Music of Italy

Italian music has been one of the supreme expressions of that art in Europe: the Gregorian chant, the innovation of modern musical notation in the 11th century, the troubadour song, the madrigal, and the work of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Claudio Monteverdi all form part of Italy’s proud musical heritage, as do such composers as Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, and Vincenzo Bellini.

Music in contemporary Italy, though less illustrious than in the past, continues to be important. Italy hosts many music festivals of all types—classical, jazz, and pop—throughout the year. In particular, Italian pop music is represented annually at the Festival of San Remo. The annual Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto has achieved world fame. The state broadcasting company, Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI), has four orchestras, and others are attached to opera houses; one of the best is at La Scala in Milan. The violinists Uto Ughi and Salvatore Accardo and the pianist Maurizio Pollini have gained international acclaim, as have the composers Luciano Berio, Luigi Dallapiccola, and Luigi Nono.

Contemporary productions maintain Italy’s eminence in opera, notably at La Scala in Milan, as well as at other opera houses such as the San Carlo in Naples and La Fenice Theatre in Venice, and the annual summer opera productions in the Roman arena in Verona. Tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli were among Italy’s most acclaimed performers at the turn of the 21st century. (For further discussion, see Western music; opera.)

Theatre

There are a large number of theatres in Italy, many of which are privately run. A number of publicly operated permanent theatres (teatri stabili) are funded by the state and supervised by the Ministry for Tourism. Three public organizations to promote theatrical activity in Italy are the Italian Theatre Board (Ente Teatrale Italiano; ETI), the Institute for Italian Drama (Istituto Dramma Italiano; IDI), concerned with promoting Italian repertory, and the National Institute for Ancient Drama (Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico; INDA). In 1990 the government tightened its legislation on eligibility for funding, which severely affected fringe and experimental theatres. Financial constraints in subsequent years led to an increasing number of international coproductions.

Italian theatre has been active in producing outstanding contemporary European work and in staging important revivals, although no native playwright has produced works that can rival those of Luigi Pirandello from the early 20th century. In the late 20th century Dario Fo received international acclaim for his highly improvisational style. (For further discussion, see Italian literature; Western theatre.)

Film

The heyday of the Italian film was in the 1950s. Neorealism, best represented in the work of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica, diverged from the escapism favoured during the interwar years to take a candid look at prevailing conditions in postwar Italy. This new style attracted world attention. Cinecittà, the complex of film studios built by Mussolini near Rome, became known as the Hollywood of Europe. Rome became the centre for the international jet set, who frequented the grand hotels and smart cafés of the Via Veneto, attracting a new breed of celebrity-hungry photographers known as paparazzi.

Federico Fellini propagated this image of the capital in films such as Roma (1972) and La dolce vita (1960; “The Sweet Life”). Pier Paolo Pasolini, on the other hand, took a grittier look at the Italian underworld in films such as Accattone (1961; The Beggar). Other directors who made a lasting contribution to the cinema of the day were Luchino Visconti, with masterpieces such as Morte a Venezia (1971; Death in Venice); brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (La notte di San Lorenzo [1982; Night of the Shooting Stars]); and the screenwriter Cesare Zavattini. Some directors, such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Franco Zeffirelli, Sergio Leone, and Fellini, enjoyed more success abroad than at home.

In the late 20th century, Italian cinema fell into recession. Nevertheless, Italy can still claim some major international successes, including Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987), Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1990), Gabriele Salvatores’s Mediterraneo (1991), and Michael Radford’s Il Postino (1994; The Postman). Silvio Soldini’s Pane e tulipani (2000; Bread and Tulips), Marco Tullio Giordana’s I cento passi (2000; The Hundred Steps) and La meglio gioventù (2003, The Best of Youth), as well as Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra (2008, Gomorrah) were well received critically. Other directors of note are Gianni Amelio and Roberto Benigni, who won the Academy Award for best actor for a film he directed, La vita è bella (1997; Life Is Beautiful), which also won for best foreign movie. Italian films are increasingly coproductions of cinema and television companies. The Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) and Fininvest are presently Italy’s largest film producers, accounting for more than half of the film output, which numbers several hundred films and television productions each year. Rome’s Cinecittà also sees many non-Italian productions each year, particularly of films treating historical themes; examples include Gangs of New York (directed by Martin Scorsese, 2002), The Passion of the Christ (directed by Mel Gibson, 2003), and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (directed by Wes Anderson, 2004). The state-owned Cinecittà was privatized in 2008, but it was returned to public hands in 2017. (For further discussion, see history of the motion picture.)