- Performer Name:
- Performance Venue:
- Vicenza
- Performance Date:
- 1817
- Author:
- W.S.R. [Rose, William Stewart]
- Date Written:
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- Letters from the North of Italy, addressed to Henry Hallam, Esq.
- Article Title:
- Page Numbers:
- 197-203
- Additional Info:
- 2 vols
- Publisher:
- Murray
- Place of Publication:
- London
- Date Published:
- 1819
Text:
Vol. 1, letter 17 [197]: [An account of an "academy" given by an unnamed improvisatore: a "scene of conjuration" in which two assistants ("understrappers") write subjects proposed by the audience on slips of paper, which are drawn from a vase; all are rejected until "Alfieri alla tomba di Shakespeare" is drawn. The performer's dress "was that of an Englishman."]
[198] having made a few Pythian contorsions, but all apparently with a view to effect, he poured out a volley of verse without the slightest pause or hesitation
["Ines de Castro" is drawn as the subject for a tragedy, but the performer protests that he is unacquainted with it; the person who proposed it tells him the story; the improvisatore then improvises a tragedy for three hours without interruption.]
[199] I cannot say that the piece was good. This was in the usual 'hence-on-thy-life'-style of home manufacture; but it was as good as tragedies usually are, and interspersed with some lights, indicative of genius.
[200] [A recollection about another improvisatore who was given the task of improvising three sonnets on: Noah issuing from the ark; the death of Caesar; the wedding of Pantaloon. These were to be interlaced, using a specified verso obbligato at a particular place in each sonnet. Florentines are especially gifted improvisers, and extemporized composition abounds as street performance in Florence.]
[201] Sonnets are poured forth upon every occasion, and walls are placarded with them … There is no subject here, which is safe from poetry. It is absolutely an epidemic.
[202] [WSR diagnoses the cause of this illness as the "flexible character" of the Italian language]. Sweeping as is the cause, we must not however suppose, that it is unlimited in its effects; and it is but fair to state that the Arcadians, &c. are as ridiculous in the eyes of sensible Italians, as the persons immortalized in the Baviad and Maeviad are in the eyes of rational Englishmen.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- AE