ALIGNMENT, ABSORPTION, ANIMATION: PANTOMIME BALLET IN THE LOMBARD ILLUMINISMO

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the theme of statuary animation within pantomime and language reform, particularly in Milan between the 1760s and the 1790s. Its focal point is a little-known work created by Florentine choreographer Gasparo Angiolini for the new Teatro alla Scala in 1782: his didactic ‘philosophical ballet’La vendetta spiritosa, based on theTraité des sensationsby Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (in Venice the work was given asLa vendetta ingegnosa o La statua di Condilliac[sic]). During the last decades of his career, informed by French linguistic theory and by Milanese writers such as the Verri brothers and Cesare Beccaria, Angiolini aimed to create an unmediated music-gestural language that could overcome linguistic and even political boundaries. The project had significant implications for the use of representative sound, both in music and in language. I examine the development of the impulse towards gestural mimesis and through-composition within scores for thedanza parlante, including by Angiolini himself.