Animation, Plasticity, and Music in Italy, 1770-1830

This path-breaking study of stage works in Italian musical performances reconsiders a crucial period of music history. Through an interdisciplinary examination of the statue animated by music, Ellen&#160;Lockhart&#160;deftly shows how Enlightenment ideas&#160;influenced Italian theater and music, and vice versa. As&#160;Lockhart&#160;reveals, the animated statue became a fundamental figure within aesthetic theory and musical practice during the years spanning 1770&ndash;1830. Taking as its point of departure a repertoire of Italian ballets, melodramas, and operas from this period,&#160;<I>Animation, Plasticity, and Music in Italy</I>&#160;traces its core ideas between science, philosophy, theories of language, itinerant performance traditions, the epistemology of sensing, and music criticism.