Portamento in Romantic Opera

Independent Portamento

Many acoustic instruments create a harmonic series, a collection of sine-waves uniformly spaced in frequency. A listener aggregates such collections of sine-waves, or partials, into a single pitch. Some acoustic instruments allow portamento, the smooth glide from one pitch to another. For example, the violin and trombone. During acoustic portamento, each sine-wave transitions in parallel motion...

'Il Sonnambulo' by Michele Carafa: A Forgotten Romantic Opera with Sleepwalking.

Romantic operas provide a useful tool for historians to understand the perception of some medical disorders that existed during the nineteenth century. Somnambulism was still a mysterious condition during this time, since its pathogenesis was unknown. Hence, it comes as no surprise that somnambulism features in a number of operas, the best known of which are Verdi's 'Macbeth' and Bellini's 'La ...

Opera Campus Opera Campus

Sliding Into Jewishness: A Pentimento of Portamento

Opera postuma

It seems incredible that twelve volumes of medical works written in Morgagni's own handwriting should have been completely lost to sight until 1952, when Professor Adalberto Pazni, combing through the catalogues in the Laurenziana Library in Florence for the names of medieval doctors, should have discovered them by chance. How they came to be there is a story full of interest, a detective story...