of an evil autocrat pursuing a blameless widow who commits suicide by dropping the lid of her husband's tomb on herself, was the subject of a play, a ballet and an opera seria during the 1790s in Italy. The play, by Pierantonio Meneghelli, conducts the suicide offstage and permits the villain to live, which brought severe censure from both audiences and critics. Giuseppe Trafieri's ballet depicts the suicide onstage, as does the opera of Vittorio Trento and Mattia Botturini. The villain dies in the ballet but survives as an object of scorn in the opera.
Publication Name: Comparative Drama
Subject: Literature/writing
ISSN: 0010-4078
Year: 1997
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Suicide as message and metadrama in English Renaissance tragedy
Article Abstract:
Suicide was used in much English Renaissance tragedy for a multiplicity of effects. While Christianity viewed suicide as motivated by despair or pride, it often served as an amoral vehicle forcing consideration of deep and complex motives. Most psychological analyses of suicide themselves employ dramatic metaphor, often phrased in terms of actor and observer role playing. Play suicides are often motivated by a call for revenge or, in the case of the self-dramatizing, to leave an image. Stage-suicides threaten the dramatic illusion, however in a sense that it is at this point they are truly mimetic.
Publication Name: Comparative Drama
Subject: Literature/writing
ISSN: 0010-4078
Year: 1992
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Alfieri's 'Saul' as Englightenment tragedy
Article Abstract:
Vittorio Alfieri's play 'Saul' varies from the portrayal of the first Jewish king given in the Old Testament. Alferi was guided partly by the criteria of Aristotle, who felt tragedy should evoke pity and fear, which he achieved by opposing the hero Saul with a tyrant who forces Saul's suicide.
Publication Name: Comparative Drama
Subject: Literature/writing
ISSN: 0010-4078
Year: 1999
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