Traditional music and dance
How to think of the south of Italy without thinking of its tarantellas? This family of dances is made up of forms specific to each region, the one from Naples being the famous tammurriata. This last is really the Neapolitan dance par excellence, the one that knows how to turn heads as well as hearts. The tammurriata is danced in circles to a binary rhythm, in couples facing each other, with arms held in front of the body and elbows outwards, to the rhythm of the tammorra
, a tambourine loaded with cymbals and accompanied by vocal melodies. Artists such as Peppe Barra or the Nuova Compagnia di canto popolare are excellent starting points for discovering traditional Neapolitan music (and more widely that of southern Italy). As far as instruments are concerned, it is impossible not to mention the iconic percussion instrument of the region, the putipù, a friction drum with a handle that compresses the air inside the chamber; another percussion instrument, the astonishing triccaballacca, is made up of a "fan" of wooden mallets that slide to strike each other. But the beloved instrument of the region is, of course, the mandolin. In its traditional Neapolitan version, the mandolin has a teardrop shape and a round back. A favourite instrument, it is often used to accompany traditional folk music, the famous Canzone Napoletana.Popular music
Naples is a fertile land for songs. Especially when you discover that tunes like O sole mio or Funiculi, funicula are Neapolitan, you understand that the region cultivates a real talent for composing songs that know how to cross borders and resist time. The 19th century was the great era of the Canzone napoletana,
the Neapolitan song. Broadcast by street singers with their guitar or mandolin, these songs symbolize the pleasure of singing, the love of Naples and nostalgia. Many of these Neapolitan songs have become world famous, also because they accompanied the Neapolitan migrants between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The best known example is undoubtedly that of Enrico Caruso - the famous Neapolitan tenor - who sang Neapolitan folk music during encores on great stages such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Caruso also recorded numerous interpretations of these standards. Between the 1950s and 1980s, new great musicians renewed the Canzone napoletana, such as Totò and his song Malafemmena, Mario Trevi and his very popular Indifferentemente, Renato Carosone, known among others for Maruzzella, or Roberto Murolo and Nino D'Angelo.Classical music
The importance of music in Naples dates back to the Middle Ages, mainly under the Angevins. However, it was in the 16th century that it flourished, with the appearance of the composer Don Carlo Gesualdo, a lute player and author of beautiful madrigals (polyphonic vocal pieces on a secular text), with a sulphurous reputation (he stabbed his wife and had her lover killed). The Neapolitan apogee was established in the following century, when the first conservatories were founded, places where children could be initiated and trained in the art of singing. Located in four churches - Santa Maria di Loreto, Pietà dei Turchini, Sant'Onofrio a Capuana and I Poveri di Gesù Cristo - these institutions made Naples one of the most important centres of musical training in Europe at that time. And it is also largely thanks to them that, at the end of the 17th century, Naples, along with Paris, dominated the continent's musical scene. The artistic effervescence was such that 400 churches had their own musical training, not to mention the convents and the Viceroy's palace. Buoyed by this ebullience, Naples forged two theatrical forms of its own,opera buffa (light and comic "opera buffa") andopera seria (more "serious", descended from the commedia dell'arte
), both created from the Venetian opera model, adapted to Neapolitan codes. This singular form, which was to become influential throughout Europe, is largely attributable to what would later be called the "Neapolitan school. Initiated by the illustrious Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), a leading musician, this group of composers was made up of the leading lights of Naples at the time: Francesco Provenzale, Nicola Porpora, Francesco Durante, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, and later Niccolò Jommelli, Tommaso Traetta, Niccolò Piccinni, Giovanni Paisiello, and Domenico Cimarosa, among others....The advent, at the beginning of the 18th century, of the castrati, most of whom were trained in Naples, was to play a major role in the promotion of Neapolitan opera. As a reminder, castrati were singers (male) whose genital glands had been surgically removed between the ages of 7 and 12 so that their voices would not moult. Thus the vocal apparatus did not develop while the rest of the body matured, allowing the singer to keep the luminous tone of a child but with the "chest" of an adult body. These flamboyant voices could exalt powerful feelings and allow for ambiguous interpretations, something that made them very popular for almost two centuries with the public and with European composers such as Monteverdi, Handel and Rossini (who wrote custom roles for them). The most famous castrati lived in absolute glory, such as Farinelli, who has become a legend as much for his exceptional voice as for his caprices...
The 18th century was also, on the initiative of King Charles of Bourbon, the time of the construction of the San Carlo theatre, in 1737, which preceded La Scala (1776-1778) in Milan and remains one of the world's temples of lyrical music and one of the most beautiful opera houses on Earth. Today it is directed by Stéphane Lissner, former director of the Paris Opera. In the 19th century, this mythical stage was the scene of the triumphs of great musicians of the time such as Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), the stunning author of immortal operas such as The Barber of Seville and William Tell, and his direct heir, Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), whose opera Lucia di Lammermoor
marked the birth of Italian romanticism.More recently, the ensemble Cappella Neapolitana - initially called Pietà de'Turchini - created in 1987, has specialized in the repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, the golden age of the Neapolitan school, and has allowed the rediscovery of works by composers such as Francesco Provenzale or Leonardo Vinci. Today, Neapolitan vocal excellence can be found in the soprano Maria Grazia Schiavo, a former student of the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella. Another great name that makes the colours of Naples shine all over the world is Riccardo Muti. A star conductor, the Neapolitan has left his mark on major institutions such as La Scala in Milan and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Apart from the fabulous San Carlo, Naples has some interesting addresses for music lovers. This is particularly true of the Teatro Augusteo, whose programme alternates between plays, operas and ballets, and the Teatro Bellini, which hosts classical, contemporary and quite a few opera performances.Current music
It's surprising enough to mention: Naples has had its own disco and funk scenes in its time. Between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s, the city produced some excellent disco, something we know thanks to the fantastic hunting and collecting work of DJ duo Nu Guinea, who recorded all their finds on the Napoli Segreta and Nuova Napoli
compilations. These little treasures are all opportunities to discover another facet of this famous Italo-disco, but funkier and sung in Neapolitan. In another register, today Naples is one of the capitals of Italian rap. Between the misery and the mafia, the rappers do not lack local subjects to feed their texts and some MC of the city reached a national prestige. This is the case of Rocco Hunt, Clementino, Enzo Dong or Ntò.The theatre
The Neapolitan theatrical tradition has its roots deep in history, going back to Roman times. The emperor Nero in his time (first century AD) performed on the stage of the Roman theatre of Neapolis, paying the plebs to come and watch his show! The theatre is therefore one of the oldest and best-known artistic traditions of the city and some names associated with this art form remain particularly dear to Neapolitans. Starting with Raffaele Viviani (1888-1950), an Italian writer, playwright, actor and musician whose work told the harsh reality of the Neapolitans of his time. Another great Neapolitan name, Eduardo De Filippo (1900-1984), remained famous for his humorous and melancholic texts featuring characters from the petty bourgeoisie and embodying the aspirations of an audience eager to emancipate itself and full of contradictions.
Another Neapolitan tradition is the theatre of Polichinella (Pulcinella). A character embodying the Neapolitan view of the world, Polichinella appeared in the 17th century, first played by the actor Silvio Fiorillo. The personality of Polichinella, always dressed in white, with only the black mask to enhance the whole, is complex: always in need, his speech mixes irony, buffoonery, even malice. He is the symbol par excellence of the Italian commedia dell'arte
. The unlimited love that the population had for him can no doubt be explained by the fact that Polichinelle knew how to be, in turn, the portrait, the caricature or the ideal of the Neapolitan. The city was a theatre lover and opened many theatres for him, with plays at the Mercadante, the San Ferdinando, the Augusteo, the Sannazaro, the Bellini Theatre, the Mediterraneo and many others. We should also mention the Napoli Teatro Festival, which for almost three weeks offers a wide variety of shows on the various stages of the city. A national and international theatrical program.
