International Conference on Studies: "Giuseppe Gazzaniga and the Comic Musical Theater of the Late Eighteenth Century" – November 27–28, 2025.

International Conference

“Giuseppe Gazzaniga and Comic Musical Theatre in the Late Eighteenth Century”
State Conservatoire “E. F. Dall’Abaco”, Verona – 27–28 November
Auditorium Nuovo Montemezzi, Via Abramo Massalongo 2, Verona

The State Conservatoire “E. F. Dall’Abaco” of Verona hosts the international conference “Giuseppe Gazzaniga and Comic Musical Theatre in the Late Eighteenth Century”, part of the PNRR-funded project MTNT – Music Theatre & New Technologies: Toward a New Paradigm in Opera Studies and Performance, supported by Next Generation EU and promoted by the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research, in collaboration with the “Paolo Rigoli” Library.

The conference brings together leading Italian and international scholars to explore the figure of Giuseppe Gazzaniga and the pivotal role of comic opera in the European musical landscape of the late 1700s.

Programme

Thursday, 27 November – 2:30 p.m.

Institutional greetings

First Session – Chair: Claudio Toscani (University of Milan)

• Kordula Knaus (University of Dortmund) – The Rise of Opera buffa in Europe.

• Arnold Jacobshagen (Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln) – From Naples to Europe: Domenico Cimarosa’s Le trame deluse (1786).

• Ingrid Schraffl (University of Vienna) – Musique charmante: The Reception of Gazzaniga’s Comic Operas in Vienna.

• Lorenzo Mattei (University of Bari) – Gazzaniga’s La vendemmia and the Internationalization of the dramma giocoso.

• Lucio Tufano (University of Palermo) – Virtues and Flaws of a “Less Sumptuous Spectacle”: Comic Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century Italian Treatises.

Friday, 28 November – 9:30 a.m.

Second Session – Chair: Michele Calella (University of Vienna)

• Paologiovanni Maione (University of Campania) – The Return of Tritto to the Teatro Nuovo sopra Toledo between Tradition and Experimentation (1780–1782).

• Magnus Tessing Schneider (University of Gothenburg) – “Tutto quel ch’ei pingea pingea di sè”: Satire and Comic Impersonation in Prima la musica e poi le parole (Casti/Salieri) and Il finto cieco (Da Ponte/Gazzaniga).

• Daniel Brandenburg (University of Bayreuth) – Giuseppe Gazzaniga and the Comic Singers of His Time.

• Giovanni Polin (Conservatorio di Alessandria) – Documents and Contemporary Reports on Gazzaniga’s Operatic Activity in the Serenissima: A Preliminary Survey.

• Francesco Bissoli (Conservatorio di Verona) – La locanda (Venice, 1771): Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s First International Success.

Friday, 28 November – 2:30 p.m.

Third Session – Chair: Francesco Bissoli

• Roland Pfeiffer (Berlin/Rome) – Il marchese di verde antico: Traces of the Origins of La vendemmia in a Hidden Source from a Roman Noble House.

• Eugenio Poli (Conservatorio di Verona) – Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s La vendemmia: Toward a Critical Synthesis.

• Aldo Salvagno (Cuneo) – The Life and Art of the Contralto Caterina Ristorini Gazzaniga (Genoa, 1741 – Bologna, 1806).

• Carlo Giusti (Verona) – Music Theatre and Power in the Final Years of the Ancien Régime: Relations between the Courts of Marie Antoinette and Maria Carolina against the Backdrop of Giuseppe Gazzaniga’s Stays in Naples and Palermo (1780–1782).

• Cristina Scuderi (University of Milan) – “Dolce sonno / Preis Anbetung” and the Gazzaniga Case: Reflections on the Use of Contrafactum between Operatic and Liturgical Contexts in the Late Eighteenth Century.