Parody as re-use and parody as laughing: three exemplary cases of forgery in the musical theatre

  • Elisabetta Fava Università degli Studi di Torino
Keywords: Parody, Opera, Citation, Interpretation, Irony

Abstract

In the musical field 'parody' means first of all the borrowing of themes or whole compositions in the polyphonic practice (Missa parodia) during the 15th-18th centuries: these re-use is absolutely serious and the new work can be understood without recognizing the parodied object.

The paper focusses on the other meaning of the word: the parody as ironic citation or deformation of a preexistent style, thematic or harmonic idea, which come into being in the second half of the 18th century. This second use presupposes that the listener recognizes the parodic reference and knows the parodied object; it frequently occurres in the musical theatre, particularly in the comic opera: three interesting examples are in Verdi's Falstaff (parody of liturgy), Cornelius' Barbier von Bagdad(parody of belcanto) and Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream (parody on the parody). Analysing these scores on the one hand, basing on Genette's fundamental essay Palimpsestes on the other hand, we try to show the mechanism of the musical parody and to classificate some different typologies.

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Author Biography

Elisabetta Fava, Università degli Studi di Torino
Elisabetta Fava is researcher at the University of Turin, where she taught History of Music. Her main fields of study are Romantic Opera and German Lied; on these topics she also wrote the essays Paesaggi dell'anima. I Lieder di Hugo Wolf, 2000; Ondine, vampiri e cavalieri. L'opera romantica tedesca, 2006; Voci di un mondo perduto. Mahler e Il corno magico del fanciullo, 2012. She is working at a project about the fantastic in the German music during the 19th century.

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Further bibliography

Fava, Elisabetta, “Zwischen Schauspiel und Literaturoper: "Dantons Tod" in der Vertonung von Gottfried von Einem“, Büchner-Rezeptionen : interkulturell und intermedial, Eds. Marco Castellari, Alessandro Costazza, Bern, Peter Lang, 2015: 167-185.

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Richards, Sam L., “From Quotation, through Collage, to Parody: Postmodernism's Relationship with Its Past”, Perspectives of New Music, 53.1 (2015): 77-97.

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Scott, Derek B., “Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in Musical Word-setting”, Words and Music, 3 (2005): 10-27.

Published
2016-11-30
How to Cite
Fava, E. (2016). Parody as re-use and parody as laughing: three exemplary cases of forgery in the musical theatre. Between, 6(12). https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/2172
Section
Sometimes they come loose. Parody and satire through the codes