Italian Renaissance Theatre
1400-1650
Background
 Growth of trade
 Merchant class grew in strength and
power
 Patronage system – wealthy financially
supported artists
 Art changed
 Religious subjects treated secularly
 More realistic artwork
Giotto’s Madonna and Child
Enthroned with Saints (1310)
Raphael’s Sistine Madonna (1513)
More Background
 Literature
 Humanism
 Focused on people rather than gods
 Theatre
 Acting
 Architecture and Scenic Design
 Dramatic Criticism
Greek and Roman AGAIN!
 Revival of teaching Greek
 Transfer of surviving Greek and
Roman manuscripts to Italy after fall
of Constantinople
 Publication of all existing plays of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, and
Seneca
 Writings of Aristotle and Horace
Tragedies and Comedies
 Continued to write religious dramas
 Sacra rappresentazioni
 Few playwrights tried drama, but
never equaled Greek and Roman
originals
 Written in Italian
 Based on classical models
 Adaptations or mimicking of style
Intermezzi
 Short pieces depicting mythological
tales
 Presented between acts of full-length
plays
 Developed out of popular court
entertainments
 Spectacular scenic effects
 Disappeared in the 1600s
Pastorals
 Similar to satyr plays
 At the end of a tragedy
 Not as bawdy and suggestive as Greek
satyr play
 Subject is romance
 Characters are usually shepherds and
mythological creatures
 Dealt with lovers who are threatened and/or at
odds with each other
 Action is serious; ending is happy
 Example: Aminta (1573) by Torquato Tasso
Opera
 Only theatrical form of Italian
Renaissance to survive
 Believed they were re-creating Greek
tragic style
 Fused music with drama
 Libretto, or text, is considered
secondary to music
 Operas identified by composers and not
librettists
Elements of Opera
 Musical Sections
 Aria – solo sung
accompanied by
orchestra
 Duets – songs by
two people
 Trios – songs by
three people
 Quartets – songs
by four people
 Recitative – sung
dialogue
Great Composers and Operas
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935)
Stephen Sondheim/Hugh Wheeler’s
Sweeney Todd (1978)
 Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ
Superstar (1971) and Phantom of the
Opera (1987)
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Commedia Dell’arte
 Means “play of
professional
artists”
 Usually staged
comedies
 Improvised
presentations
 Scenarios written
as plot outline – no
scripted text
Teatro Olimpico (1584)
 Oldest surviving Italian Renaissance theater
 Designed by Andrea Palladio and finished by
Vincenzo Scamozzi
 Designed as a miniature indoor Roman theater
 Elliptical benches connected to scaena
 Scaena frons designed to look like a street
 Five openings in the façade
 Behind each opening was an alley or street that
seemed to disappear into the distance
 3-D buildings decreased in size as they were
positioned farther from onstage opening
Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy
Teatro Farnese (1618)
 Raised horseshoe seating
 Semicircular orchestra
 Additional seating or flooded for aquatic
scenes
 First theater with a proscenium arch
 Hides stage mechanisms for scene
changes and special effects
Teatro Farnese in Parma, Italy
Scene Design
 Periaktoi
 Three sided device – turn for new scene
change
 Flat wings
 Series of individual wings on each side of
the stage placed in progression from
front to back
 Used a groove system for scene changes
Pole and Chariot System
Dramatic Criticism
 Aristotle and Horace first critiqued
drama
 Neoclassic Ideals
 Formulated by Italian critics
 Believed that they were forming rules
which would force dramatists to imitate
the Greeks and Romans
The Rules part 1
 Decorum
 All dramatic characters should behave in
ways based on their age, profession,
sex, rank, etc.
 Verisimiltude
 All drama must be “true to life”
 Ghosts, apparitions, and supernatural
events are forbidden
The Rules part 2
 The Unities
 Unity of Time
 Dramatic action in a play should not exceed
24 hours
 Audiences could not accept long passages of
time as “truthful”
 Unity of Place
 Limits the action of a play to one locale
 Unity of Action
 One central story – no subplots
The Rules part 3
 Defined genres very narrowly
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Tragedy dealt ONLY with royalty
Comedy dealt ONLY with common people
Tragedy MUST be resolved calamitously
Comedy MUST be resolved happily
NEVER mix Comedy and Tragedy
All drama must teach a moral lesson