The “ghost melody” as acousmatic voice: music and effect from melodrama to cinema

• Emilio Sala ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Milan

     University of Milan

     Milán, Italia

     
• Localización: Trans : Transcultural Music Review = Revista Transcultural de Música, ISSN-e 1697-0101, Nº. 18, 2014 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Special Issue: Vocal Performance: New Perspectives in the Study of Vocal Music)
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • PeterBrooks in his famous book The Melodramatic Imagination (1976,reprinted in1995) refers to music in a vague way. However, in the last twenty years have appeared numerous musicological studies about this topic, which indicate the importance of melodrama in the Nineteenth century Theater (not only musical). Within thisframework, this article surveys the presence of melodrama's incidental music as a voice often invisible, but dramaturgically and narratively active. The case study regards a French melodrama (Les frères corses, 1850) which was a huge success in the Anglo-Saxon stages and whose "ghost melody" can be considered a typical melodramatic voice.