Archivi

Abstract

The article analyses theatre photography in the period between the second half of the Nineteenth Century and the early Twentieth Century. In this period, in parallel with the diffusion of the photographic technique, the phenomenon of the great actor establishes throughout Europe, while we are witnessing to the birth of the Stage Di-recting. The investigation moves from a double perspective: on the one hand, highlighting how the notion of theatricality is at the basis of the photographic device, and on the other, underlining how theatre photography is characterised by a substantial ambiguity which calls into question its testimonial value. The two perspectives of investigation are developed starting from examples taken from the European scene, highlighting how, depending on the context, photography and theatre play a role of mutual modelisation, and focusing on photographic portraits of actors, both private and on stage, through some emblematic cases, such as Tommaso Salvini, Sarah Bern-hardt, Eleonora Duse, Henry Irving. sources (two portraits, some a caricature) be Schiller’s Stuarda Ristori. identification that the used to build the scenic image the allowed to precisely trace the portrait that inspired the figurative conception of being born into a family of actors. Such traits of realistic prosaicity are instead con-firmed by some testimonies and may be found in the image of her vigorous stage action documented by the caricature. among to build an iconic image of herself, which spread internationally since her Parisian debut in 1855. Aware of the importance of photography, she did not hesitate to be portrayed by the most important photographers. Ristori thus entered the pantheon of illustrious people, known throughout Europe and beyond its borders. Her portraits in carte de visite format quickly integrat-ed into the circuit of the press, establishing a complex relationship with pre-existing graphic techniques, such as engraving. The article analyses the progressive diffusion of Adelaide Ristori’s photographs, focusing in particular on the carte de visite format and on newspapers. The corpus includes three photographs of the actress kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF): a portrait by August Bertsch and two cartes de visite by André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri and Étienne Carjat. What image of the actress do these pictures convey? How do press, graphic arts and photography inter-act in creating the iconic image of the actress? of the ballet tradition. The Cuocolo Collection, housed at the Museo Nazionale di San Martino in Naples, is an extraordinary photographic collection, dedicated exclusively to the world of popular theater in Naples in the nineteenth century and especially at the Teatro San Carlino. The essay intends to reconstruct the historical-theatrical events of the Collection, full of eighty-nine shots between portraits and ensemble scenes, and deepen its historical-spectacular meanings. The study is dedicated to this theatre in photographic form, an iconographic finding of exceptional value until now lacking an adequate scientific investigation, continuously subjected to its progressive reduc-tion to fetish. and then more a careful witness of his time, this photographer was indeed able to tell, like no other, the Italian theater scene through the images of its protagonists. The essay analyses the close relationship established by the three major photographic studios active in Genoa between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century with the intellectual and artistic environment, in particular with the theatrical world, both locally and nationally. Starting from a systematic analysis of the cultural and society chronicles published in the newspapers, and com-paring the information found with the photographs preserved in the main city and national photographic collections and with the photomechanical reproductions in contemporary publications, an attempt was made to recompose and date the images relating to the opera and dramaturgy produced by the Genoese studios. Despite the sharing of the communication strategy based on the systematic presence in the media and on the often instrumental alliance with the entertainment world, the photographers considered here express themselves with different styles. Among them, the Sciutto photographic studio comes out for quality and awareness, especially with the portraits of Eleonora Duse, memorable for the author and the actress. Finally, light is shed on the influence exerted by the theatrical performances on the taste of the bour-geoisie and on the contamination with the photographic portrait. What is dance photography? How was it born? How does it develop? How can we study it? Articulated around these questions, this contribution aims at identifying a field and a methodology of study, as well as tracing through some emblematic examples the genesis of an expressive language. Different from the portrait of the dancers and from stage photography, dance photography is configured at the crossroads between different genres such as the nude, the shooting of movement, the staged photography, the tableau vivant . From these visual traditions it takes on the techniques and prob-lems and relaunches them in terms of the relationship between still image and expressive body, which provides new answers to questions stratified over time and history. the 1910 special issue of «Scena illustrata»: this publication is considered in the context of the editorial history of the magazine as well as in that of the relation between dance and press in Italy at the turn of the century. The cultural phenomenon of illustrated press that characterizes the passage between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries determines, even in theatrical field, a real explosion of specialized periodicals, in which the novelty of stage photography finds space immediately, as well as the other types of images linked to the performing arts, fueling a specific market and a progressive specialization of professional photographers. At the same time, however, the nature of the magazine’s material support imposes a new visual dynamic and a different relationship with the reader/spectator. In this context, the article focuses on the Parisian newspaper «Comoedia» (1907-1937), and more particularly on the emblematic case of Ernesto Brod, a photographer now com-pletely forgotten, and of whom very little biographical information remains, but who is instead very active as a photographer, as well as a caricaturist, on the pages of the journal during the first quarter of the twentieth century. His photographic production, apparently amateur and with a lower profile than that of other more renowned photographers, represents instead an example of adaptation to a broader strategy of mediatization of the theatrical event, in which photography plays a fundamental func-tion as a tool for interaction and sociability with the audience. prima This section brings together the files of some of the most important Italian archives where valuable documentation on theatre photography is preserved: indispensable places for research, repositories of a precious collective memory. The detailed descrip-tion of the fonds and archives of these institutions should remind us how important it is to continue to preserve, protect and promote the object of photography, which is often neglected and not ‘treated’, i.e. protected and catalogued, as it should be for the benefit of the History of the Performing Arts and studies on the art of photography. artistic, literary, musical and spectacular typologies to convey the ambitions of the Sena-torial aristocracy of Felsina. It was also a highlight of the ephemeral state and allowed Bologna to be assigned its rightful place among the European capitals of the spectacle of the Ancient Regime. An extensive unpublished documentation preserved at the Archivio di Stato di Bologna, including two contracts for the construction of theatres and workshops for the fairs of 1627 and 1702, and an icnography of 1697, testify to an unexpected organizational punctuality. On 24 January 1724, the Veronese set designer Innocente Bellavite signed a contract with the impresario Antonio Madonis to create the sets for the operas at the Teatro Sant’Angelo in the 1724-1725 season. The contract, broken by when he entered the pay of Antonio Denzio’s company in Bohemia, is a rare testimony of the clauses established between a set designer and an impresario in Venetian theatres at that time. By highlighting this unpublished document for the investigation of Baroque scenog-raphy, this contribution adds new details to the laconic biographies of two overly neglected protagonists of early 18th-century European theatre. to hypothesize that the first existing image of the character of Shylock is also the first to portray an actor, Thomas Doggett. The essay deals with the didactic activity conducted by Antonio Morrocchesi at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and is the result of a systematic survey of archi-val documents carried out by the author in the three-year period 2016-2018. In particular, it examines the dossiers relating to the so-called ‘premi di emulazione’, that is the competitions which, on an annual and three-year basis, saw the most talented students challenge each other in a competition aimed at measuring progress in study and their own artistic maturity. Through the themes assigned to the competitors, it was possible to identify the canon of authors adopted in academic teaching, thus of-fering an additional perspective on the subject to that provided by the Lezioni di dec-lamazione e d’arte teatrale.