“Voi non mi conoscete, ci scommetto!”

Giro a vuoto (1960) di Laura Betti, tra cabaret letterario e riforma della canzone leggera

Abstract

On 27 January 1960, the Teatro Gerolamo in Milan hosted the premiere of Giro a vuoto, a play written, coordinated and performed by Laura Betti, and directed by Filippo Crivelli. Giro a vuoto represented a distinctive experiment at the time. Indeed, the project brought together a number of prominent literary figures of the era, including Calvino, Pasolini, Flaiano, and Arbasino, who served as lyricists, and composers from both the avant-garde and functional music traditions, who set their texts to music. This resulted in the creation of an anthology of "intellectual folk songs" and an artistic performance centred around the charismatic figure of Betti. This paper reconstructs the genesis of Giro a vuoto, with a particular focus on the role played by the singer-performer Laura Betti. Through archival research on musical and textual sources, reception and cultural debate in the periodical press of the period in question, and thanks to first-hand testimony from director Filippo Crivelli (1928-2022), interviewed in February 2021, The focus will be on two key aspects: firstly, the strategic and demiurgic role of the performer Laura Betti, who experienced her artistic consecration with this performance; and secondly, the significance attributed to Giro a vuoto by the intellectuals of the time, who were eager to find new models in order to renovate popular music. Furthermore, the evolution of the show's nature will be examined as it underwent various re-propositions in the subsequent months and years, in disparate contexts and forms.

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Author Biography

Benedetta Zucconi, University of Cagliari

Benedetta Zucconi is Assistant Professor in Musicology at the University of Cagliari. Prior to that, she was a research assistant and lecturer at the University of Bonn (2018–2023). She studied Musicology at the University of Pavia (Cremona) and at the University of Bern, where she obtained her Ph.D in 2016. Since 2021 she has been working together with Ulrik Volgsten on the research project The past as repeatable presence: How music changed from an ephemeral event to an ever accessible object (a comparison between Sweden and Italy during the interwar years), which has received with a three-year funding from the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. Her research interests focus on the history of sound technology and music media, the cultural history of music, music theatre and the European historical avant-garde in music.

Published
2024-06-30
How to Cite
Zucconi, B. (2024). “Voi non mi conoscete, ci scommetto!” : Giro a vuoto (1960) di Laura Betti, tra cabaret letterario e riforma della canzone leggera. Mimesis Journal, 13(1), 83-107. https://doi.org/10.13135/2389-6086/9932
Section
Essays