The round table Casanova before Casanova — Cultural construction of the libertine myth, organised in collaboration with the research group La drammaturgia musicale a Venezia (1678–1792) of the Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi, coordinated by Giada Viviani, aims to explore the contribution of 18th-century dramma per musica to the cultural construction of the libertine myth, with particular attention to themes developed in plots such as L’inganno trionfante in amore.
The figure of the libertine — discussed in particular within 17th-century Venetian academies, yet popular until the end of the 18th century — embodied philosophical and politico-moral issues such as the legitimacy of freedom of thought, even in opposition to Church dogma, the questioning of civil and religious norms, and the subversion of the rigid hierarchical relations upon which the social structure of the Ancien Régime was based. In this context, the erotic or ambiguous situations — particularly regarding gender identity and representation — frequently depicted in Venetian opera of the period, including various works by Vivaldi, should also be understood. It was not sensuality per se that formed the central subject of such representations, but rather its function as a subversive element — capable, as such, of opening up new horizons of possibility in philosophical, moral, and political terms.
Daria Perocco
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Se Casanova le avesse conosciute… Alla ricerca delle prime libertine
Nicola Badolato
University of Bologna
Suggestioni libertine nei libretti veneziani di metà Seicento
Lorenzo Mattei
University of Bari Aldo Moro
Altri Don Giovanni. Sulla figura del libertino nell’opera comica del secondo Settecento
Gerardo Tocchini
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Romantici e reazionari di età Secondo Impero: la fabbricazione del mito del Settecento libertino
Moderator
Giada Viviani
University of Genoa and Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi
Discussants
Cesare Fertonani
University of Milan
Olivier Fourés
Madrid Superior Conservatory
