The Renaissance Italian Madrigal Comedy: A Handbook for Performance

Abstract

The Italian madrigal comedy experienced a relatively short, but exceedingly popular life during the late Renaissance. The works that may be called madrigal comedies, numbering less than two dozen in total, represent a type of musical entertainment that delighted audiences at courts and within the cultural academies of Renaissance Italy. The small subset of works within the genre, designated in this research project as "theatrical" madrigal comedies, showed an increasing focus on dramatic representation of text with music. These works, the plots of which derive from the commedia dell'arte tradition, may be seen as early forms of musical comedy and musical theater. Arguments concerning the manner in which the works were performed have centered on a debate for and against the staging of them.Because madrigal comedies have been largely neglected as concert and theatrical literature, there is little published to assist a director in finding the repertoire or to offer a guide to performance. The research project on which this document is based, along with the associated lecture-recital, resulted in the compilation of means to a successful madrigal comedy production. This was done by advocating historically informed performance decisions that are given a practical spin. In this manner, a director may put together a madrigal comedy production that is accessible to professionals and non-professionals, as well as secondary- and higher-education communities.