ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on theatrical traditions, specifically opera and ballet, and on selected works in Naples in the last third of its greatest century. The framework of discussion for each composition and representative genre is contemporary culture and the attendant political, social, or humanistic discourse that animated and conditioned the content of the selected operas and ballets. The work of Antonio Genovesi, emphasizing the social utility of intellectual discourse, is a critical point of departure for Neapolitan society. The florid style of singing associated with tragedy and its heroic protagonists is present, though less pronounced. Calzabigi's evolving views on declamation, and hence on singing, came to bear on Paisiello's lean, less ornamented approach. The discussion of comedy as a potential avenue for reform of theater was even noted in a fleeting manner by the principal theoretician of late eighteenth-century Naples, Saverio Mattei.
