the italian theater building

[Francesco Sforza]

CONFERENCES ON ITALIAN THEATER ARCHITECTURE
 
I am thinking of proposing to several architecture and theater departments
two-hour conferences about the book I wrote. I would also like to hold
short seminars (4-5 days) for architecture students. For these seminars,
the help of an interpreter will be crucial. I can speak in English and
answer to possible questions with the help of a person which speaks both
Italian and English.
 
Do you think that you may be able to suggest me mail and e-addresses of
architecture and theater departments to which I may submit such a
proposal?
If presented to the Italian Ministery of Foreign Affairs by a foreign
istitution, this project may find support, as plane tickets and lodging
costs.
 
Thanks in advance.
 
 
arch. Francesco Sforza
<mc9628 at mclink.it>
via di Villa Ricotti 6
00161 Roma
tel.fax 39 6 44238680
(please contact me by E-mail: I'm not on the list)
 
 
 
The description of the book follows (8500 chars)
 
 
 
___cut here____________________________________________
 
 
 
 
The Italian building for theater
 
As a matter of fact, an important root of Western theater's architecture
(the Elisabethan too) has to be searched for in Italy, in the needs and
habits of small ancient courts, where this structure was developed upon.
The diffusion in Europe and then in the whole Western world of this
architectural structure, in a definite stage of its evolution (close to
the
end, in the second half of XIX century) made this subject of great
interest
for people belonging to a non-Italian culture because of the increasing
difficulty in understanding the true historical meaning of the
architectural elements of which the theater consists.
 
Now there is a book about the development of italian playhouses from
XVIIIth and XIXth centuries (crucial for contemporary ideas about the
theater's architecture) until today, 200 pages, 9.45 x 12.20 inches, with
210 color and B/W pictures, planes of theaters, etc., cost approx 70 US
dollars (in italian currency) and readable by literate people, however not
deep in architect. history.
 
the author:
*********************
arch. Francesco Sforza
E-mail address: <mc9628 at mclink.it>
via di Villa Ricotti 6, 00161 Roma
tel. 39-6-44238680 fax 39-6-44238974
(please contact me by E-mail: I'm not on the list)
*********************
USA distribution:
Casalini books
 
   The book is a great help in understanding the history of this
development.It presents the history of modern and contemporary Italian
opera houses and implicitly it provides the link between the architectural
shape of the theater, the economical life and the concrete requirements of
the stage work inside it along two centuries. The architectural solution
wich is usual today for opera houses is only one of the many which have in
the old Italian theaters their own origin.
 
   On the other side, the Italian synthesis is a enlightening point of
view for experiences, like the Richard Wagner's theater in Bayreuth, the
French theory of "polyvalence" -by Andr Malraux in the Sixties- and the
idea based (so often as wrongly) on the project of the "Totaltheater" by
Walther Gropius, of a perfect architectural shape (something like a
"building type") or any other which seems build on ideological frames and
not to grab the concrete, vital reasons of each element of this
architectural shape.
 
   One of the most important conclusions of the book is that the reasons
for that are mostly of a technical and economical nature, in their own
historical stage of course, due to the increasing width of the audience.
The contemporary development of the cinematographic industry and the
television networks, and their architectural innovations, are linked -by
the point of wiev of this work- to the usual theater building. The
splitting between the movie-house and the movie-studio, was only the last
act of a large historic tale, trough the naturalism and the "fourth
wall".The final hypothesis deals with their coming back closer, as it is
now made possible by the technical improvement of the reproduceability of
performances and of data transmission, which made even more possible an
active role for the public, instead of the passive one which was typical
of
the early experiences of reproduced shows
 
   The book is also a hystory of the public, from the nominal
identifiablity of the notables to the anonymous passivity(ignominy) of the
"masses".Today the development of the media induce the outlining, in the
waste land of the "mass", of groups of users with even more identifiables
characters and needs, intending to play an active role. The progress and
the improvement of the technics of reproduceability are clearly oriented
in
this direction from the beginning of our century and find in the
architecture the clearest mirror.
 
   Theater requires a collaborative effort by professionals in different
fields, and the book tries to reflect this heterogeneity. As professor of
history of the Italian theater Ferdinando Taviani observed, Italian
theater
workers "sono specializzati a non essere specializzati" [specialize in not
specializing]. The book also deals with the various problems and
challenges
the theater architect or restorer encounter.The book presents all
historical information and data which are necessary for understanding
modern theater design, its ideology and link with its society.
 
   The book concerns 12 important Italian cities, in chronological order
of building of their theaters, beginning with the S. Carlo theater in
Naples, 1737. For each theater, there is an outline of particular
architectural problems.
My readers will find answers to some questions, for example:
         What have to do the realistic trend of illuminations in late
Medieval manuscripts to depict Rome with its prominent Coliseum with the
origin of the association between a large city and a large theater?
         Why eighteenth century visitors to Naples' San Carlo theater
deemed the acoustics so bad?
         Why the "Pharaon", as was called a rich and mysterious egyptian
business man, build a theater in Trieste, at the times the haven of the
Austrian-Hungarn Empire?
         How is it possible to find the architectural origin of the
Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk in the social riots of 1848?
         Why is the digging out of orchestra pit linked not so much to
Wagner's invention, but rather to the evolving role of the director
through
Puccini, Boito and Toscanini?
         Why is the technical development of lighting and of
reproduceablity of the shows crucial for the architecture of the theater
in
our time, more than ideological debate about the cultural role of the
theater in the society? How is it strictly linked to the birth of
buildings
for reproduceable shows (movie-houses, studios for film and TV making)?
         How was the increasing size of opera houses in the past centuries
related to the development of musical instruments and of the role of the
director?
         What do World War I has to do with the first performance of Aida
in Verona's Arena?
         How was the shape and the stage of Turin's Teatro Regio
influenced by modern eclecticism and its architect Carlo Mollino's hobby
for sadistic photos?
         Why Aldo Rossi built such a stark, stone theater in Genoa?
etc.
 
   No other book provides to the reader a way to understand the many
relationships existing between the architectural shape of the theaters of
Italy, the artistic life within them and the cultural and political life
of
the city around them. The contribution of the book is a large historic and
cultural overview, restrict to the crucial moments. Its specific benefits
are many:
         To guide the reader, with a plain and non-specialistic language,
in the surprising atmosphere of a culture for which the dialogue between
truth and falsehood belongs to the everyday life, warning him to some
dangers hidden behind this fascinating appearance.
         To describe in each chapter of the 12 devoted to each theater
(there are 3 for historic outlines) a particular topic, which is time by
time prominent.This is a rhetoric structure similar to the dramatic frame
of medieval plays. This choice was determined by its special convenience
for the subject and for the purposes of the book.
         According with the previous point, to propose to the reader the
problems and to fix its limits and terms without suggest any solution; to
show the solutions which were found for these problems in the past, its
reasons, its benefits, its limits and its good and bad cultural results.
         To outline a theme which is crucial for the theater architecture
of our days: the history of the idea of a "perfect architectural shape".
As
the book shows and demonstrates, this idea is related to the practice of
the "repertorio", current in the late-nineteenth centuries, which is at
least so much important as the ideological debate preparing it at the
XVIIIth century and predicting it at the XIXth, and much more important
than the far origin of this idea, the renaissance's classicism.
etc.
 
I can't pretend to be impartial, since I wrote the book. But it has
indisputably plenty of news, pictures, theater plans. The translation of
the Italian text must be supplemented for English readers with additional
information about Italian history, which is not necessary for Italian
readers already familiar with it. Some part of the text must be developed.
The book contains a bibliographic appendix which lists and reviews the
most
important books about Italy's various theaters; these books also have
their
own bibliographies, each devoted to the theater, which is the topic of the
book.
 
 
Francesco Sforza
<mc9628 at mclink.it>
### deP v1.3 (freeware version)
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