Chair: Alessio Francesco Palmieri Marinoni.

Despite showing continuity as regards certain recursive elements in clothing and accessories that serve to identify characters, contexts and situations, the Baroque era may rightly be considered the period of greatest extravagance and creative inventiveness in the history of theatrical costume.

The seminar objective is to illustrate how the concept of ‘ancient dress’ and the so-called ‘Roman tunic’ evolved into the complex theatrical costumes created for the Opera Seria of the last years of the 17th and the early years of the 18th century.

Readings of iconographic sources and presentation of documents inherent to operatic productions of the time will lead to definition of elements typical of the clothing of this period and point up links to the fashion and politics of the time and the reciprocal influences among these spheres.

SEMINAR PROGRAM:

• ‘Ancient dress’ and ‘Roman tunics’: a definition of ‘ancient’
• Codifying styles in dress
• Court dress as theatrical costume
• Analysis of several examples of theatrical costume

SUGGESTED BOOK TO READ:

Smith, A. O. (2019) Dreaming with Open Eyes: Opera, Aesthetics, and Perception in Arcadian Rome, University of California Press

Staffieri, G. (2014) L’opera italiana. Dalle origini alle riforme del secolo dei Lumi (1590-1790)