Humor and intrigue: A comparative study of comic opera in Florence and Rome during the late seventeenth century

This study shows that comic opera simultaneously in both Florence and Rome began as local entertainment and later become more homogeneous. Over twenty-five works are examined, all of them distinct from the mainstream opera of the period, Venetian dramma per musica. They differ significantly from one another and therefore fail to define a unified comic-opera genre. Whereas comic opera in Florence was usually humorous, in Rome it emphasized more serious sides of human behavior. A comparison of these works reveals comic opera to be another strand in the varied fabric of seicento theater.;Part I is organized to illustrate the evolution of Florentine comic opera from local entertainment to a more cosmopolitan theater. The first period was dominated by Giovanni Andrea Moniglia and Jacopo Melani. A comparison of their most famous comic and serious opera in chapter 1 lays the foundation for a more in-depth analysis of Moniglia's approach to comic theater in chapter 2, which includes an analysis of Pietro Susini's Le nozze in sogno. Chapter 3 examines the second phase of comic opera in Florence, focusing on Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi and the three operatic adaptations of the spoken comedy Il Trespolo tutore.;Part II considers two parallel phases of comic opera in Rome, beginning in chapter 4 with Filippo Acciaiuoli's Il Girello, a bawdy, political satire about absolutism, and like no other work from the period. Operas based on the Spanish cloak-and-sword comedy are the subject of the final chapter. Close attention is paid to the relationship between Rospigliosi's cloak-and-sword operas and a later series of small-scale romantic comedies.;Constituting the first phase in Florence and Rome respectively, Moniglia's and Rospigliosi's comic operas are strongly distinguished from each other. The later comic operas for Roman and Florence are more similar to each other in style and structure. Nevertheless, considerable variety obtains not only between them but also among the operas of each group. The conclusion recognizes this state of affairs at the time just prior to the establishment of an authentic comic-opera genre in the eighteenth century.