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Sceneggiata


The sceneggiata (pl. sceneggiate) or sceneggiata napoletana is a form of musical drama typical of Naples. Beginning as a form of musical theatre after World War I, it was also adapted for cinema; sceneggiata films became especially popular in the 1970s, and contributed to the genre becoming more widely known outside Naples.

The sceneggiata can be roughly described as a "musical soap opera", where action and dialogue are interspersed with Neapolitan songs. Plots revolve around melodramatic themes drawing from the Neapolitan culture and tradition, including passion, jealousy, betrayal, personal deceit and treachery, honor, vengeance, and life in the world of petty crime. Songs and dialogue were originally in Neapolitan dialect, although, especially in filmic production, Italian has sometimes been preferred, to reach a larger audience.

Outside Italy, sceneggiata is mostly known in areas populated by Italian immigrants. Besides Naples, the second homeland of sceneggiata is probably Little Italy in New York City.

The sceneggiata has its roots in cheap, popular theatrical performances, and scholars believe that economic considerations were decisive in its development. This is also true of the genre's most commonly identified forerunners, such as the works of Pasquale Altavilla (1806-1875), who developed many of his comedies around successful songs to appeal to a larger audience. After World War I, the Italian government increased the taxation of variety shows, thus causing many authors to devise a mixed type of show that would complement songs with dramatic acting, in order to circumvent such duties. This escamotage is sometimes credited to Enzo Lucio Murolo, who explicitly wrote the song Surriento gentile with the intent to create a sceneggiata around it and bring it to theatres in that form (the sceneggiata was performed by the Cafiero-Fumo company in 1920).

One of the first known examples of sceneggiata is Pupatella (1918), based on the eponymous song by Libero Bovio, and performed by the theatre company led by Giovanni D'Alessio. In the following years the sceneggiata quickly developed with the advent of dedicated companies, such as that founded by Salvatore Cafiero (formerly a variety show author) and Eugenio Fumo (formerly a popular dramatist), and dedicated venues, such as the Trianon and San Ferdinando theatres, that became "temples" of the genre. The Cafiero-Fumo company (which starred, among others, Nino Taranto) largely contributed to establishing the genre's parameters. The typical sceneggiata included monologues, dialogues, songs, dancing, and its plot was centered on strong emotions such as love, passion, jealousy, honor, betrayal, adultery, vengeance, and the fight between good and evil. A standard pattern was that of the "triangle" comprising isso ("he", the hero), essa ("she", the heroine) and 'o malamente ("the villain").


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