ABSTRACT
Apart from his three true operas of the war years, Malipiero also in this period wrote two important large-scale vocal works which could be described as ‘semi-dramatic’. Santa Eufrosina (1942) and Vergilii Aeneis (1943–4) were both conceived primarily for concert performance, with contemplative choral (and in Vergilii Aeneis also solo) narrations in the manner of an oratorio. Yet both works contain a considerable amount of quasi-operatic characterization and expressiveness in their dialogues between individuals, so that stage presentation (suitably stylized) is not altogether to be excluded: indeed Vergilii Aeneis was in fact staged – albeit rather unsatisfactorily – in Venice in 1958. 1
