Music of Naples
Encyclopedia
Naples
has played an important and vibrant role over the centuries not just in the music of Italy
, but in the general history of western European musical traditions. This influence extends from the early music conservatories in the 16th century through the music of Alessandro Scarlatti
during the Baroque
period and the comic opera
s of Pergolesi
, Piccinni
and, eventually, Rossini
and Mozart
. The vitality of Neapolitan popular music from the late 19th century has made such songs as O Sole mio and Funiculì Funiculà a permanent part of our musical consciousness.
In the mid-16th century, the Spanish throne established church-run conservatories
in its vice-realm of Naples. These institutions were on the premises of four churches in the city of Naples: Santa Maria di Loreto, Pietà dei Turchini, Sant'Onofrio a Capuana, and I Poveri di Gesù Cristo.
At the time, these institutions were called "conservatories" because they "conserved"—that is, they sheltered and educated—orphans. Since music was such an integral part of the training of the children, by the early 17th century "conservatory" had come to mean "music school" and became used in that meaning in other European languages.
The Neapolitan conservatories enjoyed a considerable reputation throughout Europe
as training grounds not only for young children to be trained in church music, but, eventually, as a feeder system into the world of commercial music and opera
once those areas opened up in the early 17th century. This primed Naples to become one of the most important centers of musical training in Europe.
By the 18th century, Naples was nicknamed the "conservatory of Europe" and was home and workshop to composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti
, Pergolesi
, Niccolò Piccinni
, Domenico Cimarosa
, Rossini
, Bellini
, Donizetti
, etc.
Naples was also the birthplace of the popular Neapolitan opera buffa
and the site of the San Carlo
Theater, built in 1737 and one of the finest musical theaters in the world.
Under the short French rule of Murat
in the early 19th century, the original four conservatories were consolidated into a single institution, which was relocated in 1826 to the premises of the ex-monastery, San Pietro a Maiella
.
The conservatory still bears the inscription "Royal Academy of Music" over the entrance and is still an important music school in Italy. It houses an impressive library of manuscripts pertaining to the lives and musical production of the composers who have lived and worked in Naples.
, dedicated to the Madonna of Piedigrotta, a well-known church in the Mergellina
area of Naples. The winner of the first festival was a song entitled Te voglio bene assaie; interestingly, it was composed by the prominent opera composer, Gaetano Donizetti
. The festival ran regularly until 1950 when it was abandoned. A subsequent Festival of Neapolitan Song on Italian state radio enjoyed some success in the 1950s but was eventually abandoned as well. The period since 1950 has produced such songs as Malafemmena by Totò
and Carmela by Sergio Bruni. Although separated by some decades from the earlier classics of this genre, they have now become "classics" in their own right. (See main article
for more information.)
By definition, this is largely anonymous music. It features traditional folk percussion instruments such as the
putipù
--consisting of a membrane stretched across a resonating chamber, like a drum. A handle attached to the membrane compresses air rhythmically within the chamber; the air then spurts out of the not-quite-hermetic seal that fastens the membrane to the wooden body of the instrument to produce a "burping" sound;
This music is well represented by the Nuova Compagnia di canto popolare. Often combining dance, music, and drama, the subject matter and approach to vocalizing are quite distinct from the composed stylings of the better-known Neapolitan song.
). They may differ in size, shape, number of strings and tuning. The traditional Neapolitan mandolin is tear-shaped with a bowl back and a uniquely cut and shaped front (sounding board); it has eight strings paired into the four violin tunings of g, d', a', and e'. The strings are played with a plectrum, producing the rapid and characteristic tremolo sound as the plectrum moves rapidly over unison strings. In that configuration, the Neapolitan mandolin started to be manufactured widely in Naples in the mid-18th century.
In spite of the modern vision of the mandolin as a quaint vehicle for older, traditional popular music such as the Canzone Napoletana
, the instrument has a classical history. Students of the mandolin at the Naples Conservatory are required to perform selections from a large repertoire of music composed especially for the instrument by, among others, Vivaldi
, Beethoven
and Paganini
.
Stereotypically, the instrument is commonly used in conjunction with a guitar; the mandolin-guitar duo is the traditional instrumentation for the posteggiatori, the street musicians who wander from restaurant to restaurant and serenade for tips. There is in Naples a mandolin academy that attempts to combat that stereotype by promoting other music, classical and modern, for the instrument
, was extremely popular in the 1920s, then faded, but has been enjoying somewhat of a comeback with newer generations of performers since the 1960s. The most popular performer of the genre is the Neapolitan, Mario Merola
. The most popular sceneggiata ever written is Zappatore, (meaning, exactly, "clodbuster," one who works the land and breaks up the soil for farming) written to feature a song of that name in 1929 by Bovio
and Albano. It then became a stage production and was even made into a film on various occasions, the first one actually from a film company in Little Italy
in New York City
.
(probably the best-known Neapolitan cantautore, both in Naples and elsewhere), Nino d'Angelo
, Daniele Sepe
, Rita Marcotulli, Nando Citarella and Ciro Ricci. Sepe is quite influential and is known for using protest songs from all over the world and for his skills as a percussionist, flautist
and saxophonist. Well-known songs in this genre include Napule è and Terra mia, both by Pino Daniele.
)—very recent Neapolitan popular music has incorporated influences from a wide variety of sources, from American jazz
and rock to middle-eastern and African music. One interesting example of African influence is the recent CD Oggi o dimane by the well-known Neapolitan singer and actor Massimo Ranieri
. Essentially, it is a collection of well-known Neapolitan songs composed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Marechiaro and Rundinella, backed by north Africa
n string and percussion instruments.
Also, the English term "musical" (or, occasionally, the Italian commedia musicale—a translation of "musical comedy") has come to be used over the last few decades in Italy, in general, and Naples, in particular, to describe a kind of musical drama not native to Italy, a form that employs the American idiom of jazz-pop-and rock-based music and rhythms to move a story along in a combination of songs and dialogue. Obviously, the term is used to refer to original American musicals, but now is used, as well, for original productions in Italian and Neapolitan dialect. The first Italian "musical" was Carosello Napoletano, first a stage production and then a 1953 film directed by Ettore Giannini
and featuring a young Sophia Loren
in the cast. More recent Neapolitan musicals have been C'era una volta...Scugnizzi, based on the lives of Neapolitan street kids ("Scugnizzi) and Napoli 1799, about the republican revolution of 1799 that briefly overthrew the Bourbon
monarchy.
With the resurrection of the mammoth overseas fair grounds, the Mostra d'Oltremare (originally built in the 1930s) in the nearby community of Fuorigrotta, the Teatro Mediterraneo on those premises is now, as well, a frequent stage for all types of musical performances. The fair grounds site has the added advantage of containing, as well, the newly reopened outdoor amphiteater, the arena. It hosts summer performances of various kinds, including, most prominently, grand opera such as Verdi
's Aida.
There is a large program of chamber music in Naples, hosted by the Alessandro Scarlatti Association, usually staged in the Teatro delle Palme off of Via dei Mille in the Chaia section of Naples. As well, smaller groups and musical productions avail themselves of a half-dozen or so theaters around town that also double as cinemas.
Additionally, the Naples music conservatory has recently refurbished and opened an auditorium on the premises and puts on regularly scheduled concerts of various kinds of music, often featuring conservatory students and faculty.
The largest public venue for music, parades, political rallies, installation art, New Year's celebrations, etc. is Piazza Plebiscito, the spacious open square on the west side of the Royal Palace. Other outdoor venues include the Communal Gardens, a half-mile long park along the sea-side.
Also, after decades of neglect, the Trianon theater has now reopened as a theater of Neapolitan Song. It has an impressive program of traditional Neapolitan plays and musicals, an art gallery, very good acoustics, and will soon have a permanent multimedia exhibit dedicated to Enrico Caruso. The theater is located, appropriately, in a traditional part of town, Piazza Calenda, at the extreme eastern edge of the old historic center of Naples.
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
has played an important and vibrant role over the centuries not just in the music of Italy
Music of Italy
The music of Italy ranges across a broad spectrum of opera and instrumental classical music and a body of popular music drawn from both native and imported sources. Music has traditionally been one of the cultural markers of Italian national and ethnic identity and holds an important position in...
, but in the general history of western European musical traditions. This influence extends from the early music conservatories in the 16th century through the music of Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...
during the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
period and the comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
s of Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist.-Biography:Born at Iesi, Pergolesi studied music there under a local musician, Francesco Santini, before going to Naples in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco and Francesco Feo among others...
, Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni was an Italian composer of symphonies, sacred music, chamber music, and opera. Although he is somewhat obscure, even to music lovers today, Piccinni was one of the most popular composers of opera—particularly the Neapolitan opera buffa—of his day...
and, eventually, Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
. The vitality of Neapolitan popular music from the late 19th century has made such songs as O Sole mio and Funiculì Funiculà a permanent part of our musical consciousness.
Classical music
Music Conservatories of Naples
The Music Conservatory of Naples is a music institution in Naples, southern Italy. It is currently located in the complex of San Pietro a Majella.-San Pietro a Majella:...
in its vice-realm of Naples. These institutions were on the premises of four churches in the city of Naples: Santa Maria di Loreto, Pietà dei Turchini, Sant'Onofrio a Capuana, and I Poveri di Gesù Cristo.
At the time, these institutions were called "conservatories" because they "conserved"—that is, they sheltered and educated—orphans. Since music was such an integral part of the training of the children, by the early 17th century "conservatory" had come to mean "music school" and became used in that meaning in other European languages.
The Neapolitan conservatories enjoyed a considerable reputation throughout Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
as training grounds not only for young children to be trained in church music, but, eventually, as a feeder system into the world of commercial music and opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
once those areas opened up in the early 17th century. This primed Naples to become one of the most important centers of musical training in Europe.
By the 18th century, Naples was nicknamed the "conservatory of Europe" and was home and workshop to composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...
, Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist.-Biography:Born at Iesi, Pergolesi studied music there under a local musician, Francesco Santini, before going to Naples in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco and Francesco Feo among others...
, Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni was an Italian composer of symphonies, sacred music, chamber music, and opera. Although he is somewhat obscure, even to music lovers today, Piccinni was one of the most popular composers of opera—particularly the Neapolitan opera buffa—of his day...
, Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school...
, Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
, Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
, Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
, etc.
Naples was also the birthplace of the popular Neapolitan opera buffa
Opera buffa
Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...
and the site of the San Carlo
San Carlo
San Carlo is the Italian for Saint Charles, and may refer to:* Charles Borromeo, also known as San Carlo Borromeo* San Carlo all'Arena, a neighbourhood in Naples where the Bourbon Hospice for the Poor is located...
Theater, built in 1737 and one of the finest musical theaters in the world.
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
in the early 19th century, the original four conservatories were consolidated into a single institution, which was relocated in 1826 to the premises of the ex-monastery, San Pietro a Maiella
Music Conservatories of Naples
The Music Conservatory of Naples is a music institution in Naples, southern Italy. It is currently located in the complex of San Pietro a Majella.-San Pietro a Majella:...
.
The conservatory still bears the inscription "Royal Academy of Music" over the entrance and is still an important music school in Italy. It houses an impressive library of manuscripts pertaining to the lives and musical production of the composers who have lived and worked in Naples.
Canzone Napoletana
Canzone Napoletana is what most people think of when they think of Neapolitan music. It consists of a large body of composed popular music—such songs as 'O sole mio, Torna a Surriento, Funiculì funiculà, etc. The Neapolitan song became a formal institution in the 1830s through the vehicle of an annual song writing competition for the yearly Festival of PiedigrottaPiedigrotta
Piedigrotta Literally, "at the foot of the grotto". A section of the Mergellina quarter of Naples, Italy, so-called for the presence of the Church of the Madonna of Piedigrotta near the entrance to an ancient Roman tunnel...
, dedicated to the Madonna of Piedigrotta, a well-known church in the Mergellina
Mergellina
.Mergellina is a section of the city of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. It is at the west end of the seaside road, via Caracciolo, one mile away from the main port of Naples.-Overview:...
area of Naples. The winner of the first festival was a song entitled Te voglio bene assaie; interestingly, it was composed by the prominent opera composer, Gaetano Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
. The festival ran regularly until 1950 when it was abandoned. A subsequent Festival of Neapolitan Song on Italian state radio enjoyed some success in the 1950s but was eventually abandoned as well. The period since 1950 has produced such songs as Malafemmena by Totò
Totò
Prince Antonio Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comneno De Curtis di Bisanzio Gagliardi, best known by his stage name Totò and nicknamed il principe della risata was an Italian comedian, film and theatre actor, writer, singer and songwriter...
and Carmela by Sergio Bruni. Although separated by some decades from the earlier classics of this genre, they have now become "classics" in their own right. (See main article
Canzone Napoletana
Canzone Napoletana, sometimes referred to as Neapolitan song, is a generic term for a traditional form of music sung in the Neapolitan language, ordinarily for the male voice singing solo, although well-represented by female soloists as well, and expressed in familiar genres such as the lover's...
for more information.)
Neapolitan folk music
putipù
Putipù
One of the most original instruments created by the folkloristic inventiveness, generally of the South of Italy and in a particular way Neapolitan, is the “Caccavella”, which for onomatopoeia,Is called by the populace “Putipu”....
--consisting of a membrane stretched across a resonating chamber, like a drum. A handle attached to the membrane compresses air rhythmically within the chamber; the air then spurts out of the not-quite-hermetic seal that fastens the membrane to the wooden body of the instrument to produce a "burping" sound;
- triccaballacca-—a clapper, consisting of three percussive mallets mounted on a base, the outer two of which are hinged at the base and are moved in to strike the central piece; the rhythmic sound is produced by the clicking of wood on wood and the simultaneous sound of the small metal disks—called "jingles", mounted on the instrument;
- the tambourine (called tammorra in Neapolitan dialect)--a circular frame with a single drum head stretched across one side of the instrument. There are generally small metal "jingles" mounted around the perimeter of the instrument, that sound as the tammorra is struck by the knuckles or the open hand.
This music is well represented by the Nuova Compagnia di canto popolare. Often combining dance, music, and drama, the subject matter and approach to vocalizing are quite distinct from the composed stylings of the better-known Neapolitan song.
Mandolin
There are various kinds of mandolins in use in Italy; they bear the names of cities or regions such as the "Roman", the "Lombard", the "Genovese", and the "Neapolitan" mandolin. (see also: mandolinMandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
). They may differ in size, shape, number of strings and tuning. The traditional Neapolitan mandolin is tear-shaped with a bowl back and a uniquely cut and shaped front (sounding board); it has eight strings paired into the four violin tunings of g, d', a', and e'. The strings are played with a plectrum, producing the rapid and characteristic tremolo sound as the plectrum moves rapidly over unison strings. In that configuration, the Neapolitan mandolin started to be manufactured widely in Naples in the mid-18th century.
In spite of the modern vision of the mandolin as a quaint vehicle for older, traditional popular music such as the Canzone Napoletana
Canzone Napoletana
Canzone Napoletana, sometimes referred to as Neapolitan song, is a generic term for a traditional form of music sung in the Neapolitan language, ordinarily for the male voice singing solo, although well-represented by female soloists as well, and expressed in familiar genres such as the lover's...
, the instrument has a classical history. Students of the mandolin at the Naples Conservatory are required to perform selections from a large repertoire of music composed especially for the instrument by, among others, Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
and Paganini
Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was one of the most celebrated violin virtuosi of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique...
.
Stereotypically, the instrument is commonly used in conjunction with a guitar; the mandolin-guitar duo is the traditional instrumentation for the posteggiatori, the street musicians who wander from restaurant to restaurant and serenade for tips. There is in Naples a mandolin academy that attempts to combat that stereotype by promoting other music, classical and modern, for the instrument
The Sceneggiata
Little-known abroad, but extremely popular in Naples, is the local stage musical form called the Sceneggiata. At the turn of the century they were performed in the U.S. in areas populated by Italian immigrants. The form has been called "a musical soap opera" and generally revolves around domestic grief, the agony of leaving home, personal deceit and treachery, betrayal in love, and life in the world of petty crime. It is always sung and spoken in Neapolitan dialect. Action stops every few minutes for someone to break out in song. As a rule, many of the plots were flimsy after-the-fact vehicles to promote particular songs. The sceneggiata started shortly after World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, was extremely popular in the 1920s, then faded, but has been enjoying somewhat of a comeback with newer generations of performers since the 1960s. The most popular performer of the genre is the Neapolitan, Mario Merola
Mario Merola
Mario Merola was an Italian singer and actor, most prominently known for having rejuvenated the traditional popular Neapolitan melodrama known as the sceneggiata....
. The most popular sceneggiata ever written is Zappatore, (meaning, exactly, "clodbuster," one who works the land and breaks up the soil for farming) written to feature a song of that name in 1929 by Bovio
Libero Bovio
Libero Bovio , was a Neapolitan lyricist and dialect poet.Bovio was one of those responsible for the rejuvenation of Neapolitandialect in plays, poetry and song at the beginning of the twentieth...
and Albano. It then became a stage production and was even made into a film on various occasions, the first one actually from a film company in Little Italy
Little Italy
Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood.-Canada:*Little Italy, Edmonton, in Alberta*Little Italy, Montreal, in Quebec...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
The Cantautore
(Literally, "singer-songwriter".) This music has been extremely popular throughout Italy for decades and its popularity continues to grow. As the name implies, this genre involves songwriters who sing their own music, inevitably songs of social protest or, at least, social relevance. Modern Neapolitan performers include Pino DanielePino Daniele
Pino Daniele is an Italian vocalist, composer, and musician, whose influences cover a wide number of genres, fusing pop, blues, jazz, Italian and Middle eastern music into his own unique brand of world music.-Studio albums:...
(probably the best-known Neapolitan cantautore, both in Naples and elsewhere), Nino d'Angelo
Nino D'Angelo
Gaetano "Nino" d'Angelo is an Italian singer. He was born in San Pietro a Patierno, a suburb of Naples. Nino had a very difficult childhood, and to help his family's poor financial condition he left the school and started working at a very young age.Thanks to Alberto Lupo he was able to enter the...
, Daniele Sepe
Daniele Sepe
Daniele Sepe is an Italian musician, known internationally for interpreting protest songs from around the world.His first instrument was the flute, which he played at the San Pietro a Majella conservatoire...
, Rita Marcotulli, Nando Citarella and Ciro Ricci. Sepe is quite influential and is known for using protest songs from all over the world and for his skills as a percussionist, flautist
Flautist
A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...
and saxophonist. Well-known songs in this genre include Napule è and Terra mia, both by Pino Daniele.
Globalized music
Like all popular music—and even classical music (for example, The Silk Road Ensemble of cellist Yo-Yo MaYo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
)—very recent Neapolitan popular music has incorporated influences from a wide variety of sources, from American jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock to middle-eastern and African music. One interesting example of African influence is the recent CD Oggi o dimane by the well-known Neapolitan singer and actor Massimo Ranieri
Massimo Ranieri
Massimo Ranieri , is an Italian pop singer, film and stage actor.He was born in Naples , the fifth of eight children in the family. When he was 10, young Giovanni would sing at restaurants, wedding receptions, etc...
. Essentially, it is a collection of well-known Neapolitan songs composed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Marechiaro and Rundinella, backed by north Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
n string and percussion instruments.
Also, the English term "musical" (or, occasionally, the Italian commedia musicale—a translation of "musical comedy") has come to be used over the last few decades in Italy, in general, and Naples, in particular, to describe a kind of musical drama not native to Italy, a form that employs the American idiom of jazz-pop-and rock-based music and rhythms to move a story along in a combination of songs and dialogue. Obviously, the term is used to refer to original American musicals, but now is used, as well, for original productions in Italian and Neapolitan dialect. The first Italian "musical" was Carosello Napoletano, first a stage production and then a 1953 film directed by Ettore Giannini
Ettore Giannini
Ettore Giannini was an Italian screenwriter and film director. He wrote for eight films between 1940 and 1967.-Selected filmography:* Europa '51 * The City Stands Trial...
and featuring a young Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
in the cast. More recent Neapolitan musicals have been C'era una volta...Scugnizzi, based on the lives of Neapolitan street kids ("Scugnizzi) and Napoli 1799, about the republican revolution of 1799 that briefly overthrew the Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
monarchy.
Venues
The most famous place, of course, to hear music in Naples is the San Carlo opera house. Lesser-known is the smaller theater in the adjacent Royal Palace, a stage often used by the Neapolitan ballet company. Besides being the home of the opera, San Carlo is the most frequent venue several times a year for large visiting orchestras. Interestingly, the nearby Teatro Mercadante, a charming old theater from the late 1790s—and along with San Carlo one of the official royal theaters of the day—has reopened after many decades of sporadic use.With the resurrection of the mammoth overseas fair grounds, the Mostra d'Oltremare (originally built in the 1930s) in the nearby community of Fuorigrotta, the Teatro Mediterraneo on those premises is now, as well, a frequent stage for all types of musical performances. The fair grounds site has the added advantage of containing, as well, the newly reopened outdoor amphiteater, the arena. It hosts summer performances of various kinds, including, most prominently, grand opera such as Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Aida.
There is a large program of chamber music in Naples, hosted by the Alessandro Scarlatti Association, usually staged in the Teatro delle Palme off of Via dei Mille in the Chaia section of Naples. As well, smaller groups and musical productions avail themselves of a half-dozen or so theaters around town that also double as cinemas.
Additionally, the Naples music conservatory has recently refurbished and opened an auditorium on the premises and puts on regularly scheduled concerts of various kinds of music, often featuring conservatory students and faculty.
The largest public venue for music, parades, political rallies, installation art, New Year's celebrations, etc. is Piazza Plebiscito, the spacious open square on the west side of the Royal Palace. Other outdoor venues include the Communal Gardens, a half-mile long park along the sea-side.
Also, after decades of neglect, the Trianon theater has now reopened as a theater of Neapolitan Song. It has an impressive program of traditional Neapolitan plays and musicals, an art gallery, very good acoustics, and will soon have a permanent multimedia exhibit dedicated to Enrico Caruso. The theater is located, appropriately, in a traditional part of town, Piazza Calenda, at the extreme eastern edge of the old historic center of Naples.
External links
These are the websites of some of the places in Naples that host musical activities:- San Carlo Theater
- Alessandro Scarlatti Association
- Naples Music Conservatory
- Mostra d'Oltremare (Overseas Fair Grounds)
- Bellini Theater
- Napoli is burning, an example of new neapolitan hip-hop
- Trianon Theater
- Academy of Fine Arts
- Pietà dei Turchini Center for Ancient Music
- Also see Concerts today in Naples