The theatre-of-imagination that post-WWII Italian opera develops is certainly connected to
the issue of Nothingness,26 and we can trace the origins of such interest back to early Venetian
operas. Scholar Mauro Calcagno, in his essay ‘Signifying nothing: on the aesthetics of pure voice in early Venetian opera’ (2003), demonstrates how early Venetian opera composers found inspiration
21 I capitalise the word Nothingness in order to indicate it as a being (an entity), intended in philosophical terms. In my
argument the word Nothingness does not only indicate its non-technical signification of ‘absence or cessation of life or existence’ and/or of ‘worthlessness or insignificance’ [Oxford dictionaries online, Oxford University Press, <http:// oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/nothingness?q=Nothingness> (accessed 4 July 2013)]. It also, and most importantly, defines the philosophical conception of the state of being nothing, or the property of having nothing. The matter of Nothingness (and of Nothing in general), as an existent or non-existent being, was already discussed by ancient Greek philosophers. According to scholar Cyril Bailey, the atomist Leucippus was the first to maintain that ‘Nothing has a reality attached to it’ [Cyril Bailey, The Greek Atomists and Epicurus: A Study (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964), 75]. In addition, the capitalisation of the word Nothingness also aims to recall the philosophico-artistic theories of the Nothing put forward by the seventeenth-century Venetian Accademia degli Incogniti (Academy of the Unknowns), who produced writings such as Marin Dall’Angelo’s Le Glorie del Niente (The Glories of Nothing,1635) and Luigi Manzini’s Il Niente (The Nothing, 1634). The members of the Accademia degli Incogniti theorised the various forms and representations of the Nile, Nihil, Nulla (various Italian and Latin terms meaning Nothing), and listed a number of words and philosophical entities that, according to their theories, function as ‘figures of Nothing’. I will discuss the relationship between the Accademia degli Incogniti, the matter of Nothingness and Italian Opera in the following paragraphs (particularly in 3.1.3 Openness and Nothingness: from the Accademia degli Incogniti to Corghi’s Blimunda).
22 The term ‘unlimited semiosis’ (semiosi illimitata), coined by Umberto Eco, refers to the way in which the signified is
endlessly commutable functioning in its turn as a signifier for a further signified.
23 Segreto ermetico literally translates as ‘hermetic secret’. The word ‘hermetic’ has to be understood in its mystical-
philosophical meaning derived from Hermes Trismegistus’s doctrine, not simply as in its encyclopedic definition of ‘obscure’, ‘inscrutable’ - although the two meanings extensively coincide. For further reference see: Umberto Eco, ‘Sovrainterpretare i testi’ in Interpretazione e sovrainterpretazione, ed. Stefan Collini (Milano: Bompiani, 2004), 57-80.
24 Eco, Lector in Fabula, 52.
Original Italian text: Spazi bianchi e di interstizi da riempire
25 Umberto Eco, Interpretazione e sovrainterpretazione, trans. Simone Spagnolo (Bompiani, Milano, 2004), 43-44. 26 Arguably, the concept of non-linearity and the themes their narratives present partly demonstrate this.
in the doctrines of the Accademia degli Incogniti,27 an intellectual circle that theorised the meaning
of Nothing through an elaboration of tropes and philosophical writings. In discussing a melisma on
the word la 28 that the character Seneca executes in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea,
Calcagno says that ‘the melisma on “la” is required by the very meaning of Beauty [the word that
follows la] in the heterodox aesthetic of the Accademia degli Incogniti’.29 And he demonstrates that
Beauty is a ‘figure of Nothing’,30 a word that represents the Incogniti’s concept of Nothingness. In
addition, he highlights that the Incogniti counted among its members numerous librettists, including Giovanfrancesco Busenello, author of L’incoronazione di Poppea, and Giacomo Badoaro, the librettist of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (1639-1640).
Calcagno’s writing, thus, provides evidence that the concept of openness and Nothingness
constitutes a thread linking early Italian operas to the post-WWII works this thesis discusses.31 A
recent example of a work featuring the theme of openness is composer Azio Corghi’s Blimunda (1990). This work is based on an ‘intermingling of what the composer and author call the “true story” (vera storia) and the “tale” (storia romanzata)’, and ‘includes what Corghi calls a “surreal
game”, often presented as dream-sequences’.32 Blimunda’s scenario comprises three distinct spaces
which allow the audience’s imagination to explore the possibilities of representation. The composer himself articulates such spaces into three kinds: the acoustic space, the imaginary space and the real space. Each of these spaces represents a typology of narration and serves the purpose of evoking
Blimunda’s ‘true stories’ and ‘tales’, which indeed generate openness and imaginary narrations.
Although this polyvalent work recalls numerous aspects from Berio’s theatrical works, Fearn says
27 Accademia degli Incogniti translates as Academy of the Unknowns, a name that shows how the members of this
circle were interested in unknown philosophical matters. As Mauro Calcagno discusses, the Incogniti addressed their attentions especially toward the matter of the ‘Nihil, Nulla’ (Mauro Calcagno, ‘Signifying nothing: on the aesthetics of pure voice in early Venetian opera’, The journal of musicology 20/4 (2003), 483), Latin and Italian words for Nothing.
28 La is the Italian singular female article for the.
29 Mauro Calcagno, ‘Signifying nothing: on the aesthetics of pure voice in early Venetian opera’, The journal of
musicology 20/4 (2003), 494.
30 The expression ‘figure of Nothing’ is used throughout Mauro Calcagno’s essay, who writes that ‘around the concept
of Nothing the Incogniti built a constellation of related meanings, which we called “figures of Nothing.” These included Voice, Death, and Beauty, but also Time, Dust, Darkness, Dreams, Silence, Sleep, etc.’ (Calcagno ‘Signifying nothing: on the aesthetics of pure voice in early Venetian opera’, 489).
31 The connection between early Venetian opera and the matters of openness and Nothingness could arguably explain
Berio’s choice of employing the text of Monteverdi’s Orfeo for his Opera, although the composer never touched upon this point.
that ‘in Blimunda, Corghi has created an opera in which the various elements work remarkably
together, whether of fact and fantasy, of reality and dream, of acoustic, imaginary and real spaces’.33