I am a musicologist and cultural historian and I work as a researcher and teacher at the University of Pisa, the University of Genoa, and the Centro Studi Giacomo Puccini in Lucca. In both my research and teaching, I am interested in how people and cultural institutions have used music to build their identity and create historical narratives from the nineteenth century to the present day. I have explored these topics in multiple contexts, including Italian opera, music in transnational communities, music in the Cold War years, African American music, the intellectual history of ethnomusicology, the cultural policy of musical institutions, and popular and electronic music. My writings on these and other topics have appeared in edited collections and scholarly venues such as "Music & Letters," "Cambridge Opera Journal," "The Opera Quarterly," "Notes," "Grove Music Online," "Rivista Italiana di Musicologia," and "JSTOR Daily." Address: Pisa, Italy
A chi si rivolge la musica dei teatri d’opera? Che rapporto c’è tra il pubblico dell’opera e la f... more A chi si rivolge la musica dei teatri d’opera? Che rapporto c’è tra il pubblico dell’opera e la forma che questo tipo di spettacolo ha assunto nel XX secolo? E fino a che punto i teatri lirici italiani hanno saputo rispondere all’esigenza di un accesso davvero democratico alla cultura musicale? Il mio lavoro cerca una risposta a queste domande a partire da un caso concreto: il Teatro alla Scala negli anni compresi tra le contestazioni del 1968 e la fine del decennio successivo. Questo periodo viene spesso indicato come il momento dell’apertura della Scala a tutte le classi sociali, grazie soprattutto all’avvio di una serie di iniziative che avrebbero poi avuto notevole rilievo nella letteratura storica, teatrale e musicologica: tra le altre, gli spettacoli per lavoratori e studenti, le attività sul territorio locale, i concerti nelle fabbriche. Al tempo stesso, questo ‘impegno’ culturale è stato spesso interpretato come un’improvvisa reazione alle grandi ideologie che hanno marcato la scena politica italiana di quegli anni. Per questo motivo, una volta che l’onda lunga del Sessantotto allentò la sua presa, il progressivo abbandono di queste attività da parte della dirigenza scaligera apparve un fatto naturale. A memoria di quella stagione, oltre che dei suoi protagonisti — tra gli altri, il sovrintendente Paolo Grassi e il direttore musicale (poi direttore artistico) Claudio Abbado — rimangono oggi documenti, fotografie, articoli di giornale, ricordi, che hanno contribuito nel loro insieme a formare un mito: quello di un’epoca gloriosa e irripetibile, in cui la Scala accoglieva finalmente la società fra le sue mura, e i lavoratori lottavano insieme per fare della cultura, musica inclusa, un mezzo per acquisire consapevolezza del proprio ruolo nella società. Attraverso un approccio interdisciplinare, che integra il materiale d’archivio con le testimonianze orali di coloro che hanno vissuto — da interpreti e organizzatori, o semplicemente da spettatori — quella fase della recente storia del Teatro alla Scala, il mio lavoro si propone di indagare le ragioni poste alla base della politica culturale promossa dal teatro in quel periodo. Rileggendo la Contestazione nel quadro più ampio della storia scaligera del Novecento, sarà inoltre possibile valutare il grado di novità delle iniziative varate in quegli anni, oltre che la loro reale efficacia nel «diffondere l’educazione artistica in tutte le classi sociali».
What is the target audience of the music performed in opera houses? What is the connection between this audience and the form that opera performance has taken in the 20th Century? And to what extent have Italian opera houses been able to allow a truly democratic access to musical culture? My research attempts to answer these questions from the standpoint of the Teatro alla Scala, one of the most prestigious Italian operatic institutions, by taking into account the cultural policy promoted by the theatre in the years between the social and political protests of 1968 and the end of the 1970s. This period is often referred to as the moment of a real ‘opening’ of the theatre to all the social classes, thanks to a series of initiatives — such as the low-priced performances and concerts for workers and students at La Scala, or the special concerts in the factories and in other locations around Milan — that would later be recalled in many historical, theatrical and musicological studies. The sudden emergence of La Scala’s interest in social commitment has often been interpreted as a reaction of the theatre to the turbulent Italian political scene of those years. For this reason, once the Sessantotto ideologies started to lose their grip, the dismissal of several cultural activities appeared to many as strictly related to the political disenchantment gradually arising in the Italian society of the late 1970s. In the meantime, the many documents, articles, photos and memories related to this important season of La Scala’s recent history — and to its charismatic protagonists, among whom superintendent Paolo Grassi and musical director (and later artistic director) Claudio Abbado — have contributed to the creation of a myth: that of a glorious, unique age, during which La Scala would finally begin to receive into its walls the social classes that had been neglected up to that point, and workers would fight together to make use of culture, including music, as a means to increase their awareness of their own role in society. Drawing on a multidisciplinary approach that merges archival research with the oral accounts or those who lived that period as performers, organizers, or simply members of the audience, my work aims to investigate the reasons underpinning the cultural policy fostered by La Scala after 1968. By integrating the many musical activities launched in the 1960s and 1970s in the broader context of La Scala’s history of 20th Century, I intend to assess the degree of newness of this initiatives, and their effectiveness in «promoting artistic education in all social classes».
University of Pennsylvania, Department of Music, 2021
In this dissertation, I argue that Italian opera, a prominent symbol of Italian American identity... more In this dissertation, I argue that Italian opera, a prominent symbol of Italian American identity, has been entangled in the United States with issues of racial difference and social subjugation. In contrast to previous scholarship that views Italian opera as a musical genre that had already defined Italians’ cultural identity in their motherland, I show that opera came to be associated with all Italian immigrants only in the United States, while being adopted by Italian Americans themselves to improve their reputation in their adoptive country. In particular, I demonstrate that the renewed visibility and audibility that the recording industry had assigned to Italian opera at the beginning of the twentieth century contributed to this twinned process of stereotyping and reappropriation, as it enhanced the potential of opera as a vessel for racial and social uplift for Italian immigrants. My research focuses on Philadelphia, a thriving operatic city and a center of opera recording that was also home to one of the largest Italian communities in the country.
The scope of the research calls for a variety of historical sources ranging from archival materials to oral interviews with descendants of Italian immigrants. I examine these materials adopting an interdisciplinary approach that borrows its methods and interpretive frameworks from media history, historical ethnography, migration studies, and critical race studies. Chapter 1 explores the cultural presence of Italian opera in American society in the late nineteenth century, and the extent to which this genre could be employed by Italian immigrants for purposes of social uplift. Chapter 2 analyzes the emergence of operatic references in popular songs about and by Italian Americans published in Philadelphia and other cities between the 1860s and the 1920s. Chapter 3 examines the new significance that recording industrialists attributed to Italian opera in the early twentieth century, and the political and racial implications of the marketing of home phonographs for Italian immigrants and record dealers living in Philadelphia. Chapter 4 investigates the use of Italian opera for the cultural assimilation of Philadelphia Italians in the years between the end of World War I and the Immigration Act of 1924.
In this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lo... more In this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lovers stems from a tradition associating Italian immigrants with mechanical music devices. As a growing number of Italian unskilled labourers entered the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were stereotyped as street musicians, and especially as organ grinders, in mainstream popular culture. Beginning in the 1900s, recording manufacturers strove to make home phonographs appealing to the middle class by breaking the chain of mechanical, social and racial associations that connected the phonograph with earlier musical devices such as the barrel organ, and with those who played them. Because of the prominent marketing role that record labels assigned to Italian opera, this commercial strategy had important consequences for the genre as well as for Italian immigrants, who leveraged opera's renewed visibility and audibility into an effective vessel for social and political empowerment.
In 1954–5, "Porgy and Bess" appeared for the first time in Italy in an all-Black production forma... more In 1954–5, "Porgy and Bess" appeared for the first time in Italy in an all-Black production formally endorsed by the US State Department. Italian theatre administrators saw this production as an opportunity to sever any ideological connection with Fascism after decades of institutional support. At the same time, while Italian audiences and critics were often aware of the essentializing practices at the origins of "Porgy and Bess", they relied on the stereotypical image of African American culture presented by the show to project their own experiences and political aspirations onto the opera’s subject and music. Drawing on primary sources, interviews, and the analysis of the earlier European reception of "Porgy and Bess", this article argues that the success of the opera in Italy, rather than being determined by US diplomatic efforts, was a result of Italians’ need to redefine a sense of collective identity in a time of political transition.
This review was published in the Music Library Association’s journal, Notes vol. 76, no. 2, Decem... more This review was published in the Music Library Association’s journal, Notes vol. 76, no. 2, December 2019, 290-293. The version of record is available at https://muse.jhu.edu/article/743077/summary, DOI https://doi.org/10.1353/not.2019.0109. This material may not be copied or reposted without written permission of MLA.
In the early 1910s, the U.S. recording industry sought to expand its consumer base by tapping int... more In the early 1910s, the U.S. recording industry sought to expand its consumer base by tapping into a new market: public schools. Recording companies such as Victor Talking Machine and Columbia created special educational departments intended to increase the presence of phonographs in American schools. After World War I, schools employed phonographs especially in two areas: music appreciation classes and Americanization classes. For the first activity, recording companies recommended selections of operatic and symphonic music; for the second, folk songs from each country were preferred, in order to keep “the newcomers happy and satisfied during the process of assimilation.”
In this context, the musical identity of thousands of first- and second-generation Italians attending public schools was mapped onto a clearly defined cultural hierarchy. At the top of it, Italian opera was presented as a respectable music to which every American citizen should be exposed. At the bottom, so-called “ethnic” Italian songs such as Funicolì Funicolà or Santa Lucia were desirable only to the extent to which they led Italian students to eventually embrace the culture of the host society.
In this paper, I examine this double standard of musical Italianness through the example of Philadelphia, home to one of the largest Italian communities in the U.S. Building on archival resources, contemporary press, and secondary literature on early recordings and Italian folk songs, I suggest that this double standard, while born in response to precise commercial and political needs, eventually laid the musical foundations of a distinctive Italian-American culture.
In the second half of the 19th century, Italian street musicians began to appear in the streets o... more In the second half of the 19th century, Italian street musicians began to appear in the streets of large and small U.S. urban centers during the warmest months of the year. While some middle-class Americans praised their work as propagators of the music performed in the often inaccessible theaters and concert halls, others perceived Italian barrel organ players, harpists, singers, and other street musicians as noisy, dirty, and crime-affiliated, particularly as waves of unskilled workers from Italy flocked to the poorest U.S. neighborhoods in the following decades. In centers such as New York City and Philadelphia, home to large Italian communities, the association between street musicians and Italian identity in general became increasingly criticized by local Italian leaders, who sought to redeem the image of Italy and Italian culture, including music, in the eyes of their American hosts.
In this paper, I draw upon contemporary press, archival resources, and scholarly literature (Zucchi, Alliegro, Graber, Hamberlin) to examine the complex and conflicting representations and functions of Italian street musicians. At the same time, I will show that Italian street musicians continued to survive in the U.S. as a racial stereotype into the twentieth century, despite their declining numbers. It was these musicians’ lingering presence in the collective memory of both Americans and Italian immigrants that confirmed the “natural” musicality of all Italians, regardless of their class, and indirectly helped the popular success of opera stars such as Caruso and Tetrazzini and other compatriots, especially with the advent of recording technologies.
This paper puts in conversation two apparently irreconcilable worlds. The first is that of George... more This paper puts in conversation two apparently irreconcilable worlds. The first is that of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), a “folk opera” reminiscent of black minstrelsy racial stereotypes, and indebted to the Romantic conception of Volk as it had been applied to the U.S. context by two generations of musicians and scholars, from Antonin Dvořák and Frederick Henry Koch to John and Alan Lomax. The second is that of Roberto Leydi, one of the scholars responsible for the foundation of Italian ethnomusicology after World War II. An admirer of Porgy and Bess, Leydi developed in his youth a strong interest for American black music, which to his mind provided an example of those “folk roots” he was looking for as an alternative to the official culture promoted by fascism. In the late 1950s, Leydi began collecting folk music materials from Italian rural areas, and organized special shows featuring the “authentic” interpreters of such traditions. Based on archival material and scholarly literature (Radano and Bohlman 2000, Crawford 2006, Stoller 2009, André 2018, Ferraro 2015), this paper pursues a twofold goal. On the one hand, I aim to problematize the history of Italian ethnomusicology by placing it in a longer historical trajectory of racial representation. On the other, I argue that precisely this narrative, despite its burden of misunderstandings and cultural appropriations, allowed Leydi and his collaborators to carve out for themselves a new identity in their own country, while giving national visibility to previously neglected folk musical genres and practices.
In 1873, the Philadelphia police arrested dozens of Italian men and women responsible for smuggli... more In 1873, the Philadelphia police arrested dozens of Italian men and women responsible for smuggling in the country children to be employed as street musicians. Though they often came from a specific area in southern Italy, those children did not play the traditional music of their region. Rather, they were taught a generic “Italian” musical repertoire, resonating with the idea of Italy cultivated by their foreign clientele. In that repertoire, a prominent role was reserved to Italian opera, a genre that had become increasingly popular among the American upper classes during the 19th century, and which found in Philadelphia one of its major centers in the U.S. The prestige of Italian opera grew also in the following decades, to the advantage of the local Italian community. In 1901, while a massive wave of unskilled workers was immigrating from Italy, a group of Italian leaders in Philadelphia raised funds to erect a bust of composer Giuseppe Verdi, thus reminding Americans “of the glories of a country [Italy] which is excelled by none in the eminence, and talents, and virtues of its sons”.
Music scholars and historians (Ceriani, Luconi) have discussed the efforts of Italian prominenti to rehabilitate the image of their community through opera at the beginning of the 20th century. In my paper, I focus on Philadelphia, home of one of the largest Italian communities in the U.S., to put this process into historical perspective. Drawing on contemporary press, archival resources, interviews, and additional scholarly literature (Leydi, Zucchi, Hamberlin), I suggest that the idea of opera as a marker of Italian identity, already propagated in nationalist sense during Italian Risorgimento, became a racial stereotype in the American context, which in turn would be (re-)appropriated by the local Italian community in response to an increasingly hostile social environment. By doing so, I will show that opera, while being part of the “sonic color line” (Stoever) that gradually emerged in the U.S. to both describe and discriminate against Italian immigrants, was also a strategic tool used by that same community to survive, and carve a space for itself, in an alien society.
A chi si rivolge la musica dei teatri d’opera? Che rapporto c’è tra il pubblico dell’opera e la f... more A chi si rivolge la musica dei teatri d’opera? Che rapporto c’è tra il pubblico dell’opera e la forma che questo tipo di spettacolo ha assunto nel XX secolo? E fino a che punto i teatri lirici italiani hanno saputo rispondere all’esigenza di un accesso davvero democratico alla cultura musicale? Il mio lavoro cerca una risposta a queste domande a partire da un caso concreto: il Teatro alla Scala negli anni compresi tra le contestazioni del 1968 e la fine del decennio successivo. Questo periodo viene spesso indicato come il momento dell’apertura della Scala a tutte le classi sociali, grazie soprattutto all’avvio di una serie di iniziative che avrebbero poi avuto notevole rilievo nella letteratura storica, teatrale e musicologica: tra le altre, gli spettacoli per lavoratori e studenti, le attività sul territorio locale, i concerti nelle fabbriche. Al tempo stesso, questo ‘impegno’ culturale è stato spesso interpretato come un’improvvisa reazione alle grandi ideologie che hanno marcato la scena politica italiana di quegli anni. Per questo motivo, una volta che l’onda lunga del Sessantotto allentò la sua presa, il progressivo abbandono di queste attività da parte della dirigenza scaligera apparve un fatto naturale. A memoria di quella stagione, oltre che dei suoi protagonisti — tra gli altri, il sovrintendente Paolo Grassi e il direttore musicale (poi direttore artistico) Claudio Abbado — rimangono oggi documenti, fotografie, articoli di giornale, ricordi, che hanno contribuito nel loro insieme a formare un mito: quello di un’epoca gloriosa e irripetibile, in cui la Scala accoglieva finalmente la società fra le sue mura, e i lavoratori lottavano insieme per fare della cultura, musica inclusa, un mezzo per acquisire consapevolezza del proprio ruolo nella società. Attraverso un approccio interdisciplinare, che integra il materiale d’archivio con le testimonianze orali di coloro che hanno vissuto — da interpreti e organizzatori, o semplicemente da spettatori — quella fase della recente storia del Teatro alla Scala, il mio lavoro si propone di indagare le ragioni poste alla base della politica culturale promossa dal teatro in quel periodo. Rileggendo la Contestazione nel quadro più ampio della storia scaligera del Novecento, sarà inoltre possibile valutare il grado di novità delle iniziative varate in quegli anni, oltre che la loro reale efficacia nel «diffondere l’educazione artistica in tutte le classi sociali».
What is the target audience of the music performed in opera houses? What is the connection between this audience and the form that opera performance has taken in the 20th Century? And to what extent have Italian opera houses been able to allow a truly democratic access to musical culture? My research attempts to answer these questions from the standpoint of the Teatro alla Scala, one of the most prestigious Italian operatic institutions, by taking into account the cultural policy promoted by the theatre in the years between the social and political protests of 1968 and the end of the 1970s. This period is often referred to as the moment of a real ‘opening’ of the theatre to all the social classes, thanks to a series of initiatives — such as the low-priced performances and concerts for workers and students at La Scala, or the special concerts in the factories and in other locations around Milan — that would later be recalled in many historical, theatrical and musicological studies. The sudden emergence of La Scala’s interest in social commitment has often been interpreted as a reaction of the theatre to the turbulent Italian political scene of those years. For this reason, once the Sessantotto ideologies started to lose their grip, the dismissal of several cultural activities appeared to many as strictly related to the political disenchantment gradually arising in the Italian society of the late 1970s. In the meantime, the many documents, articles, photos and memories related to this important season of La Scala’s recent history — and to its charismatic protagonists, among whom superintendent Paolo Grassi and musical director (and later artistic director) Claudio Abbado — have contributed to the creation of a myth: that of a glorious, unique age, during which La Scala would finally begin to receive into its walls the social classes that had been neglected up to that point, and workers would fight together to make use of culture, including music, as a means to increase their awareness of their own role in society. Drawing on a multidisciplinary approach that merges archival research with the oral accounts or those who lived that period as performers, organizers, or simply members of the audience, my work aims to investigate the reasons underpinning the cultural policy fostered by La Scala after 1968. By integrating the many musical activities launched in the 1960s and 1970s in the broader context of La Scala’s history of 20th Century, I intend to assess the degree of newness of this initiatives, and their effectiveness in «promoting artistic education in all social classes».
University of Pennsylvania, Department of Music, 2021
In this dissertation, I argue that Italian opera, a prominent symbol of Italian American identity... more In this dissertation, I argue that Italian opera, a prominent symbol of Italian American identity, has been entangled in the United States with issues of racial difference and social subjugation. In contrast to previous scholarship that views Italian opera as a musical genre that had already defined Italians’ cultural identity in their motherland, I show that opera came to be associated with all Italian immigrants only in the United States, while being adopted by Italian Americans themselves to improve their reputation in their adoptive country. In particular, I demonstrate that the renewed visibility and audibility that the recording industry had assigned to Italian opera at the beginning of the twentieth century contributed to this twinned process of stereotyping and reappropriation, as it enhanced the potential of opera as a vessel for racial and social uplift for Italian immigrants. My research focuses on Philadelphia, a thriving operatic city and a center of opera recording that was also home to one of the largest Italian communities in the country.
The scope of the research calls for a variety of historical sources ranging from archival materials to oral interviews with descendants of Italian immigrants. I examine these materials adopting an interdisciplinary approach that borrows its methods and interpretive frameworks from media history, historical ethnography, migration studies, and critical race studies. Chapter 1 explores the cultural presence of Italian opera in American society in the late nineteenth century, and the extent to which this genre could be employed by Italian immigrants for purposes of social uplift. Chapter 2 analyzes the emergence of operatic references in popular songs about and by Italian Americans published in Philadelphia and other cities between the 1860s and the 1920s. Chapter 3 examines the new significance that recording industrialists attributed to Italian opera in the early twentieth century, and the political and racial implications of the marketing of home phonographs for Italian immigrants and record dealers living in Philadelphia. Chapter 4 investigates the use of Italian opera for the cultural assimilation of Philadelphia Italians in the years between the end of World War I and the Immigration Act of 1924.
In this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lo... more In this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lovers stems from a tradition associating Italian immigrants with mechanical music devices. As a growing number of Italian unskilled labourers entered the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were stereotyped as street musicians, and especially as organ grinders, in mainstream popular culture. Beginning in the 1900s, recording manufacturers strove to make home phonographs appealing to the middle class by breaking the chain of mechanical, social and racial associations that connected the phonograph with earlier musical devices such as the barrel organ, and with those who played them. Because of the prominent marketing role that record labels assigned to Italian opera, this commercial strategy had important consequences for the genre as well as for Italian immigrants, who leveraged opera's renewed visibility and audibility into an effective vessel for social and political empowerment.
In 1954–5, "Porgy and Bess" appeared for the first time in Italy in an all-Black production forma... more In 1954–5, "Porgy and Bess" appeared for the first time in Italy in an all-Black production formally endorsed by the US State Department. Italian theatre administrators saw this production as an opportunity to sever any ideological connection with Fascism after decades of institutional support. At the same time, while Italian audiences and critics were often aware of the essentializing practices at the origins of "Porgy and Bess", they relied on the stereotypical image of African American culture presented by the show to project their own experiences and political aspirations onto the opera’s subject and music. Drawing on primary sources, interviews, and the analysis of the earlier European reception of "Porgy and Bess", this article argues that the success of the opera in Italy, rather than being determined by US diplomatic efforts, was a result of Italians’ need to redefine a sense of collective identity in a time of political transition.
This review was published in the Music Library Association’s journal, Notes vol. 76, no. 2, Decem... more This review was published in the Music Library Association’s journal, Notes vol. 76, no. 2, December 2019, 290-293. The version of record is available at https://muse.jhu.edu/article/743077/summary, DOI https://doi.org/10.1353/not.2019.0109. This material may not be copied or reposted without written permission of MLA.
In the early 1910s, the U.S. recording industry sought to expand its consumer base by tapping int... more In the early 1910s, the U.S. recording industry sought to expand its consumer base by tapping into a new market: public schools. Recording companies such as Victor Talking Machine and Columbia created special educational departments intended to increase the presence of phonographs in American schools. After World War I, schools employed phonographs especially in two areas: music appreciation classes and Americanization classes. For the first activity, recording companies recommended selections of operatic and symphonic music; for the second, folk songs from each country were preferred, in order to keep “the newcomers happy and satisfied during the process of assimilation.”
In this context, the musical identity of thousands of first- and second-generation Italians attending public schools was mapped onto a clearly defined cultural hierarchy. At the top of it, Italian opera was presented as a respectable music to which every American citizen should be exposed. At the bottom, so-called “ethnic” Italian songs such as Funicolì Funicolà or Santa Lucia were desirable only to the extent to which they led Italian students to eventually embrace the culture of the host society.
In this paper, I examine this double standard of musical Italianness through the example of Philadelphia, home to one of the largest Italian communities in the U.S. Building on archival resources, contemporary press, and secondary literature on early recordings and Italian folk songs, I suggest that this double standard, while born in response to precise commercial and political needs, eventually laid the musical foundations of a distinctive Italian-American culture.
In the second half of the 19th century, Italian street musicians began to appear in the streets o... more In the second half of the 19th century, Italian street musicians began to appear in the streets of large and small U.S. urban centers during the warmest months of the year. While some middle-class Americans praised their work as propagators of the music performed in the often inaccessible theaters and concert halls, others perceived Italian barrel organ players, harpists, singers, and other street musicians as noisy, dirty, and crime-affiliated, particularly as waves of unskilled workers from Italy flocked to the poorest U.S. neighborhoods in the following decades. In centers such as New York City and Philadelphia, home to large Italian communities, the association between street musicians and Italian identity in general became increasingly criticized by local Italian leaders, who sought to redeem the image of Italy and Italian culture, including music, in the eyes of their American hosts.
In this paper, I draw upon contemporary press, archival resources, and scholarly literature (Zucchi, Alliegro, Graber, Hamberlin) to examine the complex and conflicting representations and functions of Italian street musicians. At the same time, I will show that Italian street musicians continued to survive in the U.S. as a racial stereotype into the twentieth century, despite their declining numbers. It was these musicians’ lingering presence in the collective memory of both Americans and Italian immigrants that confirmed the “natural” musicality of all Italians, regardless of their class, and indirectly helped the popular success of opera stars such as Caruso and Tetrazzini and other compatriots, especially with the advent of recording technologies.
This paper puts in conversation two apparently irreconcilable worlds. The first is that of George... more This paper puts in conversation two apparently irreconcilable worlds. The first is that of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), a “folk opera” reminiscent of black minstrelsy racial stereotypes, and indebted to the Romantic conception of Volk as it had been applied to the U.S. context by two generations of musicians and scholars, from Antonin Dvořák and Frederick Henry Koch to John and Alan Lomax. The second is that of Roberto Leydi, one of the scholars responsible for the foundation of Italian ethnomusicology after World War II. An admirer of Porgy and Bess, Leydi developed in his youth a strong interest for American black music, which to his mind provided an example of those “folk roots” he was looking for as an alternative to the official culture promoted by fascism. In the late 1950s, Leydi began collecting folk music materials from Italian rural areas, and organized special shows featuring the “authentic” interpreters of such traditions. Based on archival material and scholarly literature (Radano and Bohlman 2000, Crawford 2006, Stoller 2009, André 2018, Ferraro 2015), this paper pursues a twofold goal. On the one hand, I aim to problematize the history of Italian ethnomusicology by placing it in a longer historical trajectory of racial representation. On the other, I argue that precisely this narrative, despite its burden of misunderstandings and cultural appropriations, allowed Leydi and his collaborators to carve out for themselves a new identity in their own country, while giving national visibility to previously neglected folk musical genres and practices.
In 1873, the Philadelphia police arrested dozens of Italian men and women responsible for smuggli... more In 1873, the Philadelphia police arrested dozens of Italian men and women responsible for smuggling in the country children to be employed as street musicians. Though they often came from a specific area in southern Italy, those children did not play the traditional music of their region. Rather, they were taught a generic “Italian” musical repertoire, resonating with the idea of Italy cultivated by their foreign clientele. In that repertoire, a prominent role was reserved to Italian opera, a genre that had become increasingly popular among the American upper classes during the 19th century, and which found in Philadelphia one of its major centers in the U.S. The prestige of Italian opera grew also in the following decades, to the advantage of the local Italian community. In 1901, while a massive wave of unskilled workers was immigrating from Italy, a group of Italian leaders in Philadelphia raised funds to erect a bust of composer Giuseppe Verdi, thus reminding Americans “of the glories of a country [Italy] which is excelled by none in the eminence, and talents, and virtues of its sons”.
Music scholars and historians (Ceriani, Luconi) have discussed the efforts of Italian prominenti to rehabilitate the image of their community through opera at the beginning of the 20th century. In my paper, I focus on Philadelphia, home of one of the largest Italian communities in the U.S., to put this process into historical perspective. Drawing on contemporary press, archival resources, interviews, and additional scholarly literature (Leydi, Zucchi, Hamberlin), I suggest that the idea of opera as a marker of Italian identity, already propagated in nationalist sense during Italian Risorgimento, became a racial stereotype in the American context, which in turn would be (re-)appropriated by the local Italian community in response to an increasingly hostile social environment. By doing so, I will show that opera, while being part of the “sonic color line” (Stoever) that gradually emerged in the U.S. to both describe and discriminate against Italian immigrants, was also a strategic tool used by that same community to survive, and carve a space for itself, in an alien society.
When he arrived in New York in 1896, 7-year-old Antonio Di Cecco was just one among the thousands... more When he arrived in New York in 1896, 7-year-old Antonio Di Cecco was just one among the thousands of Italians looking for a better life overseas. By the time he died in 1954, Antonio was not much more famous, despite the many music works – including an opera, a symphony, and other orchestral, choral, and piano compositions – that he had written during his career. It is only thanks to a recent donation of his music to the University of Pennsylvania, that we can even remember him in 2018. Yet, despite this apparently unimpressive record, the life and music of Antonio Di Cecco are of great historical value. Old enough to have retained memories of his country when he left it, Antonio lived in between two worlds. He served in the Italian military during World War I, but he strove to earn the attention of American audiences. He graduated in composition at the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna, and wrote hymns to Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. He kept English vocabulary notebooks until the end of his life, and composed music full of references to his native Italy. Di Cecco’s motto, “in labor I find peace,” suggests that music was for Antonio part of a healing process that occupied most of his life. While the music of Italian-American composers remains largely unstudied today, I consider musical examples and other materials from Antonio Di Cecco’s music collection to shed light on the reality, aspirations, and regrets of many Italian-Americans of his generation.
First performed in New York in 1935, George and Ira Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess was based on ... more First performed in New York in 1935, George and Ira Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess was based on Porgy, a highly successful novel published a decade before by DuBose Heyward that aimed to give an authentic and sympathetic depiction of black American life in the Southern Unites States. Despite having been critiqued for reinforcing racial stereotypes that catered to a predominantly white audience, the opera offered its all-black cast job opportunities and the prospect of upward social mobility in the context of an often segregated country. Precisely this aspect would later be crucial for the success of the opera in the Cold War era, when the U.S. State Department funded a world tour of Porgy and Bess in an effort to present the United States as a land of equal rights and opportunities for all of its citizens.
Based on archival resources and newspaper accounts from both sides of the At-lantic Ocean, as well as on the literature recently published on this subject by historians and music scholars (Noonan, Allen, Crist, and von Eschen, among others), my paper focuses on the Venetian and Milanese performances of the 1952-56 world tour of Porgy and Bess. The scope of my work is twofold. On the one hand, I intend to assess the efficacy of the opera as a vessel of U.S. propaganda in the Italian context. On the other, I will examine the way local critics and audiences received the racial implications of Porgy and Bess, one of the first American operas ever performed in the country, against the backdrop of the prestigious history of the genre: a supposedly cosmopolitan, high culture product born in Italy, which found in venues such as the ones considered in this paper – the Teatro la Fenice in Venice and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan – some of its most prestigious temples.
On the evening of 7 December 1968, a group of students protesting against social inequalities gat... more On the evening of 7 December 1968, a group of students protesting against social inequalities gathered in front of Teatro alla Scala, in Milan. The demonstrators attacked the wealthy attendees who came for Don Carlos, the opening night of the season, and hit them with eggs and vegetables. That event became a symbol of the Italian 'Sessantotto', the period of social and political unrest that took its cue from the May 1968 events in France, and affected the country for a whole decade. The 1968 protest remained an isolated case in La Scala's history, but it would have a profound impact on the cultural policy sought by the theatre in the following years. In a time of struggle for a national retirement system, for equal opportunities in education, and for workers' rights, could the most prominent opera house in Italy afford to be perceived as a bourgeois temple? More broadly, how could La Scala change its public image, and present itself as a truly democratic cultural institution, at the service of the whole citizenry, and not only of a confined group of privileged attendees? These questions drove the cultural policy fostered by La Scala in the years from the late Sixties to the end of the Seventies. During the last part of Antonio Ghiringhelli's time in office, which lasted almost thirty years (1945-1972), and especially under the following administration of Paolo Grassi (1972-1977), La Scala really showed a willingness to renew its relationship with its audience, and therefore promoted a great number of activities specifically dedicated to the lower class. La Scala reinforced its contacts with the trade unions, and organized special low-priced concerts and performances for students and factory workers. In this period, La Scala also strengthened its presence in the regional territory, staging concerts and other events in public schools, factories, sports arenas, and local theatres. After the strong industrial growth of the previous decades, which had dramatically changed the Milanese urban fabric and the migratory flows in the entire country, La Scala understandably conceived the reduced-price performances, both in-and outside the opera house, as activities mainly intended for factory workers. However,
On December 7, 1968 a group of students protesting against social inequality gathered in front of... more On December 7, 1968 a group of students protesting against social inequality gathered in front of Italy’s most prominent opera house, Teatro alla Scala. During the protest, eggs and vegetables were thrown at the wealthy concert attendees that convened there for the opening night of the season. That incident, nowadays referred to as a symbol of the tide of social and political tensions that troubled Italian history for a whole decade, made La Scala — and, therefore, the music it featured — a place par excellence of social privilege. In reaction to this turbulent social context, superintendents Antonio Ghiringhelli (1948-1972) and Paolo Grassi (1972-1977) promoted new strategies in order to open the opera house to the working class and legitimise La Scala’s existence as a publicly funded cultural institution. To reach these goals, the theatre gradually reinforced its relationships with the labour unions and organized reduced-price performances specifically dedicated to the lower socio-economic class.
Drawing on interviews, archival resources and newspaper accounts, my paper investi-gates the cultural policy adopted by La Scala in the Seventies and aims to evaluate the role that this distinguished theatre played in fostering a democratization of opera music in late 20th Century Italy.
Founded in Chicago in 1919, the National Association of Negro Musicians’ (NANM’s) main goal is pr... more Founded in Chicago in 1919, the National Association of Negro Musicians’ (NANM’s) main goal is protecting the interests of black musicians and creating a national network of so-lidarity and collaboration. During the first decades of its existence, NANM devoted most of its activities to the promotion of Western art music, following the principles of the Harlem Re-naissance movement (1920-1930). Whereas the white ruling elite build a society based on class distinctions, the black community aspired to create a bourgeoisie noire through the con-sumption of highly valued artistic products, thereby pursuing art as a form of race progress. Through archival sources, interviews and oral history, this paper sheds light on the current objectives of NANM, taking into account the importance that art music continues to wield wi-thin the association itself. In recent decades, after opening its area of interest to new musical genres (jazz, gospel, blues, hip hop, dance music), NANM has faced a different social climate. Although racial prejudice has progressively declined, classically-trained black musicians still suffer forms of discrimination; on the other hand, the lack of exposure to art music inside the African-American community has pushed NANM to increase its efforts to democratize 'high' culture.
Nel 1920, dopo due decenni di polemiche sull’opportunità di un finanziamento comunale, il sindaco... more Nel 1920, dopo due decenni di polemiche sull’opportunità di un finanziamento comunale, il sindaco di Milano Emilio Caldara pose le condizioni per trasformare il Teatro alla Scala in un’istituzione culturale pubblica. La Scala avrebbe potuto godere di una sovvenzione munici-pale solo a fronte di un suo maggiore impegno nei confronti dei «bisogni culturali» della classe lavoratrice. Fu in quest’ottica che venne formalizzata la collaborazione con il Teatro del Popolo, una grande sala di proprietà della Società Umanitaria e destinata all’organizzazione di manifestazioni culturali per il proletariato milanese. Il nuovo statuto dell’Ente Autonomo (1921) imponeva ora alla Scala di «organizzare spettacoli e concerti nel Teatro del Popolo, perché ciò po[tesse] contribuire al lustro del Teatro e dell’Arte italiana».
Se la collaborazione tra Scala e Teatro del Popolo si mantenne assai vitale fino agli anni della seconda guerra mondiale, i rapporti si diradarono dopo il conflitto, interrompendosi del tutto nel 1956. Da un lato, gli elevati costi di gestione rendevano poco conveniente il coinvolgimen-to della Scala nella stagione musicale del Teatro del Popolo. Dall’altro, la Società Umanitaria si era resa conto che la forma tradizionale del concerto aveva ormai perso la sua presa sui ceti meno abbienti, e che sarebbe stato necessario adottare nuovi e più efficaci strumenti per promuovere presso un pubblico ‘popolare’ una vera diffusione della musica d’arte. A partire dallo studio del materiale conservato presso gli archivi storici del Teatro alla Scala e della So-cietà Umanitaria, il mio intervento si propone di chiarire quali furono le dinamiche che porta-rono all’interruzione dei rapporti tra questi due enti, e di mettere in luce le strategie che la Scala approntò negli anni successivi per proseguire nel suo compito di «diffondere l’educazione artistica in tutte le classi sociali».
Teatro alla Scala e promozione culturale nel lungo Sessantotto milanese, 2015
The Together for Culture prize is awarded annually by Associazione Amici della Scala (Milan, Ital... more The Together for Culture prize is awarded annually by Associazione Amici della Scala (Milan, Italy) to the best doctoral dissertation in Musicology. The winning dissertation is published in e-book format by the publishing house Feltrinelli and in printed format (print-on-demand) by Associazione Amici della Scala.
In this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lo... more In this article I argue that the longstanding practice of depicting Italian Americans as opera lovers stems from a tradition associating Italian immigrants with mechanical music devices. As a growing number of Italian unskilled labourers entered the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century, they were stereotyped as street musicians, and especially as organ grinders, in mainstream popular culture. Beginning in the 1900s, recording manufacturers strove to make home phonographs appealing to the middle class by breaking the chain of mechanical, social and racial associations that connected the phonograph with earlier musical devices such as the barrel organ, and with those who played them. Because of the prominent marketing role that record labels assigned to Italian opera, this commercial strategy had important consequences for the genre as well as for Italian immigrants, who leveraged opera's renewed visibility and audibility into an effective vessel for social a...
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Attraverso un approccio interdisciplinare, che integra il materiale d’archivio con le testimonianze orali di coloro che hanno vissuto — da interpreti e organizzatori, o semplicemente da spettatori — quella fase della recente storia del Teatro alla Scala, il mio lavoro si propone di indagare le ragioni poste alla base della politica culturale promossa dal teatro in quel periodo. Rileggendo la Contestazione nel quadro più ampio della storia scaligera del Novecento, sarà inoltre possibile valutare il grado di novità delle iniziative varate in quegli anni, oltre che la loro reale efficacia nel «diffondere l’educazione artistica in tutte le classi sociali».
What is the target audience of the music performed in opera houses? What is the connection between this audience and the form that opera performance has taken in the 20th Century? And to what extent have Italian opera houses been able to allow a truly democratic access to musical culture? My research attempts to answer these questions from the standpoint of the Teatro alla Scala, one of the most prestigious Italian operatic institutions, by taking into account the cultural policy promoted by the theatre in the years between the social and political protests of 1968 and the end of the 1970s. This period is often referred to as the moment of a real ‘opening’ of the theatre to all the social classes, thanks to a series of initiatives — such as the low-priced performances and concerts for workers and students at La Scala, or the special concerts in the factories and in other locations around Milan — that would later be recalled in many historical, theatrical and musicological studies. The sudden emergence of La Scala’s interest in social commitment has often been interpreted as a reaction of the theatre to the turbulent Italian political scene of those years. For this reason, once the Sessantotto ideologies started to lose their grip, the dismissal of several cultural activities appeared to many as strictly related to the political disenchantment gradually arising in the Italian society of the late 1970s. In the meantime, the many documents, articles, photos and memories related to this important season of La Scala’s recent history — and to its charismatic protagonists, among whom superintendent Paolo Grassi and musical director (and later artistic director) Claudio Abbado — have contributed to the creation of a myth: that of a glorious, unique age, during which La Scala would finally begin to receive into its walls the social classes that had been neglected up to that point, and workers would fight together to make use of culture, including music, as a means to increase their awareness of their own role in society.
Drawing on a multidisciplinary approach that merges archival research with the oral accounts or those who lived that period as performers, organizers, or simply members of the audience, my work aims to investigate the reasons underpinning the cultural policy fostered by La Scala after 1968. By integrating the many musical activities launched in the 1960s and 1970s in the broader context of La Scala’s history of 20th Century, I intend to assess the degree of newness of this initiatives, and their effectiveness in «promoting artistic education in all social classes».
The scope of the research calls for a variety of historical sources ranging from archival materials to oral interviews with descendants of Italian immigrants. I examine these materials adopting an interdisciplinary approach that borrows its methods and interpretive frameworks from media history, historical ethnography, migration studies, and critical race studies. Chapter 1 explores the cultural presence of Italian opera in American society in the late nineteenth century, and the extent to which this genre could be employed by Italian immigrants for purposes of social uplift. Chapter 2 analyzes the emergence of operatic references in popular songs about and by Italian Americans published in Philadelphia and other cities between the 1860s and the 1920s. Chapter 3 examines the new significance that recording industrialists attributed to Italian opera in the early twentieth century, and the political and racial implications of the marketing of home phonographs for Italian immigrants and record dealers living in Philadelphia. Chapter 4 investigates the use of Italian opera for the cultural assimilation of Philadelphia Italians in the years between the end of World War I and the Immigration Act of 1924.
In this context, the musical identity of thousands of first- and second-generation Italians attending public schools was mapped onto a clearly defined cultural hierarchy. At the top of it, Italian opera was presented as a respectable music to which every American citizen should be exposed. At the bottom, so-called “ethnic” Italian songs such as Funicolì Funicolà or Santa Lucia were desirable only to the extent to which they led Italian students to eventually embrace the culture of the host society.
In this paper, I examine this double standard of musical Italianness through the example of Philadelphia, home to one of the largest Italian communities in the U.S. Building on archival resources, contemporary press, and secondary literature on early recordings and Italian folk songs, I suggest that this double standard, while born in response to precise commercial and political needs, eventually laid the musical foundations of a distinctive Italian-American culture.
In this paper, I draw upon contemporary press, archival resources, and scholarly literature (Zucchi, Alliegro, Graber, Hamberlin) to examine the complex and conflicting representations and functions of Italian street musicians. At the same time, I will show that Italian street musicians continued to survive in the U.S. as a racial stereotype into the twentieth century, despite their declining numbers. It was these musicians’ lingering presence in the collective memory of both Americans and Italian immigrants that confirmed the “natural” musicality of all Italians, regardless of their class, and indirectly helped the popular success of opera stars such as Caruso and Tetrazzini and other compatriots, especially with the advent of recording technologies.
Music scholars and historians (Ceriani, Luconi) have discussed the efforts of Italian prominenti to rehabilitate the image of their community through opera at the beginning of the 20th century. In my paper, I focus on Philadelphia, home of one of the largest Italian communities in the U.S., to put this process into historical perspective. Drawing on contemporary press, archival resources, interviews, and additional scholarly literature (Leydi, Zucchi, Hamberlin), I suggest that the idea of opera as a marker of Italian identity, already propagated in nationalist sense during Italian Risorgimento, became a racial stereotype in the American context, which in turn would be (re-)appropriated by the local Italian community in response to an increasingly hostile social environment. By doing so, I will show that opera, while being part of the “sonic color line” (Stoever) that gradually emerged in the U.S. to both describe and discriminate against Italian immigrants, was also a strategic tool used by that same community to survive, and carve a space for itself, in an alien society.
Attraverso un approccio interdisciplinare, che integra il materiale d’archivio con le testimonianze orali di coloro che hanno vissuto — da interpreti e organizzatori, o semplicemente da spettatori — quella fase della recente storia del Teatro alla Scala, il mio lavoro si propone di indagare le ragioni poste alla base della politica culturale promossa dal teatro in quel periodo. Rileggendo la Contestazione nel quadro più ampio della storia scaligera del Novecento, sarà inoltre possibile valutare il grado di novità delle iniziative varate in quegli anni, oltre che la loro reale efficacia nel «diffondere l’educazione artistica in tutte le classi sociali».
What is the target audience of the music performed in opera houses? What is the connection between this audience and the form that opera performance has taken in the 20th Century? And to what extent have Italian opera houses been able to allow a truly democratic access to musical culture? My research attempts to answer these questions from the standpoint of the Teatro alla Scala, one of the most prestigious Italian operatic institutions, by taking into account the cultural policy promoted by the theatre in the years between the social and political protests of 1968 and the end of the 1970s. This period is often referred to as the moment of a real ‘opening’ of the theatre to all the social classes, thanks to a series of initiatives — such as the low-priced performances and concerts for workers and students at La Scala, or the special concerts in the factories and in other locations around Milan — that would later be recalled in many historical, theatrical and musicological studies. The sudden emergence of La Scala’s interest in social commitment has often been interpreted as a reaction of the theatre to the turbulent Italian political scene of those years. For this reason, once the Sessantotto ideologies started to lose their grip, the dismissal of several cultural activities appeared to many as strictly related to the political disenchantment gradually arising in the Italian society of the late 1970s. In the meantime, the many documents, articles, photos and memories related to this important season of La Scala’s recent history — and to its charismatic protagonists, among whom superintendent Paolo Grassi and musical director (and later artistic director) Claudio Abbado — have contributed to the creation of a myth: that of a glorious, unique age, during which La Scala would finally begin to receive into its walls the social classes that had been neglected up to that point, and workers would fight together to make use of culture, including music, as a means to increase their awareness of their own role in society.
Drawing on a multidisciplinary approach that merges archival research with the oral accounts or those who lived that period as performers, organizers, or simply members of the audience, my work aims to investigate the reasons underpinning the cultural policy fostered by La Scala after 1968. By integrating the many musical activities launched in the 1960s and 1970s in the broader context of La Scala’s history of 20th Century, I intend to assess the degree of newness of this initiatives, and their effectiveness in «promoting artistic education in all social classes».
The scope of the research calls for a variety of historical sources ranging from archival materials to oral interviews with descendants of Italian immigrants. I examine these materials adopting an interdisciplinary approach that borrows its methods and interpretive frameworks from media history, historical ethnography, migration studies, and critical race studies. Chapter 1 explores the cultural presence of Italian opera in American society in the late nineteenth century, and the extent to which this genre could be employed by Italian immigrants for purposes of social uplift. Chapter 2 analyzes the emergence of operatic references in popular songs about and by Italian Americans published in Philadelphia and other cities between the 1860s and the 1920s. Chapter 3 examines the new significance that recording industrialists attributed to Italian opera in the early twentieth century, and the political and racial implications of the marketing of home phonographs for Italian immigrants and record dealers living in Philadelphia. Chapter 4 investigates the use of Italian opera for the cultural assimilation of Philadelphia Italians in the years between the end of World War I and the Immigration Act of 1924.
In this context, the musical identity of thousands of first- and second-generation Italians attending public schools was mapped onto a clearly defined cultural hierarchy. At the top of it, Italian opera was presented as a respectable music to which every American citizen should be exposed. At the bottom, so-called “ethnic” Italian songs such as Funicolì Funicolà or Santa Lucia were desirable only to the extent to which they led Italian students to eventually embrace the culture of the host society.
In this paper, I examine this double standard of musical Italianness through the example of Philadelphia, home to one of the largest Italian communities in the U.S. Building on archival resources, contemporary press, and secondary literature on early recordings and Italian folk songs, I suggest that this double standard, while born in response to precise commercial and political needs, eventually laid the musical foundations of a distinctive Italian-American culture.
In this paper, I draw upon contemporary press, archival resources, and scholarly literature (Zucchi, Alliegro, Graber, Hamberlin) to examine the complex and conflicting representations and functions of Italian street musicians. At the same time, I will show that Italian street musicians continued to survive in the U.S. as a racial stereotype into the twentieth century, despite their declining numbers. It was these musicians’ lingering presence in the collective memory of both Americans and Italian immigrants that confirmed the “natural” musicality of all Italians, regardless of their class, and indirectly helped the popular success of opera stars such as Caruso and Tetrazzini and other compatriots, especially with the advent of recording technologies.
Music scholars and historians (Ceriani, Luconi) have discussed the efforts of Italian prominenti to rehabilitate the image of their community through opera at the beginning of the 20th century. In my paper, I focus on Philadelphia, home of one of the largest Italian communities in the U.S., to put this process into historical perspective. Drawing on contemporary press, archival resources, interviews, and additional scholarly literature (Leydi, Zucchi, Hamberlin), I suggest that the idea of opera as a marker of Italian identity, already propagated in nationalist sense during Italian Risorgimento, became a racial stereotype in the American context, which in turn would be (re-)appropriated by the local Italian community in response to an increasingly hostile social environment. By doing so, I will show that opera, while being part of the “sonic color line” (Stoever) that gradually emerged in the U.S. to both describe and discriminate against Italian immigrants, was also a strategic tool used by that same community to survive, and carve a space for itself, in an alien society.
Based on archival resources and newspaper accounts from both sides of the At-lantic Ocean, as well as on the literature recently published on this subject by historians and music scholars (Noonan, Allen, Crist, and von Eschen, among others), my paper focuses on the Venetian and Milanese performances of the 1952-56 world tour of Porgy and Bess. The scope of my work is twofold. On the one hand, I intend to assess the efficacy of the opera as a vessel of U.S. propaganda in the Italian context. On the other, I will examine the way local critics and audiences received the racial implications of Porgy and Bess, one of the first American operas ever performed in the country, against the backdrop of the prestigious history of the genre: a supposedly cosmopolitan, high culture product born in Italy, which found in venues such as the ones considered in this paper – the Teatro la Fenice in Venice and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan – some of its most prestigious temples.
Drawing on interviews, archival resources and newspaper accounts, my paper investi-gates the cultural policy adopted by La Scala in the Seventies and aims to evaluate the role that this distinguished theatre played in fostering a democratization of opera music in late 20th Century Italy.
Se la collaborazione tra Scala e Teatro del Popolo si mantenne assai vitale fino agli anni della seconda guerra mondiale, i rapporti si diradarono dopo il conflitto, interrompendosi del tutto nel 1956. Da un lato, gli elevati costi di gestione rendevano poco conveniente il coinvolgimen-to della Scala nella stagione musicale del Teatro del Popolo. Dall’altro, la Società Umanitaria si era resa conto che la forma tradizionale del concerto aveva ormai perso la sua presa sui ceti meno abbienti, e che sarebbe stato necessario adottare nuovi e più efficaci strumenti per promuovere presso un pubblico ‘popolare’ una vera diffusione della musica d’arte. A partire dallo studio del materiale conservato presso gli archivi storici del Teatro alla Scala e della So-cietà Umanitaria, il mio intervento si propone di chiarire quali furono le dinamiche che porta-rono all’interruzione dei rapporti tra questi due enti, e di mettere in luce le strategie che la Scala approntò negli anni successivi per proseguire nel suo compito di «diffondere l’educazione artistica in tutte le classi sociali».